As soon as the ‘alpha’ of a group makes a statement, it is true. Right? On a -not so- lovely day someone stated that the language industry isn’t a sexy industry. Now that was a good one. For years! I have heard this so many times, my my… And when I asked: why? There wasn’t an answer. Just never. Because they were just an echo of someone else’s statement.
It’s about time to tell you how sexy the language industry is!
What started as an innocent flirt…
… is now a big fat affaire! I am of course talking about the tech savvy’s and the localization specialists. A life without software in the language industry is a distant memory. We use software to manage the projects from our clients and the jobs for our linguists, voice-talents, dtp-specialists, video-editors, and so on. We use software to build up a so called translation memory to take care of consistency in all the translations for a client. There is software to check the quality and remove all types of errors before delivery. We use software to communicate with each other… The developers of this software are specialized in our industry. It is not just something they make, they know us very, very well… From the outside and inside…
Staying strong, yet feminine…
Significantly more female company owners and leaders in the language industry, than in other industries. In UK even 50% of the language service providers is led by a woman. Now that is sexy, isn’t it?
The language industry provides a large stage for innovation
Who started as a wallflower…
… probably changed or didn’t make it to the language industry of today. Now a lot of adrenaline goes around. The pace has gone up. Linguists need to know a lot (more) about different areas. they have to communicate with other linguists, work together and are -at least in my company- more and more often involved in conversations directly with the clients. Project Managers can’t sit back either, they train each other and the linguists using new software. They have to be genius in problem solving. Innovate or die (after the book of Jan Kriekels) is very valid in our industry. No isolation possible anymore, but a chain of collaborating people fully in touch with each others. And every single one is important. The dance can’t be danced with the same partner constantly. Quite sexy.
Science explains humor…
… as very sexy! And there is a lot of humor in the language industry. Humor is a human beings’ version of peacock plumes, science shows. We not only laugh about the very funny mistranslations we read, it’s as well the constant pressure on delivery times that challenges us to make up new jokes. Funny things about product names that mean something completely different in a target language and fantastically found transcreated slogans, just make us very happy and fills the office with laughter.
Friendships, competition and relationships…
Every month of the year there is at least one, but very often there are several conferences or events to visit when you’re in the language industry. To get to know new markets, share knowledge, to develop new ideas, to stay in touch with other entrepreneurs from different cultures (very interesting aspect of our industry). Competitors become friends. I mean real friends. They even go on holidays together. And in rough times, they assist each other, because we all want a strong competitor to keep the game challenging enough. During the years I have seen people meeting each other many, many times, traveling to unknown places and sharing more than work alone…
“Hey, let’s have a lunch in Barcelona”: you only live once…
The freedom traveling brings, the “craziness” among the people you meet in all these conferences (“hey, let’s have lunch in Sevilla” or: “I’m turning 50, you’re invited to my birthday in Stockholm”), make the industry very sexy too. You only live once!
Sexy? Yes.
What does it mean to me? I would say in one word: challenging. Or more described: an industry where it is important to be really alive, in motion, and free as well as connected with others.
