In-house translation – outside the box

Category: freelance translation

Ten Takeaways from the ATA German Language Division Workshop in Vienna (22-23 February 2025)
Last weekend, I attended the ATA German Language Division Workshop held here in Vienna. I also delivered a new presentation on Sunday morning (der Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund!). It was the first time that I had presented about the Expert in the Lead (XITL) approach to human-machine translation. Previously it has been the focus of LinkedIn posts and articles in the ITI Bulletin and Universitas Mitteilungsblatt.

GenAI/LLMs/MTPE and the Profession vs the Industry
1. Don’t be afraid to present on something new: presenting on a new topic is exhilarating – and audience feedback is really helpful. Presenting to a small, intimate audience is great for presenting on a new topic. I’d been tempted to go for really flashy slides, but opted for readability and high contrast. Day one reminded me to check my slides were clear: in black-and-white or with high contrast.
2. Even if we’re not all overly keen on GenAI and LLMs, translators certainly see the value of tools: there was a short presentation about AutoHotKey (AHK), which I knew of, but am not able to use in my working environment in the office. From the presentation, it was clear that I’d have plenty of use cases for it. And my other neighbour showed me a lightweight USB-C powered second screen. Various laptop stands and travel tech was on show over the weekend.
3. The continuing prevalence of AI bias, how to handle it, as well as how to prompt accordingly: Dagmar Gromann gave a two-part session focussing on typical AI bias. I think I was primed by the prompt about what Germans typically eat for dinner. I went for Obazda as a starter after it featured heavily in the prompt output! This session also addressed inclusive language – prompting me to re-listen to the Yellow of the Egg podcast.
Freelancing and in-house
1. In-house translators are far closer to freelancers than some may think: while I don’t contend with the “business” side of translation professionals as an in-house translator, I face many similar issues. I also need to get my point across to decision-makers, and convince people of the value of human translation.
2. Freelancers are suffering from the industry shift from an emphasis on “top quality” to “good enough”: I touched upon how the industry’s “flight from quality” is affecting the profession (see the graphics below). Some may approach a day where they have to reconsider their ability to “stay in the game” up until retirement. This mirrored the sentiment in a recent “Standing Up” (a closed Facebook Group for translators) thread. I am grateful to Standing Up for connecting me with one of my neighbours for the weekend.
Techniques
1. Always have something to hand to take notes: as Nina Sattler-Hovdar pointed out in her transcreation workshop on the second day – always take notes – whether on paper or on your phone, tablet or computer. I’m big on always having a notebook on me (even when watching football with my children). The takeaway already paid dividends this week when a thought came to me while printing out some texts. I quickly scribbled it onto one of the photocopies with the biro by the photocopier. I am sure I would have forgotten after a chat in the Teeküche.
2. Multiple approaches to the same issue: I talked to a few participants about their personal view of translation memory systems/CAT. People’s personal CAT use varies, often by their areas of specialisation. I believe firmly in “you do you” – if it works well for you, don’t change it! Different approaches includes different segmentation e.g. paragraph segmentation rather than sentence-based segmentation. The former is an approach I took many years to find. I find it very useful for “freer translations” e.g. speeches.
3. The priming effect: a couple of warm-up exercises focussed on the priming effect. I fell into the elephant trap a couple of times: which might possibly have been a sign of tiredness! One presentation analysing machine translation output was very interesting – professional translators use broader varieties of techniques to render texts than machine translation. Many techniques cast me back to my student days and Translation Methodology. At the wordface, intuition plays a big role, so I don’t really analyse my preferences towards techniques. I probably could/should find time to do so.
The human factor
1. Translators are an upstanding and ethical bunch: in a world that sometimes can be very devoid of compassion, translators are very compassionate. Even when earning a living (even if this is hampered by industry practices), we still retain our integrity. Sadly some of the tales of agency work paint a far less upstanding picture.
2. Nothing beats human company: as someone attending for the first time, I was made really welcome and had a day and a half of great conversations with some consummate professionals. This is why I value, and feel duty-bound to fight for, the translation profession. Aaron Maddox’s final session was thought provoking and led to open discussion – including about the positive effects of life coaching.
Many thanks to all the organisers – Bettina, Ellen, Karen and Robin – as well as all the other participants. To anyone I didn’t really speak to over the weekend, I hope there will be future opportunities. And a particular thanks to my “neighbours” Sarah and Johanna, and other group work participants for the lively chats.
2 March 2025
Who’s in/on the lead in early 2025?

In December 2023, I wrote about the state of human-machine translation as we headed towards 2024. The technological march of machine translation had dominated 2023. From personal musings over the last twenty years, comparing my professional situation with 12 months before, for the first time in 2022 and 2023 my outlook was a more pessimistic one in consecutive years.

My view was one of human translators being pushed towards fighting for scraps at dumping MTPE rates. More were considering moving away from translation or increasing their other activities than moving towards focussing solely on translation. In house, I had started to receive editing and revision requests that “didn’t seem quite right”. They seemed more fluent than their authors’ previous drafted texts, but also weren’t quite factually correct. In other cases, the inconsistency of terminology shone through. The sinking feeling was that my own descent towards MTPE drudgery had begun. The profession shared my pessimistic outlook. The fragility of (self-)employment relationships, needs for efficiency and cost-cutting amid difficult financial times were also apparent.

2025: a turbulent start

When I started sketching out this article in mid-December 2024, I didn’t know how 2025 would begin in terms of technological announcements. DeepSeek was not on the radar – by the end of January it was everywhere. Possibly from a translation professional’s perspective the most interesting aspect was OpenAI’s complaint in late January that new upstart DeepSeek was using “its” data. That’s right, the same data that OpenAI itself had unashamedly scraped to train itself. Excuse me Mr. Altman while I locate the sub-atomic-sized Stradivarius.

In recent weeks, I’ve read a number of people saying that this could be positive for easing OpenAI’s (perceived?) monopoly. For many, ChatGPT has become a metonym for AI. Others think it could herald a torrent of new solutions – some fear one that might finally be able to translate (impacting their endangered volume of translation work and pushing them further towards MTPE’s clutches). And that was before the latest development of Elon Musk expressing his wish to buy OpenAI.

