ITI Conference 2011

Archive for October, 2010

When it comes to pricing, the conference committee has been well aware of the fact that purse strings may now be tighter than they have been in the past. The full list of prices can be found in the table below.

With an early-bird that expires at the end of February, there is plenty of time for delegates to choose the best moment to book. However, the VAT increase in January 2011 does mean that, effectively, those who book earliest will make the greatest savings, since after the New Year even the early-bird price will rise slightly in line with the VAT hike.

A booking form is available on the website, along with a provisional programme so that those who are only able to book for one day can choose which day they want to attend (though naturally, we would like you to book for both days if you can).

At just £248 for two days, the basic early-bird price for those booking between 4 January and 28 February 2011 represents excellent value for money. Equivalent conferences in other professions can cost double this, and we are confident that the sessions and networking opportunities on offer at the ITI conference will give you the chance to earn back your conference fee very quickly. As usual, ITI member prices are also granted to members of FIT organisations and the ATC. Note that prices do not include accommodation.

If you are in any doubt as to the usefulness of attending an ITI conference, read Matthew Young’s article about how his decision to attend the 2009 conference in London brought him a major new customer.

Table: Pricing for the ITI Conference 2011.

Following our potentially explosive problem in staging the conference at Conference Aston, ITI is now pleased to announce that it has agreed to hold its conference in 2011 at the National Exhibition Centre, adjacent to Birmingham Airport and Birmingham International railway station.

The NEC is well known as a venue for major rock concerts and exhibitions, but it also has excellent facilities for smaller events. ITI has secured the exclusive use of the NEC Galleries conference suite, which is located on the first floor, above the public areas of the Atrium section of the exhibition centre.

Exclusive use means that we are able to stage multiple parallel sessions, and offer exhibitors and delegates a large area in which to network and do business.

For more details on the NEC Galleries, see the NEC website and the other links on this conference website.

Using the Internet as a place of work, Ana Iaria

The life of the professional translator has changed so much in the last few years that it would be almost unrecognizable for a translator who would wake up from a coma. Gone are the days of working alone at home or at the back of the garden, hunched over a typewriter or a word processor. The Internet is here to stay and be part of our lives. We now work and live on the Internet.

This presentation aims to show how it is possible to work from anywhere in the world, either using a portable or a desktop computer and how to make the most of what the Internet has to offer – as well as the Web 2.0, a concept that is slowly inching its way in our lives. It will be based on my own personal experience of spending months abroad visiting family or attending courses and conferences and how the online tools allow me, or anyone else for that matter, be anywhere in the world without losing touch with their clients – just paying attention to time zones.

Tools that make this a reality will be presented, together with the latest releases in terms of software and hardware for translators on the go. As technology advances, we have to be able to adapt if we want to stay in contact with increasingly demanding requirements to be a translator.

Ana Iaria is presenting a session on the mobile office

Ana Luiza Iaria (MSc, MITI, CL (Translator), ATA member) is a former lawyer who practiced Law for many years in Brazil before starting out as a translator.

As well as a Law degree, she also holds a first degree in Languages and an MSc in Translation and Translation Technology; and teaches several subjects, including Publishing Skills, at the MSc in Translation at Imperial College London as a Visiting Lecturer.

Apart from presenting papers on legal translation at international conferences, she also presents workshops on tools and productivity for translators. Law is her main area of interest, but she is also a geek at heart.

At the ITI Conference 2011, Ana will be presenting a session entitled “My portable office“.

Madeleine Lenker is presenting a session about localisation

Madeleine studied at Cologne University of Applied Sciences in Germany and is an accredited English-German translator. She graduated with a Masters degree in Terminology and Language Engineering from the same university and has worked in the localisation and translation industry. Madeleine is currently studying for a Ph.D. at Localisation Research Centre (University of Limerick/Ireland).

She is presenting a session on localisation.

This workshop will be led by Madeleine Lenker of the LRC at University of Limerick, Ireland

Localisation concerns the translation of digital content, software and their appropriate presentation to end users in different locales. Localisation is important because having software, a website or other content in several languages, and meeting several sets of cultural expectations is an important international marketing advantage. In the non-commercial sector, where information equality is deemed important, localisation also enables information access for less well off locales. These requirements have led to demands for increased localisation activities and acts as a prompt to study how the localisation process can be optimised. To do this, a standardised localisation process first needs to be made explicit. Hence, new approaches need to be found to cope with this increasing volume while maintaining and improving quality.

Sophisticated TEnTs (Translation Environment Tools) offer for example a complete translation workflow online. This kind of technology allows several people to work on the same project simultaneously. Data is also stored online and cannot get lost in a local computer crash. However, it should be noted that while these tools to create workflows exist, standard, state-of-the-art workflows do not seem to exist and consequently, companies are left to their own devices to recreate best practices in this regard.

