Newsletter - Events
GALA in Tokyo 2006: Post-Event Report
Terukazu Konishi, Moravia Worldwide
The first GALA event was held in Tokyo on 26 September, 2006 at the Ginza Montray Hotel. Almost all of the participants were service providers in Japan. This event was a good example of how GALA provides a space for industry professionals to communicate and share information useful to their own businesses.
The event was a great success. In Japan, GALA members from about 15 companies were involved when we started to prepare the event in June 2006. However, by the event itself, we had over 80 attendees including 2 sponsors: Alchemy Software Development and PASS Engineering. One of the reasons for this success was that all of the programming was delivered in Japanese, with the exception of Renato Beninatto’s speech. Almost all of the participants were very happy about this. Also, many service providers shared that they need this type of opportunity to share information, so they were appreciative of the program’s focus on providers.
The first speaker, Aki Ito, gave a speech about GALA. He highlighted how GALA provides opportunities to share and exchange industry information among service providers. He gave attendees a sense of the “spirit of collaboration” that GALA represents.
Guest speaker Renato Beninatto gave a one-hour speech about the Localization Market Today, focusing on global trends, what matters and doesn’t matter (including questions of issues such as branding and quality), and what clients demand. Most participants had not had a chance to hear ideas from the global point of view toward localization, so they found Renato’s speech informative and impressive. However, perhaps due to Japanese conventions, participants hesitated to ask questions.
The event also included two panel discussions. The first one focused on marketing and sales, and the second focused on TM and CMS technology. Both panelists and moderators took a lot of time to prepare and delivered lively sessions.
At the evening network activity, we had a more relaxed atmosphere. As usual, people were busy exchanging business cards. Many approached me and asked, “When will you have the next event?” We, as volunteer members, encourage all GALA members to take initiative and participate. However, I got a clear message that all participants need this kind of opportunity and want to share information with their colleagues. For this first event, we hosted a half-day session, and we could not cover all the topics that we had prepared. Many wanted to explore each session in more detail. Next time we may plan a full-day session and invite clients, so that there is more variety among participants. And in Japan there are similar associations relating to translation or technical writing. Japan Translation Federation (JTF) helped us reach out to non-members to participate in our first event in Tokyo. If we cooperate more with these associations, we may achieve more.
Lastly, I want to let GALA members worldwide know that we had such a great time even though it took a lot of effort and time for preparation. I want to encourage you to promote similar events in your region to develop stronger networking. As Aki always says, “together we can do more!”
Pictured above are the volunteers who contributed to the success of this event (daily competitors working together!). Front Row (left to right): Ms. Megumi Kato, Ms. Kanae Suzuki, Mr. Jun Shibuya, Ms. Yuki Imai. Back Row (left to right): Mr. Munehisa Suzuki, Ms. Satoko Yasuda, Mr. Aki Ito and Mr. Terukazu Konishi.
Terukazu Konishi is the Managing Director of Moravia IT Japan.