The schism between the translation industry and the translation profession

The trend of recent years of a divergence in approaches between the translation industry and the translation profession continues. It had been a pandemic edition of the Translating Europe Forum (TEF) that first pushed the Human in the Loop (HITL) agenda. At first sight, its deceptive allure took me in. Over time, I became aware of the weasliness of the term “Human in the Loop” for translation. HITL is misused: it fails to define the expertise level of the human, and does not advocate the human retaining control/leadership. The industry seems to be revising its estimation somewhat with new term “Human at the Core” which is closer to my “Expert in the Lead” approach than “Machine in the Loop”, but is still coined by the industry. My “Expert in the Lead” concept is also about coming down on the side of the profession over the industry.

Fresh hope from the industry?

A piece from late in 2024 by Arle Lommel for CSA did give me some hope that the industry is also coming round to the fact that HITL will not sustain human translators in the human-machine translation era. One remark in that piece captures why HITL gets it wrong, and how that “janitorial role” of HITL will not be fulfilling.

“[…] “human in the loop” models – a sort of window dressing for post-editing – … often relegate expert linguists to an essentially janitorial role, sweeping up “bad MT” (quality checking and correction) and cleaning up AI messes. Instead, CSA Research has shifted to describing augmented translation as “human at the core” because, at the end of the day, empowered linguists will be making the decisions, aided by technology.”

The Language Sector Slowdown: A Multifaceted Outlook, Arle Lommel for CSA Research

Looking back to my assessment in December 2023, I opened with the following paragraph:

The debate about the future of (human) translation and changing role of translators is the biggest topic in translator circles. 2023 has been the year of the (unstoppable?) march of machine translation. Within a year of bursting onto the scene as an unknown, OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, can apparently also translate. Human translators increasingly face tighter, more competitive markets. Many are not even consulted about their replacement by MT solutions, but maybe grudgingly offered MTPE work. And there are talks of tightened budgets and gloomy outlooks of recession. So are the days of out-and-out translators numbered?

Michael Bailey, transl8r.eu blogpost – December 2023 – Who’s in/on the lead as we head into 2024?

As I prepared to write this post, I asked fellow professionals over LinkedIn how they viewed the situation. A modest little poll on LinkedIn among my network of fellow translators returned a slightly blurry snapshot. I asked pretty much the same question as I have been asking myself over two decades. From over 80 responses, less than one quarter of responses viewed their situation more optimistically. In contrast, 45% view their situation more pessimistically, and the remaining third see it as unchanged from the previous year. From those responses, a number of in-house translators and specialists in less common language pairs seemed more optimistic. Of the positively inclined, many were offering premium services with a narrow specialist focus. A few reported that new areas of specialism had emerged that compensated for the slowdown in business in other areas.

Busy-ness and Business

Some responses mentioned improved levels of “busy-ness”, but qualified the improvement being due to time-consuming customer acquisition drives. For others, new services and specialist areas had arrested the slump, but hadn’t banished doubts about the long-term future. In a few cases, new revenue streams opened up from (re)activating new language pairs, although a number I connected with did not realistically view adding further language combinations as a potential solution. Others viewed that the situation was no worse than a year ago, but had also not improved. For some of these this kind of struggle was a “new normal” – the glass was neither half-full nor half-empty.

Of those viewing the situation more pessimistically, several commented about an acceleration in the shift towards MTPE from “pure” translation work. Many freelancers lamented that their “valuable and valid” contribution was unable to outweigh their customers seeking “value for money”. By value for money – they mentioned diminishing rates (whether by line, character or page) or more MTPE work. A couple also said that work from major agency clients drying up had impacted them. In other cases the agencies had shifted towards an MTPE-based model instead of “classical translation”. Some others mentioned that reorganisations and mergers had meant that major customers had already reviewed the situation. A couple of respondents mentioned that smaller companies had been absorbed into larger groups with in-house language services.

Payment Practices

One contact also said that their pessimism was fuelled by longer payment times, although still within the agreed timeframe – a potential sign of agencies also suffering from cashflow issues. Amid ongoing cost of living issues (price inflation outstripping wage/salary increases, or downward pressure on rates), the financial squeeze becomes more apparent.

By delaying this post, I wanted to also allow myself the opportunity to catch-up with the first swathe of “Monthly Recap” posts on LinkedIn in 2025, in addition to “year-end round-up” posts. I’ve come to appreciate that it has been a busy month if I don’t have time to even consider writing one. However, this is where internal time and performance tracking negates a need for such a round-up. In 2024, H2 showed a remarkable up-tick: in May, based on figures until the end of April, translation time was around 73% of productive hours. By year-end it was up above 80%. In addition, my worked hours were higher for translation in 2024 than total hours for 2023.

How do you feel about the security/future of your role as a human translator, compared with 12 months ago?

These figures are why I see the security/future of my role more optimistically going into 2025. But this might be due to the short-termism of recent successes masking and negating struggles earlier in the year. Looking back at the reasons behind my pessimism in the last two years, uncertainty weighed strongly on my mind. Transformation and reorganisation bring uncertainty and insecurity. As a digital transformation programme started, I had felt marginalised and sidelined. And I felt that remit creep was also disruptive for my “course” as a translator. So while doubts existed, along with the simmering AI hype, I remained pessimistic. Learning about a suggested roll-out of MT without harnessing our language data probably fed the pessimism. So what changed so much in twelve months for me to enter 2025 with renewed optimism?

Getting back to business

In previous years, the non-translation-based tasks I was logging increased. I advocate that 100% efficiency/productivity is an illusion, as is 100% productivity as a translator. However, translators are susceptible to worrying about a dilution of their time spent translating. At year-end 2023, my productivity tracking showed I was translating for less than 80% of my hours. When I started the job, the level was closer to 90%. I felt a need to arrest the drift towards my knowledge-based job becoming a non-translation-based one. So I enlisted the services of a coach, and focused on using my mid-year appraisal to shed some non-core commitments. It was a timely reboot, and boosted my translator’s esteem. Esteem is so important.

Translating for a predominantly “non-public” domain means that a lot of my work’s impact never reaches the outside world. Internal visibility is therefore very important. Fortunately, the second half of 2024 served up a plethora of demanding, substantial and internally visible jobs. As a translator I still feel happiest translating, although I can use non-translation tasks to draw breath. I’ve learned to fuel my internal visibility. I am most visible where my translation results in the desired supervisory outcome at short notice. Internal visibility also builds momentum, as has been the case going into 2025.

A public or private persona

As wonderful as a very private persona sounds for less gregarious translators, I nevertheless need to maintain a public presence. Presentations and publications (e.g. in the ITI Bulletin and Universitas Mitteilungsblatt) also bolster the public impact of my work as a translator. The workshop I gave in Spiez and the contacts gained there were crucial in a lot of self-esteem issues. Three days’ reflection proved a turning point for “getting back to being me” and to steer out of the doldrums of silo-thinking. As I put the final touches to this piece, in 2025 I already have three further presentations confirmed, a conference participation and other irons in the fire.