Considering the cultural differences that can arise when the localisation effort is distributed globally (differences between headquarters and local offices and the different languages) this seemingly important factor could become even more critical, exacerbating the need for such a workflow. Steps such as those required to build trust and communication, in such contexts may be required.

Rosner (MultiLingual, 2009, pp.26–27) surveyed practitioners to find out which was more important: people, technology or processes within localisation. The results indicated that the people and processes are the most important factors. Interestingly, none of the respondents thought that technology was the most important factor. Thus, participants said if you have the right people and the right process in place, even bad technology will not stop you from achieving the goal. This is interesting given the investment in tools and technology in this area and the lack of standardisation with respect to a state-of-the-art localisation process/workflow that explicitly incorporates, and thus organises, people within that process.

It is important to combine people, technology and processes to answer nowadays and future localisation needs. The first step is to define the process (for instance what to localise, resources and budget). This leads to the project enactment/kick off. This, in turn, leads to a decision on how to proceed: either using an ERP tool (for accounting, invoicing, project management) or using a translation management system (TMS). If an ERP tool is used, it will provide a more holistic solution giving, for example, better monitoring of the depreciation and appreciation of company assets. If the ERP solution is chosen then a connection should be made to TEnTs to process and speed up the localisation further which will also lead to a faster time to market for the end product. The defined process ends with the delivery and the invoicing of the localised content. The overall process is monitored in case of faults, delays or cancellations.

Another element entitled ‘Personnel monitoring and feedback’ is added. Personnel are a key issue and their involvement should be present throughout the whole workflow. Feedback refers to both communicating the feedback and subsequent training.

Having a good process, the technology to execute it and the right people in place allows to cope with increasing volume while maintaining and improving quality.

Autumn is upon is, as conference preparations continue apace.

Autumn is in full swing here, and preparations for ITI Conference 2011 are continuing apace. This morning we have added the details of some more sessions, including a presentation of the findings of a survey of professional translators, 10 years on from the original study, and a freelancer’s experiences of spending a week or so in the media spotlight. See the Programme page for more information.

Tomorrow is a red-letter day, as we will be visiting two alternative venues for the conference in Birmingham. You have probably already heard about the explosive news that greeted us two or three weeks ago, and we hope to confirm our new venue in the next week or so.

In the meantime, keep checking your RSS feed and follow the @ITIConference twitter feed

Isabel is presenting a session with Betti Moser on coping with typical problems faced by freelance translators

Isabel Hurtado de Mendoza (MITI, MA DPSI, BA Hons) is a freelance translator working from English into Spanish and specialising in art, tourism, media and marketing. She is the Newsletter Editor of the Scottish Network and has experience giving presentations in the fields of translation and language teaching.

Isabel is co-presenting with Betti Moser in a session entitled “No translator is an island“.

Betti Moser is co-presenting with Isabel Hurtado de Mendoza

Betti Moser has been a freelance translator since 2003, translating from German into English and specialising in marketing & advertising copy.

She was Co-Chair of the ITI London Regional Group from 2004 until the end of 2009 and currently coordinates the ITI Construction & Environment Network.

Betti is co-presenting with Isabel Hurtado de Mendoza in a session entitled “No translator is an island“.

Workshop led by Isabel Hurtado de Mendoza and Betti Moser.

We often hear that translation is a solitary profession, and that translators sometimes spend all their working hours alone in their office with no face-to-face interaction with their clients. However, this does not mean that a freelance translator is an island. Quite the opposite: whether we work for agencies, direct clients or a combination of the two, there are always a number of people we have to deal with, from project managers or client contacts to colleagues, proofreaders and accountants.

These human interactions that reach beyond the horizon of our own office can also cause problems at some point, and it can be difficult to know how to deal with these on our own. Sharing our approaches to responding to such situations with other colleagues will enable us to be better prepared for them.

In this workshop, we will present participants with some real-life scenarios that we will discuss, with the aim of giving delegates a better idea of how to conduct ourselves in tricky business situations.

Examples of scenarios to be discussed could include:

• Dealing with large projects that are shared with other translators
• Taking criticism gracefully
• Client insists on using terminology you know is wrong
• Recognising dubious job offers or scams
• Client cancels the job midway
• Situation changes after negotiating rates and deadlines
• Being asked to do test translations
• Realising that you underestimated how long a job would take
• Negotiating rates

At ITI’s millennium conference, Janet Fraser and Michael Gold presented the findings of a major survey of freelance translators, looking at such aspects of their professional life as the number of clients they had, the terms of business they used, how they managed their client-base, and their reasons for working freelance, as well as the benefits and disadvantages of working for themselves and their perceptions of their career. The research, which we also wrote up in two well-cited academic journal articles, showed that translators make particularly successful ‘portfolio workers’ for a variety of reasons, including a specialist skills profile, a flexible working regime and strong professional networks. In particular, while translators do not always choose freelancing as their preferred career option, the vast majority come to appreciate the value of such arrangements over the security of an in-house position.

