Latest / Event Industry News Podcast / TranslateAble: Making Events Speak Everyone's Language
Transcript
- 0:00The Event Industry News Podcast is sponsored by Present Communications.
- 0:04Present provides broadcast-quality live, hybrid, and virtual event
- 0:09production trusted by organizations where reliability really matters.
- 0:13From corporate town halls and conferences to high-profile live streams,
- 0:17they design and deliver fully resilient systems that work first
- 0:28Hello everybody and welcome along to the Event Industry News Podcast with
- 0:31me, James Dixon, wishing you all a very good morning, afternoon, or evening,
- 0:34whenever or wherever you tune into today's podcast
- 0:38from. And today's podcast is, I guess, all about language
- 0:42really. Maybe we take it for granted sometimes, I'm sure we do,
- 0:46you know. I always feel very privileged that, you know, one of my
- 0:49jobs in the events industry is just to sit here, you know, once a week
- 0:53chatting to guests and talking to people and hopefully facilitating
- 0:57some sort of conversation, which I guess all sort of flows into,
- 1:01uh, in some respects what we're going to be talking about today. My guest today
- 1:04is the founder and CEO of TranslateAble, Julia Danmary.
- 1:09Julia, a very warm welcome to the podcast. How are you, first of all?
- 1:12I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me. You're very welcome.
- 1:16And, um, yeah, hopefully I've framed a little bit of the conversation
- 1:20today in terms of, you know, stressing the importance of language that
- 1:24sometimes is taken for granted, and how we communicate
- 1:28with other people is critical to the events industry
- 1:32and is very much going to sort of form the basis of what we're going
- 1:35to be discussing ourselves today. Before we get into that, Julia, if you would,
- 1:38for our podcast listeners, just frame a little bit about yourself
- 1:42and what your own background is and where your journey has brought you through
- 1:46to today as the founder of TranslateAble. Yeah, of course.
- 1:49So basically, so language has always been my background. So I studied languages at
- 1:53university, did the whole year abroad thing, and then came out of university
- 1:57and happened to get into the events industry, not even realizing what
- 2:01a perfect fit it would be for my languages. So basically, from that point onwards,
- 2:05I've then ended up using my languages to run events,
- 2:08to negotiate contracts, to actually be client-side for translation
- 2:13interpreting services. As well. So languages to me,
- 2:17as well as obviously being a love because I studied them, have been just super
- 2:20useful for organizing events as well. And it
- 2:24was kind of from that that I founded TranslateAble as well, from my experience
- 2:28of working client side with translators, interpreters, and kind of building
- 2:31something specifically for the events industry because I noticed there were
- 2:35kind of some little bits that could be improved to fit our
- 2:39industry better. And, and What I
- 2:42suppose, if you can frame what TranslateAble actually supplies
- 2:46to the events industry, because you've pivoted from being an
- 2:50organizer really, as you said, sort of client side, and you're now a supplier.
- 2:54So when you decided to become a supplier, what did you want to supply and
- 2:57what does TranslateAble do for the clients that you now supply to?
- 3:01Yeah, that's it. So I was basically ops for 20 years,
- 3:05so the services that we supplier, very much like I say geared towards
- 3:09the events industry. So we're kind of like a one-stop shop for language services.
- 3:13And so we provide written translation, we provide
- 3:17interpreters, and that can be— hello pup! So in
- 3:21the background, somebody's clearly just knocked at my front door. They're speaking
- 3:25now in their own language. You've got delivery. Yes.
- 3:28So translation for the written side, we've got interpreters, and that
- 3:32can be kind of remote or in person. Sign language interpreters,
- 3:37captioning. Yep, that's it,
- 3:40that's what we provide and it's basically kind of in any language and in
- 3:44any country and it can be remotely or in person. I looked on
- 3:48your website before we came on this link today
- 3:52to do the recording and one of the first things that jumped out
- 3:56at me was that you do provide all of those levels of service because I
- 3:59know that some organisations um, very much are
- 4:03advocates for, you know, uh, for sign language,
- 4:06for example. There are agencies out there that provide sign language interpreters specifically
- 4:11for events, and people are— a lot of people are very big advocates of that.