In silo-like environments, especially for the “lone rangers”, i.e. SPLSU in-housers like me or freelancers who do not work together with other translators in virtual teams, social media can become an ersatz barometer of success and a way to shout from the rooftops. The problem is that the algorithms can suck you in, but don’t pay the bills. Add the peacocking influencers to the equation and they will tell you to post hourly/daily/weekly to feed the algorithm. However, my work’s confidential nature means that I can’t get sucked in by the siren-like call of the algorithms. I don’t have the fear of missing out that a freelancer has, if they don’t take on a piece of work. And much of the messages are about the successes – after all you project success far more than failure.

How are others feeling?

From some of the end-of-year posts I read, some professionals certainly put in the hard yards and enjoyed exceptional years (in terms of acclaim and remuneration) in 2024. To them: congratulations – your messages show that there plenty of life in professional translation. From viewing their profiles and websites, they all specialise in certain language combinations and with some very interesting niches. The common key to their success also seems to have been their efforts in fresh customer acquisition and keeping customers.

Some found that new areas of specialisation were opening up: either related to their existing areas or fresh new areas. Others pleasingly reported old customers feared lost returning to them after a dalliance with the AI/MT “good enough” world. For every success story, however, there were also stories of people having lost customers and work drying up. In some cases there were cases of agencies folding owing translators money. One such case was the bankruptcy of WCS Group and the agencies it ran (subsequently bought by Powerling). Many freelancers were left out of pocket. As I added to this post in mid-January 2025, there was a new twist to the Powerling story: The Dutch Society of Translators has just expelled Powerling from being a member. (h/t to Loek van Koeten for this information).

Upskilling and job crafting for survival?

Before I was able to actually narrow my remit, I had had to consider upskilling (i.e. obtaining alternative skills to complement my skills as a translator) and even put my foot in the water in actively pursuing courses to be fit for the new world of human-machine translation. However, obtaining new and possibly diametrically opposed skills to those I already possess as a translator proved counterproductive. Instead, with new areas of supervision coming online, my focus has now reverted to deepening my breadth of knowledge in the subject areas I cover. Some translation professionals have echoed this: those who will survive already possess all the skills and specialisations to survive.

Teaching old dogs new tricks?

Regarding the prospects of who will survive the AI deluge, I’ve read numerous estimates about the proportion of translators who will “survive” the AI revolution, with many stating between 10 and 25% percent, although the range is far wider. Part of the issue also relates to the stage of their career that translators are at. As William Lise identified in a blog post of his, some are close enough to retirement, and others young enough to change position. However, there is a substantial group of translators, particularly mid-career ones, trapped by the roots they have put down.

Whether people who have retrained from other professions are any safer is hard to tell. They may bring expertise from a past career, but may lack the translation experience. Possibly being newer in the “trade” might work both ways: be more firmly tied to making it work as the cost of retraining hasn’t been recouped yet, or in contrast, not so firmly embedded in the profession that they can’t “get out”. From a number of contacts who always viewed translation as a “safe Plan B”, they’ve changed their minds about wanting to commit to it.

Expertise counters AI hype

Nonetheless, the reality after the tidal wave of AI hype has proven that expertise remains essential – accountability and credibility of translations are areas where human translators still have an advantage. AI and NMT flushes out generalists working for agencies and pseudo-specialists. In this case, broad fields of specialisation (e.g. financial/legal) for agencies maybe stops people from standing out from the crowd. Others say they experience agency work decided upon purely by means of “fastest finger first” – an issue I mentioned when I blogged about the profession/industry schism in autumn 2023. In that case, expertise is unlikely to be given a chance to shine through.

In contrast, genuine specialists in narrow fields remain an elusively rare commodity. Regarding AI, there is a healthy scepticism about how it can really be a substitute for expertise and experience. Simply throwing more scraped data at the problem isn’t the solution, particularly as synthetic language data now swamps the originally lush large language pastures trained on human generated language. In this regard there is a counter revolution of some boutique LSPs looking for high-end translators whose personal service commands premium rates. In a couple of cases, some freelancers have even reported that they have profited from customers turning to them due to unsatisfactory agency experiences, viewing them as a “perfect fit” after lacklustre past experience.

And when the boot is on the other foot?

Occasionally, I outsource work to freelancers. The objective remains to ensure the desired supervisory outcome. This also sheds a lot of light on the “black box of translation”, market practices and how solid briefs helps so much. I have come to get a good feeling whether translators 1) want the job and 2) feel they can do justice to the job in hand. Genuine experts seem less fazed in not being able to take a job on. I also admire their honesty. Such a situation might be vastly different than dealing with an agency, where selling and margins are everything. The requirement of a satisfactory outcome, allows me to use a best bidder approach, rather than a cheapest bidder one.

Capitalising on AI’s vulnerabilities

Amidst the OpenAI/DeepSeek saga, I used the opportunity to highlight the accountability, control and expertise that expert human translation offers that AI and MT cannot. When “data scraping” allegations surfaced, I chose to capitalise on highlighting data confidentiality. My approach for the aficionados who brazenly claim how much time their ChatGPT Pro subscription saves, is to ask how they feel prompting techniques have changed, robustness of sources, and their views about the size of the context window.

The disarming tactic is to speak the fanboy’s language rather than coming across as too protectionist. Only then do you highlight the issues that impact your translation work, and therefore confirm why your expertise is required (e.g. in a zero/low-resource language combination, with high demands on confidentiality, and the necessary to avoid hallucinations).

Changing job remits

In terms of job creation, I’ve observed a tendency towards not replacing departing staff, or at best retaining existing headcount. New translator jobs are seldom. Looking at job descriptions, may advertised positions have been for maternity cover positions, often initially limited to a year. It can easily take a year to get to grips with new procedures, practices and subject areas. Other vacancies have more of a project manager/coordinator role emerging rather than a “translator” remit.

Monitoring open opportunities (I receive them through mailing lists from professional associations) is useful for gauging remit shift/creep. Job descriptions have clearly changed. Jobs creation rather than replenishment occurs in the area of LangTech. New LangTech units in larger language services are in-housing expertise. From conversations with people fitting the new profile, many highlight prominent “sponsors” within the organisation and strong links to IT being behind the creation of the new position.

