ATA55

Nov 10 2014
Corinne McKay

ATA55: the highlights

I’m back (physically at least!) from the 55th annual conference of the American Translators Association in Chicago. By all measures, the conference was a great success. We had 1,842 attendees, which is our second-largest conference ever. It would take a lot to top the 2,400 attendees we had for our 50th anniversary conference in New York, but we did top San Francisco, which was the previous second-largest. With the huge volume of session proposals we received this year (I think over 400 for about 125 slots), conference organizer David Rumsey was able to winnow them down to the very best sessions, and many of the new features (translation Tool Trainings as preconference seminars, a business brainstorming mixer to replace the speed networking session, a Tool Bar where people could get 10-20 minutes of free, one-on-one tech support) were very well received. We also added comment cards to the annual meeting so that if people didn’t want to or didn’t have time to speak during the open comment time, they could still give feedback to the Board. But don’t take my word for it…watch this great highlights video and see for yourself! And if you’re wondering where/when ATA is meeting in 2015, 2016 and 2017, here’s the future conference sites page. See you in Miami next year!

You also might be interested in:
Jill Sommer’s wrapup post on attending and presenting at ATA55
Nicholas Sturtevant’s post on attending ATA55 as a newbie
Erin Rosales’ post on following ATA55 online
Jeff Alfonso’s post on the social aspects of ATA55

Nov 04 2014
Corinne McKay

Off to ATA55!

I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the week, to attend the 55th annual conference of the American Translators Association in Chicago. If you’re a blog reader and we haven’t met in person, definitely come shake hands! I’ll be speaking on a panel (The Freelance Juggling Act) on Thursday morning, and one of my goals for the conference is to get lots of photos of people doing a “five five” (holding up five fingers on each hand; or two people can do it together and each hold up five fingers) in honor of 55 ATA conferences! My good friend and colleague Eve Bodeux even awarded this a hashtag, #fivefive. So, get your #fivefive on and we’ll see you at the opening reception tomorrow night!

Addendum 1: It’s sometimes difficult to write lengthy blog posts during the conference, but I’ll definitely be posting updates and photos on Twitter.

Addendum 2: I noticed today that my blog reached its one millionth view (over the course of almost seven years, but still exciting!). So, literally, thanks a million for reading!

Mar 06 2014
Corinne McKay

ATA55: I Submitted!

I love it when fun things go viral. Earlier today, I submitted a proposal for the 2014 ATA conference, then commented on Twitter that we need an “I Submitted” badge for the ATA conference, like the “I Voted” stickers that polling places in the U.S. give out. French/Hungarian>English translator Carolyn Yohn ran with the idea, and soon changed her Twitter profile picture to:

Cute, don’t you think? And there’s still time to earn your own badge, since the proposal submission deadline is March 10! If you’re looking for tips on how to write your session proposal, you can view the free webinar that I presented for ATA, “How to write a winning session proposal.” Thanks, Carolyn, for this fun meme!