Preparing for disintermediation: Or what will the future look like in a global gig economy?
A presentation given at the tolk- en vertaalcongres in Breda on March 9, 2018 titled “The Language Industry 4.0: Embracing the future?”
Building bridges between Corporates and Start-uptswimdecraene
Presentation by @wimdecraene from Accenture Digital during Digital First 2015 about the need to change the nature of collaboration between Corporates and Start-ups.
Innovate Partnerships That Drive Tourism (Excerpt) - Mekong Tourism Forum 2015lizwarddci
Digital Coaching International CEO Liz Ward delivered a case study about how regions, states and nations can grow their online footprint thanks to a blend of digital technology and innovative partnerships. The slides uploaded are an excerpt only. Please contact Digital Coaching International if you'd like to view the full presentation.
Design For A Better UK. Richard Dennys, Head of Digital Business Academy & Sk...Richard Dennys FCIM
Presentation deck given to the LBS Design Club at Google's Campus London, on 22nd May 2015 Richard Dennys, Head of Digital Busines :
The London Business School D/club (Design and Innovation Club) is hosting our first Design Immersion Day at Campus London, a Google space.
We invite all entrepreneurs, designers, innovators and dreamers to join us for an inspirational series of short talks by the design industry's best and brightest. True to our D/club mission, the event is open to all members of the LBS community and the broader London design ecosystem. The event will feature three key note speakers, a Q&A panel session and a networking reception.
We are delighted to announce that IDEO, TechCity UK, ?What IF! Innovation Partners and Cisco CREATE will join us to share their insights and help us explore the role of design in the digital economy.
09:00 - 09:30 Registration
09:25 - 09:30 LBS D/club Introduction
09:30 - 10:00 Chris Grantham, IDEO
10:00 - 10:30 Maria Slowinska, Cisco CREATE
10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break / Networking
10:45 - 11:15 Salil Pajwani, ?What IF! Innovation Partners
11:15 - 11:45 Richard Dennys, TechCity UK
11:45 - 12:30 Panel Discussion moderated by LBS D/club
Building bridges between Corporates and Start-uptswimdecraene
Presentation by @wimdecraene from Accenture Digital during Digital First 2015 about the need to change the nature of collaboration between Corporates and Start-ups.
Innovate Partnerships That Drive Tourism (Excerpt) - Mekong Tourism Forum 2015lizwarddci
Digital Coaching International CEO Liz Ward delivered a case study about how regions, states and nations can grow their online footprint thanks to a blend of digital technology and innovative partnerships. The slides uploaded are an excerpt only. Please contact Digital Coaching International if you'd like to view the full presentation.
Design For A Better UK. Richard Dennys, Head of Digital Business Academy & Sk...Richard Dennys FCIM
Presentation deck given to the LBS Design Club at Google's Campus London, on 22nd May 2015 Richard Dennys, Head of Digital Busines :
The London Business School D/club (Design and Innovation Club) is hosting our first Design Immersion Day at Campus London, a Google space.
We invite all entrepreneurs, designers, innovators and dreamers to join us for an inspirational series of short talks by the design industry's best and brightest. True to our D/club mission, the event is open to all members of the LBS community and the broader London design ecosystem. The event will feature three key note speakers, a Q&A panel session and a networking reception.
We are delighted to announce that IDEO, TechCity UK, ?What IF! Innovation Partners and Cisco CREATE will join us to share their insights and help us explore the role of design in the digital economy.
09:00 - 09:30 Registration
09:25 - 09:30 LBS D/club Introduction
09:30 - 10:00 Chris Grantham, IDEO
10:00 - 10:30 Maria Slowinska, Cisco CREATE
10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break / Networking
10:45 - 11:15 Salil Pajwani, ?What IF! Innovation Partners
11:15 - 11:45 Richard Dennys, TechCity UK
11:45 - 12:30 Panel Discussion moderated by LBS D/club
Global trends ten key trends to watch for 2015Tracey Keys
It’s been a turbulent year, with geopolitical crises dominating world headlines. Rising nationalism and separatism has created power vacuums in the developed world; power plays in Ukraine, the Middle East and the South China Sea have threatened broader conflicts while the possibility of a new era of religious crusades is daunting. The issue for the year ahead is whether global leaders will step up to collaborate on real, lasting solutions.
