The Importance of Technical Communication

The importance of good communication when using consultants cannot be overstated. When study findings, technology assessments, and software designs are supported with clear documentation, the benefits can accrue to organizations for many years. Without clear documentation, it is possible for knowledge to leave the company when the job is done. This is not a risk with Lone EagleTM Systems, where the lasting quality of finished projects is due in part to the way in which results are communicated to clients:

Performance characterization and improvement projects result in detailed analyses presented in text and graphics - illustrating the important findings and improvements that were achieved. Software development projects result in clear, concise on-line user documentation, design documents and - of course - well-commented source code. System designs and architectures are developed through written documents that are incrementally improved through the design process. In some of Lone Eagle Systems' most recent work, automatically-generated Java code documentation and graphical architecture diagrams are combined in a unique way - resulting in easily-accessible online design documents.

Technical and Marketing Communication:

It is not uncommon for Lone Eagle Systems to be called upon to relate new technology developments and research results in the form of technical white papers, guides, briefs, and presentations. A complete list of papers is available, and examples of recent work (with links to on-line documents where available) follows:

Architectures for Managing Internet Data Centers exemplifies Lone Eagle Systems' research and reporting capabilities. The paper discusses IDC architectures, the software and servers needed to manage them, and the need to integrate different management tools at the functional and user interface levels. (Technical White Paper, Sun Microsystems, October 2000).

Better By Design-- the Solaris Operating Environment helped to launch Sun's Solaris 7 operating environment and aggressively position the product's benefits with respect to Microsoft Windows NT. (Technical Brief, Sun Microsystems, December 1998).

Breakthrough Workstation Performance with the Intel Pentium II Xeon Processor, written with performance data provided by Intel performance engineering staff, gave highly-specific details on the benefits of the Xeon processor products. (Performance Brief, Intel Corporation, June 1998).

The gripping prose of Technical Computing Leadership from Sun was used as the takeaway whitepaper at Sun's first 64-bit UltraSPARC computing launch in January 1998. (Executive Brief, Sun Microsystems, January 1998).

The highly-detailed, point-by-point analysis of ad-hoc database query performance in Data Warehousing Performance with SMP and MPP Architectures helped to distinguish the areas in which Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) provided superior performance to Massively-Parallel Processors (MPP). (White Paper, Sun Microsystems, September 1997).

Internet Service Provider Configuration Guidelines discusses the architectural principles for designing ISP network infrastructure, and highlights the servers and software available to implement highly scalable, reliable secure, and manageable services. (Technical White Paper, Sun Microsystems, April 1997).

With HAL Computer Systems producing workstations and servers based on their own 64bit SPARC processors, Memory Throughput - The Key to Balanced Performance, helped to distinguish the balanced system performance provided by HAL at the time. (HAL Computer Systems, February 1996).

Sun. The Power Behind Pixar's Movie Making was one of several behind-the-scenes whitepapers describing the use of compute farms in the production of Pixar's fully computer-animated movies. (Technical Brief, Sun Microsystems, December 1995).

Long History of Good Communication:

Further testimony to the importance of good communication is seen in the lifetime of software that is supported with good documentation. In 1979, Software Scientist Steve Gaede developed a measurement technique for evaluating UNIX system capacities with Bell Laboratories. Through the 1980's this benchmark was used within Bell Labs, and in 1990 it was adopted as the SDET benchmark by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) - and is still in use today. A software lifetime of almost two decades is almost unheard of and, in the case of the SDM benchmark, it was due to the fact that the quality of the documentation was as good as the quality of the measurement technique - allowing it to be used by organizations around the globe. The same expertise that assists well-known companies to communicate their technological innovations to their customers - and which has enabled a software life-cycle of more than two decades - is accessible to others through the consulting services of Lone Eagle Sytems Inc.

