Photo by Rob Ireton used under CC BY NC SA 2.0

Technical writing tends to baffle a lot of those who went to college for English or other Arts majors. There’s a lot of writers out there who want to get into technical writing but they don’t know where to start. This is especially true of those who had English majors in college and graduate to find that tech skills are in high demand. You have to be a bit technically inclined in order to get a job even as an entry level content writer. If you’re planning to get into technical writing or have a career, you should start reading before you jump in with both feet into a job you might end up really hating.

For technical writing skills specifically, you should read a lot of technical papers, instructions etc. and then write a lot. When it comes to writing skills, practice does make it perfect (no matter how cliché it is). Ask yourself what niche market are you going to focus? Do you want to write software manuals? Manuals that come with electronics like cell phones, digital cameras and so on. Or are you interested in writing “how to” articles on using a particular system?

Find that niche first and start reading those articles, manuals etc. in that field so that you’re aware of the vernacular. I find WordPress Codex to have great information — the information is well organized and easy to follow, even for a non-technical person. They write stuff on how to use WordPress and things that you can do with it. It acts as an online manual for the masses. It is also a very popular blogging platform. For every great product, there is always a great support system. Technical writing IS first contact between the consumer and the product. Firefox support is another great support online. More and more people will be looking for support online in the coming years. Instead of calling customer support, consumers will be Googling and contacting other consumers. That’s why online written support is going to be really important for Web 2.0 products.

Once you’re familiar with the format, you should start writing your own manuals/technical articles, posts etc. You can do it on your own blog as tutorials. You can also join a community like Ubuntu and contribute to documentation. There’s a ton of open source projects that need help with documentation. What’s more, the open source community will support you as a writer, and as someone who is learning the ropes. Later on, you can even become an expert and you’ll be known for that.
Personally see technical writers as translators between geeks and the laymen. Geeks are great when it comes to developing new technologies but some of them don’t know how to communicate to the rest of the population who speak “English”. As a technical writer you need to understand geeks and translate that into English, breaking things down to the simplest level that everyone can understand. So, don’t forget to test it out on your mom after you’ve written something!

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As American leaders in the Capitol voted for the much debated health care reforms, LA Times ran an interesting op-ed earlier this month on needing a check on insurance companies offering medical tourism or overseas surgical procedures. What I found interesting is that the author, Judy Dugan, who is a health policy advocate for Consumer Watchdog puts medical tourism as ‘medical outsourcing’. Of course in India when people talk about medical outsourcing they speak of it in terms of medical process outsourcing, one of which includes medical transcriptions, medical billing, to medical insurance processing.

The great thing about the LA Times article is that it highlighted the fact that outsourcing doesn’t have to be on paper or virtual process. It can happen when a person from the west goes east to get health care. Medical outsourcing doesn’t end with ‘knowledge process outsourcing’ or back end processing but the actual surgical procedures can also be outsourced. What Ms. Dugan did not cover though is how even wombs are also outsourced to India. Folks know enough about people in India or those who are poor enough in the developing world selling their kidneys and livers to feed their families. What’s been a rising trend for the past couple of years in India is for young mothers to rent out their wombs so that couples in the west can have babies.

It’s done via in vitro fertilization (IVF), usually the couple needs to visit only twice to India — once to give sperm and eggs then another time to collect their child — even for that you’d only need one parent. Outsourcing pregnancy happens in the low down right now — as in everyone pretty much knows about it but there aren’t really any laws — and if there were, ‘the powers that be’ just ignore them. While I can understand why a young woman would rent her womb to strangers, I still cringe at the idea. Even more so I’ve been thinking a lot about the mother and how much she really gets paid in the end after all the agencies, doctors, and middle persons have taken their cut.

Have you heard about pregnancy outsourcing? What are your thoughts on the subject?

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Personal branding for freelancers is a key component for any freelancer. You don’t have the cushy way of saying you’re so and so of this or that company. Or identify yourself with what you do — which for a lot of us is very important. On top of that, if you say you’re a freelancer or even a “consultant”, you’re frowned upon in the Indian context. People think you’re just sitting at home living with your parents.

Photo by Ryan Opaz used under CC By-NC-SA 2.0

Should you brand yourself even if you’re sitting at home living with your parents, going to school, or even doing a full time nine-to-five gig? Most definitely yes! When companies are looking at freelancers, they’ll want to look at your portfolio and see what you’ve done before they give you a call. Just by saying you’re from a particular institution isn’t enough any more (that’s true for India, too). If you haven’t heard, 75% of Indian graduate engineers are unemployable. So how do you showcase your skills and tell people that you’re worthy of their time and money? Personal branding. It’s the best way to introduce yourself to potential clients, employers, and to network.

