Machine Translation in the News Again

Google Translate and Google Translator Toolkit made the rounds of the big U.S. media last week, with major stories in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. These were tweeted, retweeted, facebooked, LinkedIned, and forwarded by e-mail ad nauseam. How are people reacting? I identify two major groups:

• It's the end of the world for translators. This doomsday approach stems from fear of the unknown and amazement with the quality of the translation that Google has been generating for some language pairs. 
• MT is never going to reach perfection. So, no worries. This nonchalant attitude comes from those who only see the defects in the tools and feel safe in their current positions.

Nem tanto ao mar, nem tanto à terra, is a Portuguese expression (don't try to google-translate it, it's not going to work) that literally translates as "not so much to the sea, not so much to the land" but means that the neither extreme is right and the truth is probably in the middle. If you follow my postings or presentations, you should know by now that I believe that translators should use MT to improve their productivity and it is only useful if the user knows the language into which the text is being translated. 

I agree with Ben Sargent from Common Sense Advisory, when he says in the Global Watchtower that "...machine translation could remove the cloak of invisibility from translators, giving them greater recognition and status. As 99.99 percent of translation is done by the machine, two things may happen: 1) The volume of human translation could increase; 2) the perceived value of human translation could increase."

Nabil Frej and John Yunker have posted on their blogs the preliminary results from the “Which Engine Translates Best?” challenge organized by Gabble On which asks volunteers to evaluate Google Translate, Microsoft Bing, and Yahoo Babel Fish translations (if you haven't done it yet, I strongly suggest you spend 10 minutes doing it). And it looks as if Google is doing a better job than the other two, but with some exceptions.

From a translation business perspective, I am adopting a pragmatic approach. At Milengo, we are running a few pilot projects with some of our clients to evaluate seven language pairs using the Asia Online technology. We have also used the API for Google Translator Toolkit to connect it with Milengo's Translation Management System and we are currently running some test projects with it. Our goal with these efforts is not to replace human translation, but to increase productivity and to allow our clients to translate content that would otherwise never be translated because of cost and deadlines.


The situation reminds me of a story that my friend João Roque Dias, from Portugal, told me about how government officials in Portugal would fend off requests in the late 70s by saying that outcomes were unpredictable because the country was in a PREC (Processo Revolucionário em Curso or Revolutionary Process In Progress), which eventually became synonymous with "a mess."  Language technology for me is in a PREC: Any outcome is possible, so I am hedging my bets!

WorldWare, Think Latin America and ELIA

Sitting in my hotel room in Berlin after a week of training and meetings with my sales team, I am working on my calendar for the next couple of months. Even though I am not a consultant anymore, many of my former clients and friends ask me which events they should go to, since there are so many happening in March and April.

Even though there are many good events, I chose the following three, for the following reasons:

WorldWare Conference - March 16-18, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA

This is a more technical event, with a great roster of speakers and participants (the usual suspects like IBM, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Cisco, and several more). The location is great (same venue as the last Localization World) and there are several sessions focusing on the ROI of Software Internationalization, some intended for those with moderate to advanced knowledge about the field (P2, P3, P6) and one workshop intended for management and executives new to the idea (W7).

I am particularly interested in session A4 on International Domain Names/SEO by ICANN. I also like that the keynote by Cliff Miller (An Entrepreneur in a Shrinking World), which gives the perspective of a small company, is followed by Bill Sullivan from IBM, giving the perspective of the very large company (From ROI to DNA).

Check out the program. And remember: A trip to Silicon Valley is never wasted.

Think Latin America - April 7-9, 2010 in Búzios, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

It is obvious that I wouldn't miss an opportunity to go back to my home country, especially for an event at a fantastic venue like this. The program is designed to show what major brands like Coca-Cola, MGM Networks, VMware, Xerox, VeriSign, Nokia and others have been doing to conquer this market, where people are not only happy and beautiful, but increasingly rich and influential. As the program says: 21 countries, 2 languages, 1,000 ideas!

I am particularly interested in the sessions on Logistics (From a Niche Market to a Multi-Billion Dollar Business: Logistics Lessons to Localization Stakeholders) by Wagner Covos, of CEVA Logistics, and on Local Consumer Marketing (How to Leverage the Power and Influence of An Emerging Social Class with Increased Purchasing Power) by Marco Simões, from Coca-Cola.


ELIA Networking Days - April 15-17 in Istanbul, Turkey

I am so excited to go to Turkey. First because I have never been there, and second because ELIA (of which I am the vice-president) has put an awesome and very practical program together for these Networking Days. Even though every session is great, starting with the keynote by the Google Translate guys, I want to highlight three things:

• The Tools Track, which I am moderating, which will include presentations by the users - not the salespeople - of eight tools: Across, MemoQ, GlobalSight, WebWordSystem, Plunet, Worxs, XTRF, and Project Open;
• The Situational Leadership Workshop: How to manage and lead different individuals with different levels of skills, attitudes and motivation. The presenter, Ezster Avar, is extremely good (I participated in two of her workshops in Vienna) and this methodology is a great way to manage people.
• The session Taxation in Europe, by the Milengo CFO Tamara Nadeje, should give European companies ideas on how to save taxes.

