ProZ.com Newsletter: August 2006

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The Translation Workplace Jobs | Kudoz | Go to site --------------------- ProZ.com Newsletter --------------------- Your ProZ.com username: (See bottom for more details related to your ProZ.com account) Promote yourself - become a member! Join now: http://www.proz.com/join (1) Update: Project Connect aims to bring in more top clients (2) Report to members: Accomplishments so far in 2006 (3) Membership campaign to begin soon (4) Buenos Aires 2006 - it was a great event! (5) Twelve slots left for the Edinburgh conference (9-10 Nov)! (6) New ProZ.com community office in La Plata, Argentina (7) Site localization into Latvian now available (8) Upcoming powwows: Bilbao, Sorø, Scheveningen, Paris, Poznan ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Update: Project Connect aims to bring more top clients to members ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part of what you get as a member of ProZ.com is a group of people ( http://www.proz.com/siteteam ) dedicated to helping you market your translation services. Since June, thanks to your membership investments, we have been able to take our marketing of your services to a new level. We have created a program called "Project Connect" to bring to you more of the world's most desirable language companies and end clients. As part of this program to bring premium opportunities to our members, we have: * Recruited Mike Kidd, formerly of TRADOS to help connect clients with ProZ.com members. Mike is one of the most well known and successful marketing and sales professionals in our industry. We are excited that he has joined us to represent you in bringing your services to language companies and clients. For details, see: *** * Among other actions, Mike is leading an effort to more effectively appeal to clients via the website, with a fresh look and navigation scheme that guides potential clients more effectively in the options available for locating the companies and specialists they need at ProZ.com. * We have launched a corporate membership program, which is being used in a beta stage by several large clients. Some of you have already seen the premium opportunities coming out of that program: positions with Bloomberg and other companies have been publicized so far. For details, see: *** * We exhibited at Localization World, with two ProZ.com members representing the community and communicating to clients the array of services available from ProZ.com members. Interest in the new platform was respectable, especially given the fact that this was the first public announcement of the service. The results of this campaign will not be apparent overnight. But if we are successful in this initiative, you will see a progressive improvement in the number and quality of inquiries coming to you via the site. We provide the above information in order to let you know what we are working on. What can you do right now to benefit? If you have any interest at all in meeting clients via ProZ.com, we urgently need you to fill out your profile. The opportunities that have arisen so far from our client marketing initiative call for specialists, often within a given area. This means that even as a routine job gets multiple bids, large, highly desirable clients are struggling to find the specialists they truly need. If you are interested in opportunities to meet a premium type of client, and you were not among those who updated their profiles in the recent complete profile campaign, please visit the quick updater now: http://www.proz.com/quick_profile your 20 minutes will be well spent! We will keep you informed of our efforts to market to language companies and end clients, and will refer to the program of bringing your services to employers as "Project Connect". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (2) Report to members: Accomplishments so far in 2006 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Most of you have by now heard that ProZ.com's mission is to ***. In other words, the ProZ.com site team - see our profiles at http://www.proz.com/siteteam - works for you. This being the case, it has been especially encouraging to us that so many of you have chosen to invest in joining the community this year. Many became members for the first time after years of using the site as non-paying contributors. Membership income is what makes ProZ.com possible. And since we reinvest *all* membership income in improving the site, the large number of people who became members this year has allowed us to do more for members than ever. Among our accomplishments this year were such long-requested enhancements as: * Conversion to unicode * Localization of the site into several major languages Also, we invested heavily in marketing your services via Project Connect. *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (3) Membership campaign to begin soon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A membership campaign will be announced soon, in which active site users who are not yet members will be invited to join ProZ.com as full paying members of our community. This campaign, which will be built around a theme of "connecting", will