Corporate intranets are social media too

Despite the risks of mismanaging a crowdsourced translation project, enthusiastic user communities are in an excellent position to propose authentic turns of phrase for social media tools in their own languages. The HootSuite translation project is a good example. I challenge any professional translation agency with a top-down process to get it right first time or do a better job than a well managed crowd of passionate users.

And it doesn't only apply to social media tools in the conventional sense. Corporate intranets are social media too. If our clients would only crowdsource the translation of their run-of-the-mill intranet content, their readers may feel more engaged and part of a group. Corporate should only have to moderate the process to ensure the key messages are getting across. Our role as professional linguists needs to change - we (and corporate) have to stop alienating the readers by second-guessing how they communicate as a group!