Technical communication serves a number of purposes in engineering and other technical fields:

it is a way of facilitating communication about projects and ideas throughout the industry, it is important in documenting discoveries, designs, products, and methodologies, it helps convey information about the field to non-technical people and external agencies for the purposes of support, administration and funding, it contributes to usability of designs, and it provides information for end users so they can understand and enjoy the resulting products and processes.

A good technical communicator need not be an engineer; the technical communicators' skills are in clear, concise and correct communication, in a variety of media, in print and online. They are content experts rather than subject matter experts, but they know how to take dense complex material and rework it to suit a particular audience. An engineer's brilliance is even more evident when their work is explained by a good technical communicator. Also, in the absence of good and clear documentation written, either by your own company or a technical writing service, your IT staff will end up spending more time dealing with trying to solve technical problems. And this in turn leads to more work and waste of a lot of time that could have been better utilized. And all businesses, large or small, need well-written technical documentation to operate efficiently. Therefore most companies hire technical documentation writing services, especially technical writing services of India, to make the whole process easier for them. However, if end-users feel that the technical documentation is too hard to learn, not easy to use, or too cumbersome, then it will not be effective or useful. So, the importance of good technical documentation writing services in India shouldn't be underestimated. A good technical writing service in India should make a product easy to understand and use, resulting in greater user acceptance.

Soft Skills and Employment Skills

The modern-day industry requires much more than professional ability and scholastic achievements. The focus is now as much on communication, personality and behavior of an employee, as it is on the performance .Professional expertise needs now to be supplemented with an off-the-field, personal skill-set termed in the corporate parlance as soft-skills. Driven by this demand, Gurgaon, known to be the IT-BPO hub of North India, is also emerging as the hub of soft-skill training centres. These private training centres provide various courses ranging from communication skills to corporate table-manners. Many of these institutes have partnership with leading corporate firms and colleges. The soft-skill trainers are expected to create a new breed of, as the buzzword goes, 'high-value-employees.' Freelance soft-skill trainer, Chitra Narasimhan, says that today, almost everyone preparing for a job in the IT or BPO industry, goes for a course on soft-skills. "It has become an indispensable part of your CV. Speech and communication, as well as understanding behaviour and etiquette, makes you a better employee," she says.There are courses available on business English, on wearing the right dress for the boardroom meeting, and on holding the knife properly during official luncheons every little personal detail matters, and could be worked upon and utilized in the workspace. "People get hired for their professional skills, but get fired for their lack of soft-skills," says Rakesh R Saha of the Soft Skills World, a training centre in sector 54. Saha's organization provides training across the city to BPOs, IT firms and corporate houses. "Apart from knowledge and skill, you need to have the right attitude to perform well at your job."Saha performs what he calls a training need identification (TNI) for each client, after which he designs the customized courses. "If your job demands you to do a lot of talking, and you happen to be of an introvert, you wouldn't be getting anywhere in it," he adds. As people spend most of their day in their workplace, the line between the professional and personal life begins to blur.

