I am particularly fond of industry events. Over the years, I have developed friends, won clients, learned a lot (and I have even met my wife at one of these events). I like the camaraderie and the intercultural aspect of events associated with translation and localization, and I regret having to decline so many invitations every year. And this is what brings me to this blog post: There are too many events.
The tipping point for me was the announcement by GALA of their next conference in Prague.
Before I expand on why I think that GALA is making a huge mistake in organizing this event, let me lay out how I view the landscape and how I think it should work. First, when I talk about associations and events, this is what I mean.
- Associations. The role of associations is to bring together people with common interests to achieve common goals. The assumption is that the group is more powerful than the individual members. Associations can be local, regional, or global, and they assemble individuals, companies or even other associations. Associations elect directors to work on behalf of the individual members and generaly meet once a year.
- Industry Events are gatherings of professionals or organizations to discuss, promote, educate, and sell products and services related to an industry.
- LISA and GALA are global associations that try to attract both buyers of language services and LSPs. GALA was originally founded by LSPs who were members of LISA and were not happy with the treatment they were getting there.
- ATA-TCD (U.S.), ACCTI (Canada), ELIA (Europe) are examples of regional associations of LSPs. Their goal is to address issues related to doing business in a certain geographic region and to develop the skills of the employees of its members. Some of these associations are involved with standards.
- EUATC is the European Union of Associations of Translation Companies and it is an umbrella organization for national associations of translation companies throughout Europe. Its main focus is on quality standards.
- ALC (U.S.), ATC (U.K.), ATA (Netherlands), FEDERCENTRI (Italy) are but a few of the many local country associations of translation companies. They address issues related to labor regulations, taxation, professional development, and more day-to-day issues related to running a translation company in a specific geography.
- UNICODE and TAUS are special interest associations addressing specific technology issues like internationalization and translation automation.
- Localization Institute and IMTT are examples of for-profit event organizers that focus on the translation and localization industry.
- ATA (U.S.), TAC (China), Abrates (Brazil) are some of the local professional translator associations that also accept corporate members.
Are they all legitimate? I am sure they are. Are they all good? Some are better than others. Do they do what they are supposed to do? Barely.
Here is where I would like to see improvement and change:
- LISA should focus on what it stands for: Standards. Unfortunately we see very little movement in that area. The association focuses more on events than on enforcing true interoperability among translation memories, which is a huge demand in the industry.
- Localization World is a great event, but it suffers from its own success. LSPs complain that there are not enough buyers attending. The organizers should put in place a true sales organization and attract a larger number of buyers to their events with incentives and promotions.
- EUATC and ELIA should focus on lobbying European organizations on behalf of their members. They should work together, as their charters are similar, though their constituencies are different (EUATC gathers associations, ELIA gathers companies).
As I wrote in a Global Watchtower entry in July 2008, "one of the original goals of GALA was not to organize events, but to co-locate them with other associations. That was what made GALA unique. It wanted to promote the industry, it wanted to be an influencer, it wanted to collaborate. Now, it wants to make money."
You may recall GALA founder Hans Fenstermacher talking about a big P.R. effort for the industry, something along the lines of the Got Milk campaign which was hugely successful in increasing the consumption of milk. Where is that spirit? Where is that drive? Is the only way to promote the industry to organize another event?
As I wrote back in 2008 in that same blog post: "The bottom line is that fragmentation creates a problem of choice for members. But what’s worse, it dilutes resources that could be spent towards promoting the business of language or growing the proverbial pie. Instead, associations lose sight of their original goals, non-profits begin to act like for-profit businesses, and bureaucracies develop. The result? Everyone ends up spending more money to maintain countless organizations than in providing benefits for disoriented members who are now unsure which associations offer the best value."
GALA claims that their first event in Cancun was a big success with 86% positive reviews about the location and content. I wasn't there, but some attendees told me that they were underwhelmed. Optimists say that there were 100 people attending including spouses, pessimists say around 70, including 20+ speakers. I would like to see what the 14% had to say about the event. And I would like to see the effort and money placed in hiring a General Manager and organizing another small event go into what the industry really needs: Visibility!
Now my full disclosures: I am a member of the Board of Directors of ELIA, I have participated on the Board of Advisors of Localization World, my company is sponsoring the IMTT event "Think Latin America," my company just rejoined GALA as a member. I have voiced these concerns in person to almost all the GALA Board members.
