Professional development — Page 2

CPD Matters: What is CPD?

I refer frequently to professional development on this blog (in fact, I have an entire category dedicated to it), but life-long learning is not specific to translators or language professionals.

Doctors do it, engineers do it, and I have it on good authority that even educated fleas do it. So I’m running a mini-series on CPD over the next few weeks: what it is, how to do it and most importantly, where to get it, even if you’re not in a position to fly 10,000 miles for a one-day workshop. [Read more…]

ITI Style Workshop with Chris Durban and Ros Schwartz

by Sarah Dillon

My write-up of the Style Workshop held in London in February appeared in the May – June issue of the ITI Bulletin*. Here’s an extract: [Read more…]

5 Qs with Amy Williams, French and Italian to English translator

by Sarah Dillon

Amy Williams is a freelance translator working from French and Italian into English, and a director of Eggplant Translations. She specialises in marketing and advertising, and the arts, media and music in particular. In the early stages of my freelance career, Amy was kind enough to give me some great advice on setting up a website. Here I ask her for more tips about marketing, her areas of specialisation and why she has chosen to pursue further studies in psychology. [Read more…]

Building a Strong Online Presence

by Sarah Dillon

Hello to translators and interpreters surfing by following my recent Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) webinar. I intend to blog about this in more detail later this week, but until then, here are some resources you might find useful:

A series of short videos introducing Twitter.
Some 5 minute videos on how I use LinkedIn, WordPress, and Google Reader for professional purposes.
A half-hour* presentation on social media for translators, which takes a more hands-on approach than my presentation today as it covers how to use Tweetdeck (co-presented with Philippa Hammond – check out her blog for a great guest post on search engine marketing too).
If you still think Twitter is just noise, then read about how one translator used it to track what she was learning at a conference.
Here’s some more thoughts on how I fit all these tools together as part of the bigger picture of my professional practice.
Finally, a write-up on using Skype for business purposes.

Thanks again to everyone for tuning in and for their questions. I plan to pull together a summary of some to the key issues raised as part of my write-up, but in the meantime, feel free to post your questions in the comment section below. I’m not promising I know the answer but I’ll certainly be able to point you in the right direction.

* 14 October: correction – it’s a half-hour presentation, not a one-hour one… Thanks Kimmo.

5Qs with Karen Stokes, French to English translator

by Sarah Dillon

Karen Stokes has been providing French to English translation services through KES_Translate since 2002. In 2008 she was awarded Chartered Linguist (Translator) status, one of the first five translators in the UK to be awarded this distinction. Read on for more about Karen’s background, her approach to marketing and the Chartered Linguist application process. [Read more…]

Conferences for Introverts: 15 Top Tips

by Sarah Dillon

I’ve attended my share of conferences over the years, and they generally all have their own unique vibe. As a translation professional, I joined colleagues for conferences in niche areas, to retain my accreditation and certifications. As a business owner, I attended industry events to network with the wider business world. And now, as an aspiring academic, I attend conferences to develop my skills as a scholar and gain insight into a new career path.

Like most introverts, my preference is to listen to interesting talks, events, or training. But I still do OK on the social front. Here are some things I do to manage the transition from knowledge worker to networker.

You at your next conference after reading this post. Via GIPHY

[Read more…]

ITI Conference round-up: a social media perspective

by Sarah Dillon

This is a round-up of my experiences of the ITI International Conference in London this year.

Presenting

Some background

This year was only the second since 2003 that I did not attend the conference in person. I did seriously consider arranging a trip back to Europe based around the conference, but last year decided to focus my resources on events around the Asia-Pacific region instead. Then late last year, Philippa and I were invited by the organising committee to present a paper on social media, based on our own experiences of applying these tools to our everyday business activities. The idea was that we could also demonstrate some of the possibilities of web 2.0 by working together and ultimately, presenting, with me based in Brisbane and Philippa in London. It was an exciting idea and Philippa and I got to work. [Read more…]

Experts in the Industry: 15 interviews in 15 days

by Sarah Dillon

I’m trying a little experiment*. If it works, then we should gain some interesting insights from a number of luminaries in and around the world of translation. If it doesn’t work, well, we might just learn something from that too.

My plan is to interview 15 interesting people in the 15 days leading up to the ITI International Conference on 16th and 17th May. Why? Well, [Read more…]