What do you think about corporate accounts on The Open Mic?

Dmitry

Hey friends! I hope you're having a wonderful day! I just wanted to run an idea by you to see what you guys think. Feel free to post in this thread or you can email me at dmitry@theopenmic.co

So here goes. Recently we've noticed a lot of interest from various translation technology companies and LSPs in publishing on The Open Mic. They love our community and would love to be a part of it by publishing their articles on our platform.

Personally, I think it's great because they're focused on created great content targeted both at translators (educational articles about running a business, marketing, social media, etc.) and end clients (finding translators, hiring professionals, what to look for when hiring a translator, etc.).

So, technically, these kind of articles align with our main goal: knowledge-sharing and promoting the image of our profession).

My question to you is: would it be ok for us to invite them to publish on The Open Mic? If we do invite them, should we create sort of corporate accounts for them (with company logo) or personal accounts for their Product/Marketing/Social Media Managers.

What do you guys think?

Dmitry

You can also cast your vote and join the discussion on Twitter if you prefer:

Dmitry

Or you can join the discussion on Facebook:

LorenaGrancelli

Please don't allow low-paying agencies, those that try to exploit professionals!

Dmitry

LorenaGrancelli Hi Lorena! Good point! The idea is to allow various companies publish articles from their corporate blogs on The Open Mic (after they go through our moderation).

There are a lot of companies who create excellent content both for translators and for end clients. Do you think it would be beneficial for us to have such content on our platform?

Take a look at these articles by SDL, for example:

http://blog.sdltrados.com/3-challenges-translating-tourism-content/
http://blog.sdltrados.com/5-resources-help-grow-freelance-translation-business/
http://blog.sdltrados.com/translation-localization-events-attend-2017/

I think our community could benefit from such content. What do you think @LorenaGrancelli?

Dmitry

Catherine Thanks for sharing your thoughts, @Catherine! Appreciate it!

Catherine The question is why?

I think some corporate blogs offer quality content that could be beneficial to our community and our readers. What do you think about the example articles that I've shared above? These ones:

Dmitry http://blog.sdltrados.com/3-challenges-translating-tourism-content/
http://blog.sdltrados.com/5-resources-help-grow-freelance-translation-business/
http://blog.sdltrados.com/translation-localization-events-attend-2017/

I think it's pretty good (some of them were actually written by translators).

Catherine

The question is why? Plenty of other places exist in social media for corporates to publish their PR stuff. They are part of the "translation industry"; we translators are part of the "translation profession." The interests of the two camps are not identical. The American Translators Association is riven with discord among members because of corporate accounts, which have become the dominant voice there; the Open Mic would do well to learn from the ATA's mistake.

Sandrine

Dmitry I think some corporate blogs offer quality content that could be beneficial to our community and our readers. What do you think about the example articles that I've shared above? These ones:

There are indeed good blogs, put they should remain separate from TOM in my opinion. If we wish to read articles written by companies, we can go on these blogs.

Catherine

Dmitry Well, if you look at those posts, two of them are written by SDL's "Social Media Executive," who is not a translator--in fact, nowhere does he even mention knowing a second language, not even in his LinkedIn profile. His posts are the typical corporate fluff and written as PR bait, in his case, to get translators sucked into using SDL's software.

The other post you linked to is indeed by a translator, but she already belongs to The Open Mic--but you already know that, since you interviewed her for your radio program, and she's published some of her articles here. So why bother getting corporations involved if they're coming to us translators for their own blog posts? Why not just go direct to the translators? It's like a client going through an agency for a translator instead of directly to us.

There's almost no group anywhere for just translators and interpreters; almost all of them got invaded by agencies, software companies, and corporations. I think it would be a shame if it happened here too. But you do what you want to do, it's your platform.

jo_parisi

Hi. I just had a look at those three posts and I found them interesting. I mean, in the average. The Open Mic is full of interesting, clever, inspiring articles, written by professionals in the translation industry.
I don't think anybody needs special accounts to publish on TOM.
Moreover, OF COURSE they want to publish on TOM, an amazing community of professional freelance translators!
Perhaps I am too structured, but I think you should resist the temptation to give them corporate accounts, in order to be kind and welcoming.
On the other hand, there could be other considerations to make, about the new opening for clients, but I think they would have all the interest in publishing on TOM even without corporate accounts.
Hope my contribute can help...

Dmitry

jo_parisi

jo_parisi Perhaps I am too structured, but I think you should resist the temptation to give them corporate accounts, in order to be kind and welcoming.

I think you're right, @jo_parisi! Thank you for sharing your opinion!

csbotero

I don't know. I don´t understand why. The Open Mic is open to all of us to have an answer or express our concerns if they want to help writing content why the cannot do it in the channels of expression we have here?

PerezMongardRichard

BTW, I must mention, by mistake I clicked on the poll without being logged in and apparently it took my vote anyway.

Regarding the question, I would say the following:
1) Why are Agencies (Translators are the ONLY Language Service Providers, others are fakes) so interested in getting in? Most good agencies are very busy and have enough translators to cope. The one's who want to get in MOST PROBABLY are the bad ones, those that would love to spoil this or any translators venue.

