Futurebound: Are We There Yet?
The 3rd edition of the International Summer School for Translation Technology, organized by the prestigious Belgian university KU Leuven, took place from Sep. 3 to Sep. 7, 2018. I was invited to hold a workshop together with Iulianna van der Lek, research associate and CAT tools trainer. The title of the workshop was Futurebound: A Matrix for Translation Professionals and was held on the opening day. The premises In his book “The Age of Spiritual Machines” (1999), the futurist Ray Kurzweil stated that spoken language translation would be...
read moreTerminology: Necessary Evil or Bare Necessity?
Terminologists have an arduous task. They need to translate terminology into money.How? By presenting convincing examples of terminological mistakes and their consequences in a corporate setting. And there’s nothing that terminologists all over the world would like more than to know that CEOs, CIOs, or CTOs are interested and ready to invest in a well-structured and fully developed terminology database. In Support of Terminology In reality, thanks to the explosion of the new economy, terminology has already spread without any CEO, CIO, or CTO...
read moreWhat Is Post-Editing? Here Are 3 Approaches
Post-editing of Machine Translation (PEMT) wasn’t born yesterday. On the contrary, it’s as old as machine translation (MT) itself. And although at the moment, we have a large amount of material at our disposal about this topic, the nuances of the discussion are such that in some cases we risk losing sight of what PEMT really is. PEMT: No Need for Creativity Let’s start by saying that PEMT has nothing to do with revision. Nor does it require the “creativity” of, let’s say, transcreation. In spite of all the articles written on the subject and...
read moreTranslation Quality Management: A Holistic Approach
Translation quality management can be a rather confusing subject due to the lack of unique and standard terminology. For example, in ordinary quality management (i.e. ISO9000s), quality assurance (QA) is “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled” (ISO 9000:2005, 3.2.11), and focuses on preventing errors and defects. Quite differently, what is generally called QA in the translation industry is in fact a quality control (QC) task, very similar to the one that used to take place in an...
read moreKPIs for the Translation Business: A Brief Intro
In a previous blog post, we discussed how to turn your translation (project) data into business analytics (BA). This time we want to provide suggestions for developing your own key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are essential to tracking your business performance and monitoring progress toward your goals. But choosing the right KPIs is not always easy. So, let’s see what KPIs are, why they’re so important, and how to choose them. A Few Things to Know About KPIs KPIs are measures of the performance of a company, its activities, its...
read moreA Data-driven Approach to Translation Vendor Management
Have you ever asked yourselves how a translation vendor differs from a vendor in other industries? Let’s tackle this question from two different perspectives. Consider first the perspective of a company outside the translation industry: A company conducts procurement activities for both products and services as well as staff recruitment activities. The procedure for product and service procurement is different from the one for staff recruitment, but both respond to the same goal of finding the best resources to fulfill the company mission. In...
read moreTransforming Translation Data Into Business Analytics: An Overview
Is data the new oil, the fuel of the future? If you agree with this, then the next question will inevitably be: Is data going to make you rich? Probably not. But it may help you improve your business performance if you learn how to put it to good use. To discover how, let’s enter the world of business analytics, and see what translation departments/agencies can do with their translation data. What Are Business Analytics? The term “business analytics” refers to all the skills, technologies, applications, and methods that allow you to measure...
read more[#SmartReads 4-2018] Summer’s Back
![[#SmartReads 4-2018] Summer’s Back](https://massardo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/IMG_20141123_173435-184x184.jpg)
#SmartReads 4-2018 on the Translation Industry. Now that summer is back, here are some articles and podcasts for you to enjoy while you’re at the seaside. Let’s be honest, the sound of the waves, the warm air, and the soft sand combined create the perfect conditions for relaxing with some good reading material. Of course, these #SmartReads work quite well also in the countryside or on the top of a mountain. First things first I published two new articles on the WordBee blog: – Transforming Translation Data into Business...
read moreHow to Survive Technological Hypes
This article was originally published on the WordBee Blog. Neural networks, neural machine translation, speech-to-speech technology, blockchain, translator implants in our brains, automated interpreting, mind reading computers, digital twins, ambient intelligence. In one word: artificial intelligence. Are all these technologies hypes that will deflate in time? Or will they become relevant to our business? How to Spot a Hype As language professionals, we turned first to a dictionary for a definition of the word “hype”. This is what...
read moreGDPR: What’s the Commotion All About?
This article was originally published on the WordBee Blog. Does Y2K Ring a Bell? Where were you on January 1st, 2000, at 00:00 AM? I was switching on my computer to see whether it would still be working. Like many others, I was scared that, because of the Y2K, the global ICT infrastructures (including my humble desktop) would collapse in the first few minutes of the year 2000 and society would descend into chaos. In the end, Jan. 1, 2000 went by rather quietly. Y2K turned out to be a bit of a damp squib, but it was a golden bowl for...
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