Mohit is currently undergoing a personality development program in one of Gurgaon's institutes. "Such a course enhances my CV, and makes me better qualified," he says. It's an overall grooming session for Mohit, where he is taught interpsersonal skills a fancy term for being able to talk properly and is taught how to get it all right on the day of the interview. "The right way to greet your interviewer, the right dress, and how to maintain eye-contact, all these things matter," he says.Better soft skills, adds Mohit, build up confidence and make you more employable and suited to today's market. According to an HR representative with a Gurgaon based BPO, soft-skill training is becoming essential to the BPO industry. "First of all you need to get your language right, and you need to be able to get through to the customers on the phone," he says. Secondly, stress-management is most important, a tool which comes in handy way too often in a call-centre."Many times it so happens that the customer on the line starts getting abusive and aggressive. And whether the employee is able to handle this is a question of how equipped is he with the soft-skills. Such training sessions teach you how to handle stress better and how to negotiate better," the representative added. Internationally-acclaimed image consultant trainers Christina Ong and Lynne Marks, who will come to India in November with their Image Asia Training programme for prospective image consultants, say they chose the country as they feel there is a tremendously growing interest in the field. We find that there is a huge population interested in glamour and fashion.However, there is also a huge market sector of `non-film star` people that wants styling and correct advice when it comes to strategic workplace, event and lifestyle dressing. Hence we saw a growing interest in image consultancy in India and decided to come here," Marks told IANS in an e-mail from London. Her partner Ong concurred: "India has a large growing affluent population with cities becoming increasingly cosmopolitan in terms of demand for stylish dressing and fashion trends. Economic growth has widened markets beyond geographic boundaries, exposing executives to international business that requires skilled image consultants to impart techniques to upwardly mobile Indians, she added. As two of only 10 Certified Image Masters in the world, Ong and Marks are widely recognised as industry mentors with a combined experience of over 40 years worldwide. When asked what people should expect from their training, Christina explained: "Aspiring image consultants can expect to master the ABCs of image consulting and more. "This will include everything listed on our Image Asia Training curriculum plus personalised coaching and mentoring to equip them with the knowledge and skills to be the best image consultants they can be at international standards." Added Marks: "We train students in the details of body language which comprise as much as 5070 percent of your communication package and help with credibility, confidence and

professional presence. These universal skills and techniques can then be passed on to their own clients and groups." Do they think that the business of image consultancy is a potential and growing market in India? They said indeed it is. "Image is undeniably at the core of our sense of confidence and the ability to relate effectively with others in society, be it at work or at play. Image consultants help people look and feel more confident. "Image consulting will continue to be a sought after service in a world where image consciousness has become even more deeply woven into the fabric of society," Ong said. Marks added: "Young people are coming out of schools with high level MBAs and desirable IT and other skills. However, they lack the image, communication, etiquette, presentation skills and professional presence needed to advance their careers. They lack the `soft skills` essential to their professional growth This requires numerical functions that are often not emphasised, said Chase. She stated that a large portion of a companys finances is spent on salaries, so this is why hiring decisions are so important. A major part of effective recruitment is the job description, which must be clear and accurate so that applicants know exactly what it is that is required. This would ensure that the company gets a higher return on the people that they hire. It would also provide the employees with an idea of exactly what is expected of them so that things like performance appraisals would be clear. These performance appraisals must be written so that there are clear indications of the requirements of the job and these appraisals can be carried out every quarter soFrowning and posing so many doubtful questions at a new entrant is a natural way of human reaction. Thus students and teenagers were strictly restricted from using mobile phone as well as internet to a wider extent until a few years ago in order to keep them away from the problems they aroused. The threat posed by Tractor, Earth movers and Excavators are still enjoying a prominent part in our debates and discussions. Later on, all these complainants and campaigners are seen to be a part of this flow justifying that, being aware of the dangers these can be handled for good. Undeniably, a great majority make use of these sophisticated technologies with good knowledge of its pros and cons. But unfortunately the extent of the time we spend for creating this awareness has proved to be at the cost of many innocent lives. Indeed, the dangerous pits in the social networks have also been known by all at the expense of many precious relations and precious lives. Wayne Forrester of Croydon in South London stabbed his wife, Emma to death, for a simple joke she wrote on her own Facebook wall about him. Cambodias 69 teenagers had to seek security from the police when their names appeared on a hit list of Facebook. These are only the tip of the ice berg. Let us overlook these types of incidents considering that it has been taking place in the farthest countries, already in our list of morally degraded. But how can we disregard the number of suicidal attempts of students in India being bullied on the Facebook? Recently many youngsters of our own neighborhood, those