In fact, now that I reviewed the program, I would recommend that you send at least three participants, because there are so many excellent sessions that happen at the same time. If you are an ELIA member or want to become one, contact John Terninko at ELIA and find out about deals for sending multiple delegates.

All in all, there is going to be a lot of cool stuff happening these couple of months. I am sure American Airlines will be happy that I will be flying all over for a change.

What the translation industry can do for Haiti

Modified reposting of entry by Tammi Coles in the Milengo Blog. Tammi is our Geeky Marketing Diva, and has a lot of experience in nonprofit advocacy. In her words, "coalitions and collaborations = conservation of effort = victory."

Like you, Milengo staff worldwide heard the news about the earthquake in Haiti. As the reports and photographs poured in, the extent of the devastation became clear: full neighborhoods have been destroyed, government offices and services have crumbled, and basic access to food and potable water has degraded.

We have also witnessed an amazing public rally for support, including reports of initiatives from leading technology companies to mobilize their customers and employees in the efforts.

These reports started a conversation between Milengo CEO Renato Beninatto and Lexcelera CEO Lori Thicke about just what translators and localization service providers could provide to the effort.

We don’t have to look too far for ideas.

Pledge the efforts of your company
The folks at One Hour Translation put out a press release earlier today offering a simple, free translation of up to 250 words per each organization and individual affected by the earthquake. One document may not seem like much, but in an industry of over 40,000 companies, the potential impact on medical aid documentation and charity websites is enormous.

Offer your services as an individual translator
The French-based Translators Without Borders (founded by Lori) take it a step farther by offering translators the chance to answer the call of the humanitarian groups that need their time and effort. Their largest partner, Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders is already on the ground in Haiti, with over 1,000 patients already in their care and an inflatable hospital on its way. Whether the need is for training materials for volunteers or media announcements in multiple languages, your talents are welcome.

Spread the word one SMS and Tweet at a time
Messages on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have made a considerable impact on Haitian relief efforts. @RenatoBeninatto sent out a message on Twitter regarding the efforts of Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean to get donations for the work of his nonprofit, Yele.org, from U.S. residents. And CNet News reported that a similar SMS donation campaign driven by Verizon and the Red Cross raised $4 million USD within days, with each SMS a donation of just $10. The effort to both make a donation and spread the news virally is too simple to ignore.

Help Coordinate the Efforts
Doug Green from Translation Source, in Houston, TX, wants to make sure that our joint efforts are not so diluted. So, in order to make sure that language assistance has been properly mobilized, and that the language industry puts its best foot forward. He has created a Facebook group, a Twitter account, and an e-mail address to concentrate information:

Facebook: Interpreters and Translators for Haiti
Twitter: @IT4H
Gmail: IT4Haiti@gmail.com

Doug also tells us that Pacific Interpreters has already stepped forward and begun to donate all over the phone interpreting assistance for Haiti.

We hope to hear more on Twitter and on this blog more about what you, our colleagues in the translation industry, are doing to help. Add your comments, ideas, feedback and more below.

Guest Post: Serge Gladkoff's Response to the GALA Controversy

Serge Gladkoff was kind enough to post a response to my previous post, but since I don't want it to be buried in the comments section, I am promoting it to a full entry, so that it is more visible. Please notice that he states that this is NOT GALA's official position, just his opinion. I am inserting answers to his questions in italics.


Hi Renato,

Here, in your blog, I can respond more freely, since it would be most inappropriate for me to discuss GALA in the group where I am Administrator.

There are lots of things mixed in in your post and in replies to your post, so I will enumerate them.

1. Renato, may I ask you why do you think GALA is the only Association that should not hold conferences, when ALL other Associations (LISA, ALC, ELIA) are having them? You are writing that GALA all of a sudden became competition to LISA and ALC - a) this is not the case actually, b) it has all the right to be competition though, and c) it is wrong to say that GALA should always keep low profile and do not do this and that. It's the same as to say that ALC should not hold conferences because it creates competition to LocWorld, for example. Free market is a free opportunity for everyone.

Because GALA is the newcomer and because it had vowed - at its inception - not to organize events, but to co-locate their events with other organizations. And I am not asking GALA to keep a low profile, I want it to take a leadership and high-visibility position, and I don't believe that organizing events is the best, nor the most profitable way to achieve this.

2. Another comment is that all the initiatives that you have outlined are less than perfect to generate revenue - at least, just yet. In fact, GALA has pioneered a lot of these ideas already - joint exhibits (first in the industry!), joint ads (first in the industry!), collaboration with others in the industry (GALA is arguably the leader in these kinds of efforts). They're great ideas, but haven't yet lead to substantial revenue (except possibly in the collaboration case, and the revenue went to everyone BUT GALA). The fact remains that conferences are #1 events for Associations, across all industries, for a number of reasons.

You argument is "because it is like this for everyone else, it has to be like this for GALA." This is the argument of a follower, not a leader. When I say that I want GALA to take a leadership position, I mean that I want it to be different. In my post, I gave examples of initiatives that could be done by all associations, not only by GALA. All of them have issues. Two of them have contacted me asking how I thought they could implement some of my ideas. GALA seems to have adopted a defensive position.


