Wow! That’s a long journey you have asked me to summarize! OK, let me give this a shot.
IMImobile is a very precious memory for me. It was the first organization at Hyderabad that gave me a break in my career spanning two decades now. While at IMI, I got opportunities to work on documents as varied as online help, website content, design documents, specification documents, user guides, Reference, Trouble Shooting, and Error recovery and Backup Procedures; Manuals: Requirements, Process Flow, User, and Installation; and Design and Table Structure and Data Model Documents, etc. Some of these being highly complicated documents, they formed a strong base for me to start my professional journey. The best part of it was that it provided me a first-hand opportunity to learn the skill of getting information out of SMEs and product managers – which, I am sure is still considered one of the biggest challenges in the field of technical writing.
After IMI, I moved on to join Weston Knowledge Systems (KS2) that had an amazing gang of peers. All highly skilled, all very down to earth, and very approachable. I am lucky to still be in contact with quite a few of them. In terms of technology, it gave me a huge exposure to single-handedly working on a highly complicated context-sensitive RoboHelp project, along with Geo maps and *.js files. I still remember an office boy come up to me one evening to ask if I would prefer ‘some snakes’. He meant snacks, of course.
Moving on, I got the opportunity to join Pramati Technologies in 2002 – which I feel was still the best organization I worked for – apart from Cigniti now! I was a part of a 5-member team of world class technical writers, and my boss, Mr. Chandrasekar Sivaraman, fondly known as Chandru, who taught me a lot – including introducing me to Adobe FrameMaker. I had no idea about Java, but my first two assignments – articles on Classloaders and Connection Pooling were very well received, and I was lauded for the same. I made multiple friends at Pramati, all technical gurus in their own right. In fact, I loved Pramati so much that when I was asked to join again in 2006 at a senior role, I just could not say no to it, and it was such a warm welcome I received. Though most of my writing teammates had moved on, Chandru was still there. It was during my second stint at Pramati while writing content for a few website pages that I met Mr. Sairam Vedam – whose marketing team I joined almost a decade later at Cigniti Technologies. I guess the lesson to take from this is to be in touch with your colleagues and peers, and never burn bridges.
Computer Associates was the next organization I joined, and while my stay was not too long there, I can still say that the training provided for the 1st month was unlike any I have ever experienced. There are a few great friendships that I have carried on from there – and believe me, in this crazy world, it is these friends who keep you sane.
At Noetix Corporation, I learnt how to lead without a title, and also created my first ever in-house content style guide. As I realize, today a lot of my friends are my ex-colleagues who I have spent so much time with.
Then came 2009-10. The worst ever period of my professional career, and on the other hand, the best period for personal growth. While on one hand, I was a part of many who lost jobs that year, I was also blessed with a baby boy. In the otherwise dark moments that I faced without job, I guess he came in at the right time to keep me going.
Then again, for my readers, these few months taught me not to give up. I continued learning some skill or other related to writing, attended multiple webinars, networked, did a lot of freelancing for a few websites, and kept updating my CV and applying. Another lesson I learnt was that one must never make the mistake of using the same CV to apply for multiple jobs. You must apply with a different approach to every new job.
Finally, at almost the end of 2009, I got an opportunity at Actel/Microsemi where I grew a lot as a professional. There were multiple responsibilities and huge projects to be handled, and I learnt the art of interviewing candidates to create my own team. I was lucky to work with all the amazing senior writers who were hardworking and very sincere – and ensured that we never missed a project deadline. I also learnt that while it is difficult to always compensate the team for their dedication in terms of monetary growth – it was very easy to make them happy by applauding their efforts at the right time, as also give them some surprise gifts. Appreciation, if delayed, loses its purpose. It was here that I got an opportunity to fly to the US and meet and work with the team there for almost a month, and that opened up my eyes to a whole new level of professionalism. Later on, during the same period, I had to pass through a very dark phase that I wish no parent has to, but I am glad and proud to say that neither did I fall short of what was expected from me as a father, nor did I fail my employers in terms of work. It was here that I learnt to totally believe that God always watches us and has very mysterious plans – all aimed for our good.
