Professional clubs anchor techies

he steep fall in valuations of blue chip personnel signals the end of a bullish job run powered by mutual undercutting of salaries by technology companies. As companies smarten up, take notice of the sharply plunging economic indices and begin tightening their belts by freezing recruitment, scaling down their workforce and slashing salaries, the period Advantage Techie has definitely come to an end. Riding high on the IT wave, the drastic turnaround has left many employees dangling on a dangerous professional precipice. Employees struggling to retain a toehold in the new market economy are in desperate need of extra-organisational associations and networks, which can function as support structures in this bearish period. In the US, the epicentre of the technology industry a number of networking opportunities exist for IT workers. Subsequent to the first round of layoffs, pink slip parties came into vogue and, contradictory to what their names suggest, these offer serious networking opportunities to employees within the community. Various other Associations and sites have stepped in to help workers combat the downturn. In India, techies lack the advantage of an extended extraorganisational community.

A few professional associations like the Computer Society of India and certain other groups organised around core domain areas such as the Society of Technical Communication and the VLSI Society are trying to address the lack of availability of networking platform for engineers. These organisations offer opportunities for professional contact and technical expression to techies. Peter Yorke heading STC at the moment sums up the benefit of his society. "The networking opportunity and the opportunity to learn best practices by interacting with peers and seniors are the biggest benefits of being an STC member. Members in India also have the opportunity to attend the STC Conference that is held in the US every year at discounted rates. Last year more than 10 technical communicators from India attended the conference." Similarly, the VLSI Society (catering to independent and focussed professionals in the field of VLSI Design) although dormant for the last three years has not stopped conducting annual conferences on contemporary and critical issues in the field of VLSI Design to help members enhance technical expertise. "The success of these conferences has led to efforts at reviving other activities of the society and the organisation is expected to start functions again by January 2002," according GH Sharma head of the VLSI Society. These conferences are not meres armchair exercises and are supplemented by other efforts throughout the year. For example Peter Yorke says: "The best practice is disseminated through smaller workshops and conferences that we have organised". These have been well attended particularly among junior incumbents in the field." The Computer Society of India for instance undertakes many regional level initiatives to spread awareness on IT issues and policies among software professionals.

Apart from providing a physical opportunity to connect, these associations also offer various other online and offline resources. The STC for example has certain special sections on the web site, which can be accessed only by technical writers who are members. Sample documents are available on the site and there are a host of online resources such as dictionaries, style sheets etc which technical documentors require for their work. Its monthly newsletter Indus keeps writers abreast of recent events and addresses issues critical to their work. The VLSI Society has abstracts of white papers detailing recent work in the area on its site and the Computer Society of India publishes a monthly journal on recent IT events. Some of these associations have also responded the cataclysmic downslide in the economy and the subsequent confusion in tech ranks. Speaking of STC plans to help writers with their careers: Peter Yorke admits: "We are planning to use our web-site stc-india.org to promote profiles of candidates who are looking for alternate employment or telecommuting opportunities. These will help people to find better and newer opportunities in the last of these times." Career guidance also from a staple feature of the seminars conducted by the CSI.

Despite an impressive array of activities, these Associations have still some way to go. The CSI has 20,000 members but a large body of members are students rather than working professionals. The STC, a two year old Association, has only fifty members as of now. A senior Board member of the VLSI Society bemoans. "Seminars are fast losing value, conferences have become commercialised, academic institutions are pushed into making money, the space for independent thinking professionals is fast eroding. Engineers look for company sponsorship, they don't even want to pay their membership fee"

These are serious accusations. The health of these organisations has a direct bearing on professionals. The debilitating effects of the downturn in the IT industry could partly be assuaged by forums which can help techies raise concerns and issues that are close to them. Help's definitely not going to come for outside. Are techies listening?

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