The only constant in life is change, meaning that the
only matter we control is our approach. My last post addressed the ITA
conference on AI, which discussed its technical elements. This week, Proz.com
hosted a 3.5-hour series of lectures on how to cope with a rapidly changing
business environment and make the current transportation an opportunity, not a
threat. The lecturers specifically discussed translation and interpretation but
their message would be relevant to most professions today. As a rule, I try to
take three “lessons” from any conference. From the excellent presentations in
this event, I gleaned three key messages: the importance of flight (not running
away); the process for smart diversification; and the practicality for constant
improvement. All three tips mentally ease the process of adapting to a dynamic
world and make the challenge far less daunting.
Joachim
Lépine in his presentation discussed three ways to cope with declining income: "Walk away,
dance... or fly?”. Specifically, he expressed his complete understanding of
those that choose to take on a salary position in another industry because
freelance translating is not paying the bills anymore. He also related to those
that have gone full AI and reinvented themselves in terms of how they work.
Most interestingly, he suggested that this moment, because of its chaotic
nature, is an ideal time to try out any path that may seem exciting, whether or
not it is related to one’s linguistic occupation. A combination of soft skills
and enhanced interest can lead to a new source of income. Joachim referred to
this as “flying” as the choice of the actual activity was not limited to the
current choice of profession but involved seeking a potentially liberating occupational goal. As an additional bonus, his presentation excelled despite or because of the lack of any accompanying slides. Flying is neither staying the course nor switching direction but instead examining
options.
The lecturer that followed him, David Higbee-Teves, discussed Japanese business
concepts and how they apply to the current freelance translation market. One of
his points was that the Japanese companies tend to diversify into fields for
which they already have the required skills and facilities. Instead of risking
limited resources in an unknown field, they analyse their
competitive advantages and seek additional products and services that use the
skills they possess. For example, in translation, it requires little additional
training for a translator to become an editor of texts produced by machine
translation or AI or even a copywriter as all the occupations demand similar
linguistic skills. I recently took such a step, beginning to work with a young
attorney to improve his English, which utilized both my teaching and legal
background. Despite some initial uncertainty about my capability, we are both learning
and enjoying the experience. Thus, diversifying into related fields is a relatively
risk-free way of expanding one’s income.
Another
Japanese business wisdom shared by David Higbee-Teves was the effect of
continuous improvement. AI is being touted as the cure-all for all business processes but has yet to prove itself financially and functionally on a large
scale. In simple words, some people claim that AI will completely replace human
translation. However, in practice, creating the AI prompts to produce even a decent translation
requires skill in prompting and does not always reduce human time and effort. By contrast, a series of small but easy to apply improvements
in the efficiency in standard business tasks can make a significant difference
in productivity. The concept is to use AI to reduce 10- or 15-minutes tasks to
5 minutes or less. Several of these steps together will significantly increase the
amount of time the linguist (or any other professional) has to apply to money-making
tasks that require human thinking. These tasks could include intake of new
orders, invoicing, quoting, and standard email communication, to name a few.
The time involved in any single activity is minor but accumulates rapidly over
a day or week. The professional linguist can use this time for production,
marketing, continuing education or simply enjoying life. Improvement is a continual
process, not a one-time activity.
Thus,
in the face of an unclear future, professionals need clear vision in order to
make correct decisions. The Proz.com event provided numerous relevant tips for linguists,
ones that are also applicable to many types of professionals. With a handful of
methods in hand, it becomes easier to adjust to current trends and find an
effective match between market needs and individual strengths. Even more
importantly, the unknown becomes less frightening and more interesting in a
positive way. Professionals do control how they react to change even if they do
not control the change itself.
Speaking of an uncertain world, as I post this, the residents of Israel, including myself, as well as those in Persian Gulf countries, Jordan, and now Lebanon, not to mention the people of Iran, live in great uncertainty and under constant fear. I can tell you with firsthand knowledge that the random and frequent need to run to a bomb shelter at any time of the day or night is one of the most distressful experiences one can have. Thus, I hope that very soon, in a few days hopefully, the people of the Middle East will wake up to a peaceful, more stable world where nobody calls for the destruction of any other nation or people. I am realistic enough to know that such tranquility will not occur immediately but we need to "fly", build on the changes that occurred and take constant small steps.
