Lucy Brooks is a German, French and Spanish to English translator with 20 years’ translation experience.
She was one of the first translators to attain the prestigious Chartered Linguist (Translator) status in the UK, and recently started a company called eCPD Webinars to facilitate online training for translators and other linguists.
If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’m a big fan. I’ve attended several of their webinars* over the past couple of months, including ones on specialising in pharmaceutical translation and specialising in medical translation.
So last week I spoke to Lucy about her career as a translator, the importance of continuous professional development (CPD) and how she came to start her new company. We even conducted the interview in webinar format so you can see for yourself how it works. Have a look (and a listen) and let me know what you think:
Interview with Lucy Brooks from Sarah Dillon on Vimeo(16 mins). Click through to watch a full-screen version.
(You’ll have to excuse the poor quality sound on my side – a good demonstration of the difference an external microphone (or lack of one) can make. I dialled in from a meeting room in Betahaus Berlin where I’m working for a couple of weeks.)
Have you ever attended an online seminar / webinar? What did you think? What kind of training would help you become a better professional?
* Disclosure: I’ve also participated as a speaker on a couple of webinars, including one coming up on 24 March (plug, plug!) called Building a Website: The Basics, aimed at beginners to website design. Interested? Join the mailing list to hear when registrations open, or keep an eye on the event page on the eCPD website.
As Marshal McLuhan described the world as the “the global village,” webinars are another proof for his theory. I like the convenience of the virtual training. So far attended only few through proz, and was happy with the course.
I too am a big fan of eCPD Webinars. They always seem to have an interesting programme of events, and it’s so convenient to be able to take part from my office (often with a cat on my lap!) I like to attend face-to-face events as well, but as I’m based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, these can be time-consuming and expensive to get to – something Lucy touches on in the interview. It wouldn’t be worth my while to travel down to London, for example, just for an hour’s talk. So I tend to save travelling for the bigger events – conferences and the like – and top up my CPD online.
Good point about saving the travelling for bigger events and “topping up” with online events. It’s like there’s a spectrum of event types we can pick and choose from!
Nice interview and nice blog, generally 🙂 I am happy I found it 🙂
I like webinars, because they are cheaper and easier to attend than normal seminars. I do attend webinars and consider them an investment for my translation business.