3. I personally agree that there are probably too many events in the industry, but this is unavoidable in a sense - real Karl Marx, "the crisis of overproduction" :). The number of products in the sector indicates maturity of a sector. It is unfair to pound one particular player for this. What I can say is that this wider landscape gives more variety for industry players. Weaker programs may suffer, but there are more opportinity for ideas, in general. What I can say is that we definitely not need five events of ONE organization in one year - let it be five DIFFERENT events :).

Serge, you make good points from the point of view of supply. But what about the demand? As Common Sense Advisory asked several years ago in its report Best and Worst Language Conferences, what is the ROCA (Return on Conference Attendance) for so many events? Instead of organizing different events in different cities with essentially the same program, why not piggy-back them? Why do I have to go to Prague and Miami in May? Collaboration might include agreeing on doing different events at the same location. My frustration is that the discussion starts with the wrong premises. The whole GALA Event controversy starts with the posit: "We need to make money, so let's organize a conference." It would be better if it started like this "Our members need something, let's do it."

4. Timing and cooperation - cooperation does not mean that all requests are granted and all comes to the best of everybody. I personally understand Marta's frustration about GALA 2010 timing, but the wheels for GALA 2010 were in motion far in advance, and it may not be possible. That does not mean that GALA is not cooperative at all. There are couple of things that are beyond our control - for example, there's SAP Forum in May too, etc. Besides, ALC should not be worried because European events actually do not compete with USA events - the audiences are typically different. It is true that actual cooperation is horrendously difficult to achieve, and instead of complaining, a lot of patience is required.

When you say that European events do not compete with USA events, you justify my argument. Let the Europeans (EUATC, ELIA) organize their events and let the Americans (ALC, ATA-TCD) organize theirs. Let GALA get their help to work on other initiatives. I always proposed that events should be local and regional, and larger initiatives like standards and PR should be global. What I can say from the conversation that I have had with other associations, is that contrary to what you say, GALA has not been cooperative, but confrontational, in the last couple of years.

5. In my personal view, GALA is very far from getting to lose its leadership. On the contrary, it is on the rise, and I can see this from inside as Board Member. There are lots of ideas in circulation, we have a VERY strong Board this year, and the plans are huge. Yes, I do not know what are the presentation topics of GALA 2010, but I am confident that the program is going to be great, I have enough information about that as insider.

Leadership is earned, not claimed. You cannot say "We are the leaders," with any credibility. As for the content of the event, maybe with the exception of the keynote speaker (if you are paying for one), I probably have all the speakers of the next GALA event in my address book, and if I thought hard about it I could probably even tell you the subjects that will be covered. So, although I can agree that the content will be great, I seriously doubt that it is going to be DIFFERENT.


6. You are writing that you feel betrayed. Renato, excuse me, but it shows... I don't know what is the essence of a conflict between you and GALA, but am sure that GALA would be cooperative. Or so I think.

I have stated the reason why I feel betrayed under your first point. GALA vowed not to organize events. It was going to be a different association. Guess what: It is organizing events and it is just like any other association. I feel betrayed because the only reasoning that I hear is: We need revenue, we need revenue, we need revenue. How about value for the membership? How about innovation? How about being run as a non-profit/non-revenue interest group or think tank? LinkedIn and industry blogs have done more to advance relevant discussions in the industry than GALA, or any other association for that matter.


7. We can ask, is it a good thing for the indistry that GALA organizes events, or bad thing? Well, the only answer is this: if GALA manages to create good event, AND be cooperative with other constituencies, it is definitely good for the industry. IF GALA is not successful, then it's bad :).

No comment.

8. GALA Board is NOT a groupthink. We express contrary opinions. But as decision is made, we support it. That's the only way to work, otherwise it's not the working group, but bazaar.

Sorry, Serge, but what you just described IS groupthink. According to your source, Wikipedia:

"Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight."

9. Re: "I heard that GALA has taken arrogant position to ELIA" - a) it is wrong to repeat other people opinions (due to the effect of "broken phone"), b) I can assure you that GALA IS cooperative, and yes, there may be personal frictions, but these are somewhat inevitable due ot differences in personalities, you just need to be patient.

I was trying to be polite. The correct statement is that "I KNOW that GALA has taken an arrogant position towards ELIA," because I was there when it happened. And I haven't heard of one-sided cooperation. It takes two to tango! True leaders can overcome personal frictions. 

10. GALA Cancun was great. The lasting effects you will see.

I will take your word for it, but I am not holding my breath :)

11. Interviews on local TV channels, Renato - I leave this prerogative to you :). I don't think at all that TV is the channel for our industry. TV is, clearly, a consumer channel and we are in B2B sector.

I beg to differ. There are countless business programs on TV. And CEOs and VPs and Localization Managers also watch TV, read Oprah magazine, and listen to the radio. At least I do! Furthermore, I would speculate that between 25% and 30% of all the work done by GALA members is B2C, not B2B. Don't the needs and interests of these members matter? 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you do, what matters is who and how many you reach. How do you influence the conversations, how do create perception in the mind of people. This is where I expected GALA to be leading. Instead, it wants to organize events... go figure.

