Round 2

The training today is hosted by Innodata. We have people with us from Innodata, ITC and ICC. Dave and I looked at the setup of the room and realized that we wouldn’t be able to sit at the table and still project our slides for the attendees. So we suggested that we move the table around to the side a bit and get another table for the projector. We started to move it ourselves, but were soon surrounded by four people to help us arrange things appropriately. Vikas Verma, our main technical contact at Innodata in New Delhi joked, “there’s no shortage of manpower in India.” How true.

The other thing there’s no shortage of in India is attentiveness to visitors’ needs. When in training situations here, you barely have to mention that you might need something and it will be fetched for you with all speed.

The training went very well…we started as usual by reviewing the training materials that we sent ahead of time, and then we launched into the new workflow material. As we work through the sessions, we’re continually alert to opportunities to improve. Dave leapt up at one point and proposed that we do an impromptu exercise to keymark some content (on the whiteboard), then create the map to TLDoc elements, and then create our draft TLDoc from that (all done manually on the whiteboard). It was a great way to show the very close relationship between the keymarks on the PPF, the keymarked manuscript, the XSLT snippets on the PPF and the draft TLDoc. Our thinking is that if the vendors know the steps of the process, they’ll be able to offer better suggestions for improvements along the way. I think the exercise helped tremendously to do exactly that, so we’ll be incorporating that exercise in future rounds of training.

We met with Udai from Innodata after the training session. We were supposed to take the Innodata folks out to dinner, but Udai suggested that we instead go to the Red Fort in Old Delhi. He said they have a great light and sound show that presents the history of Delhi. So Dave and I went back to the hotel for a quick dinner and then met Vikas for the trip to Red Fort. The trip took us through one of the main streets of Old Delhi, which by itself was fascinating. The hustle and bustle of the traffic (pedestrian, two-wheeled, three-wheeled and four wheeled; I don’t recall seeing any four-footed traffic) and the small shops lining the road kept Dave and me craning our necks back and forth the whole way. It’s a wonder we don’t give ourselves whiplash trying to take it all in.

So we arrived at the Red Fort only to discover that it is closed on Mondays. Bummer. So we made our way back through Old Delhi and then Vikas took us around India Gate, the President’s house and other government buildings here in India’s capital. Afterward, we were delivered back to our hotel where we were able to delve into some of the day’s email and prepare for the next day’s training.