Other major factors that will shape the world in 2015 are the sluggish global economy – hardly news at this stage, but still relevant – crashing oil prices, and climate change’s return to the agenda. Technology has its part to play, of course, and there are plenty of exciting developments on the horizon, although in the past twelve months it has been security breaches and cyber-criminals’ apparent ability to hack every aspect of the connected world.
Against this backdrop we see 10 key trends to watch in the next year.
“A glimpse into the future” represents much more than a trend report. It is intended to be a clear vision of our guidelines for 2019. More than strategy, it is aligned with what we believe to be the main focuses of 2019 in the technological area that will let us anticipate problems, redefine ideas, predict events and identify opportunities.
Compiled by Kurio & thenetworkone
The contributing experts and agencies are : Michał Kaliściak, Head of Content & Moderation, 180heartbeats +JUNG v MATT (PL), Kevin Fernandez, Social Media Producer, Adolescent Content (USA), Mar Camps, Digital Director, Atrevia (ES), Emily Ostrowska, Social Strategist, Culture (NZ), Adaobi Ugoago, Senior Creative Strategist, Day One Agency (USA), Silvia Tasso, Senior Digital Strategist & Francesca Trevisan, Digital Strategist, Different (IT), Jemma Parkin, Senior Account Manager, The Hallway (AU), Monika James, General Manager, Healthy Thinking Group Asia (SG), James Hebbert, Managing Director, Hylink UK (CH/UK), Lukas Hardy, Social Media Manager & Pancho González, Chief Creative Officer, Inbrax (CL), Oana Oprea, Head of Digital Planning, Jam Session (RO), Megan Perks, Executive Creative Director, Joe Public United (SA), Amy Bottrill, Social Account Director, Launch (UK), Gaby Arriaga, Founder, Leonardo1452 (MX), Rajesh Mehta, Chief Strategy Officer & Dhruv Gaur, Consultant, Digital Marketing, Medulla Communications (IN), Shannon Osborne, Head of Digital, Osaka Labs (UK), Lucas Florian, Unit Director, PIABO (DE), Kei Obusan, Senior Data and Insights Manager, Radarr (SG), Carol Chan, Managing Director, Comms8 (UK/HK), Presh Hunder, Social Media Manager & Jide Agbana, Product Marketing Manager, Enterfive (US / UK / NRA), Christopher Dimmock, SVP Integrated Strategy, Abelson Taylor (USA)
This is the second edition of this guide, in 2017 we profiled 59 fintech businesses, and in 2018 we will have 111 companies profiled, and the ecosystem is growing, new additions are on the way.
This dynamic list is in alphabetical order and includes fintech startups, fintech companies or services that belong to major companies, fintech incubators and other fintech stakeholders. All the fintech companies must have Portuguese founders but headquarters can be anywhere.
Combining innovative business models and technology to ENABLE, ENHANCE and DISRUPT financial services.
www.fintech.pt
Strategies for the Age of Digital Disruption #DTR7Capgemini
Since 2000, 52% of companies in the Fortune 500 have either gone bankrupt, been acquired or ceased to exist. These are challenging times for companies as the speed, volume and complexity of change intensify. Disruption can happen at any time, in any sector, and its effect on traditional organizations can be fundamental. This is why we chose to dedicate our seventh edition of the Digital Transformation Review to digital disruptions. How can organizations survive and thrive in the age of digital disruptions? We posed this very question to a panel of industry leaders, academics, startup founders, analysts and technology gurus from three different continents.
Working with our global panel, we have built a detailed picture of the digital disruption phenomenon, probing the key questions that organizations need answers to:
• How can we plan for the emergence of disruptors?
• Why are we seeing so many disruptions?
• How can organizations respond to disruption?
• What shape are these disruptions taking?
• Which startups are likely to emerge to disrupt sector value chains over the coming years?
We hope this edition of the Digital Transformation Review has helped increase understanding of the disruptive and challenging times we live in. Join the conversation on twitter #DTR7
Taking entrepreneurs to a whole new level, new thinking and execution at the speed of light. Vision development, disruptive business models, zero budget go to market strategy, exceptional traction and consecutive funding.
Why good social internal comms creates good social external comms - PR Moment...Tom Barton
My presentation at the Social Media in B2B Communications conference hosted by PRMoment.com, 26 Sept 2012. This was our story of how we learned from our early experiences with social media to inform our approach to internal communications, which in turn better supported our external social media communications. Our moves bring us closer to integrating our internal and external communications, both from an inside-out and an outside-in point of view.
