Entrepreneurial Ideas of the Week

A few weeks ago, Judy was lucky enough to be among the 17 recipients who were selected as "Women to Watch 2010" by local business newspaper In Business Las Vegas. It was a great honor and a very nice awards ceremony. After the event, a few very entrepreneurial things happened.

• Right after the article ran, Judy's phone started ringing. While a few other publications also included notes about the awards, the callers were mostly -- get this -- companies that specialize in framing newspaper articles. In a very entrepreneurial way, they receive hundreds of publications every week, and look through them to see who has been profiled, interviewed, or received an award. Then they call those people, congratulate them, and tell them they've already created a special plaque and that one just has to say the word! Needless to say, this is pushing a bit too hard, but the thought is brilliant. It's analogous to what linguists should be doing, time permitting. Read relevant publications, learn what's new in the industry, and identify possible new clients. However, don't cold call but find a way to get introduced by a mutual connection.
• A few weeks after the award ceremony, congratulatory notes started coming in the mail. These were from friends and family, but also from the 16 fellow honorees, mostly executives in the areas of gaming, law, health care, etc. What a great idea! These accomplished women are going out of their way to congratulate other honorees and to build on the newly created common bond. It's a fantastic idea, one that we wish we'd thought of as well.

Bottom line: entrepreneurial ideas are everywhere, and we can always pick up a suggestion or two and apply it to our own practices. With that, Judy is off to write some congratulatory note sto her co-honorees....

Link: Translator = Interpreter?

For a great illustration of the terminology issue we run into quite frequently, head over to read Mox and Mina's translation adventures on Alejandro Moreno-Ramos' blog. The difference between translation (the written word) and interpretation (the spoken word) is something linguists frequently have to explain to customers and the general public. The mainstream media can't get it right, either: NPR constantly refers to "she is talking through her translator" when reporting from Iraq, and MSNB doesn't understand the difference. Let's look at this general confusion as a great opportunity to educate clients about the lingo used in our business. And instead of an explanation, how about a great cartoon?

Royalty-Free Images for Blogs and Newsletters

Our wonderful IT guru, Tom Gruber, just told us about a new website with more than three hundred thousand royalty-free stock photos in every possible category you can possibly think of. These are great for those of us who write blogs and/or create newsletters for non-profit associations that don't have the funds to pay for images. There's no catch to the site, but be aware that if you search for say, dogs, the first results you will see will be "sponsored" - that means, those images won't be royalty-free, and it clearly says so. The really free images appear on the same page. We've used several different royalty-free image websites, and are delighted to hear that a new one has become available. The website also includes a myriad of free tutorials about useful photography and web issues, such as changing eye colors in Photoshop, making a flag wave in GIMP, and all sorts of other things you hadn't even thought of. Check out the stock.exchnge site. You can also contribute to the free photo movement by uploading images that you'd like to share with the world. Sharing is good.

Time Management Experiment: Pre-Set E-Mail Times

In preparation for some of Judy's upcoming time management workshops, she'd decided to do a little experiment. We've both been able to manage our time fairly well and get a lot done during our days, but there are a lot of distractions. Mainly, e-mail comes to mind. It's difficult to resist the temptation of checking e-mail every 10 seconds and immediately answering messages. It's no secret that your productivity and efficiency decrease when you are constantly interrupting what you are doing (=translating, ideally).

Hence, Judy is making the commitment, at least for a few days, to check e-mail once an hour, at the top of the hour. She'll even close the e-mail program as to not give in to the lure of e-mail. She'll report back on how she did (Dagmar predicts she will still check e-mail constantly).

What about you, readers? Have you tried to limit yourself to pre-set e-mail times? Do you have any other e-mail time management techniques, tricks, and suggestions? We'd love to hear from you.

Our Favorite Translation Cartoon

We should probably wait until our book, the Entrepreneurial Linguist, is published, but we are so excited about this cartoon that we just had to share it. Our wonderful colleague, translator, and translator cartoonist extraordinaire, Alejandro Moreno-Ramos of Spain, draws some of the funniest cartoons we know. He has generously contributed a fantastic cartoon to our book, which will appear on the first few pages. We tried to pay for his work -- to no avail. Thanks so much, Alejandro. We like his work so much that we will also include several of his previously published cartoons in our book, probably one in each chapter. Check out Mox and Mina's adventures.

Live English->German TV Interpretation: Scary

Now that Judy has started her court interpreter certification and Dagmar is working on her advanced conference interpreting degree, we've been thinking a lot about interpretation. Specifically, about how much of a challenge it is, and about the different high-pressure environments that we would not want to work in. One of them is live television -- think Miss Universe, award ceremonies, press conferences, etc. These jobs are best reserved for highly experienced simultaneous interpreters with nerves of steel. We've been honing our interpretation skills with the help of web 2.0, have been interpreting a lot of YouTube videos and have watched hundreds of outstanding interpretations. Our hats are off to our colleagues who can remain cool as cucumbers in front of a live television audience.

