TAUS - Enabling better translation

So you are a translator. You have a loving, intimate relationship with words. You thrive on the challenging, mind-wrestling quest for equivalence and yes - you know the difference between a participle and a gerund. You care – not just about style, register and cultural nuances, but most of all, about the quality of your work. You are a linguist, a writer, a cultural expert and a field expert on many subjects, a researcher, an IT expert, a graphic designer... a one-man orchestra. You work autonomously and are driven by mastery.

Yes, you are a translator. You work long hours on texts that are becoming increasingly boring – be it lengthy automotive manuals that no-one ever reads or help files that no-one ever wants. You are forced to recycle words although climate change is not high on you agenda. And yes – you see the rates dropping with the speed of light and wonder when will they ask you to work for free?

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You can smell something in the air as the clouds are gathering. You can almost hear the disruptive sound of automation and the vision of a faceless crowd is becoming clearer day by day. You have come across free and open source software, but are still not sure if it means free beer. Phrases like ‘collaborate or perish’ or ‘eat or be eaten’ fill you with fear and anxiety about the future as you think of your children, your mortgage, your unfulfilled dreams. But do these statements make you stop and think? Do they provoke you to look around and with an open mind to really see what your options are?

Seeing a bigger picture is not always easy and keeping up with a rollercoaster of changes while juggling multiple instruments in your private orchestra almost begs for supernatural powers. To be able to see the bigger picture you must look beyond your micro world of a freelance translator and understand what is really happening out there, in your industry and beyond. Presently, deep macro changes are affecting industries globally and only a dispassionate assessment can hope to address your situation and provide solutions for the future. A cloud-cuckoo-land it may be for some, but if you close your door to reality it will come through the windows, however unwelcomed...

First, consider the open innovation paradigm. William Chesbrough¹ points out that businesses have started to realise that not all the smart people work for them and that competitive advantage often comes from leveraging the discoveries of others and from opening up their business models to external ideas, not just their own. This is having a tremendous impact on new business models, as they open up and embrace the newly emerging collaborative trends.

Second, think of the evolution of the web and what it means for you. The change from a static, one-way narrow street of Web 1.0 allowing only a passive consumption, to Web 2.0 – a dynamic, two-way highway with its architecture of participation promoting active collaboration on all fronts. Add unimaginable storage and processing capabilities of cloud computing with its data-drive approach and you have technology which is having an enormous impact on the content volume. The content requiring translation, according to Common Sense Advisory, is growing at a rate of 50% a year.

Third, consider the current economical climate. Although phrases like ‘we need to tighten our belts’ heard over and over again might be rather annoying, we cannot underestimate the fact, that budgets are being slashed left, right and center. This also holds true for translation. Companies are struggling with their translation budgets and while some decide to translate more within their budgets, others have to reduce their available financial resources, sometimes even by half and still cope with increased volumes of content.

Given all these circumstances, businesses and organizations have to take advantage of available technologies and find innovative solutions to cope with their growing translation needs. Technology has now enabled tools and processes whereby manual labour can be replaced or enhanced by automation and the skill of a few can be replaced by the strength of many. Leveraging linguistic data is one example and TAUS have taken the lead, with many corporate members already taking advantage. Machine translation is finally being taken seriously not only by computational linguists, but by a majority of companies who intend to implement MT in their workflow within the next few years. Open source projects double every 14 months, according to Gartner, and by 2012 90% of companies will use open source tools in one form or another. And then there comes the crowd with its wisdom, spare cycles and cognitive surplus. Harnessing the power of ‘crowd’ has been executed by a growing number of companies worldwide and has been put on the agenda by many others. Translation processes are undergoing changes akin to the introduction of steam technology in the Victorian era. No need to mention the luddites...

So, what’s in it for you? How can you be the agent and not the victim of this change? How can you embrace these new trends and yet do not betray your love for words, your quality standards and still maintain your livelihood? What are your options?

First, think ‘open’. Governments are opening up their data, software companies are opening up source codes (even SDL Trados recently), big organizations like the EU are opening up their language resources. As the tenets of open innovation permeate industries, ‘open’ has become a key word. But more importantly, think ‘open’ in terms of trends and technology. Research² shows that bias against MT or crowdsourcing is often lined with insufficient knowledge about the processes involved, accompanied by the fear of the unknown. Only an open, positive attitude and unbiased perspective can reveal the potential benefits these new technologies and processes can offer you.

Second, think ‘open tools’. Think that technology is your ally, not a foe. Imagine your one-man orchestra could become a band of skilled musicians playing a big piece for a large audience – without a director. There are freely available tools out there which will allow you to do just that – and because they are free to use, you are freed from expensive licensing and initial investment. Yes, they are not rich in features as some proprietary tools, but they are getting better and by their very nature they are being constantly developed by user communities. Of course there is some tinkering required with file conversions, but there is a lot of community support available and, with a little effort, this can be overcome.