Quelle est la valeur de l’open source ? Étude de l’UE sur l’impact de l’open ...Open Source Experience
OpenForum Europe et Fraunhofer ISI ont mené une étude ambitieuse pour la Commission européenne portant sur l’impact des logiciels et matériels open source sur l’indépendance technologique, la compétitivité et l’innovation dans l’UE. Cette étude permettra d’orienter les politiques européennes en matière d’open source pour les prochaines années, mais elle a aussi un intérêt pour les instances gouvernementales à l’échelle mondiale.
Notre étude indique que l’impact de l’open source sur l’économie européenne était de l’ordre de 65 à 95 milliards € en 2018 alors que pour cette même année, les pays et les société de l’UE ont réalisé des investissements conséquents dans l’open source, à hauteur de plus d’un milliard d’euros. Les produits de ces investissements sont disponibles pour être réutilisés dans les secteurs public et privé, ainsi que pour faire progresser le développement et l’innovation.
Lorsque l’on regarde les chiffres historiques, on voit clairement que l’open source a très fortement contribué à la croissance économique, mais s’il était soutenu par des politiques et des actions adaptées, il pourrait dynamiser bien plus encore l’économie. À titre d’exemple, si les contributions au code open source augmentaient de 10 % chaque année, l’Union européenne verrait son PIB croître de 70 milliards € et pourrait compter 1000 start-ups de plus dans le secteur des TIC.
Au cours de cette conférence, des représentants de Fraunhofer ISI et de l’OpenForum Europe partageront dans le détail les résultats de l’étude d’impact économique, des études de cas, une analyse des politiques et des recommandations en la matière.
Measuring for success: Goals, performances, and outcomesLuigi Muzii
Every business should measure performances against goals, substantiate its existence, and justify paychecks on solid arguments and data that customers can understand. This presentation focuses on the value KPI may show of a business. Suggestions are given about developing KPIs that can be understood by customers.
Global trends ten key trends to watch for 2015Tracey Keys
It’s been a turbulent year, with geopolitical crises dominating world headlines. Rising nationalism and separatism has created power vacuums in the developed world; power plays in Ukraine, the Middle East and the South China Sea have threatened broader conflicts while the possibility of a new era of religious crusades is daunting. The issue for the year ahead is whether global leaders will step up to collaborate on real, lasting solutions.
Other major factors that will shape the world in 2015 are the sluggish global economy – hardly news at this stage, but still relevant – crashing oil prices, and climate change’s return to the agenda. Technology has its part to play, of course, and there are plenty of exciting developments on the horizon, although in the past twelve months it has been security breaches and cyber-criminals’ apparent ability to hack every aspect of the connected world.
Against this backdrop we see 10 key trends to watch in the next year.
“A glimpse into the future” represents much more than a trend report. It is intended to be a clear vision of our guidelines for 2019. More than strategy, it is aligned with what we believe to be the main focuses of 2019 in the technological area that will let us anticipate problems, redefine ideas, predict events and identify opportunities.
Compiled by Kurio & thenetworkone
The contributing experts and agencies are : Michał Kaliściak, Head of Content & Moderation, 180heartbeats +JUNG v MATT (PL), Kevin Fernandez, Social Media Producer, Adolescent Content (USA), Mar Camps, Digital Director, Atrevia (ES), Emily Ostrowska, Social Strategist, Culture (NZ), Adaobi Ugoago, Senior Creative Strategist, Day One Agency (USA), Silvia Tasso, Senior Digital Strategist & Francesca Trevisan, Digital Strategist, Different (IT), Jemma Parkin, Senior Account Manager, The Hallway (AU), Monika James, General Manager, Healthy Thinking Group Asia (SG), James Hebbert, Managing Director, Hylink UK (CH/UK), Lukas Hardy, Social Media Manager & Pancho González, Chief Creative Officer, Inbrax (CL), Oana Oprea, Head of Digital Planning, Jam Session (RO), Megan Perks, Executive Creative Director, Joe Public United (SA), Amy Bottrill, Social Account Director, Launch (UK), Gaby Arriaga, Founder, Leonardo1452 (MX), Rajesh Mehta, Chief Strategy Officer & Dhruv Gaur, Consultant, Digital Marketing, Medulla Communications (IN), Shannon Osborne, Head of Digital, Osaka Labs (UK), Lucas Florian, Unit Director, PIABO (DE), Kei Obusan, Senior Data and Insights Manager, Radarr (SG), Carol Chan, Managing Director, Comms8 (UK/HK), Presh Hunder, Social Media Manager & Jide Agbana, Product Marketing Manager, Enterfive (US / UK / NRA), Christopher Dimmock, SVP Integrated Strategy, Abelson Taylor (USA)
This is the second edition of this guide, in 2017 we profiled 59 fintech businesses, and in 2018 we will have 111 companies profiled, and the ecosystem is growing, new additions are on the way.