highlight the powerful opportunity that ProZ.com membership provides to *connect with other professionals*, to *connect with new clients*, and to benefit from the collective (and archived) knowledge of the ProZ.com community in KudoZ, the forums, the articles database and more. If you use ProZ.com regularly, please consider joining during this campaign. A number of incentives will be offered, making this campaign the optimum time to join. If you are already a member, we invite you to pass along word to colleagues whose work you know and respect. In a recent survey, 92.9% of you reported that you would recommend ProZ.com membership to colleagues, but many of you also reported that you had not found occasion to do so yet. Therefore, please take this opportunity to share the value of membership with a colleague. Remember, with each new member, we become more effective as a group--both in helping each other and in redefining the industry. So please spread the word! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (4) Buenos Aires 2006 - ProZ.com's fourth international conference was a great success! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With about 300 participants from 26 countries, an impressive array of speakers and presentations, and plenty of networking and fun, the 4th ProZ.com International Conference held in Buenos Aires was a resounding success. Coinciding with ProZ.com's seventh birthday, Buenos Aires 2006 was our biggest and highest profile event to date, and for the first time, one of our conferences received coverage from several major news services, in Europe, Argentina and Japan. Site member Aurora Humarán and her organizing team did a great job, both during the preparation phase and during its execution. Feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. For example, of the 111 respondents to the conference survey, only one does not intend to attend a future conference. Furthermore, seventy percent expressed an interest in speaking at future events. And incredibly, ninety-five percent of respondents report having met someone at the event with whom they will or may work in the future. ProZ.com brought to Argentina its entire staff of twelve and we are very grateful to all our members and users who attended our presentations or approached us with their questions and suggestions or just their warm presence, such as the handful who told us that “ProZ.com has changed my life”. Four of our sponsors had a presence in the event: Wordfinder, Torre de Papel, Lingotek and Ediciones de la Flor, and 93% of the respondents visited their booths and 70% considered that the access to the sponsor's products was an important benefit of having attended the event. The conference was complemented by a great gala dinner and by the largest powwow ever held, with 181 ProZians who networked, danced and had a great time, very much following the last line of our mission statement "have more fun". Our heartfelt thanks once again to Aurora and her team, to our sponsors and to those who participated in the event and helped turn it into a great event. Our thanks also to the American Translator Association (ATA), which made continuing education credits available to ATA members who were in attendance. For members who could not make it to the event, check in on Aurora's recap. Your virtual journey starts here: *** ProZ.com's next regional conference will be Edinburgh in just a few weeks (details below). Budapest 2007, to be held in May, will be the 5th annual "international" conference. See the conferences area for details: http://www.proz.com/conferences ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (5) Twelve slots left for the Edinburgh conference (9-10 Nov)! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Preparations for the ProZ.com Regional Conference in Edinburgh on Friday, 10 and Saturday, 11 November 2006 are now in full swing. The organizing duo, Rebekka Gross and Katharina Wawrzon, are pleased to announce the following highlights: * Anthony Briggs, Professor Emeritus of Birmingham University and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Russian at the University of Bristol, will deliver a talk on his translation of Tolstoy's War and Peace. * Sarah Adams, the winner of the Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation (2005) will open the conference with a keynote speech on slang and transcribing street culture in translation. Sarah has a keen interest in second-generation urban slang and “has reported on melting pots from Harlem to Martinique.” * The Wordfast team have confirmed their attendance and agreed to run a Wordfast workshop. Wordfast licenses will be also available for sale at a 33% discount. * In addition, there will be a 3-hour SDLX training session and a 3-hour Training Course on Déjà Vu and Data Migration. Both sessions will be hands-on and laptops are a prerequisite for participating. 