Vinish Garg is the Director of vhite.com, an Indian technical writing firm that provides technical documentation and medical writing consultancy services.
I interviewed Vinish recently and asked him how he started as a technical writer, about technical writing in India, and new trends he sees emerging in this field.
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Ivan: Could you tell us a little about your background and the type of activities you perform as a technical writer?
Vinish: I have been developing technical documentation for software, for five years now. I started with Help Systems, User Guides, and Training Manuals.
In my next jobs, I developed Installation Manuals, Cheat Sheets, Process Documentation, Proposals, Business Plans, White Papers, and Case Studies.
I have worked in traditional development methodology as well as Agile Documentation which is a different experience altogether.
Ivan: Technical writing is really taking off in India. I read recently there may be 10000 tech writers hired in the next few years. Why do you think India is doing so well in this area?
Vinish: Yes, technical writing is coming up gradually in India, being recognized and getting the respect as any other specialized profession.
One of the reasons is that technology outsourcing has helped Indian professionals keeping themselves updated and rubbing shoulders with the best professionals in the world.
The whole concept of technical documentation, the software, the process, and understanding the responsibility is matched to the most developed countries in world such as US, UK or other European countries.
Two, Indian professionals have generally good communication skills and this, coupled with technical education background give them a good platform to be good technical writers.
Three, I should also highlight the role of organizations such as STC and TWIN. They have been doing a great service to generate awareness about this profession, holding conferences and learning sessions throughout the country.
It is a great encouragement for budding writers who want to make a mark in technical writing profession.
Ivan: What trends to you see emerging in the tech communication field?
Vinish: I guess implementing and setting up of structured authoring would take over the traditional tools and methods of technical documentation.
Software such as Arbortext Editor is not too common in India but I can see such software being accepted in more and more companies in India.
Tip: Read more about XML in Technical Communication here
Structured authoring brings a rich set of benefits of organization such as a more streamlined authoring process where single source authoring enables content reusability.
In the long run, it saves cost if intelligently implemented in the documentation process. The content management and version control is easier as virtually all lose ends in traditional technical authoring are eliminated.
Ivan: You recently launched vhite.com. Could you tell us a little about why you setup the company?
Vinish: I have worked as a technical writer (or documentation specialist, as was my position in Basware) for more than 4 years now. I worked for diverse product based companies, and an organization that was into B2B projects.
Setting up my own venture has been a conscious decision based on certain factors.
1. I am based in Chandigarh and I think there is no dedicated technical writing services provider in the city though it has made strides in IT. Some very good companies have setup their development centres in Chandigarh.
And as I told you earlier, since technical writing is gradually being recognized in India where organizations have realised the important of quality technical documentation, I thought that it is the right time to strike when the iron is hot.
2. I also feel that there are not too many very good technical writers in and around Chandigarh. When I look at some profiles or technical work samples of professionals, I do not wonder why they are not getting the respect. We did some research and market analysis and realised that many organizations in India offer technical writing training that focus on tool or software, or language.
So, vhite offers technical writing training where we focus on the whole concept of technical writing – the importance of documentation, the process, the review process, checklists, emails, audience analysis, and a host of such concepts that are as important as learning language or a software.
We strive to encourage technical writers take it very seriously, while enjoying the process. And since we are a start-up business, we offer traditional documentation models.
In future, we plan to setup the whole structured authoring platform so that our people and our trainees are keeping pace with the latest developments in technical writing.
Ivan: You also provide medical writing services? What type of documents or content is involved in medical documentation?
Vinish: Good documentation is absolutely vital to any field, be it healthcare or technology. We understand that accurate and clear documentation that is compliant to different style guides is important in healthcare and sciences.
We have experienced medical and healthcare professionals on board who have helped us extend our documentation services to medical writing as well. We offer technical as well generic medical writing which includes developing Protocols, Monograms, CMEs, Research Papers, besides reports and articles on general healthcare subjects.
Ivan: Finally, where do you see the technical documentation field moving in the next few years?
Vinish: I can see it getting more challenging. Technology will lead to intelligent applications where software and web applications would be intelligently and smartly developed, may be leaving less scope or low need of documentation.
Another challenge would be to keep pace with the technical documentation technologies as new software may be more challenging for budding technical writers who would be new to this profession.
On the positive note, I can sense that it would be more fun for experienced professionals. Web2.0 has facilitated information sharing and knowledge exchanged like never before.
Overall, the future is bright at least for those who would be ready to leave their comfort zones, to embrace new technological challenges, and to create their won space in the ever-growing crowd of technical writers.
About Vinish Garg
You can read more about Vinish and vhite, his technical writing company at www.vhite.com
Update: May 18 vhite now offers online technical writing training courses. This is the first of its kind in Chandigarh, India.
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Resources:
Technical Writers of India TWIN
Introduction to Technical Writing
XML in Technical Communications
1001 Writing Tips: Using Microsoft Word to Create Large Documents
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