What's your exit strategy?

Better a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.

- M. di Mayo, Ph.C.

 

One of the brilliant presentations at the recent memoQfest 2010 in Budapest was by Isabella Moore, former head of the British Chambers of Commerce as well as past and present owner of COMTEC Translations in the UK. Speaking to agency owners, she advised them to develop an exit strategy with which they could reap the just rewards of their toil. This got me to thinking. Some of us translators work almost as hard as a PM, a few even as hard as an agency owner. But what options are open to those who choose not to tread the Golden Path of outsourcing and become, in stages, the next Lionbridge? What cash-out might a FREElancer pursue that might be more remunerative than Young Werther's? So I popped the question. (She was a little old for me, but it had been a long, lonely week, and I really wanted to know.) The answer, my friend, was a breezy platitude about "personal goals" and an example of someone who set up a community interpreting service. Interesting. Useful advice. But I was thinking, "That's a cash-out?" I was thinking more like beach, bikinis and Bacardi.

So I'm still thinking. I can packrat my bank account 'til it bursts and live on what leaks out afterward. Time's running out on that option for this old man, but for those of you who are young, an your marks, set and go. Don't worry about bank failures and hyperinflation, just trust in the markets and Lehman Bros. – uh, make that Goldman Sachs – and ALL WILL BE WELL.

I could hang out the red light and sell myself, but that wouldn't be much of a change from what I do for the marketing departments of some major German corporations. But I do sorta fancy changing my name to Roxanne. Maybe that should be my translation pseudonym. I'll sign certified patents with an extra flourish on the X.

My senile old tax consultant, the one who kept telling the German authorities I was in the import/export business because my e-mailed deliveries cross national borders, brought in fresh blood and lives on the stipend he gratefully pays for the chance to keep the customers she was in the process of losing. This time-honored system of professional succession has its attractions, and maybe this will be an effective way of convincing my daughter that she should still do as I say when she's 60 years old. But I have my doubts.

I could start outsourcing, build up a service organization, then sell it to Lionbr... oh wait, I already said I wouldn't go there. Human trafficking may be profitable and even legal in some jurisdictions, but something tells me it's so, so wrong.

I could just keep typing translations until my fingers drop off, then pick up where I stopped after I get a pro copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking. By then maybe the TEnT vendors will have the integration right. Oh wait – Kilgray already did that with version 4.2 of memoQ. Take your time, SDL ;-) Slow and unsteady wins the race, just ask Atril and PowerLing.

Now that might be the answer, for me at least. Keep going at what I love so much as long as my brain holds out, expose myself to the challenges and pleasures of evolving fields of interest until I am ready for the glue factory. And then when I can't do it any more, reach for my copy of DLDJW and read a few chapters for inspiration.

Don't be a monkey!

A new blog has been added to the list of recommendations on the left bar of this one: "No Peanuts!" The genius behind it is our translator colleague Wendell Ricketts whose with and wisdom regarding our profession is surely known to many. I support the goals of this new online forum and have given my permission to Wendell to repost anything he finds relevant. I may make an original contribution there too ocassionally if I find the time, because there are so many reasons why we need to respect ourselves, our colleagues and our clients and charge a fair rate to ensure a secure livelihood and the best results for all. This is often not as easy as it sounds, so I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion there.

See also the related post: No Monkeys!

memoQfest 2010: we all win

My intention to live blog this year's memoQfest 2010 didn't work out, though I managed a few pre-breakfast posts in the days before the conference and the occasional tweet during the sessions. There was simply too much going on. Either my full attention was focused on the great information and surprise announcements or I was out on the terrace of the beautiful venue at Restaurant Gundel recaffeinating my brain and trying to catch my breath for the next round. The event's location was much better than last year at Hotel Benczúr, which was quite adequate and which served as the location for the gala 5th birthday party for Kilgray on Thursday evening. The atmosphere was great, but it often went unnoticed, because many of the announcements and presentations had my attention in a mental vise grip. The riveting workshop by Angelika Zerfass on data migration best practices (to and from memoQ) on the day before the main conference was definitely a harbinger of what was to come: interoperability and integration of memoQ were in one way or another part of nearly every presentation. I think this reflects a broader industry trend which one can see with Kilgray's better competitors as well and of which SDL's move to XLIFF is a good example. But there's a special flavor to interoperability with memoQ which I really don't taste elsewhere and which is the result of the unique spicing of the company's support philosophy and its team's understanding that no matter how good tools and processes are what matters in the end are the people. This is so obvious in Kilgray's interactions with partners and customers that shortly before I was to deliver my own talk Friday morning on interoperability I threw out the script I had been preparing since November and talked about interoperability and the dignity of the participants in the processes, the translators, editors, clients and everyone else involved. The technical bits had already been covered in more detail than I will ever be capable of discussing.

There appears to be a perfect storm brewing in Budapest. But not a destructive one: already the pressure of innovation and good attitude from the east of Europe has caused the industry's biggest player to take some positive steps in the past two years which have benefitted many in our profession. And the teams and technologies I saw gathered at the conference in the past week promise a deluge of innovation and good practice that will benefit even those who can't be bothered with translation environment tools.

No, I haven't been oversampling the Unicum, nor am I being too caught up in my own rhetoric as I sometimes am. I just saw a lot of stuff that gives me just cause for optimism. Most importantly optimism about the ability of my colleagues, clients and others to work together more effectively no matter what religious TEnT they seek shelter in. Although it's really clear now even to those with the thickest skulls that Kilgray has got the innovation, attitude and endurance to go the distance with its best competitors in the translation tools field, the best news for me is that the company's real openness to that competition and Kilgray's commitment to making processes work as well as helping people work together in a reasonable way will help bring about that rising tide which lifts all boats.