planning to marry, began appealing not to register any bad comment under their photos because they feared that many similar harmless jokes lead to break more than a few marriage alliances or proposals even in our Gods own country. A couple of days back, a colleague of this writer shared her bitter experience from the social networking. While she was chatting with a good friend, she was asked to click a link sent by him, which she was told would show an informative video. But that click turned on her laptops webcam. Having suffered the humiliation of being exposed in her night gown, she no longer keeps a friendship with him. London Metro reports, Thousands of students join in social networking sites every day irrespective of age, race, country or sex. Though majority of them do it out of curiosity, most of them are found rampantly addicted to it and would even prefer to access this than dinner or sleep. They rush to the internet cafes soon after their school hours to know that whether they are praised or noticed. Through this narcissistic approach at least a few get depressed in loneliness, get irritated and often get frustrated on their stuff. Many a parent cannot identify the reason for their childs restlessness and loneliness being unaware of this new e-world.

The importance of group discussion

The concept of Group Discussion has not been a part of the regular academic curriculum in Colleges and Universities. So, students usually face a lot of problem in this area of the Selection Process. Let us first understand why Group Discussion is conducted. Most organizations today are very clear about the skills and knowledge that they look for in a candidate while screening. This was not the case a couple of years ago. Group Discussion has been a part of the Selection process for admission into most of the top Business Schools

Earlier, some of the Pharmaceutical Companies like Ranbaxy, Glaxo, Cipla, Lupin, etc used to conduct Group Discussions as a part of their Screening Process for Selection of candidates as Medical Representatives. Most of the other companies also used to conduct GD while selecting candidates for marketing related Posts. Today, almost every company, (including TCS, SATYAM, WIPRO, INFOSYS, INFOTECH, ORACLE, CTS, CANBAY, POLARIS, etc) both IT and non-IT has GD as part of their Selection Process.

The skills that are usually assessed in a Group Discussion are:

Communication Skills

Interpersonal Skills Leadership Skills Motivational Skills Team Building Skills Tolerance to Ambiguity Divergent Thinking Listening skills Presentation Skills Analytical / Logical skills

Corporate society Responsibility:

It is also important to make sure you fulfill the tasks of any role you've been given. For example, if you are given the role of a team leader, it is important to make sure you carry it out to the best of your abilities. Once you agree to a specific role, do not ask to be changed to something else. If you do this, you will convey a message that you are indecisive. If you don't understand a statment or question that has been made by someone else, it is important for you to make sure they clarify it. In group discussions, it is important to avoid conflict as much as possible. You will always want to respect the contributions that are made by the other members. Even if you don't agree with their views, it is important to look at things from their perspective. If you are the leader of a group discussion, it is important to make sure all the members are given equal amounts of time to voice their views or participate. If you give some members more time than others, you may convey a message that certain members are more valuable than others, and this can lead to conflict. In any group discussion, conflicts should be expected. However, it is the method you use to deal with them that will determine the success or failure of a group. There are certain words and phrases that you will want to avoid using when you are in a group discussion. For example, responding to a statement made by If you don't agree with the statement, instead of saying "that doesn't make any sense," it would be better to say "I don't know if I agree. Could you elaborate?" When you use this statement, it will not be as offensive as the other statement. You should never ridicule the idea or statement of another member by calling it dumb or stupid. Instead, you could simply say you disagree with them, and offer an explanation of why your feel the way you do. To give another example, instead of using the statement "that is not what the assignment asked us to do" you could say that "I think it would be better if we refer back to the assignment." To be successful in group discussion, it is important to avoid conflict statements. These statements could lead to problems between you and other members that can make the group less productive. An example of a conflict statement is telling another member that they are wrong about something. Instead, you will want to disagree with them by using phrases such as "it may be better to...." or "have you ever though about doing it this way?" It should be easy to see the t. Once the conflict has started, it is very difficult to deal with. Everyone is different and will have strong beliefs about a topic that may differ from others. The Roundtable uses a broader definition of environmental health by discussing the human health impacts of the natural, built, and social environments. In the past 8 years, the Roundtable has used this perspective to guide the workshop topics and discussions. Carol Henry from the American Chemistry Association reiterated this by noting that environmental health is more than individual chemicals; it includes infectious diseases, safe water, physical (built) factors, and most importantly, the socioeconomic factors. In fact, participants further suggested that issues such as air quality, water quality, obesity, and chronic disease all have environmental health components.