This dynamic list is in alphabetical order and includes fintech startups, fintech companies or services that belong to major companies, fintech incubators and other fintech stakeholders. All the fintech companies must have Portuguese founders but headquarters can be anywhere.
Combining innovative business models and technology to ENABLE, ENHANCE and DISRUPT financial services.
www.fintech.pt
Strategies for the Age of Digital Disruption #DTR7Capgemini
Since 2000, 52% of companies in the Fortune 500 have either gone bankrupt, been acquired or ceased to exist. These are challenging times for companies as the speed, volume and complexity of change intensify. Disruption can happen at any time, in any sector, and its effect on traditional organizations can be fundamental. This is why we chose to dedicate our seventh edition of the Digital Transformation Review to digital disruptions. How can organizations survive and thrive in the age of digital disruptions? We posed this very question to a panel of industry leaders, academics, startup founders, analysts and technology gurus from three different continents.
Working with our global panel, we have built a detailed picture of the digital disruption phenomenon, probing the key questions that organizations need answers to:
• How can we plan for the emergence of disruptors?
• Why are we seeing so many disruptions?
• How can organizations respond to disruption?
• What shape are these disruptions taking?
• Which startups are likely to emerge to disrupt sector value chains over the coming years?
We hope this edition of the Digital Transformation Review has helped increase understanding of the disruptive and challenging times we live in. Join the conversation on twitter #DTR7
Taking entrepreneurs to a whole new level, new thinking and execution at the speed of light. Vision development, disruptive business models, zero budget go to market strategy, exceptional traction and consecutive funding.
Why good social internal comms creates good social external comms - PR Moment...Tom Barton
My presentation at the Social Media in B2B Communications conference hosted by PRMoment.com, 26 Sept 2012. This was our story of how we learned from our early experiences with social media to inform our approach to internal communications, which in turn better supported our external social media communications. Our moves bring us closer to integrating our internal and external communications, both from an inside-out and an outside-in point of view.
Quelle est la valeur de l’open source ? Étude de l’UE sur l’impact de l’open ...Open Source Experience
OpenForum Europe et Fraunhofer ISI ont mené une étude ambitieuse pour la Commission européenne portant sur l’impact des logiciels et matériels open source sur l’indépendance technologique, la compétitivité et l’innovation dans l’UE. Cette étude permettra d’orienter les politiques européennes en matière d’open source pour les prochaines années, mais elle a aussi un intérêt pour les instances gouvernementales à l’échelle mondiale.
Notre étude indique que l’impact de l’open source sur l’économie européenne était de l’ordre de 65 à 95 milliards € en 2018 alors que pour cette même année, les pays et les société de l’UE ont réalisé des investissements conséquents dans l’open source, à hauteur de plus d’un milliard d’euros. Les produits de ces investissements sont disponibles pour être réutilisés dans les secteurs public et privé, ainsi que pour faire progresser le développement et l’innovation.
Lorsque l’on regarde les chiffres historiques, on voit clairement que l’open source a très fortement contribué à la croissance économique, mais s’il était soutenu par des politiques et des actions adaptées, il pourrait dynamiser bien plus encore l’économie. À titre d’exemple, si les contributions au code open source augmentaient de 10 % chaque année, l’Union européenne verrait son PIB croître de 70 milliards € et pourrait compter 1000 start-ups de plus dans le secteur des TIC.
Au cours de cette conférence, des représentants de Fraunhofer ISI et de l’OpenForum Europe partageront dans le détail les résultats de l’étude d’impact économique, des études de cas, une analyse des politiques et des recommandations en la matière.
Measuring for success: Goals, performances, and outcomesLuigi Muzii
Every business should measure performances against goals, substantiate its existence, and justify paychecks on solid arguments and data that customers can understand. This presentation focuses on the value KPI may show of a business. Suggestions are given about developing KPIs that can be understood by customers.
The slide deck of the presentation given on June 16 at Localization World 34 in Barcelona.
To successfully run an MT platform and MT projects, a very specific skillset is needed. The right combination of MT and post-editing (PE) can help reduce turn-around times even in low-tech contexts while maximizing cost-effectiveness.