12. Vocal disagreements should be constructive. I don't think that you did best to support GALA as GALA member and in fact ELIA Board member. Perhaps we could bridge the divide between GALA and ELIA somehow?

Now we are talking. I and the rest of the Board of ELIA will be happy to talk with GALA and any other association for that matter. GALA's PR person, Rebecca Petras, has suggested a PR Summit for the industry. When can that happen? I propose Istanbul in April or Berlin in June.

Finally, for the record, from a visibility and influence inside and outside the industry perspective, I believe that Common Sense Advisory and the ATA have established a leadership position in 2009, because of their effective public relations efforts.

FURTHER:

- Luigi, gaining visibility are NOT NECESSARILY contrary to the spirit of cooperation. :)

Cheers,
Serge

Source of the Controversy in LinkedIn's Localization Professionals Group

Background: Serge Gladkoff, owner of the Localization Professionals Group in LinkedIn, deleted my response to a comment that he made about my entry on Some Ideas for Associations to Generate Revenue because they were "negative" in nature. As the response was deleted, I have no record of it, so I tried to recompose it to the best of my recollection here. I am posting Serge's original response to my entry in the comment section to this post. Click here to check the firestorm on LinkedIn (BTW, thanks for all the supportive comments).

I had forgotten about this post until Serge brought it back up in LinkedIn. In fact, I received over twenty comments to the post in my blog, on Twitter and on Facebook. Most of the comments were very supportive of my ideas.

But I agree with Serge, Association politics is not interesting to most people, who are actually confused by their proliferation. Hence my motivation to write my last two blog entries, one explaining the association landscape and one making suggestions to alternative sources of revenue for associations.

My main beef with GALA is that I feel betrayed by the association, to which I have devoted a lot of effort and dedication. I feel betrayed because at its inception, it vowed to work with other groups and not to add to the confusion in the industry. It had the wonderful idea of creating a movement similar to the “Got Milk Campaign” for promoting the industry, it started a commendable relationship with Localization World (I know the history… I was there!), and made moves to make the industry more visible.

Then, things changed and the association started talking about sources of revenue and creating the reference event in the industry that would attract 2,000 participants (catering to clients, LSPs, and freelancers). So, from being the association that would bring sense to the industry and collaborate with others, GALA all of a sudden became a competitor, fighting for the share of pocket with LISA, Localization World, ALC, ELIA, ATA, and all other existing events.

As Marla Schulman – the president of the ALC -- nicely put in a comment in this blog: “So far I am disappointed to note that while GALA has been talking this talk as well, they have not been walking the walk, most notably with their latest announcement of their conference to be held just one week before the ALC's already scheduled annual conference taking place in Miami, May 19-22, 2010 (this despite specific requests made by the ALC asking them not to schedule their event at a conflicting time with ours).” I have also heard comments from ELIA, before I joined its board, that GALA had taken an arrogant position and that ELIA was not interested in pursuing a relationship with GALA anymore.

In my opinion, the GALA Cancun event did not bring any value to the industry as it attracted only somewhere between 70 and 100 participants, but no lasting effects. No press coverage (not even in Multilingual, let alone CNN, WSJ, NYT), and no new major discussions (unlike the ATA in New York and Localization and Translation in Thailand). And also in my opinion, GALA Prague 2010 should be cancelled, but I don’t expect it to happen.

Serge states that GALA 2010 will raise money for the association and deliver value for the members, because it will be relevant and well organized. How does he know that? GALA still has a call for papers out until January 10. So how can we know that it will be good if we still don’t know the content of the event?

Serge says: “Why is this industry so fragmented? It is fragmented because instead of cooperation, we are immersed in individualism and often only see competition, fight, desire to win over the others.”

And I say: GALA is losing its leadership in the industry because it is trying to do exactly what he criticizes in others. I feel like the mother who says that her son is the only one marching right in the military parade. Maybe I am wrong and everybody else is right, but I have my doubts.

I would rather see the seven Board members of GALA (why 7?) and their staff of three focus their efforts in more relevant stuff than begging people to go to their event in Prague. All the GALA resources will be consumed between now and May on the event. Is that a good use of our common resources? Is that the best that GALA can do for the industry? Why aren’t the seven board members giving interviews on their local TV channels? Why aren’t they meeting with other associations to see how they can pool resources for some of the activities that I have suggested in my blog post that generated all this controversy?

I am a member of GALA and I want it to succeed as a legitimate representative of the industry. The best contribution I can make is to be vocal about my disagreements. As I said in my previous post, “I don't like to be the easy critic who doesn't contribute with any solutions,” so I will keep pushing GALA to stop organizing events and taking the leadership role in other activities that only leaders can do.

Some Ideas for Associations to Generate Revenue

Every time I bring up the fact that there are too many events in the industry and that they tend to overlap, I am asked the same question: "How do you suppose we can cover our expenses if we don't raise money through events?"