Managing language data has definitely become more than a “rainy day” activity – as has terminology work. In a small language services unit, terminologists were traditionally considered a luxury. With the advent of Machine Translation, robust terminology has gained in importance. Machine translation-generated texts into German have demonstrated why I need terminology for all locales of German. My recent work has really brought home the differences between Swiss/German/Liechtenstein/Austrian banking terminology.

Driven loopy – the expert/machine/human in the loop/lead.

As previously mentioned, the very strong industry-led approach to human-machine translation is of “machine in the loop” and “human in the loop”. The industry’s financial and PR clout dictates the way translation (both as an industry and a profession) moves forward. However, industry-led perspectives focus on leveraging technology to an extent where human involvement is negligible or a poorly-paid afterthought.

This is quite apparent from the shift in the industry from humans predominantly “translating” to “post-editing”. In some cases the actual level of human expertise in the post-editing stage is questionable. Pitiful rates fail to motivate a professional: low per word rates for MTPE require unrealistic output levels to earn enough. It would take raw output pretty close to publishable in the first place that you can simply sign off. However, this realistically only works where translation is only required to be “good enough”. And the long-term job satisfaction of this approach is also negligible.

The HITL narrative is pushed so far that the MITL approach barely gets a look in. Rebranding translators as “language experts” is a mere sop. In much the way that the electorate in the UK may/may not have “had enough of experts”. “Language experts” is just another weaselly term: genuine expertise may often be found in far narrower areas or a single source-target language combination. Imagine the (justified) outrage if we were to rebrand microbiologists or astrophysicists as “science experts”.

Throw more language data at it?

The fact is that amid Messrs. Altman et al. scraping the Internet for content to build their LLMs, human generated language data has been exhausted. Tech bros continue to recite their “more data = better results” mantra. The synthetic data has already flooded the Internet, creating new “reheated” synthetic language data. All that changes here is the consistency of the turgid porridge.

The “more data = better results” approach is like a juggernaut or steamroller, or raging waters trying to pass through a pipe of a certain diameter. Upgrading pipes might permit a greater volume of waters to flow, but unless done end-to-end the flood risk still exists.

Many AI companies are still a long way from break-even let alone posting profits. This raises ethical questions. Why should we allow tech companies to break human knowledge-based industries, accelerate climate change, only to line the pockets of the super rich, if they ever turn a profit? Industry dictates the terms: amid skewed arguments of increased efficiency, knowledge-based work is still fraught with “hallucinations”. Why should translators tolerate such hallucinations?

Resistance is (not) futile?

My view about the Expert in the Lead results from my conviction that the role of the human in human-machine translation remains essential. I do concede that the days of “human translation” from the formative days of my career are gone. Instead, rather than resist the use of technology, the emphasis has shifted to ensuring human expertise remains in control. For me, this involves making the smart choice about the use of technology, rather than rejecting it. Experts in human-machine translation can resist by refusing to have their workflows dictated to them. Refusing to be a cog in the process keeps them in the lead rather than in the loop.

My bespoke service revolves around my correctly blending multiple translation memories (setting those penalties in relation to age of TUs, subject matter, incorrect locale/language variation) and really knowing what the translation is about. At the same time I also can make a sound decision about the sources of reference material to access. This has far better chances for meaningful and fruitful success, than the drudge of cleaning out the stochastic parrot’s sodden cage from an LLM prone to hallucination.

12 February 2025
What are the values of an Expert in the Lead?
In my recent article in the latest edition of the Universitas Mitteilungsblatt, one section covers the “Expert in the Lead” (XITL). XITL is a concept that has attracted a lot of my thoughts in recent months. It is my approach for considering the future role of human translators in the era of human-machine translation.

I am currently also running a poll on LinkedIn (still open at time of publication of this post!). It asks people to assess their personal security/future as a human translator compared with 12 months ago. Why the comparison with 12 months ago? This relates to my December 2023 blogpost “Who’s in/on the lead as we head into 2024“. I want to follow-up on this later this month based on poll responses. I am also asking some respondents what might lie behind their response to the poll.

In the Universitas article, I highlighted some values of an expert in the lead, which I have expanded upon here. The list is not exhaustive – I really welcome your comments!

Being in command of technology and rejecting over-commoditisation
1. Being technologically agnostic/neutral: The expert in the lead knows when and how to make use of technology. And similarly when not to. Consider the useful tools, but prioritise the human expertise aspect. Stay open to new ideas and innovative approaches: e.g. penalties for TU age, or using QA checks to reduce cognitive load burden. However, you call the shots when, where and how technology is used, rather than being in thrall to it. They decide which tools are used, not just the one that is the flavour of the month among LSPs. By all means use technology, but also know when not to.
2. Rejecting the concept of translation as a commodity: in the race to the bottom, translation has become (excessively) commoditised. Boiled down to a number of words, characters, lines or pages. Then discounts squeezed for use of CAT tools, repetitions, or event the reduction of the (not-necessarily expert) translator to an MT post-editor. In contrast, the expert in the lead nurtures the customer relationship to understand what the customer needs. Pricing reflects the need for feedback rounds, terminology work, fine-tuning the brief and delivering what the customer wants and needs. (For example check out my thoughts on Chris Durban’s talk in Spiez this year – and the need to visit Clientland).
Know your customers and audiences
1. Convincing decision-makers about the value of human translation: the expert in the lead is on an equal-footing. Their professionalism commands respect. When I outsource a translation, I actively look for the best fit for the job. I take the blend of specialisation, experience and their passion for the subject matter into account. I do not try to beat them into a corner over pricing.
2. Understanding your target audience: the expert in the lead takes the time to clarify with the customer in advance who the audience (e.g. the readership) is. Taking the time to settle on a strict brief in advance leads to a more satisfactory outcome for both sides and helps you to engage with your customer.
3. Knowing when/how/when you should be used: Sometimes customers might have multiple translation needs. On occasions, a gist translation might suffice, or editing and revision. Get them on board for where they really need your full premium service – e.g. for handling their public-facing translations. Sometimes, you need to learn when to say “no!”
Expertise and specialism instead of narcissism
1. Convincing by expertise rather than social media presence: No-one “has to post on LinkedIn”. And a decent translator will not need to dedicate considerable office hours cultivating a social media presence. I am active on social media, but prefer to engage on other posts rather than post myself. Social media doesn’t pay my salary. And besides I struggle with its narcissism: where it is all about the “upside”, and never the downside. I’ve now settled on an approach of applied concerted laziness on LinkedIn. Know how and when to reach the people you have to reach, and how to use indirect visibility. Sometime you just need to “know how not to use LinkedIn incorrectly”.
2. Being passionate about your expertise: sometimes your customer may not be sure that you really know what their request is about. I convey my expertise – and passion by engaging with a legal reference (e.g. the law or a provision in it) as an ice-breaker. Invariably, it shows we’re speaking the same language (even if I am translating it into another target language). Demonstrate your specific expertise within a broader field of expertise.
3. Placing value on expertise-related training and education: conference programmes frequently strike me as too broad or general. To attend a conference, I need to convince my employer why I need to participate. Otherwise, I attend privately (at my own expense, conditional on being allowed to include participation on my CPD log). I struggle with the esoteric sessions – and prefer 1:1 online coaching for that purpose. Instead, I champion relevant expertise-based training. I focus on specialist training to increase my expertise – and realise the gaps in my knowledge from others’ questions. And I ensure that takeaways from conferences apply to my actual daily work.
I’ve not touched on the area of the role of translator accountability, but this is an area I intend to look into further in the future. I see it as an increasingly important area for the professional translator.
7 December 2024
Busting the 100% productivity myth: great(ly exaggerated corporate) expectations
A post on LinkedIn recently addressed the issue of expectations for delivery of a translation project. The suggested timeframe provided for a single translator to translate a website of approximately 25,000 words was approximately 1 week. The responses of other linguists generally fell into two distinct camps: firstly, the that’s-no-way-near-enough-time camp, and secondly, the it’s-no-wonder-translators-are-losing-out-to-MT-if-they-are-that-slow camp. Fence-sitters would probably fall into a how-long’s-a-piece-of-string camp – which is a justified argument – as the subject matter was unclear.