However, a few days ago, our colleague Giuseppina Gatta sent us a video about an interpretation that, well, wasn't good. It is English->German and features LaToya Jackson accepting an award in Dresden, Germany, on behalf of her late brother Michael. Again, this is a very tough job, but it doesn't seem as if the translator's interpreting skills are quite up to par. See for yourselves...

Link: Basic SEO for Linguists

This month, the Institute of Translation and Interpreting's Bulletin published one of Judy's article, which addresses an issue dear to every website owner's heart: search engine optimization. Inspired by all the strategies and tips that Judy has learned from our IT guru, Tom Gruber, she put together an easy-to-read article with tips and tricks. The article contains no hard-to-understand jargon and is written from one linguist to another: not from one techie to another. Translation: it's written in plain English.

While Judy does hold the copyright for all her articles, we've also verified with the Bulletin's wonderful editor, Rachel Malcolm, that we have permission to use Judy's articles on our forums, including our upcoming book. Please consider joining the ITI in the UK, which is a fantastic organization for linguists. Their outstanding bimonthly printed newsletter is included with membership.

We hope you enjoy the "Basic SEO for Linguists" article. We'd be most interested in hearing additional strategies for SEO. There's always a lot to learn!

A New Field: Court Interpretation

This week, after much hesitation, Judy decided to take the first step towards becoming a certified court interpreter for Spanish in the state of Nevada. It's a difficult and long process with a 5% pass rate on the first try for those who take the written and oral exam in the same year. We have both always had a lot of respect for those interpreters who are able to work in high-pressure court environments with extremely high stakes. Judy wasn't sure if she had the necessary knowledge of the court system to start the process, and while she has found that she has a good foundation thanks to many years as a legal translator, there is a tremendous amount of things to learn. It's a humbling experience.

The court interpreter certification workshop was put on by the Supreme Court of Nevada, which does an excellent job at administering the program. Andrea Krlickova is very efficient at running this certification process (by herself for the entire state!) and has been delightful. The trainer was the well-known and respected Agustín de la Mora, one of the leading authorities on interpreter training. The two-day workshop was very informative and enlightening, and, as opposed to other states that face budget crises, we are glad to see that Nevada is still offering the certification and workshop.

On Judy's to-do list:

• Get a tape recorder and record a simultaneous and/or consecutive interpretation every day. You only get better by doing this frequently.
• Read the most important works on court interpretation, especially Holly Mikkelson's books.
• Gain a solid understanding of Nevada court terminology, including responsibilities of each court.
• Listen to YouTube videos and interpret them simultaneously.
• Ask colleagues for honest feedback.

It's thrilling and challenging to expand our interpretation services and move beyond escort community, and health care interpretation. Judy took the written exam today, and in March she will know whether she will be able to take the difficult oral exam in September.

Our hats are off to all your court interpreters! If you have any suggestions for those starting out in this particular field, Judy would love to hear them.

Adobe Reader Warning

Our IT guru just alerted us to the following issue, which we would like to share with our readers. If you are like us, you probably use Adobe Reader quite frequently. Unfortunately, some critical vulnerabilities have just been identified. Here is more information:

Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities to take control of the affected system. All it takes is to open a PDF document or stumble across a page which embeds one. This issue only affects users on Windows PCs (lucky Mac users).

The solution is to disable JavaScript support in Adobe Reader and Acrobat. You can disable it via the Preferences menu (Edit -> Preferences -> JavaScript and un-check Enable Acrobat JavaScript).

Have You Updated Your Rates?

We have written about the need to adjust your rates on January 1 very frequently. So, have you done it? January 1 is the best day to do this, unless you spend the entire day at the gym working on your other New Year's resolutions. The reason you need to adjust your rates is simple: inflation. With your very small rate increase, you are simply ensuring that you have the same purchasing power this year as you had in the previous year. If you don't increase your rates, you are effectively giving yourself a pay decrease. That doesn't sound like a good way to start the year, does it? To read more about inflation, visit the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and learn about the Consumer Price Index. And be grateful you don't live in Zimbabwe, where inflation has been 79,600,000,000%.

And yes, we know, you will say: the girls at Translation Times should lead the way, yet they haven't adjusted their rates. And you are right, but we have a good reason. Our wonderful IT guru is in the middle of a rather complex server migration this week, and we don't want to add another element to it. Once the migration is complete, we will update our rates as well. We'll be precisely one week late.