Since I don't like to be the easy critic who doesn't contribute with any solutions, I have compiled some activities that associations could engage in to raise the visibility of the industry, instead of organizing events (which cost a lot of money for the organizers and participants, especially in an environment with limited willing sponsors).

• Special Advertising Section in business magazines. Associations can buy 4 or 8-page sections and sell advertising to its members. The material could be written by Common Sense Advisory. Good publications would be the likes of BusinessWeek, The Economist, Time Magazine, Fortune, just to name a few. This activity meets the goal or providing visibility for the industry and raising money (buy the space for X and sell it for 2X).
  
• Online fundraising is the wave of the future. As the “wired” generation matures, online may become the dominant form of fundraising. Associations should all have a "Donate Now" button on their sites.
• Membership drives. Dues are the main source of revenue of any association. By increasing the number of members through campaigns and direct sales associations can boost revenues. Instead of Managing Directors, associations should focus on hiring Sales Directors.
  
• Publications that can be sold in bulk to member companies with basic information about the industry. A "Localization 101" book would come in handy in the sales process. If an association had such a book available, I would buy 200 today as a Christmas gift.
  
• Government grants are often offered at federal, state or local level to non-profit associations. The American Association of Grant Professionals has links to professional grant writers. I don't know if any grants exist, but I have not searched for them either. I would look for grants in the U.S., E.U. institutions, and maybe Ireland.
  
• Gala dinners or concerts. Organizing fundraising events around other industry events is cheaper and requires less resources than organizing a conference. A night at the opera, a black tie dinner at a castle or museum, or special tickets for a rock concert can do wonders.
  
• Celebrity endorsement. I know it is hard to find someone like Angelina Jolie who is interested in the promotion of translation and localization companies. But if the industry aligns itself with initiatives like Translators without Borders, we might get someone to be the face of the language business. This is a good example of initiative that could be embraced by all the industry associations together.
• Viral marketing. Associations could get together to fund a generic 3 or 4 minute "Localization in Plain Language" video, similar to Twitter in Plain English. A video like this could go viral very easily and would cost about  $15,000. This is a typical cost that is too expensive for an individual company to bear, but an association could easily facilitate.
  
• Smart Public Relations is probably the most powerful tool associations have to promote the industry. Unfortunately, good public relations is something that takes time and costs money. But it is also the best way to spend money. In my humble opinion, next time associations get together, they should only talk about Public Relations. They could find two or three core messages that everybody (individual translators, translation companies, tools companies, associations) agrees on and pool their resources to promote those messages in local, regional, and global markets. PR is what is going to put us in magazines, on the radio, and on TV.
  

I am sure there are more initiatives that can be thought of and I am happy to continue thinking about them, but I don't want to come to a discussion where organizing conferences is the only idea or solution.

I understand that nonprofit organizations have limited resources (money, staff, technology, time) with which to raise money, but I want to make sure that the effort  put into fundraising has the highest return on investment. What I ask myself is: Are we sure that the event that just raised $10,000 was the best use of our staff time and effort? We need to calculate the direct and indirect costs of an event and determine the real net income generated. Are there better, more effective ways to raise more money for less cost and effort? I believe we need to take a hard look at how we are raising money (or wasting money) and come up with better alternatives to achieve our goals.

Finally, I need to acknowledge the efforts of the leaders of the different industry associations. They are all volunteers and contribute to the industry while still running their own businesses and taking care of their personal lives. All of this in exchange for criticism and bad manners from people like me.  For you, my gratitude and admiration (but that doesn't mean that I agree with you!)

About Associations and Events in the Translation Industy

It's that time of the year when we have to renew memberships in associations and decide where we are going to spend our hard-earned dollars, euros, and yens.

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.
  

 Now, a little bit about the current landscape:

• 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.

What do these organizations have in common? They all organize events. They all want my money as a member, a sponsor or a participant. Many of them overlap.

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:

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
3. 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).

So where is my beef with GALA and its event?

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.

Video of My Presentation in Bangkok

Here is a video of my presentation in Bangkok. If you missed the presentation at the ATA in New York, you will see that this one is very similar. The video lasts 36 minutes.

Localization and Translation Thailand 2009: A Great Event!

Sometimes I think that my job is participating in translation and localization events. Although I really enjoy the networking and the content, I must confess that there are too many and several of them just copy each other (but this is the topic of a future posting).

But every once in a while, in the most unexpected places, even a veteran like me can be surprised and re-energized by the contents of an event. For me, 2009 was the year of the small and unpretentious events culminating with Localization and Translation Thailand last week in Bangkok.

In the same line as the 6th Language and Technology Conference, in Córdoba (Argentina), and the ELIA Networking Days, in Vienna, the Thai event attracted fewer than 100 people, which made it a perfect venue for in-depth conversations, real networking, and the development of excellent business opportunities.

The highlights of the event were the keynote presentation by Andrew Rufener, the COO of Lexis Nexis Univentio, and the panel on new developments in localization R&D.

Andrew Rufener reported on his experience in implementing large scale machine translation in patent information services. A real case study by a group that thoroughly evaluated seven MT solutions and ended up selecting Asia Online's solution.