138 members have already registered, which leaves 12 before we hit the capacity of 150. If your schedule allows it, don't miss this chance to catch a ProZ.com conference and enjoy one of the world's great cities! Register now: http://www.proz.com/conference/8 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (6) New ProZ.com community office in La Plata, Argentina ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are proud to announce our new community office to be based in La Plata, Argentina. The new facility will focus on the human aspects of ProZ.com's mission statement, including among other activities answering support and other requests, reaching out to members, users and outsourcers, fostering networking and events and improving the overall quality of the site. Thanks once again to our members for making it possible. For more details see http://www.proz.com/topic/54344 Advertisement ------------------------------------ WordFinder Software provides leading multilingual computer dictionaries that quickly find correct terms and expressions in different languages, improving your efficiency & quality. Learn more and get special pricing for ProZ.com members at http://www.wordfinder.com/webshop/com.asp?country=com&hid=1300529. ------------------------------------ Advertisement ------------------------------------ Lingotek launched The Language Search Engine (TM) at the ProZ.com conference on August 25th. This new online collaborative translation tool brings together a web community of language professionals to redefine content reuse. The result is fast meaning-based searching through your browser that is easy and inexpensive. Learn more at www.lingotek.com ------------------------------------ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (7) Site localization into Latvian now available ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks to the efforts of a group of volunteers integrated by Austra Muizniece, Uldis Liepkalns, Freimanis, Vents Villers and Balttext, ProZ.com has been localized into Latvian, see http://www.proz.com/topic/53926 By adding yet another language to the localized versions of this, your language site, this team has managed to make it even more user-friendly for the translators and interpreters, language service companies and others in the language industry, all over the globe. Several teams of volunteers are working on the localization of the site into yet more languages. If you are interested in participating in these activities please send us a support ticket. We thank the localization team for this achievement. And of course we thank you, our members, for supporting the site. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (8) Upcoming powwows: Bilbao, Sorø, Scheveningen, Paris, Poznan, Düsseldorf... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The report from the recent Buenos Aires powwow... "All previous attendance records were shattered in Buenos Aires when 181 ProZians gathered together in Buenos Aires for powwow http://www.proz.com/powwow/766 Organized to coincide with ProZ.com's 4th International Conference, and 7th birthday, the powwow was attended by a happy crowd that included members and guests from over 20 countries, and the whole ProZ.com staff. There was great food and drink, a live rock band (featuring Leticia or support ticket fame!), dancing, networking, tons of good vibes... if you have never attended a powwow, you have no idea what you are missing!" Many more powwows are planned. Here are those scheduled for the next two months: September 8: Scheveningen, Nether. (15 members) - http://proz.com/pw/954 9: Sorø, Denmark (21) - http://proz.com/pw/730 15: Braunschweig, Germany (5) - http://proz.com/pw/956 17: Hamilton, New Zealand (8) - http://proz.com/pw/950 21: Bilbao, Spain (18) - http://proz.com/pw/966 22: Paris (8) - http://proz.com/pw/992 22: Nassau, Bahamas (4) - http://proz.com/pw/763 23: Melbourne, Australia (25) - http://proz.com/pw/861 23: Vilnius, Lithuania (7) - http://proz.com/pw/937 27: Edinburgh, UK (2) - http://proz.com/pw/976 29: Grenoble, France (2) - http://proz.com/pw/1000 30: York, UK (9) - http://proz.com/pw/932 October 6: Porto, Portugal (6) - http://proz.com/pw/982 7: Nice ou sa ..., France (9) - http://proz.com/pw/994 13: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (7) - http://proz.com/pw/980 14: Poznan, Poland (29) - http://proz.com/pw/974 15: Zigong, Sichuan, China (1) - http://proz.com/pw/984 21: Düsseldorf (68) - http://proz.com/pw/964 25: Edinburgh (1) - http://proz.com/pw/1002 29: Monterrey, Mexico (5) - http://proz.com/pw/921 Don't see a powwow in your area? If you are a member, please consider suggesting a time and place - and we'll do the rest. You just show up. - - - - - - - - - - - Your username: Membership status: Registered user KudoZ: BrowniZ: Wallet balance: $0.10 Your profile: http://www.proz.com/profile/0 - - - - - - - - - - - Forgotten password? http://proz.com/?sp=new_password ================================================================= You are receiving this email message because you signed up for email notifications of this type in your ProZ.com email preferences. To unsubscribe from ProZ.com email notifications, go to this page: https://www.proz.com/unsubscribe If you have trouble adjusting your email preferences, please submit a support request: https://www.proz.com/support Do not reply to this message; your reply will not be read. ProZ.com 2509 James Street P.O. Box 323 Syracuse, NY 13206-9277 USA+1 (315) 463-7323 Copyright © 1999-2010 ProZ.com - All rights reserved.