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!
August 31, 2010
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About Me
- John
- I'm a British national with close ties to France and a fascination with America. Working as a translator and editor in Paris, I developed a specialisation in corporate and marketing communications for the defence, aerospace and high-tech industries. For ten years I have managed E-Files, Inc., an international network of business and technical communicators who share my background in multilingual marketing and corporate communications. We believe that teamwork between specialised translators and editors, marketing professionals and subject matter experts is the key to developing compelling multilingual content for print, web and multimedia. Corporate responsibility reporting has been my particular area of focus for several years, with clients in both the defence sector and the regulated lottery and gaming industry.