If you want a front seat, find yourself a few trusted players with skills you require, cut the middle man and cream off the top. You can collaborate in real time while sharing TMs and glossaries and peer-reviewing each other’s work. Research shows that 1 in 2 translators believe this method of QA is the most effective. Or, if you want convenience and no hassle, take a back seat and translate on-tap, as required and when suits you. Websites facilitating translation on demand are mushrooming and are a good way of finding new clients.

If you are not a fan of open tools, there are great, low-priced SaaS tools out there which you can use on demand, and which have all you’ll ever need to do a project without even touching an agency. A good example is the new XTM Cloud which has even a customer-facing web shop where some companies have already registered and the whole transaction, including payment happens directly between the translator and the customer.

Start sharing. Yes – your painstakingly built TMs are a priceless asset. But so are the TMs of others. Don’t bury your ‘talent’ by keeping it to yourself. By sharing you can multiply your assets and you can get a lot more than you put in (10 times more with TAUS). Research shows that specialisation is the most popular choice for re-positioning so your data could be substantially leveraged, especially if you work in a group, sharing TMs, dictionaries etc. You and your band could take on bigger projects directly from clients, and deliver them fast and efficiently, avoiding all the costly links along the way. The client will like the idea of saving and if you find a niche, your efforts of learning new technology and setting up the process will be rewarded very quickly. You will work with people you trust, your channels to market will multiply by the number of people in your band and the collaborative tools will allow you to expand anytime if an opportunity comes along for even bigger undertakings.

Third, think ‘processes’. Crowdsourcing is most likely not high on your agenda and resistance to the idea of crowdsourcing for profit-making companies is strong. But research shows that professional translators are vaguely familiar with the concept of crowdsourcing, with patterns pointing to a rift between understanding the benefits and apprehension caused by insufficient knowledge. One thing translators seem to agree on is the belief that crowdsourcing is not a fad and that it will not disappear any time soon.

Financial Post reports that crowdsourcing is already a place of maturity for large enterprises and is moving towards solutions for small businesses. CrowdFlower is an example of crowdsourcing provider offering tailored solutions to companies. Although they report that at the moment there is not much activity in the translation sector, Lucas Biewald, the founder of CrowdFlower believes that there is a scope for value creation and a potential for professional translators to get involved in for-profit activities in future as the model reaches widespread adoption. As Jost Zetzsche observes³, crowdsourcing is a process that is in need of professional experience and leadership and professional translators could benefit from organizing, maintaining and quality controlling crowdsourcing processes. Research shows that so far only 10% of translators are willing to get involved in this area. Translation and L10N 2.0 have communities at the core of the workflow, so there is clearly a need and a demand for professional translators working together with volunteers.

There is also a great potential to move up the value chain. Just like vast numbers of accountants have taken on management consultancy roles, professional translators could offer value-added consultancy services, advising on cultural, technical or authoring issues or providing controlled language services. Your role could become much more important, varied and fun – the scope for development is there, without the need to sacrifice things you love the most.

Disruptive change always causes resistance and leaves victims in its wake. But it also brings great opportunities for those who are willing and able to embrace it and utilise the resources it brings. Forget the dodgy opportunists who thrive out there – there will always be someone trying to take advantage. In a professional world translators are not being asked to work for free nor are they likely to be reduced to the low-paid call-centre conditions that Garcia⁴ predicts. I would go with Bateman⁵, who argues that the new tools and processes open up new roles and opportunities for variety and growth.

In Darwin’s words, it is not the strongest one that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change – and if you can’t change something, change the way you think about it. After all, it all starts with an attitude. ‘Open’ is the word for the future and if you can just imagine the potential that an open mind + open resources (linguistic and human) could have, then you have already seen the light. The changes will not happen overnight and you might be lucky to maintain a status quo for some time. However, deep structural changes in the translation industry are happening and it would be wise to keep your finger on the pulse and stay open.

References:

¹ Chesbrough, Henry William (2006) Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, Boston: Harvard Business School Press

² A survey carried out by Joanna Gough out as part of Masters Degree at University of Surrey, UK. The survey generated 224 usable responses from translators located mainly in Europe (67%) and Americas (14%). Data collected between 12 July and 22 August 2010.

³ In Malcolm, Rachel (2010) ‘Crowd Control’, in ITI Bulletin, January-February 2010, pp 6-9

⁴ Garcia, Ignacio (2009) ‘Beyond Translation Memory: Computers and the Professional Translator’ in The Journal of Specialised Translation, Issue 12, pp 199-214

⁵ Bateman, Scott (2009) ‘Capitalizing on trends reduces translation costs’, in Multilingual, July/August 2009, pages 43-47