When I moved out, I again tried out my hands at going solo for an education-based organization, and learnt a lot about the needs of schools and what are the innovations and technologies being developed to improve the future. I also improved my website content related skills considerably during this phase, and also learnt up close the art of creating brochures, flyers and many more collaterals. I guess this was all in preparation for my next role at Cigniti as the Global Head of Content and Social Media marketing. Mr. Sairam Vedam gave me the opportunity that switched my career path from that of being a Technical Writer for almost 14 years to a Content Writer and Marketer – for almost the last 6 years now. I have learnt multiple new skills during my stay at Cigniti.
It has been a great journey writing and publishing of blogs, white papers, promoting events and webinars, ebooks, website content, external articles, creating a social Media presence, and more along with leading a team of fantastic writers, with a focus on generating leads for the organization. For the last two years, as the organization has grown in vision, I have had the pleasure of working for, learning, and growing with a super marketing team being led by Subhendu Pattnaik, the Head of Marketing at Cigniti.
Overall, I can say that this has been a roller coaster of a journey with a lot of learning, unlearning, and relearning along the way, both being equally important for our growth as human beings.
I come from a family where my grandfather used to teach English to Britishers. Fast forward a few decades, my mother, Vandana Kapoor, was teaching me English at my school. Add to this the fact that a lot of my English teachers were just amazing – Monica Ma’am, Dewan Ma’am – that I am forever in debt to, for igniting in me a passion for reading, that eventually led to writing. Now, while I pursued Commerce in graduation, and then did 2 years of a course from APTECH (- remember?), my initial plans were to move to the US to pursue studies in Computers. However, and I am very thankful it happened, I needed that 16th year of education to be completed. I decided to spend a year studying Master’s of English at Lucknow University – and luckily, I was the only one to move from B.Com to MA English. As fate would have it, the US plan didn’t quite work out – and I was more than loving my days pursuing MA English. I additionally did a 6 months course in Graphics Designing.
To be honest, I had still not decided about my career goals. That said, while doing my MA, I joined a part-time job at a very famous school at Lucknow – City Montessori School – as an Editor responsible for responding to the multiple events happening across its 16 branches. While this was enjoyable, it was also very challenging as I was doing a night shift job, and doing classes during the day, sleeping barely 4 hours a day, in the chilling winter season. I realized I wasn’t able to focus on studies that much, hence I joined another Hi-Tech Institute to teach English and Personality Development. All this required me to constantly keep writing.
Lucknow, back in 1999, didn’t have too many IT-based organizations. I came across an opportunity for a graphics designer, and joined the organization, once my MA was over. One day the boss called me and asked me if I would be interested in writing an Online User Manual using a tool called RoboHelp? I was very curious, and created the help in 15 days. He was very happy – I was too! Then I asked if there is more similar work that I may expect – he said yes, there’re enough Technical Writing projects in the pipeline. That was the first time I had heard of the field called Technical Writing. I researched about the field and was pretty pumped up about the same as I knew that I had found my calling. After a few months of experience, I started applying to cities across India. That’s when IMI Mobile happened, and the rest is known.
To help Cignitians continue doing quality work even when working remotely, Cigniti has augmented its IT infrastructure and laid down strict work from home guidelines. We have always delivered quality services to our valued clients – even when our teams work from home. As a check to strengthen our services from home for ensuring business continuity for our clients, we have taken a few additional measures keeping in mind the safety and requirements of our clients. The Cigniti team is fully geared up to work-from-home to assure business continuity to our clients.
While there are obvious benefits of being able to talk to ones’ team face-to-face and it helps to lead the team effectively, I have been able to keep the ball rolling for the creation of both Content and promotion of Cigniti on the Social Media. One simple thing that has helped us to be able to freely connect with the team members using multiple tools for communication, or even simply calling them on the phone. I talk to my entire team – either together or one-to-one almost on a daily basis to keep discussing new ideas, checking upon if they are doing fine, if they are facing any challenges, and more. In essence, having a clarity of tasks and set priorities has helped me lead my team pretty smoothly even in these uncertain times.