Personal branding for freelancers who want a side gig
If you already have a job and you can say what you’ve done with your work experience that’s great. But if you can showcase those skills that’s even better. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is clean and have recommendations from your colleagues and superiors. If you don’t have a portfolio or a client list to show, at least that’ll be a good start for potential clients.

Now, I know that a lot of you folks in India are under pen names and tweet privately. I also know that it’s largely because you don’t want to violate any employment contracts written or otherwise. Just because you use a pen name doesn’t mean you still can’t market your “brand”. Your pseudonym IS your brand. Use it wisely because one way or the other it can be tracked online. If you keep your nose clean and your image polished, you’ll be getting calls from clients or people who want to network with you.

You can always create a LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, India is still a democracy. Make sure your Orkut and Facebook profiles have links to your portfolio. It’s OK to show off your skills if you have the right props.

Personal branding for freelancers who do it ‘full time’
You probably have a portfolio somewhere online or a client list if you’ve been freelancing for a while. Make sure those are highlighted and that you have recommendations from your former or on-going clients. If you’re getting more business than you can handle think of an expansion plan and having a business out of it. Here’s a great post on how personal branding can work for your business.

Personal branding for students
Think you’re a student so you can wait on marketing yourself? Think again. Colleges look at your portfolio and things you’ve done in school before they admit you. If you’re in college already, potential employers will be looking at what you’ve done. If you’re one of those bright kids who can say, “I was in Google Summer of Code,” that’s brilliant, but if you’re not, they’d be looking at what you’ve contributed. If you’re a programmer, what programs have you written? What articles have you posted or published? Just because it’s a school project doesn’t mean you can’t showcase it, too. Use those to start off your portfolio and as a student, you’ll have the time to make sure the showcase your learning abilities and how you adapt to situations. And who said you can’t get a LinkedIn account just because you’re a student? You can get recommendations from your professors there, too!

If you want to know more about other aspects of personal branding and marketing yourself you can check out a presentation I did for students at the National Institute of Technology at Durgapur here. Setting up cool profiles for personal branding is just the beginning, it’s an on going process to keep that brand alive and attract more clientele.

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Mobile application developers are a rare breed to find in India but there’s a huge demand for them throughout the world and in India. If you’re a programmer and are thinking of starting out or studying a bit to be a mobile app developer, now is the perfect time. If you’re pretty much tuned into industry trends you’ll know that mobile app explosion is no news but in India, mobile apps have finally made it into main stream. You don’t need any report to tell you if you look at the bill board ads, and ads on TV you’ll see that all the major mobile phone brands are pushing the social media features.

Graphic by Matt Hamm used under CC BY-NC 2.0

Getting into Orkut, Facebook, and being able to Tweet is becoming more and more important — especially to the young middle class who have enough spending power and disposable income to play around with. Just a month ago on Alexa, Orkut was #4, and Facebook #5 of the sites people visit in India. I wrote a bit about that on my personal blog. But this month, Yahoo moved up to the #3 position, Facebook to #4 and Orkut dropped to #5. That just shows you how fast things can change even in India. You have to remember though that Yahoo has been totally aggressive in their ad spending on billboards and on TV.

Joji Thomas Philip of Economic Times reported today that Chennai has 143% mobile penetration, that’s 1.43 mobile connections per person — this figure doesn’t even include the land line. There are more mobile phones than people in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata. People in these metro cities are also willing to try new things at all times. Even with more and more telecom networks entering the market, folks in the industry are optimistic. That means mobile usage and application usage is going to grow. Metro cities in India have enough population density to both start and sustain trends. Combined with a thirst for brands and to be “in the know”, these cities are perfect places for viral campaigns. That means people will be wanting more mobile apps so there’s a definite need for mobile app developers. If you’re a content developer start thinking of developing viral content not just in English, but in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya, Urdu, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu… you get the picture.

The pessimist in you might say, “I can’t do anything in the Indian market”, but the skills you gain as a mobile application developer will be able to cater to the world market as well, just check out Mary Meeker’s presentation on the future of Web 2.0.

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Photo by dadiolli used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Outsourcing is a competitive market and new players are always ready to get in. Last week I wrote about outsourcing and how it’s picking back up again in India and how it’s THE number one destination for the outsourcing market. Click here to view the post. It’s easier to explain why when you look at a survey done by Global Services Magazine and the research firm Tholons. The top six out of eight cities for outsourcing are in India. With Bangalore, Delhi NCR, and Mumbai being the top three destinations. The article in India Times’ Infotech is worth a read if you want a break down of what each city is known for and why it made it to the top list of outsourcing destinations.

