CEO at TextMinded Danmark A/S, Robert Etches has been in the translation business since the mid-1980s, working with everything from translation, revision and copywriting through developing online proofing tools and terminology portals to connecting know-how. Among much else Robert also took the initiative to form the Nordic CAT Group in 2010 and served on the planning committee for the March 2011 GALA conference in Lisbon. One of his areas of responsibility in TextMinded is to monitor new trends and ensure that our clients are geared to meet tomorrow’s world. View from the Edge is a collection of some of Robert’s speeches and writings.

GALA Cascais: Passion networking anno 2011

What defines a good conference? Well, having never been the greatest of conference goers I’m hardly qualified to judge, but nevertheless I’m willing to flaunt my ignorance of such matters and declare: “GALA Cascais 2011 was a good conference.”

This despite some of the trump cards not living up to their Great Expectations: the Portuguese weather gods sulked, only easing up when the Madding Crowd had dispersed; the Tools’ Bonanza fizzled, spluttered and died; a few of the GALA faithful were not at their ebullient best this time round; and the biggest gripe of all – Dear Presenters, too many of you had loaded your slides with more bullet points than a Spaghetti Western, and then went on to belabour your audience by reading them ad verbum. We came to watch and listen to you, with a backing section of stimulating slides. We can all read and don’t need your help in that department.

OK – one more thing while I’m in the bitchy corner: you hungry young men with the hard sell tactics (‘Our product can do everything short of flying you to the moon’): you’re selling your wares to a bunch of artfy-farty linguists who would be more impressed by a subtle reference to Proust – or just doing something ‘silly’ like naming your company after your daughter rather than yet another meaningless acronym. I’m sure your products are great, but overselling is more likely going to scare away than convince such a bunch of old cynics.

All right: Now for the good stuff. We got off to an emotive start with brief comments from Japanese and Egyptian colleagues about the recent events in their countries. Their heartfelt words certainly put everything else in perspective.

These were followed by a good keynote address that got us thinking new thoughts (the main goal of attending conferences?), first by looking back and then pointing us towards future horizons. Jochen Hummel (ESTeam AB) was like an old circus horse returning to the arena – and several participants admitted their main reason for attending was to hear Mr. Trados’ comeback speech. With an equal measure of charm, self-deprecation and ideas, Jochen didn’t let us down. His comments on the need to combine technical innovation with business innovation were especially interesting. He also hinted at something that was taken up by Lori Thicke (Translating without Borders) on the Wednesday: an inference (let’s leave it as no more than that) that 80% of the audience (the LSPs) were superfluous to requirements. Basically, clients require a service that is supplied by translators, and LSPs are no more than mere middle managers. What if the two halves could throw out all those people taking themselves too seriously and currently thinking they occupy centre stage? Now that would be true lean management! Perhaps we antiquated LSP owners should be taking a closer look at clouds and crowds before we go out of business …

Then we got down to the serious business of deciding who and what to listen to. There was never a dull moment (well there was, but you know what I mean), and several participants were heard venting their exasperation over not being able to be in two places at the same time – comments that spoke volumes of the range of options open to us.

Passion Management is the flavour of the year and, with GALA as the catalyst, lots of people were willing to share their passion for our industry and where it’s heading.

The networking was, as our American friends would say, ‘awesome’. I met colleagues out jogging at seven in the morning and there was still a crowd in the bar at midnight where the talk was always more important than the booze. So, 17-18 hour days were the norm for me from Sunday to Wednesday, Jesper Sandberg (STP Nordic) and I having the dubious honour of closing the conference’s bar activities early Thursday morning …

GALA itself wanted to get into the ‘news’ act and used the conference to announce that it was taking up the standards’ mantle after the demise of LISA. Will this mark the coming of age of the GALA organisation or are standards a cold, heavy lump of ice on which unsuspecting, well-built associations founder? It will be exciting to see where this initiative takes us.

Personally, one of the highlights of the conference, and a quintessential example of what these events are all about, was Jörgen Danielsen’s (Eule Lokalisierung) Asking the Right Questions about Machine Translation. Those 40 minutes on Tuesday afternoon were worth the entire trip, so thanks for that Jörgen. I for one have already downloaded your slides and will be using them actively as my company takes up the MT gauntlet during the ensuing years.

At one stage you reminded me of a report I’d read about becoming a dog owner. It’s not the initial price tag that should worry you (and Brutus, my English bullterrier didn’t come cheap!); the real cost is in the upkeep. I wonder how many of us are actually both big enough and savvy enough to meet that long-term cost.