Currently there are more “famine” than “feast” posts from freelancers. (N)MT and LLM-based translation form a two-pronged attack that are affecting human translators. Industry-side evangelisers sometimes claim that MT more content translation than human translators can translate. Even if this is the case, there is still a diminishing wedge for human translators.

Since 2022, I have regularly seen posts about translators being reduced to post-editors of Machine Translation. The rates do not reflect the true amount of effort required to bring translations up to standard. Which in turn leads to a drop in motivation. It isn’t realistic to expect the same service for a living rate as a dumping rate.

100% productivity is corporate settings: an illusion

In the modern data-driven world, we are incredibly IT-dependent. Updates need to be done, and they don’t always happen overnight, during lunchbreaks etc. I’ve previously covered why I schedule my return to work to allow me to start with a home office day: with a “soft logon” the night before. Unless you user blocker appointments, you are bombarded with mails, calls, Teams chats etc. And all this eats into your productivity – particularly if you consider your day like a game of Tetris.

As I pointed out to one comment about the 25,000 words in a week, which suggested 100% productivity in the corporate world, this is a fallacy. Time and activity tracking frequently sanitises out “Tür-und-Angel-Gespräche” with colleagues, lunchbreaks that overrun, online calls that start and end late. Full calendars are seldom a sign of productivity in their own right. There are also “meetings that could have been a mail” and continuous calls are draining. I now maintain better call discipline – sticking rigidly to the intended call length, and excusing myself from over-running calls.

Is human productivity the issue?

Returning to the how-long’s-a-piece-of-string issue, about productivity and its effect on translation output, it is clear that there are unreasonably high expectations on productivity. As a translator, you might have a “straightline top speed”, but for how long can you maintain it for? And does the ride remain comfortable, or do things straight to rattle or get uncomfortable. When I went in house, to try to gauge my output, I set myself an original 1,500 words a notional daily output. A 1,500 word document to translate from scratch can reasonably be expected to be sent back by the end of the day,

Would I start translating the second I got into the office? Rarely. Unless an item has come in the previous evening and I had set up the project the previous evening. It might be necessary to perform some alignments, concordance-based terminology work, or (re)read the legislation. Sharing an office means inevitable phone calls and distractions. I often work with noise cancelling headphones when the office is fully occupied. When I have a lot of short tasks I use desktop timers to keep moving between the tasks.

6 out of 8, or 8 out of 10?

If I am lucky, I get about 6 hours (out of 8 hours) undisturbed translation time a day, and would have to go at a steady 250 words an hour to do 1,500 words in that 6 hours. As translation memories and termbases grew, “plain vanilla” translations became a lot quicker. Filler tasks like translating investment warnings are now practically automated. The translation task mainly involves locking a few segments and a quick check of the output and a bit of formatting.

Consequently, I have been able to increase my notional daily output to 2,000 words, but the added 500 words a day reflect a number of factors:
- I do considerably less terminology work. Now it is frequently ad hoc rather than in dedicated terminology sessions.
- I also have read-only translation memories containing bilingual alignments of European law at my finger tips, allowing me to spend more time in Trados Studio than I previously did.
- Better screen setup means reference materials open on a second screen, a glance away.
- I have a very narrow subject focus – at its broadest, my subject matter is financial market supervision, but predominantly focussed on banking supervision. There are very few supervisory procedures that are genuinely new. I have occasional forays into insurance and Pensionskassen supervision, securities supervision or banking resolution.
- Regular expressions for QA have helped reduce cognitive (over)load.
Despite such “efficiency” improvements, achieving 8 hours’ pure translation productivity still requires working for over eight hours. Changes in daylight conditions also need considering. However, mature TMs also have drawbacks – which is why I have looked into better use of segment penalties, and terminology can also change over the years.

Barnes’ Iron Triangle applied to translation

As I alluded to in a previous post about imposter syndrome affecting translators – and how I banished my early career doubts, unrealistic expectations from customers are a genuine problem. For translation, the holy trinity of specifications consist of price, quality and time.

Explained simply, it goes like this. You want a high quality translation? You’ll either have to pay a premium rate (i.e. price is high), or allow more time for the translation. You want a quick translation? You’ll either have to pay a premium rate (i.e. price is high due to needing translators to work extra hours, or in a team) or sacrifice quality. You want a cheap translation? You either sacrifice quality (e.g. review processes, terminology checks, coherence checks) or have to wait on delivery.

The AI hype and the genuine advances in machine translation have pitted the industry against the professionals. There is a different playing field in the age of NMT and generative AI. There has certainly been a big leap since statistic MT was in its heyday. You have to therefore manage your customer’s expectations (explain what you do – e.g. explain that you use CAT and not (N)MT), and what the expected delivery time is.

Managing expectations.

I’ve always believed in expectation management (a skill you learn as a parent). Back in 2016, along with recurring daily work, we had most substantial relaunch of my employer’s website to date. Eight years on, there are still regularly new pages and posts, and the workflow has proven itself. I had to work to a fixed deadline for go live, at the end of an intense month (including work trips to London, Zagreb and Nuremberg).