2) The day bad agencies go bankrupt and only good one's are left, then I would let them in to any place I want translation to be respected. I have the bad feeling that day will never come.

3) A translators organisation focused on the betterment of translators and translation can't have those involved in our "worsenment" telling us how to manage our business or our workplaces. But of course, The Open Mic, just like many more, are not Translators Organisations, so it will be what it has to be.

EdenTranslates

I am very skeptical of the idea of corporate accounts or anything corporate in general. Not to say that all agencies/LSPs are bad, but there are far too many out there who are pretty much designed to rip off translators. When an agency posts something online, their single objective is to make more revenue. They do this by attracting more clients or by convincing translators to buy their very expensive and unnecessary CAT tools so that other agencies can then use these tools to pay translators very, very low rates for fuzzy matches. I have seen articles by low-paying agencies with titles like "Why Going Through a Translation Agency is Important." They want to draw our end clients to them so they can make more money off of our work (I can't say I totally blame them, since that's the way things are set up).

If agencies are going to post on The Open Mic, please make them go through a serious vetting process. They have to have a reputation for paying translators well, paying on time, only hiring qualified people who translate into their native tongue, and their main website should be free of grammatical errors because they hired an actual copywriter. I support the idea of open and free communication and access to information online, but at the same time there need to be more protections for the people who are doing the actual translation work.

Those are my two cents. ?

Dmitry

EdenTranslates

EdenTranslates I have seen articles by low-paying agencies with titles like "Why Going Through a Translation Agency is Important."

Those are the worst kind of articles, @EdenTranslates! I despise them too! Very cheap and dirty marketing that just makes you look bad and greedy. I don't want to see this on The Open Mic. Thank you so much for sharing your opinion!

tralangia

Thanks for the question. This is indeed a novelty here and i must say that I'm a bit against allowing corporate entities access here. Would rather that freelancers post their issues, concerns, ideas and business practices.
Translating agencies have other marketing tools at hand. We here are helping each other, sharing our most subjective thoughts on doing business. Some just to educate and spread their freelancer's net with colleagues who translate in other or the same languages and some to promote themselves and maybe convince a client who doesnt know whether to pick a freelnacer or an agency.
There are good posts written by agency members, but by giving them space, we also promote them.
Maybe we could offer an opportunity for those members to post, but not state who they work for. If their post is of quality and trustworthy, the client wiill either way maybe contact them and later find out that an agency was behind it (not sure of the effect it will have on the client). This sound a bit like deceiving somebody, but I would like to have OpenMic stand for us freelancers and small businesses who want to reach out to direct clients,which is so hard nowadays, without having an agency stand behind the effort.

IevgeniiaGres

In my point of view, as long as they post good articles and do not PR themselves, it's ok. But if every article will contain 'contact us blah-blah-blah', then The Open Mic will become a platform for promoting agencies and not freelances and small teams. Do we want that? Obviously, no...

Dmitry

Catherine Thank you so much for sharing your concerns, @Catherine! Really appreciate your honesty!

Catherine Why not just go direct to the translators?

This is probably a topic for a separate discussion, but from my experience it's not easy to bring translators as authors to our platform. But I'm sure it just a matter of time, though. ?

Catherine There's almost no group anywhere for just translators and interpreters; almost all of them got invaded by agencies, software companies, and corporations. I think it would be a shame if it happened here too.

I hear you loud and clear @Catherine! That's why I've started this discussion in the first place. Transparency is very important to me and I know that I can't just take decisions like this in my own hands. It's a community-driven project after all.

Catherine But you do what you want to do, it's your platform.

It's OUR platform! ? Without dozens of awesome authors and thousands of amazing members who read, comment, share and write it would be another dead-end side quest.

The people of this community is what makes it so different and great. I'm just merely a developer guy who happened to have some extra time on his hands ?

Dmitry

Dear @Catherine, @IevgeniiaGres, @jo_parisi, @EdenTranslates, @Sandrine, @tralangia, @PerezMongardRichard, @csbotero and @LorenaGrancelli!

Thank you so much for sharing your opinions and for participating in this discussion. As you know, I always emphasize that The Open Mic is a community-driven project and without the awesome people of this community it wouldn't get the same kind of attention it is getting in the industry.

Even though I personally think not all representatives of our industry are "evil" I absolutely understand your reservations and doubts. It seems like at this stage it would be a mistake to allow any kind of "corporate" presence on our platform as it will simply dilute the spirit of this community and betray the ideas it was built upon.

That's why I decided that blogging will be reserved to translators and personal account only until we've come up with a better way for cooperation with the industry.

I think The Open Mic is better off doing it's own thing rather trying to appeal to everyone because I just going to be like sitting on 2 chairs.

Thanks again everyone for your participation and for contributing to the discussion. You guys rock!

you rock phil

csbotero

Well it seems we translators know what we want. Glad we could help you to take the right decition.