This presentation introduces to the strategies for an effective solution for translation buyers and vendors.
Read about the dos and don’ts when dealing with MT + PE in regard to improving productivity and increasing speed and ease of translation; the best setup for an operating environment based on the right project requirements and practices specifically devised; and the primary challenges posed by MT and PE, as preparing data, assessing quality of outputs, estimating the post-editing effort, vetting, selecting, instructing and compensating human resources.
The unredacted original version of Luigi Muzii's and Isabella Massardo's article on Europe, standards and terminology for the March 2016 issue of Multilingual.
Il Traduttore Nuovo, rivista dell'Associazione Italiana Traduzione e Interpreti
N. 1/96
Numero speciale dedicato alla Terminologia, con contributi di Christian Galinski, Donatella Pulitano, Claudia Rosa Pucci, Klaus-Dirk Schmitz, Blaise Nkwenti-Azeh, Annamaria Tagliabue, Alan K. Melby, Bruno de Bessé
Term Mining and Terminology Management in a Corporate Setting PerspectiveLuigi Muzii
The time spent looking for and not finding information cost an organization a total of $6 million a year, not including opportunity costs or the costs of reworking existing information that could not be located. Only 41% of localization-mature organizations have some terminology management policy in place, almost solely translation-oriented. Then we must show how terminology management works, demonstrate its power, through controlled languages, ontologies, search engine applications, content and knowledge management applications, and e-learning systems.
A short essay on translation quality standards, the new standards ISO 17100, translation quality assessment, sampling and translation data quality for statistical machine translation.
Diversità in rete: distanza che si trasforma in ricchezzaLuigi Muzii
Appunti per la partecipazione alla Social Media Week di Milano del 20 febbraio 2014 per il panel "Diversità in rete: distanza che si trasforma in ricchezza" organizzato dalle Girl Geek Dinners Milano.
Il testo è disponibile su http://goo.gl/AMq7nn.
Presentazione del webinar su vendor e project management volto alla revisione delle best practice in fatto di selezione, valutazione, analisi prestazionale e sviluppo delle risorse e in fatto di gestione progetti, con particolare attenzione alla definizione e distinzione dei ruoli e dei profili di vendor manager e di project manager nell’industria della traduzione, specialmente per quanto riguarda le fasi di analisi preventiva, programmazione e monitoraggio e i relativi strumenti.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Pushing the limits of ePRTC: 100ns holdover for 100 daysAdtran
At WSTS 2024, Alon Stern explored the topic of parametric holdover and explained how recent research findings can be implemented in real-world PNT networks to achieve 100 nanoseconds of accuracy for up to 100 days.
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
PHP Frameworks: I want to break free (IPC Berlin 2024)Ralf Eggert
In this presentation, we examine the challenges and limitations of relying too heavily on PHP frameworks in web development. We discuss the history of PHP and its frameworks to understand how this dependence has evolved. The focus will be on providing concrete tips and strategies to reduce reliance on these frameworks, based on real-world examples and practical considerations. The goal is to equip developers with the skills and knowledge to create more flexible and future-proof web applications. We'll explore the importance of maintaining autonomy in a rapidly changing tech landscape and how to make informed decisions in PHP development.
This talk is aimed at encouraging a more independent approach to using PHP frameworks, moving towards a more flexible and future-proof approach to PHP development.
Communications Mining Series - Zero to Hero - Session 1DianaGray10
This session provides introduction to UiPath Communication Mining, importance and platform overview. You will acquire a good understand of the phases in Communication Mining as we go over the platform with you. Topics covered:
• Communication Mining Overview
• Why is it important?
• How can it help today’s business and the benefits
• Phases in Communication Mining
• Demo on Platform overview
• Q/A
SAP Sapphire 2024 - ASUG301 building better apps with SAP Fiori.pdfPeter Spielvogel
Building better applications for business users with SAP Fiori.
• What is SAP Fiori and why it matters to you
• How a better user experience drives measurable business benefits
• How to get started with SAP Fiori today
• How SAP Fiori elements accelerates application development
• How SAP Build Code includes SAP Fiori tools and other generative artificial intelligence capabilities
• How SAP Fiori paves the way for using AI in SAP apps
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Essentials of Automations: The Art of Triggers and Actions in FMESafe Software
In this second installment of our Essentials of Automations webinar series, we’ll explore the landscape of triggers and actions, guiding you through the nuances of authoring and adapting workspaces for seamless automations. Gain an understanding of the full spectrum of triggers and actions available in FME, empowering you to enhance your workspaces for efficient automation.