- 4:14Um, I've had people sort of push back a little bit sometimes on deploying
- 4:18technology-based platforms to deliver things like closed captioning,
- 4:22but it's, it's, it's important, and I, I guess commendable
- 4:26in some respects, that all of those different services that are now available for
- 4:30the event for event organizers are actually available from you guys. Obviously a conscious decision
- 4:34there to go down that route, I guess. Yeah, exactly that. And it's kind
- 4:38of developed with time as well, based on what people have asked for as well.
- 4:41The reason for, um, that kind of list
- 4:45of services is just because from my experience working in event ops,
- 4:49you are so busy, your to-do list is really
- 4:52long. So if you can kind of have one supplier that can do XYZ
- 4:56and you don't need to go to 3 different suppliers, you can just go to
- 4:59one, that makes life so much easier. You know what the of services,
- 5:03you've got one point of contact, and it's basically just for ease
- 5:07as well. And I also found that a lot of people that come to using
- 5:09language services are doing it for the first time as well, so it really,
- 5:13really helps if, yes, we do in person, but actually we do remote
- 5:16as well, and where they don't know the differences sometimes, you can let them know
- 5:20what the differences are, let them know the different price options as well, because in
- 5:23events we've obviously got to stick to budgets really closely a lot of the time,
- 5:27so it's being able to provide the options for people.
- 5:31And it's important as well to stress and frame
- 5:34that when we talk about translation and language services,
- 5:38you know, yes, events are international, yes, a lot of events have international
- 5:42visitors, and so you want that capability to be able to deliver event content in
- 5:46different languages to make it accessible as possible for, you know,
- 5:49international visitors. But it's also important to identify and
- 5:53understand that language also has to fall into
- 5:56different accessibility needs that people have now. People who are hard of
- 6:00hearing, you know, people who might not be able to interact in
- 6:04a quote-unquote normal way in terms of both speaking and hearing
- 6:07and listening. So, you know, we have to factor in all
- 6:10of those different elements now. Yeah, that's it.
- 6:13There's kind of— there are so many people to take into consideration.
- 6:16I think sometimes we're very quick, again because
- 6:21our to-do lists are so long as event organisers, just to want to tick stuff
- 6:24off the list. But actually, there are so many different types of people
- 6:28to take into consideration and kind of knowing firsthand, like,
- 6:32I speak other languages as well, and kind of knowing that if I were in
- 6:35a room and they were doing absolutely everything in French, like, yes, I would
- 6:39understand, but would I be confident enough to actually get involved in the
- 6:43conversation and feel really involved?
- 6:46So there are lots of different things to think about. I think a lot of
- 6:49the time people will say, well, everyone speaks English, but actually
- 6:54they don't. So as an example, lots of people speak
- 6:58sign language as their first language, as an example, not English.
- 7:03And yeah, lots of people, yes, kind of, you may be French and you may
- 7:07speak English, but if it's not your first language, how comfortable do you actually feel
- 7:11to really engage? Yeah, that's an interesting one that I
- 7:15wonder, you know, when event organizers ask, you know,
- 7:18It's something I've seen not regularly, but I have seen it on registration forms,
- 7:22you know, what is your first language, so that event organisers can actually
- 7:26adapt. Do they ever ask, is sign language your first
- 7:30language? Have you ever seen it on a registration? I haven't actually, to be quite
- 7:34honest. I don't think I've ever seen even the what is your first language on
- 7:37a registration form either.
