A Partnership Approach

A unique and impressive way to work your way to success and rewards in the present dynamic times is by implementing the partnership approach with our collaborators.

Each collaborating entity is endowed with special abilities that can be used to collaborate with the other entities depending on the focus area. If the focus area is teaching and academia, then the collaborating parties are the students, the facilitators and the teachers. All are working in the partnership approach towards the effort to educate, learn and share the rewards and risks, where if any failure occurs it is a shared responsibility of all participants and not one in particular and so is the case with any achievements and rewards earned.

Similarly, in case of company partnerships, two companies may partner to forge a bigger entity with multifaceted dimensions to service a broader range of market with a bigger value add. All the partnership ideas, terms and conditions must be clearly identified and documented in the Articles of Partnership to make it an official and legal body to protect the existence of each company and differentiate one from the other. 

Partnership approach can be followed with clearly identified roles, responsibilities, rules  and regulations on points of collaboration that will be adhered to when working towards an established common goal and vision. Partnership approach can be used with all other facets of work and relationship to make it a win-win situation for all the participants.

Partnership approach requires that there is a long-term commitment to shared goals by participating entities and a collaborative approach to problem solving when the circumstances so arise. Any institution be it a school, a company, a government or a marriage will run successfully by adopting the the partnership approach to work.

Wishing all a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2013!!

Happy to Write!! 

Penworks

Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking - An important mind function 

Every technical writer is taught to have an eye for the detail if they wish to excel in their field of work. And that means to write and bring out the nuances of a product or a subject that might otherwise be overlooked by the user while using a product or studying the subject. 


There are different concepts to critical thinking that will help a technical writer write a concise and crisp documentation. Information can be divided into:

1. facts, or truths that can be proven to be correct,    
2. conjecture, a theory or guess that is based on incomplete information,
3. inference, is drawing a conclusion that is loosely based on facts known to be true,
4. opinion, a shared belief and personal viewpoint that may or may not be true.
5. assumption, taking information for granted without finding out its accuracy.

Technical writer writes documentation based on what is the fact and that which is logical. All else fades away making the technical documentation product achieve its purpose of having the reader read and understand all that is logically true. Personal opinions, inferences and assumptions are a sure no-no for a technical writer.

Audience for the technical communication product is smart enough to do critical thinking and decide on the value of the product. Critical thinking using logic starts after the technical documentation has been read. Users are able to distinguish between fact, opinion, inference, or some other thought.  


Critical thinking then is really an ongoing process of understanding, questioning, observing, analyzing, and making judgments.

Happy to write!
Penworks

Guru Poornima - The guiding light!

All of us need a guiding light to take us to the goals we have identified for ourselves in this life. What does it mean, the guiding light , does it mean that we will find our way sooner than what it will take us otherwise or does it mean something more than just that. A lot can be learnt from the movie "Chak De" where the coach guides India to give its best despite being labeled a loser during his times.

The spirit of winning is in not giving up and getting up just that one more time to greet success in its face. What a feeling it is, to win, to perform at the best of  our body, mind, and soul. These are the moments we cherish and relish lifelong, and to know that we owe it to someone called a coach , a mentor , a teacher who believed in us , in our capability to give in our best and showed us the way forward, its close to having met the God/Goddess herself.

What crap you'd think of me comparing our guiding lights to Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh, the God Almighty, let them be then. Let us revel in our knowledge about ourselves. Do we have sufficient knowledge about ourselves that we can do the right thing at the right time and at the right place, many believe that they know what they want and hence they know best whats to be done. Agreed, but then too there are times when one wants that there'd be some instructions and some guidelines to be followed in order to get to a goal.

This is where we technical writers are working to become guiding lights in showing the way forward to understand things better than would otherwise be a lot more time consuming and make for a bad customer experience. In business where the customer is the king and there are ten other similar products on offer in the market the guiding light for the customer will decide what the customer needs, wants and gets to trust.

Happy to write!
Penworks

Technical Writing and Scientific Writing

Technical and scientific writing is similar in ways that both reach a conclusion after collecting and presenting data upon observing and recording the facts after hands-on play-around and experiments. 

They differ in ways that technical writing is simplified writing presented in a manner that a layperson would understand where as scientific writing is presented in a structured way using the scientific jargon for study and for people who understand the related jargon.

Scientific method that is learning by doing is followed in both technical writing as well as scientific writing. The habit of questioning and finding out the answers through methods facilitates in:

1. Observing and making notes

2. Collecting Data

3. Recording Data

4. Reaching Conclusions

Technical writing principles can be used in scientific writing and vice versa.

A few technical writing principles:

1. Audience Analysis - Know your audience or target readers who would be reading and using the product information for doing tasks.

2. Product Analysis- Know the product you will write for in tot by reading on the existing documentation and carry out research and brainstorm the functionalities until you know the product differentiation from similar products in the market.

3. Structure, Content and Layout are the three important pillars of technical writing.

Structure is information organization or the logical design, Content is core pages written to explain the product functionalities and Layout is the format or physical design of the technical communication product.

4. Visual Communication - Pictures and graphics, logos and icons to convey the appropriate information are a need to have in any technical communication product, be it online helps a tutorial or a product user guide.

5. Style guide and grammar: One cannot emphasize more on this principle of technical writing and its utmost importance in the usability of a technical communication product. Adhering to a style guide and grammar makes the readers life that much easier and conveys the information accurately and efficiently.

Happy to write!!!

Penworks

Hello Friends!

A start to Penworks Communicates, this is a blog dedicated to reaching out to people in the field of technical communications and those who want to keep reading for the sake of keeping the art and science of reading alive and kicking. Thats the topic of my blog today, Reading.

I get up everyday and read the newspaper, my attention span is not that great and I glimpse over the news headlines. Okay so there are corrupt politicians and old sportsmen with new arm candies and filthy rich businessmen who don't know better ways to utilize their profits other than for themselves. Each newspaper wants to create a buzz in the media market space and is loaded with adverts from all sizes and geographies.

What is the need of the hour, is it to know how badly we are doing as a city, a state and as a nation and is it to display a list of culprits in the general public only to see them get away without much ado. I am as much confused as you would be if you start glancing at the newspaper early morning with your cup of tea. So in essence reading a newspaper is not an option I want to look at early morning before I leave for my days' hard work to create a great company called Penworks.

What does Penworks do? Well if you were to ask me, Penworks, is this great company that is dedicated to pen words for your business and clients in a way that no one else can match. It will write about technology and products that can be used by a specific set of users working in a certain domain like banking or education in India and the world over. We are here to get your customers to listen to what you want to say through your  products and services and help you reach out to the maximum number of people from your market segment.

How can we achieve brand visibility and get you a sticky customer base?
We want to be read by you , your customers and our friend evangelists who want to spread the good word about your product and services.
Yes! we want to be read. Also understood in what it is that is being conveyed from what is worded in the technical communication products.