We’ll kick things off by showcasing the most commonly used event-based triggers, introducing you to various automation workflows like manual triggers, schedules, directory watchers, and more. Plus, see how these elements play out in real scenarios.
Whether you’re tweaking your current setup or building from the ground up, this session will arm you with the tools and insights needed to transform your FME usage into a powerhouse of productivity. Join us to discover effective strategies that simplify complex processes, enhancing your productivity and transforming your data management practices with FME. Let’s turn complexity into clarity and make your workspaces work wonders!
Unlocking Productivity: Leveraging the Potential of Copilot in Microsoft 365, a presentation by Christoforos Vlachos, Senior Solutions Manager – Modern Workplace, Uni Systems
GraphSummit Singapore | The Future of Agility: Supercharging Digital Transfor...Neo4j
Leonard Jayamohan, Partner & Generative AI Lead, Deloitte
This keynote will reveal how Deloitte leverages Neo4j’s graph power for groundbreaking digital twin solutions, achieving a staggering 100x performance boost. Discover the essential role knowledge graphs play in successful generative AI implementations. Plus, get an exclusive look at an innovative Neo4j + Generative AI solution Deloitte is developing in-house.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
Please, let me introduce myself briefly. I am an independent business consultant, helping customers choose and implement best-suited technologies and redesign their business processes to get the best in multilingual content production, translation, and localization.
I have been working in the language business since 1982.
And with machine translation (MT) since 1991.
Today, this presentation will raise a few basic questions following the classic “Five Ws (and One H)” rule of rhetoric:
What is the gig economy?
Who benefits from it?
Where does it apply?
When does it prevail?
Why is the translation industry affected?
How is disintermediation relevant?
These questions will in turn raise a few more ones.
Let’s start with a brief recap first.
While the translation profession as we know it today was born in between the two world wars, with the development of world trade, the so-called translation industry was born between the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s, with the spread of personal computing.
In practice, with the burst of technology, in a few decades, a century-old single practice rapidly evolved into shops and then into an industry.
The same irruption of technology has led to two new industrial revolutions.
In fact, in 2011, the German government coined the term “Industry 4.0” to indicate the “fourth industrial revolution” with smart machines capable of autonomously exchange information, triggering actions and control each other independently via the Internet, big data analytics, and AI.
Does the language industry fit “4.0”? With some effort and a little imagination, the translation industry could be halfway between “2.0” and “3.0.”
Let’s now address the six fundamental questions. The first one is, what is the gig economy?
The term gig was coined in the 1920s by jazz musicians to mean “engagement.” The concept of gig economy was introduced in 2009, when the financial crisis began to bite badly, to describe the economic activity of people using digital platforms for short-term engagements to make a living.
A gig economy typically develops after the disruption of markets following the establishment of technological platforms connecting businesses and independent professionals. In this respect, any market is exposed to the gig economy if its players can be digitally connected to customers regardless of their size and position.
The use of self-employed workers is not a peculiarity of post-crisis years. Businesses have been trying for decades to replace the traditional employment model to escape taxes and labor laws. Previously, intermediaries were used instead of digital platforms.
It has been happening, from consumption and leisure to services and manufacturing. Companies like Airbnb, Amazon, Foodora, Netflix, Uber, Upworks have been disrupting their sectors and nothing can apparently stop them, not even the class actions of drivers and riders or the efforts to have them pay their dues to the communities they thrive on.
The business model is roughly the same as that of the gig economy. The parcellation of jobs, the infinite quest for the lowest remuneration, the way jobs are dispatched, and how people are hired and remunerated in the gig economy is no news in the translation industry.
So even the most celebrated companies of the gig economy have little to teach to their translation industry counterparts except, maybe, for the tech element and the sophistication in tax elusion.
The promises of the gig economy may sound appealing. Digital technologies let workers become entrepreneurs, free from the drudgery of traditional jobs, while making extra cash in their free time.
Indeed, workers in the gig economy are often manipulated into working long hours for low wages and continually chasing the next gig, while companies exploit the many loopholes in the tax and labor laws.
The surge of the digital economy has led to a new feudalism and those who own the platforms are the new vassals.
The gig economy with its new landlords is reaching in to all other industries, and localization is no exception.
Digital platforms are disrupting old-fashion markets by parceling out jobs in discrete tasks and matching customers and workers, with pay being determined by demand only.