Philip Köhn, from the University of Edinburgh, showed some data on the performance of "monolingual translators" post-editing MT output compared to generic human translation. The concept of a monolingual translator is revolutionary enough, but the fact that industry domain experts perform better than professional translators in post editing tasks was viewed as heresy by the weaker souls in the audience.

My friend Hans Fenstermacher, representing GALA and Translations.com, made a compelling presentation about the challenges that localization has to face because of the way content is developed and handled.

Dion Wiggins, the master of cerimonies and the brains behind the whole event, unveiled some of the accomplishments of Asia Online's new technology and how the world will view language technology differently in the near future.

Finally, I really enjoyed Biraj Rath's presentation about the untapped opportunities about the Indian market. I was amazed at how much I didn't know about India.

All in all, an outstanding event that exceeded all my expectations. For 2010, I am looking forward to Think Latin America in Búzios, near my hometown of Rio de Janeiro, and to ELIA's Networking Days in Istanbul. Both events will be in April and I am really impressed with the line up of speakers and topics (full disclosure: I am helping both events with their programs).

And if you want to follow the Twitter activity of several of the participants with quotes and comments from the speakers and panelists, click here.

It's the End of the World: Crowdsourcing in Literature Actually Works!

Ok, a little context before my comments.

On September 15, Dan Brown's latest book, The Lost Symbol, was launched with much fanfare in the United States and around the world. Because of the secrecy involved with the contents of the book, no advance copies were released to foreign publishers so that they could have it translated and launched at the same time in their markets.

As reported here, Swedish publishers decided to assign the job to multiple translators in order to limit piracy and to prevent impatient fans from buying the English version of the book, by expediting the publishing of the Swedish translation.

Well... they did it. On October 21, 2009 — only 36 days after the launch of the English version of the book — Albert Bonniers Förlag released the book in Swedish. In that period, they were able to translate, edit, format, print, and distribute 300,000 copies of a 614-page book.

And how did they do it? This article in Swedish (I read it using Google Translate) narrates the details of the adventure.  But for our purposes, what matters is that seven translators worked on this project. Their names are Leo Andersson, Tove Janson Borglund, Ola Klingberg, Lennart Olofsson, Peter Samuelsson, Gösta Svenn, Helena Sjöstrand Sven. From what I could see in AdLibris, the Swedish online bookstore, all of them are very experienced translators.

As one review says: "Another positive aspect: the translation is actually quite okay. Even here, I have put a sadly, because it would have been preferable if the insane circumstances surrounding the translation into Swedish - seven translators, a few mere weeks - had left its mark in the text."

What do I think about this? I think that this must have been a very exciting project, as it epitomizes the power of collaboration.

The publisher needed to have the book out fast (I saw the English version of the book exhibited very prominently at the Stockholm airport both times I was there before the launch of the Swedish version) in order not to lose 150,000 sales as the publisher of Harry Potter did because of delayed translations. Time-to-market was the critical element in protecting its investment and maximizing its return.

And before you say the Q word, I actually believe that several translators working together might deliver better quality than one working alone.

Special thanks for my friend Anne-Marie Colliander Lind, from Common Sense Advisory, who helped me collect some of the data for this posting.

Productivity Prediction and Google Translate

The slide show in my previous posting ends with a quote from the "Visionary's Handbook" by Wacker & Taylor, which says that “The closer your vision gets to a provable future, the more your are simply describing the present. In the same way, the more certain you are of a future outcome, the more likely you will be wrong.”

One of my most controversial predictions at the ATA Presentation was that in the future, translator productivity would be measured in tens of thousands of words. Looks like the authors of the book were right: I was just describing the present. In fact, I received an e-mail from SDL today promoting a quote by my friend Marian Greenfield that she did over thirty thousand words in ten hours of work, thanks to the features of her translation tool of choice.

The e-mail advertisement states:

34,501 words. 10 hours. One translator.
Sound impossible?


"I just completed a 34,501 word project in 10 hours thanks to AutoSuggest™, Context Match and the other nifty time-saving features within SDL Trados Studio 2009 SP1. That’s without having much of anything in the pre-existing TM!" Marian Greenfield, Translator and Trainer

There you have it. It is possible. And that is only the beginning.

And since we are at it, have you played with the new interface of Google Translate? It shows the translation as you type the original in the translate box. It's really cool to see how the translation changes as you add words, and therefore context, to the sentence. And if you translate from a foreign language into English, you can actually hear the translated sentence by clicking the sound icon next to the translation. How cool is that?

Last week I met with the Program Managers for Google Translate and Google Translator Toolkit and learned about some features that are coming up. I predict that in less than six months Google Translator Toolkit will be a perfectly functional tool that can be integrated into an LSPs Translation Management System. Play with it and get used to it... that's my recommendation.

Signals of Shift in the Language Industry: Are You In or Are You Out?

This is the content of my presentation at the ATA Conference in New York. The conference was very well attended with some 2,500 participants. The room was once again too small, so I apologize for those who had to stand outside.