The project allowed me to also educate colleagues/customers about realistic expectations, while also changing the translation workflow for publishing directly to the website. Now, with backend CMS access. I extract texts from the source view in the CMS and open the files in Trados Studio. I could translate pages as they successively went live in the testing environment. That approach eliminated dealing with multiple versions of the same page or post as Word files. Agreeing on a top-down approach allows prioritisation of certain content for translation. This ensured handling top level content child pages/posts first, and steadily working through subpages.

For multi-day projects, I explain how to involve me before a final version of the document exists. This approach is particularly useful for multiple iterations of a text. It also helps to allow more translation time – PerfectMatch helps to overcome document iteration issues. Naturally, I do also make sure that I allow a slight buffer, and early delivery is easier than having tight deadlines.

Ultimately good customer communication is key – keep they updated about progress – maybe check in with them partway through the project – possibly the earlier the better. Try to group questions about terminology or wording suggestions together rather than a constant trickle of questions.
3 March 2024
Who’s in/on the lead as we head into 2024?

The debate about the future of (human) translation and changing role of translators is the biggest topic in translator circles. 2023 has been the year of the (unstoppable?) march of machine translation. Within a year of bursting onto the scene as an unknown, OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, can apparently also translate. Human translators increasingly face tighter, more competitive markets. Many are not even consulted about their replacement by MT solutions, but maybe grudgingly offered PEMT work. And there are talks of tightened budgets and gloomy outlooks of recession. So are the days of out-and-out translators numbered?

The Chartered Institute of Linguists, which I recently joined, has released a white paper: CIOL Voices on AI and Translation. It addresses some initial reflection and major concerns. The White Paper points to a shift in professions: today’s professional translators will be the future’s language experts and consultants. Sometime new job titles are dismissed as a case of “old grapes in new bottles”?

The introduction to the White Paper concludes:

[…} we can ensure that linguists remain at the forefront of AI integration in our field – the essential expert ‘humans in the loop’.
Steve Doswell, Linguist, consultant and Chair of CIOL Council in CIOL Voices on AI and Translation

The use of “expert ‘humans in the loop’” is telling here. Without attaching the “expert”, it implies that an involved human may not be an linguistic expert. This ties in with concerns about the need for human judgement in using MT and LLMs for translation. It remains essential that users clearly understand their responsibility, as well as the pitfalls of using unsupervised MT. In-house language units must have an active role in training and onboarding users. Their involvement in the decision-making regarding the adoption of such approaches remains essential. It is not an out-and-out IT decision – even if the technological nature of the solution, means IT must be on board. There is some very sensitive messaging in moving from a “human translation” approach to “human in the loop” if bypassing the intermediate “machine in the loop” stage.

Potential for upskilling and job crafting

This presents possibilities for upskilling and job crafting – both useful tools for in-house staff retention. New remits might help retain senior staff members wishing to have a change from day-in-day-out translation. Any in-house solution will need dedicated language technologists. Language technologists are the new translators in terms of language services recruitments. Central banks and financial market supervision authorities have been hiring people with this profile for several years.

It is also important to remember that for any solution to work to its full potential, will need dedicated staff. The quick and dirty approach might be to outsource, but such solutions, although quicker to implement, may not allow the desired level of control. An attractive interface is one thing, but there might not be the possibility to tweak the temperature of the underlying model, or to train it to your specifications – which is beneficial to extract the maximum benefit for your use case. However, this training isn’t possible on the fly – it needs a long-term training concept and commitment. And naturally potential succession management issues need handling too. These issues may be due to sabbaticals, secondments, retirements and maternity leave. Entrusting an entire solution on a single set of shoulders is also an operational risk.

In this case, human involvement is still in more of an expert capacity – training and refining the engine, and ironing out the wrinkles. (Rinse and repeat as required!) Other tasks include managing new versions of software and interfaces, or plugins to CAT environments and maintenance. With an outsourced solution the situation is not so clear cut. This brings us back to the issue of the position of the human expert in the loop – and whether human or machine is subordinate – in the translation process as a whole, and the problems with the terms used.

Driven loopy – the expert/machine/human in the loop/lead.

I first heard of “human in the loop” mentioned at the 2021 edition of the Translating Europe Forum (TEF). TEF is the European Commission’s annual translation *industry* event. Over the last two years, I have lost count of the amount of discussions I have had with other people, about it. The problem it throws up lies in the interpretation of the role of the human.

Moving further back, human-in-the-loop in 2012 was a classification for autonomous weapons systems. In that context, a human must instigate the action of the weapon. Human-on-the-loop is a classification whereby a human may abort an action. Lastly, and most terrifyingly, human-out-of-the-loop is the classification for no human action is involved. In this case human-in-the-loop does not imply that the human is subordinate to the machine.

An intermediate stage exists between human translation and human in the loop: “machine in the loop“. In that case the machine is subordinate to the human, or more likely an expert. Both “machine in the loop” and “human in the loop” are weasly terms. Both fail to mention the role of human expertise – which is why some prefer “human at the core” or “human in the lead“. Additionally, one experienced colleague recently pointed out on LinkedIn that anything “human” omits to say anything about their expertise. This is why I actively try to opt for “expert in the lead” (should that maybe be EITL or XITL?).

There can be a lot of difficulties in explaining the delicacy of the situation to lay colleagues – they see a binary situation: human translation or machine translation.

After all, If you are not in the lead, but only in the loop, then you are effectively “on the lead”. And naturally there is the issue of the subsequent drift from human in the loop to human on/out of the loop. In that situation, we’re in the territory of fully autonomous self-driving vehicles.

Resistance is futile?

AI technology is clearly here to stay. While there is a certain hype cycle, it is not just a passing fad. The truth is that its limitations are well recognised: AI/MT cannot be used unsupervised in many settings. There are possibilities that the enhanced use of technological assistance might also open up new seams for translation (MT is a suitable use case for e.g., translating Airbnb and travel site reviews where a gist translation is what is needed). Humans will remain an integral part for training the underlying systems. Otherwise, at some point there will only be synthetic data to train systems that require high quality human data for training. Increased efficiency needs to be offset against the lack of job satisfaction that some will experience from being relegated to post-editing.

Resistance to the advancing AI/MT tide is futile – both in-house and as freelancers. The battle to fight is in educating and countering assumptions that the lay public holds of machines being better, faster and cheaper. People need to understand the real risks and costs. However, part of this battle will also be to ensure that the current cohort of translators/language consultants/language technologists in the making learn the skills they will need for the career of the future. Many university courses adapt to the changing times at a pace observed in glacial creep. This is where professional associations come in – both in upskilling existing linguists, but also in supporting the next generation as it begins its journey.