- 7:40I'm sure that I've seen it, and I know that a lot of people will
- 7:43ask the sort of the country of origin
- 7:46of their guests or their delegates. So often, and they
- 7:50will use that as a way of maybe gauging what services
- 7:54they need to deploy, whether that be via technology or other
- 7:58means. So it'd be an interesting one to find out, you know, from an inclusion
- 8:01point of view, you know, it's usually left when
- 8:05I talk specifically about, you know, including somebody who's hard of hearing, for example,
- 8:09delegates who fall into that category, it's usually
- 8:12left for the delegate or the attendee to
- 8:17give advance warning in a lot of cases still that they have
- 8:21a certain accessibility requirement. Are we getting closer
- 8:25to more events adopting strategies just as a matter of course regardless
- 8:29of receiving those specific requests? Yeah, I mean, I can only speak
- 8:33kind of for obviously the events that I used to organize and the events
- 8:37that we quote on now. And being honest, kind of,
- 8:42there are some organisers that yes, they will provide sign language
- 8:46interpreters as standard, but there are kind of improvements that do need to be made
- 8:49for things like communicating actually. So okay, which sessions
- 8:53have got sign language interpreters? Making it really, really clear so someone doesn't have to
- 8:57go to all that extra effort to kind of find out
- 9:01what they can actually attend. But I do find kind of accessibility
- 9:05pages, I think, on websites seem to be better as well. But I do find
- 9:09the oneness is on the individual at the moment,
- 9:12um, to kind of make inquiries, whereas I feel it should be a
- 9:16lot clearer and provided as standard in a lot of occasions— well, on all occasions
- 9:21actually. Yeah, it's an interesting one. I guess, I guess that, that kind of would
- 9:24lead us down the path of, of sort of the wider, you know, accessibility and
- 9:28inclusion conversation, which we've had on the podcast before. Um, but,
- 9:31you know, I really wanted to sort of, you know, to take the time as
- 9:35well to explore all these different aspects of TranslateAble, and when it comes
- 9:39to sort of dealing with foreign language interpretation, loads and
- 9:43loads of great tools out there now. And one thing I wanted to ask
- 9:47you today is how, how much time do you have to invest as a business
- 9:50to maintain an awareness of all those different tools that are available
- 9:54now when it comes to sort of maybe recommending services or deploying
- 9:58services for your own clients? Do you have to stay quite aware and up
- 10:02to date with all these sort of different tech platforms that are available that can
- 10:05help? Absolutely, yeah, because that— it's got such an
- 10:08impact on the language industry now and kind of what people are actually looking for
- 10:13as well. And so it's really important we dedicate a lot of time to kind
- 10:16of knowing what's out on the market as well. And also because, yes, we offer,
- 10:20um, kind of interpreters, we offer human captioners,
- 10:24translation, that sort of thing, but we do recommend,
- 10:28um, tech platforms as well. So we don't own our own, um,
- 10:31AI captioning tool, for example, but we are aware of the ones that are out
- 10:35there, the ones that work well for our clients, and we kind of recommend,
- 10:39kind of actually, for the brief you've given us, this tool would be
- 10:43the best for your, your events. We kind of act as a broker, I guess,
- 10:46for these tools, just because what I guess what we're trying to do is
- 10:50just make life as easy as possible for people to adopt languages.
- 10:54So yes, we might not own our own platform, but if we can help you
- 10:58out and say to you, actually, we'd recommend this to you to save you time,
- 11:01we'd happily do that. Yeah, and in the tech
- 11:05world I think they call it platform agnostic, is what is the term that a
- 11:08lot of people use, which is a great position I guess
- 11:12for those businesses and yourselves to be in, is that, you know, by not having
- 11:16an allegiance or your own platform as such, it allows you to understand
- 11:20and identify the needs of your client in order to then recommend
- 11:24the service that might be best for them. Yeah, exactly, and sometimes
- 11:28it's kind of a mix of sometimes they'll have captions and then they'll also have
- 11:31sign language interpreters, so it just makes
- 11:34life easier. For everyone basically, if we kind of have a real in-depth
- 11:38knowledge of all the tools that are out there and can provide the advice they
- 11:42need. Well, can you reference back to when you first
- 11:45really sort of saw an example of this really working
- 11:49and have an impact? Does it go back to your days actually operationally
- 11:52working, you know, in events where actually you saw the deployment
- 11:56of a particular service during an event where you thought
- 12:00this needs to happen, this really needs to sort of improve, and this is a
- 12:04great example of why? There are so many little things
- 12:08I could tell you about. I'm trying to think of kind of examples
- 12:12that are the most poignant at the moment. I think one personal example for me,
- 12:16I was organizing an event in France. This is kind of in terms of
- 12:20just communication, getting things
- 12:23done, I guess. So I was kind of doing an event in France, we were
- 12:26waiting for absolute ages for an electrical cable to be moved, kept ringing, kept ringing.
