Translation industry news

Today’s installment of Talk of the Nation (a good lunchtime or mid-afternoon listen, depending on your time zone) gave many interesting examples of how recessions reshape entire industries. For example, the number of startup auto companies in the U.S. has jumped since the Big Three have been teetering on the verge of collapse or obsolescence. In addition, recessions seem to be times when a lot of people with the entrepreneurial bug make big business leaps, because they don’t have as much to lose as when the economy is strong.

One of the show’s guests (I believe this was Paul Maeder of Highland Capital) named a few industries that are ripe for a shakeup. For example, he commented that home construction is one of the last holdouts of “fully custom tailored” manufacturing, and that more eco-friendly and more modular home construction is a trend that seems to be brewing during this recession. Likewise, economic and environmental concerns led to a 35% increase in bike commuting in New York City in 2008, which is forcing the city to look at its general transportation plan,  traffic patterns, bike parking locations, etc. This increase has also caused sales of commuter bikes to go “through the roof,” according to one bike dealer, with bike companies moving R&D efforts from high-end racing bikes to more modest around-town models.

So, what major changes can we expect in the translation industry when the recession shakes out? I have to say that while I can see some of our industry’s bottlenecks, I’m not really sure how the industry might or should change due to the economic slowdown. Thoughts?

At long last, episode two of Speaking of Translation is available for your listening pleasure. This podcast, which is Eve Bodeux’s brain child and which I co-host, features news and views from the translation industry. The current episode is exciting because it features the live interviews that Eve and I did at the ATA conference in November. There are seven sub-episodes (they’re in individual files, or if you really love listening to translation-related podcasts, you can listen to the 40 minute compilation!) featuring interviews with everyone from translation industry experts to people on the street (or as the case may be, people in the conference hotel lobby). Enjoy, and please send us your comments!

A few interesting items from the world outside the home office:

• The pre-release version of Wordfast 6.0 is out. As of this release, Wordfast is splitting into a “classic” version that still works within Microsoft Word, and a standalone version that is platform independent. I saw the standalone version demo in Orlando and I am planning to test it out on my Linux computer this week.
• Susanne Aldridge has launched the latest addition to the translation blogosphere, In-house translators- a dying breed. Susanne is one of those fantastic people who sits in the front row of your presentation at the ATA conference and mouths the answers to all of the questions that you ( I mean I…) don’t know, so I’m sure that her blog will be fun to read!
• If you’re looking for a way to keep your LinkedIn profile looking fresh without actually updating it, you can automatically feed your WordPress blog to your LinkedIn profile. Freelance journalist Michelle Rafter tells you how to do this, and it’s just as easy as she makes it sound; less than a minute start to finish.

This Monday morning, many translators across the U.S. are either heading home from the ATA conference or are already at home, clearing out the inbox and following up on contacts made at the conference.

As someone who a) is not a Disney fan and b) hails from a city that is the cultural opposite of Orlando, my expectations of this conference were fairly low. Now, I’m thrilled to report that while the conference was of course infused with a measure of Disney-ness (meet you at the golden Mickey in the hotel lobby!), the sessions were really outstanding, the logistics were top-notch and it was very pleasant to renew connections with other translators under the Florida sun.

Jill Sommer and I presented a preconference seminar on “How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator,” which went very well; a great co-presenter is a real asset in a three-hour session! On Thursday, I did a solo presentation on blogging, which was well-attended and seemed to get a lot of people thinking about the possibilities that Web 2.0 offers translators. Michael Wahlster graciously came up to the podium for an impromptu overview of Twitter as well.

A number of this conference’s sessions stand out in my mind as particularly noteworthy, from the absolutely enjoyable (FR>EN translator Sandra Smith’s conversation with Lucinda Karter about the “story behind the story” of Sandra’s award-winning translation of Suite Française) to the intensely motivational (SFT President Chris Durban’s session on developing a base of direct clients) to the highly amusing (François Lavallée’s readings of his modern-day fables in the style of La Fontaine; François is also the founder of Magistrad, a continuing education school for translators in Quebec. I also left the conference in awe of some of the presenters’ knowledge of their areas of specialization (Karen Tkaczyk‘s session on chemical terminology for cosmetics translation).

The logistical aspects of this conference were also really well done (thanks to the ATA HQ staff!). Last year in San Francisco I’ll admit that I felt a bit hermetically sealed in the conference hotel, and the food and beverage service were not, in my opinion, up to standard. This year it was really nice to have breakfast and coffee breaks outside by the pool, a half hour between sessions so that you didn’t have to sprint from one conference room to another, and a centrally located Exhibit Hall that was fun to explore during breaks.

In addition, I’ll note that while many people comment about “how expensive” the ATA conference is (and unless it’s in your home city, there is just no getting around the flight, hotel and meal expenses), I think it’s important to look at the potential return on your investment. First, compare the registration fee to other translation/localization industry conferences, some of which cost more *per day* than the ATA conference costs for three days. Then, let’s say that your total expenses for attending the conference come to maybe $1,500. Plan your schedule so that you will learn enough to increase your income by at least $1,500; and in my opinion, this isn’t at all unrealistic given the quality of some of the presentations that are offered. To be honest, I think that many translators who work primarily or exclusively for agencies could probably double their incomes by applying the direct client marketing tips offered in several of the presentations.

In sum, this was one of my top two favorite ATA conferences, New Orleans being the other one. Next year’s location, New York, promises to attract a variety of high quality presenters too; see you there!