|
|
Tekom Spring Conference April 19-20 in Bamberg, Germany
Leif Sonstenes, Locatech GmbH
Podium Discussions
Of the four podium discussions that I attended (Technical Communications (TC) and Marketing, TC and Service, TC and ERP, TC and Translation), the translation discussion group attracted the most attendees and was the most lively and controversial.
Ursula Reuther of IAI in Saarbruecken (Technical Documentation and Translation: Two for the Price of One?) proposed a service model that offers document creation and translation from the same provider in order to improve quality and reduce costs. In her opinion, the processes and tools used to create and manage technical documentation and to create and manage translation are becoming so similar that we will see them merge in the future.
DeAnn Cougler, an independent consultant, (The Myth of Using Translation Memory Tools to Get Cheap Translations for Technical Documentation) attacked the myth that you can easily get cheap translations by using TM tools. She demonstrated numerous TM pitfalls and warned companies that they must invest in maintenance, training, clean source language, careful change management, and so on, in order to realize real benefits.
Beate Früh from Geberit International and Dr. Rachel Herwartz from
TermSolutions explored quality questions (When is a Translation Bad?)
and discussed various quality evaluation systems (LISA QA, SAE J2450,
EN15038) including their own in-house system. They concluded that proper
terminology management was the single most important factor in reducing
costs and improving the quality of both the source text and the
translation.
After the presentations, Professor Doctor Dirk Schmitz challenged the lecturers: "Why do people have such a thing about using different workflows, tools and strategies for technical writing and translation? Ultimately they are exactly the same because their final product is a text that is supposed to be understandable and useful for the end-user." After several yes-the-same-no-totally-different -contributions, the concensus was that although both activities have the same goal, they have a different starting point and need different paths to deliver.
An audience member asked: "We have gone to the trouble of cleaning up
our source text and making our terminology more consistent-how much of a
discount should we get from our translation supplier?" This provocative
question sparked a lively debate. Another audience member challenged him
that he was asking the wrong question. Translation companies assume they
are getting good source material and calculate their costs accordingly.
The question should rather be: how much more should the client pay the
translation company when poor source material is delivered for
translation? After a lively debate, the audience concluded that clients
should pay more for poor source text.
I discussed the new DIN EN 15038 translation standard with a number of
localization service providers. The general consensus was that the
standard was developed by academics and theorists, who are oblivious to
the costs and implications of implementation. A crucial point: the
translation company must evaluate the quality of the source text and
provide feedback prior to project begin. This may make the translation
company co-responsible for the source content (product liability!).
Another point was the requirement to always have an independent editing
step. While desirable, many clients do not need and are not willing to
pay for that level of quality.
The conference was a great appetizer for the fall conference, November 7-9 in Wiesbaden, Germany, which should be about five times as big. See you there!
Leif Sonstenes has been active in localization and global business for more than twenty-five years in Europe and North America in various technical, marketing and sales roles. Leif currently works for Locatech GmbH in Dortmund, Germany in the role of marketing manager.