These issues are complex. For example, the topic of air quality includes asthma rates in Europe and the United States, different air quality issues between urban and rural sectors, and even issues between developed and developing countries. Not all these problems can be solved by governmental entitiesa message that numerous participants noted during the workshop. Addressing these issues requires implementing a public-private partnership by engaging multinational corporations to deliver capacity building, noted Peter Illig of International Society of Doctors for the Environment (now at Association Internationale pour lOsteosynthese Dynamique). He noted that, for the developing country, the occupational setting is a healthier setting than the local community setting. The way to address many of the problems is to rebuild the linkages of health and the environment. The need to do this holds true for corporations as well as governments. There has been a defined separation between environment and health, and often environment officials and the health officials do not communicate with each other. There are significant cost benefits to be realized and improvements in efficiencies from recognizing those environmental sources of ill health that are often not only easy to identify but are costeffective to address, noted . The panelists discussed the idea that the private sector has a role in the world carrying capacity. Richard Wells of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Advanced Studies stated that the private sector needs to be actively involved in improving society to remain profitable. He quoted Kofi Anan as saying that The private sector cannot flourish if society fails. We (the public, industry, academia, and so on) need to think about the challenges in the developing world, particularly poverty, which is both a consequence and a cause of environmental degradation. The two cannot be separated. To engage with society, the private sector needs stability; it needs prosperous societies to flourish. This will be important as William Blackburn of William Blackburn Consulting noted, because the majority of the population growth will be in developing countries. Thus a companys future customers are going to be in these growing untapped markets. Wells noted that many multinational corporations recognize that by encouraging local small businesses, they can help to create markets for the future. Famously, Henry Ford said he paid his workers a living wage so they could purchase his products. Blackburn pointed out that reputation is also important. For example, some companies in the medical industry are creating health programs in sub-Saharan Africa as an opportunity to enhance their reputation and to be viewed as reputable later when this market is developed. Charles Bennett of the Conference Board noted that this was underscored earlier in the workshop by the ExxonMobil example, which created an opportunity for local businesses to be a part of the supply chain during the building of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline. According to Bennett, programs such as this one help to develop a larger market for a variety of businesses. Panelists also emphasized the need for corporations to understand the challenges in the area where they are doing business. Poverty is one issue that will need a multifaceted approach to address. According to Wells, the poor are disproportionately affected by environmental health hazards, but he noted that getting out of poverty does not necessarily reduce environmental impacts. The worlds carrying capacity needs to be raised, and at the same time, we need radical improvements in technologies, innovation, and processes to improve the standard living. Wells noted that some companies, such as Cemex, send their executives to live in poor communities. Other multinational companies are reflecting the world in the workforce by hiring talented

individuals from various countries and integrating them into the corporation, noted Henry. Webb noted that IBMs policy of ensuring a diverse workforce requires that IBM hire individuals from the area in which they do business. This is not completely altruistic, noted Webb, because corporations use these opportunities to learn; they can gain a better understanding of the culture, challenges, and needs of that locale. One final point was made that during the period of unrest in Bolivia in the early 2000s, some individuals observed that certain businesses were spared from the violence because they had established local CSR. One panelist summed up by suggesting that CSR makes good business sense.

Accountability and Evaluation:

Evaluation is another problem because the outside auditors spend the majority of the time on documentation and not enough time on whether the system is providing results. Various panel members suggested the need for transparency of the data and the need for accountability. Webb echoed these comments and suggested there is a role for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in assuring accountability. He suggested the value in a code of conduct on accountability that would be applied, making it easier for businesses and governments to work with known accountable organizations. He further noted that standards organizations need to be more transparent and open, and they need to engage in continual improvement