Interpreting for business
Budgeting time and costs for professional conference interpreters: who wants to be a millionaire?
It was at the beginning of 2004 when I started to wonder whether there is a good balance between our input into a job and the income that we generate from this input. Other authors before me have tried to compare, for example, experienced conference interpreters and civil servants, or in the translation field, have put forward approaches to calculating prices per line and word.
Tenders for Conference Interpreting Services
Need help to create effective tenders for conference interpreting services? Here are some useful guidelines for international organisations, national administrations, NGOs and private companies.
Interpretation and certification
Is certification just a buzzword, a passing trend? Must the interpreting community pay reverence to it regardless of who does the certifying? Or has it become just a synonym for qualified? No one answer will suffice; interpreters need to examine the underlying question: how can we ensure what clients, users and practitioners all want: quality.
De l’autre côté du miroir
Le point de vue d'un nouveau venu dans la profession d'interprète-conseil sur le marché privé belge
People skills
The busy linguist should play nicely.
The give and take of a client relationship
No matter which interpreting school we attended, including the "school of hard knocks," they all lack one type of training: building relationships with our clients. We are taught how to listen, process and speak all at the same time; how to take notes and remember 10-20 minutes of speech; but none of the schools spend much time - if any at all! - on client contacts. We must let our clients know what services we can provide, and ask the correct questions so we may provide the best service possible.
Private market/inter-regional meeting in Bangkok: revival of the silk road?
The Private Market Sector's next meeting will be held in Bangkok from 19 to 21 January 2007, jointly with an Inter-Regional Meeting of the Asia-Pacific and Turkish Regions. One might wonder what these two AIIC regions at opposite ends of Asia have in common. No doubt the participants will come up with some interesting answers over the three days.
AMI opts for ISO certification
The preparatory process was relatively short and painless: the compilation of a rather dull but satisfactorily exhaustive quality manual; a few discussions over the wording of procedures, and a seminar conducted by our quality consultant on the system itself bringing together nearly all the members of our group. Then in July 2005 AMI received UNI EN ISO 9001:2000 certification.
The way towards ISO certification – the experience of CRIC in Rome
What does ISO 9001:2000 certification mean for an interpreters' cooperative?
You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.
I had the good fortune and good sense to attend AIIC's German Region sales workshop in the days prior to the AIIC Private Market Sector meeting in Cologne, Germany in July. With nary a Teutonic anything, save some ancestry, in my quiver, I was curious to see how well I would navigate the waters of ze fazerland.
How AIIC interpreters band together: responses to the Bizorg survey
The objective is pretty clear: you want to make your presence felt in your market and in order to do so you have decided to set up a group of professionals.