From the customer’s perspective, disintermediation is the answer to their quest for convenience and for cutting out the additional costs charged by intermediaries.
Parcellation of jobs has been happening for a few years now in the localization industry. A major difference with the companies of the platform economy is the use of platforms.
The wild side of the sharing economy and the gig economy is that convenience and affordability also come at a price, usually from eluding taxes and laws, thus, eventually, damaging the society.
Also, the sharing economy has created a new monstrous type of customer who expects the service level of the Ritz Carlton at McDonald’s prices.
And what about the promise of the sharing economy of freedom and additional substantial income? It couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, the growth of the sharing economy presents an economic paradox: Productivity is rising, while median income is flatting out.
Finally, the on-demand economy was supposed to unleash innovation. Can you see any real innovation coming? Or only a typical Schumpeterian “creative destruction”?
The future is not what it used to be. With computers performing already 99% of translation jobs, a totally new approach should be devised to curb threats and take advantage of any opportunities brought by innovations.
Some questions arise then that should be answered however challenging: Will the translation industry survive? How long? What will the translation business look like in five years? Is a career in translation still advisable? What are the options and the strengths to explore? What are the threats and the weaknesses?
Some people claim that the demand for translation is growing and that it will keep growing in the coming years, but the measurement approach followed so far is questionable. As a matter of fact, any growth in revenues may correspond to a growth in volumes, but it may also hide a stagnation if not really a decline in prices, and, possibly, in profits.
Looking at production life cycle stages, translation revenues might already have peaked, while profits have possibly been decreasing for a few years now. This would explain the revival of the M&A frenzy: Organic growth is getting harder and harder, more and more investments are required to keep businesses profitable, and consolidation is the easiest way to grow and the most profitable exit strategy.
In five years, the platform war will be over and a bunch of wealthy few will most probably rule the business world.
However young, the translation industry is fast drawing near the end of a cycle, and desperately needs to be renovated. Especially in the last few years, translation industry players have been desperately struggling to meet the demands of translation buyers craving to process ever-growing content volumes into more language pairs. Unfortunately, talents don’t combine with the abundance of tools, technology, and data because a varied bouquet of skills is increasingly required, while education initiatives are dramatically lagging. And while MT will keep proliferating, the shortage of talents will be ever more serious.
In fact, the emphasis on language knowledge is still overstated when expectations are growing every day that Internet giants are going to solve the pesky language problem once and for all, without any intricacies and possibly at almost no cost.
LSPs should then be utterly concerned about the sustainability of their business models. Scrambling for scale might not be enough even for the largest providers: Translation will still be here in five years, it will be here also in twenty years, but the translation industry may not.
Translation education still looks less demanding, thus faster, than scientific and technical education. The lower return is perceived as the result of high costs rather than of low benefits. Yet, however friendly technology may look today, skills other than languages are more and more needed to cope with the growing complexity of the business world.
In this respect, with the almost total absence of any real specialization from translation education, newbies and even practitioners will be needing intense continuous training all the time more to specialize and try to keep up with the growing expectations.
Unfortunately, with LSPs struggling to keep profiting despite obsolete, inefficient, and costly processes while resisting their customers’ pressures on prices, pays will keep lowering, thus forcing the best resources out of business. At the same time, the harshness of the gig economy will force more and more people with technical and science skills look for additional incomes in translation. No specialization in medicine, biology, law, engineering, etc. would make a translator any better at translation than a physician, a biologist, an attorney, an engineer with the same language pair and the access to the same tools and resources.
Three areas should then be explored, technology, knowledge, and data. Machine translation is now a general-purpose technology and will be a game changer even more than it has been so far. Indeed, MT is going to be so pervasive as to be embedded practically in every tool and application. Don’t forget that the washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet, and yet many would hardly be able to tell how and how much.
Knowledge will be as important as technology. Language is a technology too, but it is useless without the necessary ability to exploit it. Just like language, any other technology is no magic wand. Technology does not solve problems, people do with their practical intelligence. The same practical intelligence allows them to devise the processes that enable technology to maximize benefits and minimize risks.
Finally, the human brain is still the most powerful processing tool when it comes to reasoning. And knowledge allows people to pick the best data to have machine make inferences and reliable predictions.
The major threat comes from the business model that is common to most translation business players. Not only is this model obsolete and largely wasteful, it is a major reason for disintermediation. And, in fact, industries remaining too long as such with large inefficiencies are ideal candidates for disruption.