14 December 2023
Even Homer Nods! How Chinese Walls showed it was good to talk
One downside to being the only linguist in your setting and with the knock-on of limited exposure to your target language is a lack of opportunities to discuss intricacies of usage. This issue can of course lead to an inadvertent usage, or use of a non-inclusive term. The scenario was this: I was engaging on a post on LinkedIn about why it is good for translators to be able to talk to one another in projects where multiple translators work on the project.

The isolation as a translator means that you can often become blinkered in your vision (and thinking!). As wonderful as stable customers are – and they are increasingly rare in the cut-throat “first-finger-first” world of getting translation work. Established translators have interesting ideas: translation slams, retreats, networking events and the like. All aimed at talking. Collaboration can be a very rewarding experience – this is why I appreciate the opportunity of reviewing EBA Guidelines – I get to ask questions, look at the translation through a different prism or lens.

Regarding collaboration and communication in the post in question, my well-intentioned comment was:

[…] collaboration thrives on direct communication between translators – sometimes agencies throw up unnecessary Chinese walls between translators working on the same project (I remember once working on a large project where we were all only allowed to “chat” through a moderated anonymous portal – such was the fear of the agency that we might build a team that would compete against the agency we were working for!) In another crazy situation years ago, where a large project was carved up between two agencies, I discovered that I was providing terminology support for the same project I was translating part of for the other agency.

Bang. And then it was. A careless choice of words, although one I knew from a professional context.

Even Homer Nods…

The poster responded by pointing out that “Chinese walls” was an outdated and offensive term for some. I chose to own my mistake, accepted their insight and replied that I would refrain from using it in the future. A hollow promise? No. I immediately acted on it. How did I act?
1. I immediately accepted the mistake – and said that I would refrain for using it in the future. With reflection, and hindsight too, I realise that the analogy is also incorrect/lazy – both in terms of my usage and in a financial context. The Great Wall of China (and walled cities throughout history) served for protecting territory, but not to prevent citizens from leaving. Suitably chastened, the next goal was to find a more accurate term for the required context.
2. I asked the original poster whether they can suggest “a suitable, succinct and more inclusive replacement for its use in the sense of “a barrier to avoid potential conflicts of interest” e.g. between advisory and trading divisions (as used in investment banking)?” The OP promptly offered terms like “firewall” and “screen”. My own research also yielded “ethics walls” and “ethical walls” – as mentioned by Judge Low in Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. v. Superior Court (1988). Low’s suggestion also works particularly well for preserving the concept of “hiring over the wall”. This is an internal staffing move of hiring someone from the other side of the ethics wall.
3. I amended the terminology entry for Chinese wall(s) in my MultiTerm termbases. It now appears as non-inclusive (an additional field at term level used in conjunction with a QA tool for inclusive language). This means that in the event of any German term translated as “Chinese wall(s)”, I receive a warning that the term is to be avoided, to allow me to then correct it as I go. This is particularly useful in terms of fuzzy matches. In addition I have a MultiTerm export routine that allows an export of non-inclusive terms. Its purpose is to increase awareness by circulating this list regularly, to help non-L1-colleagues.
4. Checking existing usage in publications. For the website, I ran a google search for site:fma.gv.at “Chinese wall”. Hits appeared mainly in downloads from external sources, or from historic documents – on both the German and English versions of the site. These I can’t change, because they are the words of other stakeholders. When we used SiteImprove, I used reports (e.g. about the use of Chinese *AND* wall). Using reports in SiteImprove frequently identified obsolete terminology for correcting it. I contended with a lot of “inherited” translations from numerous translation sources, prior to becoming our English web editor. I discussed any mentions found in the German version with post/page authors.
5. Checking existing usage in translation memories. I check both the source and target texts of segments for usage of “Chinese wall(s)” and how it was translated. For example, the English source spoke of “Chinese walls” but the German target spoke of “Informationssperren (sog. “Chinese walls”)” In some cases, I remove the translation unit from the Translation Memory. In other cases I add a quality penalty (I use a numerical quality field from aligned texts that I used to build up my initial translation memories, based on their quality (e.g. 95-100 for aligned texts of legal acts from Eur-Lex (with penalties for age), 85-90 for aligned texts of publications where the emphasis of the translation was not such a strict word-for-word rendering, (with penalties for age)). I delete translation units “past their sell by date”. (I’ll deal with TM housekeeping in a future post).
However, I didn’t beat myself up over it. Instead, I used it as a way to test my processes and workflows, which work well. I also used it as a way to think of several initiatives for informal networking events to could draw positively from the experience. And I took it on board as a shortcoming of living outside of my L1-target language culture. All of which show the importance of collaboration and talking.

It’s Good to Talk…

Reverting to the original post that I commented on, I remarked about my first physical meeting of my Working Group in Athens after the pandemic that “It’s good to talk!” In this regard as a lone in-house existence is similar to that of many freelancers in that it is a relatively isolated one. However, only if I choose it to be. This is why I try to exploit opportunities to talk to my colleagues in my department about their policy areas. This is how I remain alert to new policy information, legal acts, soft law instruments, issues encountered in operative supervision. These are important for my improved understanding of operative banking supervision.

Some pearls of wisdom yield new aligned texts (e.g. new guidance on aspects of banking supervision). Part of my non-translation remit is also keeping a watchful eye over our banking supervision processes. This is a quality assurance and quality management process, and provides useful insights for translation purposes about legal developments. Translators talking and collaborating helps them to discover new opportunities, gather different perspectives and bounce different approaches off one another.

When I outsource a piece to someone, I believe they should receive as much information as necessary. I believe in being approachable where they have questions and to discuss terminology issues. Otherwise I ensure that they can directly access the author of the piece to translate. After all the author knows best what they mean to say. In my response about translators being able to communicate, even someone pointing out my error confirms the value of communication.

The final word…

Dialogue is a two-way street – the more you give/contribute, the more your receive. In addition, this episode resulted in connecting with the OP, whose content I have read for a number of months, coming up with a creative idea for the future, and a blog post.
10 August 2023
What an outsourcer looks for in a freelancer’s website
As a freelancer with a small stable of very fixed customers, I didn’t actively market my services. Agencies usually contacted me about whether I had any capacity to take on work, and I was in an enviable position to respond “Thanks, but no thanks!” So why did they continue to contact me then? Quite simply because I had a website. The website was both up-to-date (in terms of software used and specialist areas) and gave a good impression of whether I was the kind of person that the agency or company wanted to work with.

