#utic

A translator’s paradise?

Every year I’m lucky enough to attend a few industry conferences which always provide an excellent environment for gathering feedback, spending time on a one to one basis with people working in the industry and generally getting a reality check on the things I do on a day to day basis.  It’s true that I spend a lot of time working in the SDL Community where I do get exposed to the sort of…

Ukrainian Translation Industry Conference (UTIC) 2013: impressions and insights

So this weekend I attended long-awaited and first big translation conference in Ukraine. I mostly attend IT conferences and events (like ZFConf, IT Jam, Microsoft Blogfest, Oracle Day), so this was new interesting experience: to see many colleagues, to meet and communicate with interesting people, to feel community spirit which solo translators sometimes lack.

So conference brought a lot of new meetings, inspiration and insights, helped to define and adjust direction of professional growth and development.

Here are some takeaways from the conference I want to share (sorry, if the author isn't indicated):

- @hansfens: TEP model might be collapsing now -> again we have mentions about small pieces of content that are instantly coming and need to be returned quickly.

- @renatobeninatto: The translation industry is not fragmented. It's pulverized.

- @Jeromobot: Translators and interpreters are faceless -> if end-user don't feel that he/she readers a translation, translator did a good job.

- Sergei Kornienko: if you value your clients more than the money you get from them, you will be more successful.

- Gordon Husbands from @WordbankLtd: translation is the cheapest part of going global. Companies receive translation costs back in the form of increased number of customers and sales.

- @renatobeninatto: Translation companies should add value to the process. An agency does not add value, it just shuffles projects.

- @hansfens: We must connect and network. Share knowledge and help promote the language enterprise.

- Hans Fenstermacher on current industry trends: quality is often assumed, so selling on quality is difficult.

- Elena Rudenko from @EleksL10n about models of localization business: focus on translation, focus on platform, partnership relations.

Vendors want to be partners but they don't act as partners. They should be a part of solution to be considered as a partner.

- Translation is like vine - not everybody buys the most expensive one, most people buy wine of average quality -> (But nobody forbids to occupy a niche of the most expensive and high quality wines :)

- Freelance is more a business than a professional activity (Oleg Rudavin) -> agree and we should act and build our business accordingly.

- Freelance translation is like a one-man show :) (Oleg Rudavin)

And two posts about UTIC in tweets from Sergey Rybkin: first day and second day.

Enjoy!