I guess the mantra has moved from having an open-door policy to having an open-phone policy till the time COVID is around.
I am the Global Head of Content and Social Media Marketing at Cigniti. A few things I do to keep myself updated with the latest trends are to try to read at least 10-15 minutes a day (- if nothing more); try to read through the trending posts on LinkedIn, Twitter etc. to understand what the other experts are talking about; going through sites of a few competitors to keep track of what are they publishing and if we can improve in some way; but most importantly, I spend time discussing what my team might have read, or if they have an idea they want to try out.
Now, while there’s a lot I do towards both content and social media related activities, having a team of experts working with me is a boon. Even in these times, my content and social media team along with the overall Marketing Team at Cigniti acts as my extended eyes and ears to do more and achieve better. Having a team that is aligned to the organizational goal, and peers who support you is a huge advantage not many may claim to have. There are days when I do not get any time to read anything new – but there’s always someone or the other within the team who keeps sharing some new thoughts or ideas around the latest trends.
Being clear about what one needs from their team and being able to plan and discuss activities with them is a great practice to inculcate. I am proud of the fact that my team does not need micromanagement, and can run on their own, churning out world-class content. This definitely helps me with some spare time to plan my content and social media calendar better, along with some time to tinker with any new ideas that I might want to try out.
I earnestly believe that having my moral values of hard work, sincerity, and integrity have always helped me manage a decent balance between work and personal life as they have helped me set my priorities right. Like anyone else, at times I have failed at it too – but I have been able to rebound quickly, and yes, chocolates and roses always help!
Now, just as you can’t clap with a single hand, in the same manner, my wife Richa has been a source of continuous support for me. I would not have been able to do much without her daily support in everything I do. While at times I try to balance out by working late at night after my family sleeps after spending some quality time together, I still feel what I do is nothing compared to the care she takes of me.
Another thing that has helped me strike some balance is the fact that I have always communicated clearly if I may be late, or may need to work a few extra hours over the weekends, etc. This transparency has helped both of us to plan our lives better. At times there are certain emergencies that we can’t avoid – but the faith and trust that I will make up for it later has always been helpful in creating the balance.
Additionally, working for an organization like Cigniti that trusts me that I will get the job done, and provides me the flexibility to move out early or come in late in case of a personal emergency always helps create and maintain that fine balance between work and personal life.
First of all, thank you for the kind words!
Considering I had not really planned to get into the field of Technical and Content Writing, saying I had a role model to begin with, is tough. What I can say for sure is that the first person to get me interested in stories was my Grandmother, then came Mr. Anant Pai with his Amar Chitra Katha series. That opened the floodgates for me to become a prolific reader and I read everything I could lay my hands on – except politics – I still can’t stand it! I started writing poems when I was in grade 8th, a collection of which I published on Amazon by the name of “The Waves Flowed On”.
Somewhere around mid-90s, I got introduced to authors such as Dale Carnegie, Napolean Hill and many more, and I just loved reading the books. However, when I moved to Hyderabad and was alone, I landed upon a copy of Bhagwad Geeta that had both translation and transliteration available, and I can say it has helped reading it. I have read it 4 times, and every time I have learnt something new.
I surely owe it to my parents, my teachers, and my wife Richa and son Nischay for who and what I am today. They inspire me to be better, daily. That said, I have always been inspired by my friends and peers – all experts in their chosen fields. While some made me believe in myself, some made me realize the value of patience, and some just made me push myself harder to become the best version of myself. You know who you are – I can’t name all of you, so just saying a big Thank You to all of you!
I’ll keep this one short. There’s no shortcut to success – you have to shed sweat, and slog. Yes, you must also pick up some smart tricks along the way, but you have to be honest and sincere towards your passion and profession – not to forget being grounded, and giving respect to everyone. If possible, be a good listener, and try to spread cheer around you.
For anyone who wishes to become a good writer, the only mool-mantra to follow is to be disciplined and read-listen-write-repeat daily, without fail.
The post Amit Kapoor, Cignity appeared first on The Media Bulletin.
This post first appeared on Different Forms Of Renewable Ocean Energy, please read the originial post: here