- 12:31Standard, really. Um, yeah, absolutely. There's a thousand people
- 12:36listening to this today going, yeah, been there. Exactly. So I,
- 12:41I saw an electrician, so I grabbed him, and in French I said to him,
- 12:45like, please, can you help me move this cable? Waiting for ages. And he said,
- 12:47because you've asked me in French, I'm going to come with you and I'm going
- 12:49to do it right now. So I was like, oh, this is background win.
- 12:52Amazing. So that's kind of one example. Another one was an event.
- 12:57It was a launch event, and it was in France,
- 13:01and the client
- 13:05had assumed that again people would speak English.
- 13:08So there was kind of like a mixture of English and French sessions throughout
- 13:13this 2-day conference, and I remember the feedback at the end was basically like,
- 13:16you're organizing an event in France and you've got kind
- 13:20of an equal number of, or even kind of less French speakers than
- 13:23you have English. So that was kind of another
- 13:27thing, people's kind of Maybe, I guess,
- 13:30a lack of awareness of languages was one thing.
- 13:36Um, can I just chip in with something here? Because you've just reminded me
- 13:40of, of, um, my first experience of working over in, in America
- 13:44on a trade show as a freelancer a few years ago, 2023 I
- 13:48think it was. And, um, the realization of
- 13:52the old phrase, you know, 2 countries separated by a common language, I think it's
- 13:56something like that, between Britain and the USA, uh,
- 13:59just how much we had to change. We never gave a second
- 14:03thought to, to, to the language aspect of it when we went to work
- 14:07in America and deliver a trade show in the USA. And yet we've,
- 14:11we realized fairly quickly how much we were going to have to change, both with
- 14:15our written word spellings. You want to change them to localized
- 14:19spellings to make them relevant to the market that you're serving. So we had to
- 14:22adapt all of our written documentation to make sure that organization
- 14:27was spelled with a Z, a Z, not an S, you know.
- 14:30So there was the written language aspect of it, but then things like,
- 14:34you know, we call them an exhibition stand over here and they call it a
- 14:37booth. Yeah, all those different phrases.
- 14:41And there were a number of times where I said to people on site,
- 14:43I asked for something, they said, what are you talking about? And I realized,
- 14:46all right, I need to ask for it in a different way because they use
- 14:49a different phrase or terminology to do that. So Again,
- 14:53you know, just it's reminded me of that, that even working with
- 14:57what is fundamentally the same language, we have to be aware of how quickly
- 15:01we might need to adapt in events. Yeah, it makes me so happy when people
- 15:04raise that. So I didn't actually mention that as a list of services. I class
- 15:07that in part of translation, but localization is a big part of it because you
- 15:11do have countries as America and the UK that speak the same language,
- 15:15but actually there are so many different terms within those languages.
- 15:19So kind of when you do translate for a
- 15:23specific country, it's got to be for that particular country for
- 15:27it to kind of to land. So localization is massively important.
- 15:30And the same, so when I did a show in America as well, it's kind
- 15:33of, what do these words mean? Like the pipe and drape as well,
- 15:37kind of. Yeah, yeah,
- 15:40yeah. All these kind of this terminology that,
- 15:44do you know what, drayage, unless you've worked in
- 15:49an event or on an event in the USA, I dare say nobody
- 15:52would ever, ever stumble or encounter the word
- 15:56drayage. And when you see it for the first time, you think,
- 15:59what on earth are people talking— because in, in the
- 16:03UK, I know what a drayman is. Dray and drayman
- 16:06refers to somebody who delivers beer. That's what a drayman is.
- 16:12A drayman, for anybody who doesn't know out there, is somebody who works for
- 16:16a brewery who delivers the beer barrels to pubs and to places that need beer.
- 16:20So when you see somebody with their van rolling a barrel of beer down the
- 16:23street and into a pub, that person is a drayman. So when I saw the
- 16:26word drayage over, you know, on documentation, I'm thinking, why are all— why
- 16:30do we have to deal with people delivering beer to our trade show in
- 16:34Las Vegas? You know, so it's a weird thing sometimes when we use words
- 16:39for different things. No, that's it. Yeah, definitely.
- 16:42Um, Sorry, my phone started ringing in the background and I lost the trailer.
