Experts in the Industry: 15 interviews in 15 days

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, I’ll be co-presenting a paper on web 2.0 and social media but remotely from Brisbane, making this only the second ITI International Conference that I haven’t attended since I first heard of the ITI in 2003. Obviously I’m keen to muscle in anyway still feel involved, which is why I’d like to run these interviews.

The catch is that I’m not sure what the response rate will be – we’re all busy people, after all. So with the help of the conference organisers, I sent an e-mail today inviting all the conference presenters to answer a few short questions. The theme of the conference is sustainability in translation and not all the presenters are translators, so it will be interesting to see if we get a suitably broad range of responses. The questions are as follows:

1. In two sentences, please describe what you’ll be talking about at the conference, and what translation and interpreting (T&I) professionals will gain from hearing it.
2. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing to make your workplace more sustainable, what would you do?
3. Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
4. To what degree do you feel involved in and supported by your professional community, and why?
5. Freeform – here’s where you are free to riff on anyone or anything, good or bad, or just share a pearl of wisdom.

Here’s a running list of people that have either already answered my questions or responded that they are willing to participate. I’ll post a schedule of publication dates for these interviews over the weekend.

• Spencer Allman, Finnish to English translator. Presenting a paper on the notion of translational expertise. [01.05.09]
• Stefan Mikulin, French, German and Polish to English translator. Presenting a paper in the session for recent graduates on the evolution of simultaneous interpreting at international criminal tribunals. [02.05.09]
• Richard Gray, CEO CLS Communication Ltd. Speaking in a plenary session on the concept of a conciliation service within the ITI. [03.05.09]
• Nick Rosenthal, Managing Director Salford Translations Ltd. Speaking in a panel discussion on customer relationships (links to overall programme). [04.05.09]
• Iwan Davies, French and German to English translator and localiser, and one half of the crack team at Translutions Limited. Speaking in a panel discussion on customer relationships (links to overall programme). [05.05.09]
• Paul Appleyard, French to English translator, and Director of Manzana Business Solutions Limited (also one half of a crack team). Speaking in a panel discussion on customer relationships (links to overall programme). [06.05.09]
• Suki Chung, English and Chinese translator and interpreter. Presenting a paper in the session for recent graduates on the relationship between translation and ideology in British media news reports on China. [07.05.09]
• Cat Akana, Managing Director of Blue Planet Multicultural. Speaking about how major global challenges affect translators and interpreters. [08.05.09]
• Philippa Hammond, French, Spanish and Portuguese to English freelance translator. Speaking about sustaining T&I careers using social media. [09.05.09]
• Suzanne Kirkbright, German to English freelance translator. Speaking in a panel discussion on contingency planning (links to overall conference programme). [11.05.09]
• Silvia Ferrero, English to Spanish freelance translator and interpreter. Presenting a paper on a move towards sustainability in the games localisation industry. [13.05.09]

The first two respondents were super-quick off the mark, so thank you – tús maith, leath na hoibre (a good start is half the work). Here’s hoping I’ll reach my self-imposed target of 15, or I may just have to turn up at Birdcage Walk in person 🙂

Finally, if you’re presenting at the conference and find your way here, feel free to email me directly with your responses, or with any other questions or comments, at sarah AT dillonslattery DOT com.

* this is a homage to Aaron Stout’s Citizen Marketer experiment in the run-up to SXSW this year. Thank you Aaron.

Image by George Eastman House via Flickr

UPDATE 7 May: Anyone know any of the other 50 or so speakers who are not listed above?! If so, some gentle encouragement and a nod in the direction of this post would be fantastic 😉

EDIT: Copy added to and edited on 29 April for clarity.