The fast-moving world of professional translation has undergone many changes since 2000, not least against the backdrop of rampant globalisation, recession and the double-edged sword of technological advances. Pauline Uyterwijk has reported for the Bulletin on translators’ confidence in their workflow and income during the credit crunch, but we feel it is time to revisit some of the broader issues our survey respondents and interviewees identified 10 years ago and to illustrate in particular how translators sustain a successful career in straitened economic times.

Over the next six months, we therefore plan a further questionnaire survey and hope to re-interview as many of the original interviewees as we can to update the snapshot we took of the profession at the dawn of the 21st century. In particular, we want to explore how the recession has affected their business, what strategies they have adopted to survive the downturn, and how they have expanded their professional horizons in terms of parallel activities, subject specialisms, language range, client-base, software tools or market niche. The research will also consider the impact of such developments as Chartered Linguist status.

Our paper will present the broad findings of our research and, we hope, be of interest both to established practitioners looking to expand their professional horizons and to newcomers to the profession seeking guidance on carving out a successful and rewarding career.

You can participate in the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JLXH8LQ.

Karen M. Tkaczyk is speaking about Technical Writing

Karen M. Tkaczyk, PhD, CT is originally from Scotland and now lives in Nevada, USA.

She works as a highly-specialised French and Spanish into English freelance technical translator. Karen holds an MChem in Chemistry with French (University of Manchester), a Diploma in French and a PhD in Organic Chemistry (University of Cambridge). She worked in the pharmaceutical industry in France and Ireland, then after relocating in 1999, in medical devices and cosmetics in the US. Since 2005 she has been technical translator and editor.

Karen is president of the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association, and administrator of the American Translators Association’s Science and Technology Division. She frequently speaks on her fields of expertise at T&I PD events.

She is giving a workshop on technical writing.

Janet Fraser recently left the University of Westminster to build a freelance translation, editing and examining portfolio. She chairs ITI’s Fellowship Committee and is a member of its Admissions and Professional Standards Committees. Michael Gold is Senior Lecturer in European Business and Employee Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

Jonathan Downie is speaking about his experiences in the media spotlight

Jonathan Downie is an interpreter, translator and interpreting researcher based in Central Scotland. His business, Integrity Languages, supplies translation and interpreting to Christian organisations, translation and interpreting agencies and private clients. He is also a part-time PhD student at Heriot-Watt University studying the effect of interpreting modes on audience recall and response. He has served on the ITI Council since May 2010 as the member chosen by associates.

At the conference he will be talking about his experiences in the media spotlight, in a session entitled Maw, ah’m oan the telly!

Maw, Ah’m Oan The Telly! Lessons from a Week in the Public Eye, by Jonathan Downie.

Despite their vital work in industry, commerce, politics and the legal system, the work of translators and interpreters is rarely the focus of media attention and when it is, it is often for all the wrong reasons. February 2010 saw an exception to this general rule. Following a widely publicised recruitment process, Today Translations appointed their first Glaswegian interpreter and decided to celebrate the occasion by calling in an experienced journalist and PR expert to try to attract a little bit of media attention.

Noone could have predicted just how many media outlets would become intrigued enough to push for their little piece of the action. From a saunter around a bingo hall in the East End of Glasgow, the story would lead to a spot on prime time television on ITV and even an interview with Canada’s leading radio station.

This presentation will take the audience through the sheer craziness of that week. While live TV and plush studios might seem a world away from the everyday realities of our working lives, I intend to show that the lessons learned in that week are applicable to life after the fifteen minutes of fame are over.

Our prospective clients have the same key question as journalists: “what is so different about you?” Before anyone will actually hire us, they want to know why we are any different to the thousands of other professionals who work in our languages and in our fields of expertise.

Those who have easy answers to this question then need to deal with the issue of how to present themselves. With the pressure to write SEO perfect websites, blog like a genius and tweet like a celebrity, translators and interpreters can often find themselves confused about what clients actually want to see.

Even once this problem is resolved, the story is not finished as many professionals can find themselves dealing with the issue of criticism. Not everyone was pleased that Glaswegian seemed to need interpreters and even more seemed annoyed that this was deemed newsworthy. For people seeing a measure of success in any field, dealing with critics will always be a key skill to learn.

This presentation will therefore offer light relief and thought-provoking questions that will be helpful for both new translators and those who are more experienced in the profession. Both groups will be encouraged to seek out their own unique selling point, present it in a way that is natural to them and deal positively with criticism from both clients and other professionals.