For potential customers there was information about some of the delivery formats that I was able to offer, that I worked with a CAT tool, the standards that I was familiar with (given that I was in a very niche area), as well as what I absolutely wouldn’t translate (one speciality was close enough to another to suggest that I might also cover the latter). The website was rounded off with information about approximate rates for new customers, general terms and conditions and the necessary information to prove beyond doubt that I was not just a swanky website purporting to be based in Austria as a conduit for getting jobs to be passed on to freelancers based in dumping rate jurisdictions.

To put it coarsely, having a website for me when I freelanced was about conveying an impression of “knowing your sh*t” and ensuring that others “know you’re not (talking) sh*t”.

Indeed, when I hung up my freelancing boots and went in-house, I still kept my web domain, which I have used for translation-related blogging ever since, as well as to present potential topics for speaking opportunities at conferences and universities. My domain name was too good to let go of and my mailbox still allows me to find out about translation blogs, podcasts, calls for papers and mailing lists, particularly when I am commuting into the office. A kind of one-stop shop for my translation-related news fix. Similarly, were I ever to decide to go freelance again, it would remain my brand.

The outsider looking in

After nearly nine years in-house, I needed to compile a list of potential “boutique translation teams” either fully in-house or working in teams with other local translators for language combinations and subject matter that I needed. Effectively I was doing market intelligence – not from a freelancer perspective e.g. to see who and where the competition is, but to see who to contact should I need to do so, A publicly available directory of members from a translation association yielded around 250 results for the combinations I wanted, all randomly ordered and presented in a “business card” format. A single search provided me with the information I needed all nicely shown on a single page, even including the postcodes (Postleitzahl) and contact numbers, e-mail addresses and website addresses.

As an outsider trying to get an impression about individual providers their websites are incredibly useful. Even in 2023, the output from the directory showed that the list of translators with an active website was only a tiny subset of all the records returned in the desired language combination. I was genuinely both surprised and shocked about how few translators did have a website. Where business communications are frequently only online, it surprises me that so few have a website. In particular, given the fact that the pandemic ravaged a lot of face-to-face networking opportunities, a website is still indispensable as a networking tool, even if social media is also on the rise. Some nominally have an office@domainname address, but then the domain name yields a parked webspace. Even a business card-style website would be better than a parked domain page.

Would you look to someone to translate your web content who doesn’t have their own web presence?

Over the last 18 months I have been following the #litranslators hashtag, where the issue of whether or not to have a website has been a recurring one. Many translators struggle to find the time to establish their web presence, and others concede that they struggle to keep their presence up-to-date. For some, it is clear that there are still hurdles to creating and maintaining their web presence themselves, even though out-of-the-box CMS-based websites are easy to set up. Relatively they are far less time-consuming than static sites from days of yore, e.g. created in Dreamweaver and reliant on FTP uploads.

I might be a rare breed as a translator who handles external procurement for translators, so might be more demanding as well as also having an insider’s insight into the industry myself. In my line of work, we are not able to use dumping rate agencies overseas, and I also scrutinise “last mile” issues. I like to have a good feeling from the outset, rather than painstakingly teasing out details from potential providers.

I frequently need to outsource translation that is content intended to appear on a website. I really struggle to outsource web content translation to a translator who doesn’t have their own website. After all your website helps me weigh up if your content sounds authentic.

Five things to consider when putting together a website.
- If you are an interpreter that also translates, explain which language combinations you interpret in, and which you translate in. In some cases, even mention the cultures of the languages – e.g. Austrian German, Swiss French. This is not such a trivial distinction to make, particular in legal translation.
- Mention your specialist areas: cite major projects, testimonials and specialisms. It can be difficult to mention who your clients are. You might like to state the size of projects you take on (in terms of pages, lines or words), or to state what kind of projects you have recently completed. (e.g. English translation of a German legal practice’s website (~35,000 words)).
- Mention the CAT tool(s) you use. Include the versions you run, which can be useful if a customer wishes to send you packages to translate that might be version-dependent. If you use MT, state how you use it including any mitigations (such as pseudonymisation or anonymisation) you use. Be prepared to state what MT engines you use if asked – beware that you might put off customers who are wary of their data leaving the EU if you don’t state how it is guaranteed that this doesn’t happen.
- Enter where you actually operate from: there is a temptation by agencies to claim to have satellite offices across a country or multiple countries. I use a list of serviced offices and co-working facilities published through a self-employment advice group (Google maps would do the same!) to check these details. Some customers might not like the thought of outsourced work being done in co-working facilities and are reassured about precautions you take.
- Pricing/rates (you can always specify a “from” price or a price range), should always be up-to-date. I was amazed to see rates listed as “valid from 01.01.2017”. I am aware that translators tend to increase rates annually, and in line with inflation. If you link to market surveys for translation rates (e.g. this one from Universitas), make sure you link to the latest version of the survey. If the latest survey data is two years old, I am naturally aware that it will reflect current levels of inflation.
Prove you are serious about data…

The number of directory entries using free e-mail addresses amazes me. I am sure some translators will say that they only use a “throw away e-mail address for mailing lists”. But this argument doesn’t fly when you have it listed as your primary contact address. It surprises me how many translators are happy to use a gmail, gmx or hotmail account. The problem is that while they are convenient, you may give off the impression that you are not 100% serious about your customer’s data. Expense is no longer a factor. Usually your webspace domain includes mailboxes (and lots of mail forwarding addresses). For everything that impressed me from one website, an elephant in the room remained: a freebie e-mail address. Some approaches you might take are as follows:
- A data policy page. I had a page on my website explaining my data policy (e.g. server located inside the EU, FTP access for customers to allow larger files, size of attachments that could be accepted, special data options for customers e.g. mails deleted from my mailserver immediately after download, information about security of offline backups, delivery using encrypted USB sticks).
- Consider a webform with captcha on your website in addition to or instead of an e-mail address for people to contact you. Many forms also come with IP blocking to keep the spammers and trolls away.
- Ensure you have a secure website with a valid certificate. Also make sure you do regular plugin and core updates to your website. And don’t leave unused plugins in your website. I run five different websites. The upgrades take a few minutes each week – most I can even do from my phone.
- The same applies to how you store your data – e.g. cloud usage. As secure as off-the-shelf services like OneDrive or DropBox make themselves out to be, think about cloud backup security.
4 June 2023