Since technical writing is primarily writing about technology, it keeps on changing and evolving. A technical writing services provider works for different businesses across the continents and industries, so it is important to keep our eyes and ears receptive to cross-cultural challenges.

There are times, when we are developing documentation for a client in France, one in Korea, another one in Denmark and one more in Australia. It brings a lot of diversity in the documentation process, since businesses have different priorities and preferences, and different levels of expectations from vhite.

The products keep on changing and the documentation can be as varied as developing functional specifications for a portal that is as huge as comparable to eBay, writing a white paper on leveraging social media, or developing online user guide for a real estate CRM.

The vhite work culture ensures that we adapt to these diverse requirements well, and each of our *artworks* is different and maps exclusively to the way a business expects it.

First thing

Technical writers have a quick meeting for a recap of what was done a day before and what is scheduled for the current day.

Ever evolving

One of our technical writers, after she had developed two online user guides during her first four months at vhite, asked me “This is just repetition of what I have been doing for four months. Will there be no change in what I do here?” The writer had missed an important meeting in the past where we had talked about *evolving in what we do*. We called up a coffee table meeting and discussed a few scenarios.

Case 1: For the source files of an online user guide, we used links to the social media tools of its business website. The idea was greeted well. Apart from procedures and instructions, every page of that guide has links to the social media pages.

Case 2: For a real estate CRM, the screenshots of system were large in size and a few help topics showed horizontal scroll bar when seen in internet browser. We used image thumbnails and linked these to corresponding enlarged images. The reward was words of appreciation.

Such work culture keeps us evolving, and raising the bar for next job.

I work best at *this* time

Individuals plan their own best time for specific tasks, as they know best when they are *in the zone*. If documentation review is more productive and accurate during 1500 hrs to 1700 hrs, or if 0900 hrs to 1200 hrs is the best time to write instructions, we plan it accordingly.

Individuals always remember why they work. It is the *joy of working as a technical writer*.

Call for tea, coffee or salad

When a poorly written instruction is rewritten and it still looks poor in sentence structure, or when the fingers are moving slow on keyboard, or the list alignment continues to misbehave in HTML, we take a break.

Not a kitkat but a cup of coffee, or a plateful of salad, or flavoured lassi.

Documentation and value system

No organization can isolate its value system, from whatever they do. Our value system is:

• Process: Follow the process and enjoy the process
• Respect: Respect yourself and respect others
• Excellence: Commit to excellence, always
• Harmony: Build harmony and ensure harmony

We would rather not write an instruction as…

Click on the PUBLISH THE SCHEDULE button. The jobs for the selected period are marked as published, and employee get the notifications based on the notifications parameters. (See [setup job notification parameters]<Reference to the page> for more details.)

…since *Please* is as important as the instruction itself, as below.

Click on the PUBLISH THE SCHEDULE button. The jobs for the selected period are marked as published, and employee get the notifications based on the notifications parameters. (Please see [setup job notification parameters]<Reference to the page>for more details.)

Pizza. Fried Rice. Curry

A self-defined roaster ensures that individuals happily lay lunch for the team, and clear the table.

Checklist. And Smile

A checklist helps us to ensure  job well done. Some boxes ticked. To-Do list updated, timesheet updated, dishes at right place, printer switched off, windows locked. With a Smile.

Not *always* technical writers

The vhite technical writers respond well to documentation challenges but they are not *always* writers. While watching a movie, we can easily ignore the inconsistent alignment of text in the movie sub-titles. Similarly, we overlook the white space before a semi-colon on a hotel parking sign-board.

Just like normal humans do. Just as non-technical non-writers do.