What I’m really interested though is to keep an eye ‘emerging destinations’ like Vietnam in the far east, Russia and Poland in Europe, Mexico and Canada in the Americas. It can be that US and European companies are outsourcing to companies closer to home for the processes that are needed there. A lot of programming talent comes from Russia as well. You just need to talk a look at bootleg movies to see who are the real hackers out there. (Russian top the list.) In the very near future, I won’t be surprised if more countries are added to the top ten list. Outsourcing is very competitive and it is here to stay. Those in India need to keep themselves up-to-date and sharp. What’s your take?

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Photo by tnarik used under CC 2.0

I was listening to Chris Garret’s pod cast today as he was interviewing Gary Vaynerchuck on Gary’s new book, “Crush It”. One of the questions Chris asked was how he (Gary) found the time to write a book between all the keynotes, appearances and running a business on a daily basis. The answer was simple: he hired a ghost writer.

I was surprised by Gary’s answer because a lot of folks don’t usually admit that they’ve had a ghost writer to write a book for them. It’s a grey area that people tend not to ask or tell but almost everyone in the industry know about it. A lot of companies hire ghost writers for either part time or full time basis. I’ve done my share of ghost writing too when I started my freelance writing career. Most of the time you can’t disclose who your client is or what you’re writing for. Depending on how good you get as a writer, you might be required to write as a particular person, personality or even a brand that is part of a larger marketing campaign.

I don’t think the Clintons wrote their autobiographies all by themselves, and I know I’m not the only one who think that. Famous and successful people are busy, they need others to help  out with their stuff like writing a book. People still need to write books because it gives them credibility. There’s a lot of writers out there who either on a part time basis or full time basis write, edit, and/or proof read. Don’t rule out ghost writing as part of the offerings that you give as a writer. Ghost writing start anywhere from writing company press releases, articles, and blog posts. The more diverse your writing skills are the better. Even when you’re employed full time, your skills might be required to help out the company.

Transcribing is another process of writing. It’s not as creative as writing articles but a lot of media companies require them. Transcripts are traditionally produced for medical and legal professions but film, TV and video production offices use them heavily as well. I had to transcribe a lot of stuff when I was interning at a production company in high school. You have to look at the footage, record whatever the person is saying on and off camera, record the time on the track and describe the shot at the same time. Needless to say, it can improve your typing speed.

In Gary’s case, he recorded his voice and had someone transcribe it for him. Then he probably edited later or had an editor do it for him. So if you’re starting out your writing career or are already writing for clients, keep in mind that you can always ghost write while we work on that dream novel or book on the side. If you’re seriously consider writing a book under your own name, the process of writing a book most likely will give you many valuable lessons that you can use on your own book.

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Semblr gets talented service providers and freelancers to view your project as soon as you’ve put up an auction. The Semblr  backend engine is designed to send out alerts via email, RSS feeds and Twitter.

1. Write a catchy title
These days everyone wants a Facebook or Twitter API developer. They’re probably the most hot talent out there. The only way to stand out from the din is to catch them at the first instance with your headline. Gone are the days of posting just, “Wanted” on the headline because a lot of people scroll through things instead of read. Your headline has to say what they’re looking for. (Semblr will automatically limit your title to 75 characters. That way, folks on Twitter will also know that you’re looking for an expert freelancer. This also goes out on our jobs RSS alerts for those who are subscribing to the Semblr feed. That means you’ll be automatically attracting talent from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter in addition to our regular subscribers. We automatically tweet and send out alerts of your auction so that you have a wider audience to reach out to without having to get on all the social network sites.)

Make sure your headline is keyword rich for example: “On going freelance ghost writer needed” or “Freelance PHP Programmer Job”. That way those who are already filtering their feeds know exactly what you’re looking for, and you’ll be attracting the right talent.

Screen shot of Semblr Job Auction

2. Choose your category carefully
Choosing your categories and sub categories is really important because you need to attract the right kind of talent. Those who are looking for projects will be searching for specific categories and should be able to find your project easily. They would already have the right skills and experience for your project. If there’s a category that is not listed, you can write to us to put it in.

3. Displaying your budget range
You can choose to either set your budget range or not disclose it. Setting your budget range helps the provider or freelancer to decide whether or not to bid on the project. If the provider is not interested in getting involved with a big project, they’ll not bid and you’ll have less providers to screen through. Not disclosing your budget also means that you’ll have all sorts of bids for your project and you’ll have to communicate to the provider about the project scope at a later point.

