Thursday February 21st, 2019
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09:30 - 10:15 GMT FINISHED
"The digital mindset: Beyond the technological fads"
The increasing density of digital connections is redefining the boundaries of competition and sources of value for the customer in almost all sectors of activity, especially where information is a key element. This phenomenon requires a new combination of business strategies and changes in the structures and practices of organisations. The digitalisation implies a radical change of mentality. In order to face this challenge, current managers and proffessionals must be able to think in digital terms. Thinking in digital is not equivalent to knowing the new technologies but the impact of these in the redesign of the processes and the cultural challenge that implies in the organisation to lead this transformation. Managers and proffessionals of the XXI Century must reinforce the capacities they already possess but at the same time encourage the development of new capacities to recognise the opportunities and threats of the digital and thus be able to manage them productively and maximise the value of their business; in short, they must develop what we could define as a “digital mindset”.
10:45 - 11:30 GMT FINISHED
"Computer assisted interpretation"
From the meeting of MT, AI, CAT tool and human resources was born CASSIS, a real time help for simultaneous interpreters. As we designed the model using the modern technology in order to improve the human performance, its fields of use are numerous and various as real time support for consecutive and simultaneous interpreting, formation, access for people living with reduced hearing, transcription etc. It’s special, highly professional use responds to a real demand from the language industry market as it reduces the interpreters stress (by having a real time written text from the oral presentation), reduces interpreters reaction time (by highlighting the previously added technical terms), increase the quality of the information transmission (by writing the concise data’s given in the presentation to interpret). We have designed our tool for being easy to use, easy to access (next step is webbased application), highly preferment (using the latest technology in terms of speech recognition, Cat tool, user interface design etc). We are willing to step in to the market of the formation of the next generation’s interpreters in order to facilitate and support their first steps. We are willing to be present of the present’s generation interpreter’s life with a preferment and user-friendly tool. And last but not least, we are willing to be present in the past’s generation interpreter’s life by helping them to have a new view on this profession they are practicing for a while.
11:35 - 12:20 GMT FINISHED
"Control your screen time and measure your productivity – spending less time to do more, seriously"
I experienced different working environment in last 10+ years of my career in language industry: from full-time office employee to a small business owner, then again full-time employee with a remote perk, to full-time freelancer working from home and have a big client I work for remotely. I went from being single and with plenty of time to have a partner and a big portion of free time and up until now having all that + two kids. At one point I realised my screen time is absolutely harmful to my health and that lead me to figure it out if all that screen time is truly necessary. It turned out after some years of measurements and experiments I can do differently and better. I will share what tools I tried, which I still use and how, what are the benefits of all that and how anyone in the audience can improve quality of work and life with just small changes – with a little help of technology.
13:30 - 14:15 GMT FINISHED
"Remote teams. The challenges."
Since I’ve been through all the stages that a translation agency has, I believe I have a valuable knowledge to share with the rest. The company I am working in and represent has no and never had in-house translators, we work with all our freelancers remotely, in addition, I am happy to mention that the chosen strategy helped the company to be in the market for more than 20 years and we are still growing. It’s always important to understand your team you are working with. In my presentation I’d like to emphasise how important is to perceive their working methods, follow on their improvement, and give recommendations and insights on any new tools available in the industry. I’m highly interested in the EQ field, so I have read many articles about this where I found a lot of useful information and trying to adapt the given recommendations how to work with your team (remotely or no) in my daily office life too. I still do some project management in the company, since this allow me to stay up-to-date. We all do sometimes face more complicated projects, where specific tools shall be used or some specific requirements are set. I strictly follow my own rule that when a new project is started (whether it is continuous or is a bit more complicated than the others) I do it from A to Z myself. I clarify all the issues with a client first (if any), and this allows me to assist the freelancers working remotely faster and in more efficient way. Sometimes projects shall be carried out in a client’s environment (system, platform etc.), so it is very important to understand how everything works. In order to do all the mentioned – communication skills and ability to control your remote team are the essential parts in the project management. This is what I would like to talk about in my presentation – how to communicate with the remotely working freelancers and how to “control” them.
14:45 - 15:15 GMT FINISHED
"Finding the right talent – A case study of launching a talent programme"
There is a huge demand for translators in certain language pairs and specialist areas as well as for many in-house positions, but not enough suitable candidates. Or so it seems. To solve this problem, an in-house talent programme was created to find and train young talents for the language industry in the digital age. This presentation introduces DelinguaLAB from its launch to the feedback it received from graduates. It will present our take-aways and plans for the future as well as practical tips for LSPs that might want to launch a similar programme and for freelancers who are in search of more work or who are willing to switch to different positions within the industry.
Friday February 22nd, 2019
09:00 - 09:45 GMT FINISHED
"Translator 4.0 in the era of globalisation 3.0"
The new technologies being introduced to the language field during the era of Globalisation 3.0 (L. Friedman, 2005) have also created new industries/economies (e.g. language/translation/localisation industry etc.), entirely new kinds of jobs (e.g. professional translators, project managers, localisers, post-editors etc.) and new ways of working practices (e.g. freelance working, remote working etc.). As we are going towards the era of more powerful machines, artificial intelligence and industry 4.0, we have also witnessed (and will witness continuously) disappearance, elimination or transformation of some old practices, technologies and the jobs associated with them. The current interest in AI technologies in the field of translation is being driven by several key factors, including increased demands from consumers and producers of translation, recent technological breakthroughs, and significant investments in machine translation by individuals, institutions and companies. This interest is accompanied by the question of whether translation practitioners’ ergonomic needs are being met at their workplaces and by the tools they use. In this study, I will present some interactions and confrontations between human agents and computer-integrated translation technologies such as AI-powered, collaborative cloud-based ecosystems designed for automatic/assisted translation. In order to explain some basic ideas and concepts, and better understand some main factors that are radically affecting the nature of translation and its practitioners, I will investigate the increasing importance of the role of knowledge, creativity, digital-cognitive labour and cognitive ergonomics within the scope of Translator 4.0, namely Post-Editors.
09:50 - 10:35 GMT FINISHED
"Let your Project Management software choose the right vendor for you"
The presentation will show how collected data about jobs completed by vendors in the past could help in choosing right vendor(s) for future jobs, using Evaluation and Suggestion module of Janus’s Project Management system as an example.
11:05 - 11:50 GMT FINISHED
"Translation competency evaluation for LSPs"
Every day LSP Vendor Management teams scour the internet for translation talent to join their resource pools. Scanning through CVs, checking references, sometimes requesting sample translations and after a lot of back and forth emails, a Vendor Manager may select the freelance translators they looking for. With this they at best meet the minimum Vendor Qualification requirements of ISO17100, but this in no way validates the professional competencies of a translator of section 3.1.3 of the standard. We present a fit for purpose solution for LSPs to source, evaluate and hire competent translation talent who are domain experts within a very short time frame while supporting translators to find jobs they are qualified for.
13:15 - 14:00 GMT FINISHED
"Project Management tips, tricks, and tools for freelancers"
Ever have a client request a job into your target language plus three more? Or a request to translate an enormous amount of words in a short time? Even though we may opt to work independently as freelancers, it’s quite common to find ourselves handling large projects where we have to set up and coordinate a team. This is a time-consuming and often nerve-wracking task, but there are several methodologies and tools we can use to help in these situations. The speaker will discuss some methodologies and tools to help freelancers navigate project management.
