Transatlantic Turkey Day: Just Another Thursday

While one half of our business -- the American side -- will come to a virtual standstill during the next few days because of the Thanksgiving holiday, all the cooking and houseguests that are involved, and all the sleeping in front of the fireplace that needs to be done, for our Austrian side (Dagmar in Vienna), it's business as usual. When you live in the U.S., where even fast food outlets are closed on Thanksgiving, it's sometimes hard to believe that nothing special is happening in Europe and elsewhere. This is, of course,...

10 Lessons from the Trade Show Floor

Many of us have been talking about working with more direct clients lately. While a substantial number of freelancers really enjoy working with agencies who take care of the business of translation, many others enjoy the higher prices and direct contact associated with end consumers. We fall in the latter category, and decided to explore some new methods for finding new clients. One of my dear friends here in Vegas, who works in the gaming industry, offered me a free pass to roam the exhibit halls at G2E, the Global Gaming...

The Business of Referrals

As the vast majority of translators and language professionals are self-employed, we all know the value of referrals. We have many other friends who are entrepreneurs in different fields -- lawyers, dentists, HR consultants, auto mechanics, owners of small restaurants -- and we gladly refer them, as we love their services. We are delighted to say that several fellow ATA members have referred us this week. On the other hand, we also referred several small projects to our translator friends for languages we don't translate into....

We Heart Our Direct Clients

It's time for an ode to our wonderful clients, which have been made up by 100% direct clients for six years minus a first-time agency experience last week. Here is why we like and enjoy working with you so much: You really value our services as professionals You pay us our regular rate and know that you shouldn't haggle as if you were at a Turkish spice market or Mexican tianguis You don't send out mass e-mails looking for the cheapest translation rate You understand the source text, as it's about your business, and you...

Unexpensive Translation?

As seen this morning on the Las Vegas edition of Craigs List under writing/editing/translations, this is another sad example of what the lack of barriers to entry has done to our profession. There are several things that are quite disturbing about this ad. First and foremost is the point that being bilingual does not make you a translator. Being bilingual is the minimum qualification; the lowest common denominator. Clearly, this person is not bilingual. There's a dictionary to look up terms, but no self-respecting translator...

Proz Search Box for iGoogle

Just like many fellow translators, we love iGoogle. Now Dagy's boyfriend, Tom Gruber, our resident IT guru, website designer, go-to-techie-anything and one of the driving forces behind our company, programmed this nifty box that integrates the Proz search box into your iGoogle for easy searching. We use Proz pretty much exclusively for term searching, and it comes in very handy. Get the link on your iGoogle here or use the +iGoogle below....

ATA Bloggers' Lunch: Where's Masked Translator?

One of the many highlights of this year's ATA conference in Orlando, FL, was the bloggers' lunch that Jill Sommer and Corinne McKay organized. There are a few very active bloggers in the ATA, and as blogging for the translation world is a somewhat recent phenomenon, we wanted to meet other bloggers in person (although many of us had already met) and exchange ideas. In addition, blogging guru Corinne also presented a...

Kennedy Space Center: Linguists Needed?

This Sunday, as a fantastic ending to the 49th annual ATA conference in Orlando (more to come on that), I headed to Kennedy Space Center, about one hour's drive from Orlando. At KSC, it is all about the history of space exploration, its proudest moments, and, most importantly, about the people who pioneered the race for the stars. I had the chance to meet one of those human stars: a real, true astronaut. John Blaha...

Thunderbird Auto-Responder Woes

As mentioned here and on all translator blogs in the last few weeks, the American Translators Association (ATA) Annual Conference starts tomorrow, November 4 (yes, election day) in Orlando, Florida. I will be leaving tomorrow morning to attend two very interesting pre-conference seminars and will attend all days of the regular conference through Saturday, November 8. On my endless to-do list before tomorrow's bright and early departure, I noted that I needed to program an out-of-office message, which I have done hundreds of...