- 16:47This was what I was rambling about beer.
- 16:50No, that's it. Yeah, but yeah, all that sort of terminology, it kind of can
- 16:54be really confusing for people. Like, it's— I think it hammers
- 16:58home just how different our terminology is when we're
- 17:01explaining event-specific terminology to
- 17:05translators. So we basically, we keep a glossary because a lot of the stuff that
- 17:10we translate is for kind of event suppliers, exhibitor manuals,
- 17:15event-specific related things. So there is
- 17:18kind of lots of words that you just take for granted that people know what
- 17:21they are, like shell scheme, space only,
- 17:24or even a vehicle door, and people come back and they're just like, uh,
- 17:27what is that? So we've basically got glossaries in kind
- 17:32of what it is in English, what it is in US English as well,
- 17:35and then kind of in the various languages that we've translated into
- 17:39as well, just because there is just so much specific terminology depending on
- 17:43which sector you're working in.
- 17:47I mean, that, that, that's, that, that's fascinating in itself because
- 17:51again, when we started today's conversation, my brain
- 17:54was leaning towards services for the attendees and the delegates, the visitors of events,
- 17:59and it hadn't dawned on me that actually what you provide as a service to
- 18:02organizers could help them as much with the planning of their international events
- 18:07as much as actually services to provide to the delegates and
- 18:10the visitors and the attendees of those events. Because as we've just alluded to,
- 18:13you know, you can, you can work in somewhere or in a territory where the
- 18:16language is fundamentally the same and still encounter issues. So when you're dealing perhaps
- 18:20with UK organizers who are wanting to then go and deliver an event in France
- 18:24or in Germany or in the Middle East or
- 18:28in, you know, the Asian subcontinent, you know,
- 18:32is there an element of your business as well that is set up specifically to
- 18:35help organizers with those pre-event tasks and all of that level
- 18:39of communication that's got to go on? Yeah, absolutely. Yes, we work with all
- 18:43different departments, so it's it's ops, it's marketing,
- 18:46it's sales, conferences, as well as the supplier side of things.
- 18:50And kind of as you mentioned, it's not just supporting visitors when they're
- 18:53on site, it can also be within a company.
- 18:57So for example, if someone acquires a business that's based in—
- 19:00someone UK-based acquires a company in Germany and they mainly speak
- 19:05German, we'll kind of support with paperwork there, or we'll do HR training
- 19:09or support them on HR training, sorry, in different languages.
- 19:12So it can be kind of for events, but also for events
- 19:16companies themselves as well. And yet it's all sorts of stuff.
- 19:20It's kind of Visprom, it could be Exprom, it can be the on-site
- 19:24conferences. So yeah, it's pretty much kind of anything language
- 19:27related, basically. Fabulous. I mean, again,
- 19:30I just want to— I found it useful over the years of doing this
- 19:34podcast and sort of as it has evolved,
- 19:37you know, alongside my own sort of career and experiences of working hands-on
- 19:42in the events industry as a freelancer. That I've,
- 19:45I've had these experiences. And from an accessibility
- 19:49point of view, I had a very small event,
- 19:52relatively speaking, last year that I was delivering as a one-man,
- 19:56you know, freelancer. And it was a, a conference,
- 20:00and it was 60, 70 delegates, something like that, in a hotel up
- 20:04in the northeast of England. And we got a request a week before to
- 20:09say that somebody who was coming was hard of hearing and did we have any
- 20:11way of them interacting with the session delivering some captions. And literally
- 20:16with a computer monitor that I bought a bracket for to attach to
- 20:20a stand and place at the front of the— right
- 20:23next to the lectern where the speaker was going to be, and I had
- 20:27an iPad as well with the same technology running on it, I was able to
- 20:30literally with a few basic tools, you know, a laptop, a basic audio mixing
- 20:34desk, and an interface, I was able to deploy a
- 20:37tech platform to generate closed captions for this person.
- 20:41It was really easy to set up. It was
- 20:45accessible from a price point of view. It wasn't expensive at all. It was a
- 20:48one-day simple one-off cost to give us one day access to this platform.