Here is call for the presentation from the ATA program: "First, translations were handwritten. Then, there were typewriters, computers, and translation memories. Each milestone demanded a shift in the way translation work was done. We are on the threshold of a major paradigm shift where old standards and ideas are being left behind. Translators and language services providers who are ready to make the shift now will stand to profit and grow. Those who like the status quo and accept "the rules" will wonder why they just don't make money like they used to. This will be an engaging presentation that is guaranteed to make you think. You've been warned"!

Signals of Shift in the Language Industry: Are You In or Are You Out?

View more presentations from renatob.

Very Modern Management Philosophy

I was introduced to this set of slides from Netflix last week and I must have shared it with at least 50 people. It is a primer on modern management for service companies. My attention was particularly drawn to two areas of the presentation: "Freedom & Responsibility" and "Context, not Control."

Netflix's model is "to increase employee freedom as we grow, rather than limit it, to continue to attract and nourish innovative people, so we have better chance of long-term continued success." This sounds like music to my ears.

The company doesn't track vacation days, because one of their employees pointed out that "We don't track hours worked per day or per week, so why are we tracking days of vacation per year?"

To illustrate that you don't need detailed policies for everything, they quote Patty McCord: "There is no clothing policy at Netflix, but no one has come to work naked lately."

All in all, a well prepared document that lays out sound guidelines for a successful company.

Culture

View more presentations from Reed Hastings.

New Paradigm for Language Services

If you are a subscriber of Multilingual magazine, you must have already received the September issue, which focuses on Arabic language issues and opportunities. If you aren't a subscriber, what are you waiting for? Click here and subscribe now!

The last page of the current issue (called Takeaway) brings an article that collects my recent thoughts about innovation and impending changes in the translation and localization industry. I had a hard time recognizing myself in the pre-LASIK picture that they used to illustrate the article, but who am I to complain.

Here's the full text of the article for your enjoyment. Comments are welcome.

"I have been reading and thinking a lot about innovation. My motivation is an impression that there is very little of it in the language services industry. I also sense that the industry is on the verge of a major change, so I have been trying to pinpoint the signals of the shift to a new mindset.

But first, why change? Why the need for a new paradigm for language services? Because we need to do more with less, we must improve productivity. The growth rate of content is much higher than the growth rate of translators. I can double the volume of translation in one year, but I cannot double the number of translators that are available in the market. It takes many years to create a professional translator.

For a few years, I have been saying and writing that there are three dogmas that prevent progress in the industry.

• Translation memories are an asset. This brilliant idea probably came from the founders of Trados in the early nineties. While an excellent argument to sell tools, this concept is a fallacy. In fact, translation memories have no intrinsic value -- they are only useful if there is a match and when the translator knows how to use it -- it is impossible to assign an economic value to them. Translation memories are at best a cost-saving tool and fulfill their purpose more efficiently when widely shared.

• More eyes improve quality. The TEP (translation-editing-proofing) process is so ingrained in the collective mind that even industry standards like the EN 15038 have been designed around it. The reality is that any quality system predicates that more steps in a process increase the probability of incorporating mistakes and invite human error. The solution is not “catching mistakes,” but finding and paying the best resources to “translate it right the first time.”

• Fewer translators produce more consistent output. The fact is that most of the consistency issues in translation are related to style and terminology standardization. These are elements that can be agreed up front and even automated, so that as many translators as available should perform a translation. There will be 30 to 40 writers who write the content in English, but we still believe that only one or two people should do the translation. More and better trained translators working together will produce good translations faster and cheaper.

In “Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation,” author Jim Utterback stresses that competitors in most industries not only resist innovative threats, but actually resist all efforts to understand them, preferring to further their positions in older products. This means that companies that are investing in the existing technologies, processes, and standards in our industry don’t think that change will happen and feel safe with their offerings.

The sign that I was looking for came in the form of Google Translator Toolkit. The first salvo of a revolution that is going to take hold of the language services industry. The tool itself is bare bones and not ready for significant commercial use, but for the first time, a significant player has challenged the three dogmas that I described above.

Instead of trying to "out-Trados" Trados, or trying to increase the productivity of processes and pump up technology that is old and cumbersome. Google Translator Toolkit incorporates machine translation and all the collaboration features that allow multiple translators to work on the same project, in addition to providing an environment for translation memory sharing.

The innovation guru Clayton Christensen says that breakthrough innovations come when tension is greatest and the resources are most limited. Now that buyers of language services are forced to cut cost and reduce staff, technology offerings from companies like Lingotek, Elanex, Sajan, and Lionbridge, which can easily incorporate the features of Google Translator Toolkit, suddenly become more attractive and much more affordable than the traditional desktop and client-server solutions that have dominated the market for the last 20 years.

Ultimately, as the next generation of localization managers starts making technology and service procurement decisions, the dogmas will fall and innovation will take hold. The new mantras will be collaboration, knowledge sharing, and increased translator output. At least until these ideas also become old.


Renato Beninatto is the CEO of milengo, a full-service worldwide provider of localization, engineering and testing services with operations in 18 key markets across the Americas, Europe, and Asia."