A major weakness comes from what is conversely often perceived and brandished as a weapon: Information asymmetry. Only distrust and discontent come from the imbalance in transactions due to the inability of buyers to assess the value of service before sale.
Another significant weakness is the growing skill shortage. This is due to a killing combination of increasingly lower pays driving best resources out with inadequate educational programs producing poorly-skilled would-be translators.
Finally, the constant tide of new entrants and substitutes will help further undifferentiation and minimize any network effect.
The many affordable technologies and the very low financial, commercial, and legal barriers will result in new entrants being more and more often outsiders. But raising barriers is not the solution.
Decreased transaction costs are expunging intermediaries from electronic value chains.
This means that also a buyer-seller matching platform for translation could be hard to develop, setup and run profitably. A so-called marketplace is not enough. For real disintermediation, best-matching algorithms are required to shorten the traditional translation supply chain. However, project management can hardly be totally automated especially for large and complex jobs involving several language pairs. The same goes for vendor management.
However, for small, single-pair jobs there will be more and more customers searching for translators through portals, willing to use them as virtual one-stop shops. Also, these customers will most probably be more and more expecting to have their content translated nearly for free if not for free. On the other hand, this is a typical sharing economy effect.
Will you be still willing to fight for any customer and any job, even for those going for the cheapest price? There will be more and more of them even among the once premium customers in the legendary premium segment.
If your competitors are getting stronger and stronger and you are unable to outdo them, you might band together with them and possibly gain some advantage rather than just giving up.
In other words, you can embrace the sharing economy and try to replicate the success of the companies of the gig economy.
In this case, be ready to embrace Uber’s co-founder Travis Kalanick’s philosophy and get rid of the other dude, i.e. go for complete automation.
Be also aware that high-attrition rates may not be a feasible long-term strategy. Unfortunately, and yet unsurprisingly, when getting bigger and bigger, rather than investing more money and more ability in the employee experience, companies usually become worse places to work. And in this case, things can get very bad if the tide of side-giggers withdraws.
Reputation is a unique asset, that is hard to gain and much too easy to lose, with both customers and vendors.
So, the next time you find yourself thinking about cutting costs to raise profits or protect your margins, remember that someone might pay your savings and your reputation will eventually be affected.
There is no reason to fear disintermediation. Technology allows mindful players to develop and provide new service bouquets, but this requires a strong brand, the ability to differentiate from competitors, and deep diversification of services.
Digital transformation is no child’s play, though, and every business has its own intricacies. When seeking business opportunities in foreign markets, companies are challenged with functions they are not expert of, and must adapt fast. Most of these companies embraced automation and digital transformation way earlier, but they still have issues in handling their digital content.
There are many good opportunities for LSPs there, provided they can re-shape their business models and start adding real value. In times of industry 4.0 companies are no longer willing to partner with old-fashion organizations with virtually no real tech savvy.
Mindful LSPs may start by refining their service offering by including consulting services in their bouquets for companies that are trying to do business abroad.
In this respect, the approach to technology should go well beyond CAT, TMS and MT and extend to modern content processing technologies and techniques like machine learning, AI and natural language processing, to make content more useful to humans and computers.
To this end, LSPs should turn their data into assets and make the most of it. Machine learning algorithms are rapidly becoming a commodity, and the cost of even the most advanced of them will soon plummet. The value will not be in algorithms, then, but in data, that is indeed the oil of the digital era.
As a first step, start measuring. Through measurement you’ll know more, reduce uncertainty, and thus risks. Anyway, for correct measuring you must perfectly know your data, master metrics, identify key measurements and the right tools to use, and, above all, develop and continuously refine your methods of measurement.
Once you have made your measurements and collected the results, convey this information to customers so that they can positively correlate it with your capabilities.
“Lunch atop a skyscraper” is a very famous picture, but few probably know its title, history, and, above all, who shot it. Even fewer would know who shot the “shooter”.
This is the kind of knowledge that might be considered specialized and yet it’s available to all, but you must have the practical intelligence to acquire it.
Today a computer system can play chess or drive a car, but still no chess-playing computer can also drive a car. Machines may perform specific tasks, but they lack understanding of the world—sentience—and cannot transfer knowledge laterally between domains.
Translation will be more and more an engineering thing, but machines will remain dependent on humans for building their “knowledge” from training data for the foreseeable future.
The future has already begun, tempus fugit, time is running out and it is always less. So, if the question is when, the answer is now, hic et nunc, before it’s too late.