Marketed as a “comprehensive, state-of-the-art introduction to terminology theory and practice”, the Terminology Summer Schools have been held for almost 30 years, and in its present form since 2005 (according to the organizers). Held at the University of Vienna, the first two days cover terminology theory and tool types as well as possibilities for testing and [...]
The 2nd International Conference of the Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer e.v. (BDÜ) was held at the end of September in Berlin.
Anyone who follows me on Twitter can tell when I’m at a conference or seminar or training session, since otherwise my tweeting is rare, any my blogging even less so. Since there are so many outstanding bloggers in the translation industry, my comments are limited to what I find interesting and relevant, or questions I ponder when sitting in a conference session or stumbling across random news items.
Three days after the three day conference I can summarize three key impressions:
- Attitude
Though I went to a few tool and skill oriented sessions (software localization based on Passolo, SDL Studio Group Share and OpenExchange introductions, and a session with an overview of translation tools) the biggest message I received, and many echoed this, was for the language industry as a whole to wake up, get a big dose of self-confidence back, hold their heads high and demand the respect they deserve.
This was reflected in the titles and contents of various sessions: “Translators as experts…”, “Language industry recognition…”, “Strategic marketing …”, “Because I’m worth it …”, “Translators as market players” and in just about every word that came out of Chris Durban’s mouth. (I’m still very upset at being beat out of the last signed copy of her book by 5 minutes!) - Pricing
Second, since this is not the ATA, there were a few prices mentioned, and all of them higher than I remembered from my days as an industry-side outsourcer. Of course this made me happy that the market is growing, and sad that I hadn’t been realizing it (to the benefit of my clients).
This also signalizes (to me) that many clients do realize the importance of quality and that a B2B partnership between clients and translation providers needs to be based on mutual respect to be successful. I take this to be nothing but good news. - Specialization
This was also a topic of many discussions both in the sessions and at the breaks. The underlying aspect I did notice, perhaps since there were so many successful people who have taken ‘non traditional’ paths to this profession, is the role of a specialist as a translator or a translator as a specialist. I sense a bit of unease between the two groups, or maybe as a non-traditional pathtaker myself I’m overly sensitive.
However, it’s certainly a point worth further inspection and an area where I personally feel the various paths can complement each other instead of competing.
As a whole, even the most basic sessions had hidden gems of knowledge, the tone was positive and upbeat and I came back with more than I had when I arrived.
I was also able to feed my three passions of translation tools, terminology and QA with 15038, and will be digesting that information on the blog over the coming weeks.
A few photos and blurbs will aösp be put up at the Langolution facebook page, so give it a like 
Determining how much time, and money, to spend on marketing is always tricky, especially when it’s difficult to determine what the return on investment will be.
I’ve gone through a few websites from learning HTML myself to unfortunate experiments with companies based abroad, and it’s been a time-consuming, learning process. The newest update is a sleek look that I really like, but it’s still missing one main thing – something that in Germany is, apparently, really important for small business owners – a photo. A photo of me.
There’s a fantastic photographer in Munich, and probably the only one I trust to come up with a good, unique photo that doesn’t make me look like I’m being booked for jaywalking. But I still put it off, I didn’t want the site to be about me (hence the name langolution) and, well, I’m not 20 anymore. I prefer to hide behind the camera.
So the website will soon be more “personal” with an appropriate photo, but in the meantime here’s one of the fun ones from the shoot today.
The final photo is still up in the air, but I’m really confident it will match the tone and style and not make me look like a criminal jaywalker.
If you’re in the Munich area and are looking for a fun, creative photographer, this is your guy.
Celticon on Facebook
Spammers and websites
If you came here because of a spam mail, I’m so sorry. Obviously some bot or idiot has picked up my name and is spoofing it for something or another – I only see it when an automatic out of office reply hits my in box. Short of changing my name and domain, I’m not [...]
Post-event trauma
I’m always so impressed by the people I meet at events. So many intimidate me with their self-confidence, industry knowledge and skills. So if I didn’t talk to you at an event before, that was probably why But I’m also impressed by the openness and general good vibe I get from almost everyone at events. [...]
MemoQ fest 2012 – May 10, 2012
Attending a proprietary conference is always a refreshing change from a general conference on language and technology. Since everyone can focus on what the tools can actually do, discuss where they may need improvement and see where they are going, there is more of a spirit of collaboration and mutual support. Opening the day was [...]
MemoQfest 2012 – May 9-11 – Budapest
This year’s proprietary product visit is to Kilgray in Budapest to learn more about memoQ and how to get the most out of this tool. I was pleased to convince Roger Matthews to join me. (You can find his tweets under expressionise) So far I’ve found memoQ to be intuitive and easy to work with. [...]
New website
Langolution went live this weekend. Setting up a good website is more complicated than I expected, but I’m really pleased with the results. Feel free to have a look and pass it on! It was very enlightening working with a professional designer and implementation team. I’m probably the dreaded customer – the type who knows [...]