Lionbridge Stock is Way Up

I'm not an investor in the stock market, but I must say that I am pleased to see Lionbridge's stock come up from around one dollar to $3.00 in the last three months (see graph). It's an impressive appreciation, and it gives me the feeling that I should have put my money there. Definitely a better return than many companies around.

Although I am not a stock analyst and I don't know why the appreciation happened, I am happy to see that Lionbridge stock is recovering its value. The market capitalization of the company is still low at $174.26M, but definitely a good sign for the industry as a whole.

Collaborative Translation Expands

This month, two interesting developments in the area of collaborative translation:

• Facebook applies for patent for Community Translation on a Social Network. If you have translated on the Facebook Translation platform, like I have, you know that the tool works very well. The only limitation of community translation, when it is voluntary, is that larger chunks of text never get translated.
• Swedish newspapers reported yesterday Dan Brown's first new novel since "The Da Vinci Code" will be translated by six translators. The objective is to limit piracy and to prevent impatient fans from buying the English version of the book, by expediting the publishing of the Swedish translation.

What's the relevance of these stories?

Collaborative translation or community translation is taking hold as a valid process for commercial projects. The usual contention is that in order to achieve consistency, it is better to have as few translators working on a project as possible is trumped by the commercial imperative: It is better to have a good translation - even in the literary world - that is delivered on time, than a perfect translation that arrives too late to the market.

New York Has Six Official Languages. And It is Sued over Translations.

The New York Time publishes a story about a lawsuit against the city's welfare agency for not enforcing a law that requires the provision of translation services.

According with the Equal Access to Human Services Act of 2003, the city had sixteen months to have its forms made available in Arabic, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian and Spanish.

The commissioner of the Human Resources Administration says that the agency “provides between 7,000 and 8,000 interpretation services each year through our contracted services.” It also provides interpretation services by hundreds of bilingual staff workers, and other community resources. The agency has also translated 800 client-contact forms, brochures and notices into the six required languages, he said.

The article quotes Language Line as the provider of telephone interpretation services for some agencies.

Looks there is opportunity for more translation services in New York.

Not a good day for interpretation

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton had their little issues with interpreters yesterday in Mexico and Congo, respectively.

At a press conference, Obama didn't get the interpretation to a question by a Mexican journalist. Apparently it was a malfunction of the wireless equipment. However, Obama's reaction was gracious: "Perdóneme, I didn't get a translation on that one," Mr. Obama said to a room full of laughs. "It sounded like a very good question."



In Kinshasa, Hillary Clinton responded angrily to a question posed by a student at the local University. According to CNN, the student asked Clinton what President Obama would think of a deal between China and Congo, but pool reporters in the room said the interpreter made a mistake, posing the question as what would Bill Clinton think.

Clinton looked surprised when she first heard the translation in the headset, and then sharply replied, "You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of state, I am. You ask my opinion. I will tell you my opinion; I'm not going to channel my husband."



As I have mentioned previously in this blog, this is confirmation that only bad translations make the news. When was the last time you saw a story about a good translation? Did you ever? If so, please share.

Elements of a Collaborative TM Environment

Last week I was in Québec City for the ATA-TCD Conference, which was superbly organized by Rina Ne'eman and Grant Hamilton.

The biggest takeaway of the event was the last presentation of the last day: A panel presentation by Don Shin, from 1-Stop Translation, and Rocío Txabarriaga, from Common Sense Advisory, named "The Future of the Translation Industry: MT, TM, Open Source, Crowdsourcing: Where’s It All Headed? And What Should You Do to Prepare?"

For his intervention, Don compiled some of the major efforts being done in those areas, but what I liked the most was his depiction of what the desktop of a translator working in a collaborative manner might look like.

The key point is that the translator is in control. At the top, you have the source text. Right below it, you have the translator's TM, the project's TM, and a Machine Translation of the segment. And below that, the translated segment.

It is up to the translator to choose which one of these sources she is going to use. On the right panel you have access to terminology and a chat window, to ask for help in live mode to other people working on the same project.

Finally, on the bottom right, there is a fare meter, that shows how much money the translator is making on the project. Whether this is a motivator or a demotivator depends on the price that the translator is getting.

Another panel discussing Translation Management Technologies, moderated by Duncan Shaw, failed to address what all the LSPs in the room were looking for: Interoperability. What I heard LSPs saying is that they want to let their translators work with any tool that they prefer (Trados, SDL, MemoQ, Across, whatever) and not to require them to have different tools for different projects.

What the industry seems to want, and the technology providers can't seem to be able to deliver, is a standard format for Translation Memories that does not get corrupted if you change from one tool to another. Like as Comma Delimited File that can be opened by Excel, Lotus, MySQL or Oracle, without any data loss.

I guess that was the original promise of TMX.

Interview about "Quality Doesn't Matter" and other topics

Ivette Camargo López and I had a long conversation about some of the topics that are close to my heart: Quality in translation, TEP, translator education and training, pricing and value.

Ivete did an awesome job transcribing and editing our talk, and I must confess that I didn't realize that we had covered so much. The interview is posted in her blog Lapsus Translinguae.

While you are there, also read the interview with my friend Kirti Vashee about the Future of Tranlation and MT.