Screen Shot of Semblr Job Auction Bid

4. Make the description of your project exciting
You don’t have to give away every detail of the project that you want the best talent to work on. It can be a gist, is it a book, articles, essays if you want a ghost writer. Is it an API, Ruby based or PHP? Let the freelance talent know if they really have the skill set to work on your project. Remember, not all parts of your description is available to be viewed publicly. The user needs to be a Semblr subscriber to view the full description.
If your project is a quick fix, or a patch program you should say so. If it is a prolonged project, tell the freelancer. It’s a way to entice talent who are looking for long term projects. This way you’ll know from the get go whether the freelancer is committed or not.

5.Dress up your profile
Make sure your company profile is complete on Semblr. Have your photograph or the company logo uploaded so that freelancers know that you’re real and that they won’t be wasting time. Once you’ve done a project already, you can request your service provider for feedback. The feedback you receive will show up on your profile and will make your profile stronger.

6. Choosing the right keywords/tags
Tags and keywords let users know about your project simply by searching via the search box on Semblr. This is an easy way for freelancers and service providers to look for your project. You should already have keywords in your title and description, so you can pull about five words from there to make up tags for your project.

Screen Shot of Semblr Job Auction Tags

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John Caslione, the co-author of Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence said that when you see the first signs of a crunch in your business, you shouldn’t be cutting down on marketing, training, or travel for your salespeople, instead he said, “Engage in aggressive cost cutting: cancel projects and research, and outsource noncore activities. Now is not the time for companies to have a wait-and-see attitude.”

Outsourcing your non-core business processes and activities will let you focus on the things that matter most. Your full time employees that you have will start focusing on the thing that they do best – acquiring markets and capital for your business. Your on-core areas of business may include customer care services, lead generation, help desk solutions, interactive voice response systems or IVR. Once you start outsourcing, your employees can start focusing on what they do best and not worry about acquiring new skills.

Ask yourself why is your business successful, and what is the main force that drives revenue into your organization? Your employees should focus on those business needs. Even if you have additional business process needs, you should give it to the people who are experts at doing the business process instead of wasting time and resources training staff on things they are not familiar or confident with.

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We’ve decided to move Semblr to it’s own blog from the Teknatus blog to separate out the content specific to Semblr from other posts on Teknatus related to business, economics, finance, and coding.

We just did a new release of Semblr on Sunday. Most of the changes are under the hood meant to improve the overall experience of using the Semblr marketplace for freelancers, consultants and independent contractors. A few changes have made to the user interface. We have also moved the most of the javascript code to jQuery and are now utilizing jQuery UI.

Over the next few weeks, we will be making updates and adding new features to help make buying services from the most qualified professionals and marketing your services easier. Stay tuned for more!

Do let us know what you think.

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I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Semblr.com, an online marketplace, dedicated to helping job seekers find work and buyers find talent they need to fulfill their business needs.

Our goal was to create a website both for job seekers and buyers that provided flexibility and was easy to use. Here’s a quick overview of how it works:

For Buyers

Getting Stuff Done

When you post the information for what you’re looking to get done, you choose how much you’re willing to pay for it (e.g., $10 per hour) and any other requirements you have. Those who are willing to do the job will bid on it (someone might do the job for $8 per hour, for example) and you get to choose who you want for the job based on the price they are wiling to do their job for and their experience.

Rating Your Workers

After you’ve worked with a freelancer or consultant, Semblr.com gives you the opportunity to rate how satisfied you were based on certain criteria (e.g., work accomplished in a timely fashion, done correctly, etc.). This will help other job providers decide if they’d like to work with that freelancer or not.

Ease of Making Job Payments

Semblr.com also takes the hassle out of making payments to those you hire by enabling quick, easy and secure payment through Pay Pal and credit cards.

For Job Seekers

If you’re looking for the flexibility of freelancing, or consulting, Semblr.com is the place for you. Put up your expertise on an easily searchable list of providers and have potential clients find you directly. Semblr is an exciting way for you to choose from an array of different projects to work on. You choose which project is right for you and how much you’ll do the job for.

Semblr Screenshot for Portfolio Upload

How You Get Paid

Semblr.com holds an escrow account from job providers you’ll be working for. This ensures that you will get paid when you complete the job.

Now that the site has launched, we are hoping that people like you will take advantage of using the site and making it a robust marketplace for both job seekers and job providers. Our hope is that job seekers have a variety of projects to choose from, in all fields, and that job providers have their pick of professionals to choose from to fill their job requirements.

But we can’t do it without you! Right now, Semblr.com is completely free of charge for both job seekers and job providers. So take advantage of this limited time offer and sign up!

In addition, we are a small team of people trying to make the site the best out there so we welcome any feedback you have about the site – good or bad.

Looking forward to seeing you at Semblr.com.

The Semblr Team

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