- 20:52And it really sort of shone a light to me on how much
- 20:56of a better situation we are as a whole industry with these
- 21:00services that are available now, that it's not just confined to the
- 21:04big budget events who can bring in translators or bring in this technology.
- 21:07Now this flows right down to those sort of smaller single-day
- 21:11events for a handful of people where where there's technology available. I just thought
- 21:15what a great situation that we are in now from a language point of view
- 21:18and from an accessibility point of view that we have all these levels that are
- 21:22available. Yeah, that's it. I feel like that it definitely has made a difference.
- 21:26Kind of, I'm often asked, oh, how has AI affected the language industry?
- 21:30And although I probably wouldn't say this to many translators or interpreters, I kind of
- 21:33feel like it makes people think about languages more because the price point is a
- 21:37little bit different. So I think it does make, well, it does make events more
- 21:41accessible for people, so I think that is great. I guess
- 21:44my only thing is it is a shame that things aren't implemented at the very
- 21:47start of an event and that you do have to kind of rush because
- 21:52somebody has asked for something, you have to rush to implement it.
- 21:55It'll be really great if it was kind of, uh, kind of there
- 22:00from the very, very start. Um,
- 22:04absolutely, and ultimately I think, I guess it's shadowed by the cost
- 22:08point of view, because a lot of organisations still assume, well, that's going to add
- 22:11an extra layer of cost. That it's only when they get the request in and
- 22:15they start exploring it and they realise how accessible price points are now
- 22:18for services out there that they might realise, oh, actually, this is something
- 22:22that we could integrate from the start without having to worry about it too
- 22:25much. I think a lot of people still assume that the costs are going to
- 22:28be high. Yeah, that's it. And that was another reason that kind of we wanted
- 22:31to offer a multitude of services just so we could present people
- 22:35with different cost options because not everyone has got an all-singing, all-dancing budget.
- 22:39I mean, I've worked on kind of a shoestring budget many
- 22:42a time before, so I know what it's like, which is why I thought it's
- 22:46a great idea to have these different levels and this is what you'll get for
- 22:50all these different services. So to make it more accessible for people, absolutely,
- 22:54definitely. I think that's really important.
- 22:57I'm, I'm chuckling because I remember, you know, instances before where— and we've
- 23:01probably all been there on holiday— where we've used Google Translate to maybe
- 23:05help us communicate with somebody. And, and you, you ask it the question
- 23:09or whatever you want to say, and it spits it out, and you get a
- 23:13kind of complete, completely weird look from somebody because,
- 23:16you know, it's not anything like what you actually want to ask. And we—
- 23:21when you think about colloquialisms just in the English language and how
- 23:25many different colloquialisms there are and accents, just, you know,
- 23:28in England alone, I think sometimes,
- 23:32particularly as English, like, as a first language English speaker, we are
- 23:36quite ignorant as a whole to that could be
- 23:40applicable to other languages as well, you know, that it's not just us that
- 23:44has colloquialisms and accents, and that getting Google Translate to just spit it out on
- 23:48your phone might not actually get the results that you want. I know, I know,
- 23:52I know. Um, yeah, that is very true, and I have had a really strange
- 23:55experience with it, Google Translate, as I remember kind of someone from Airbnb came over
- 24:00and I could tell from their face they were telling me a really sad story,
- 24:03but what Google was saying was completely and utterly inappropriate. So I was just like,
- 24:06you're definitely not saying this to me.
- 24:10Like, nod along and pretend I knew what she was saying to me.
- 24:14But yeah, I mean, kind of accents, yeah, they can prove difficult. And that's another
- 24:18thing, kind of when people tend to say, oh, but everyone speaks English, but do
- 24:21they understand all the— because we have so many accents for such a small place
- 24:25as well, don't we? It's kind of, but do they Yeah, how much do they
- 24:28understand? And in particular, if there are certain accents, how much of an accent do
- 24:32they understand if English isn't their first language as well? So there are so many
- 24:35things that you need to take into consideration, I think,
- 24:39rather than just blanket everyone speaks English. Languages,
- 24:43it is a fascinating thing the more you get into it. I live in Yorkshire
- 24:47and I moved here when I was 18 from West London and I've lived
- 24:51here ever since and for the first sort of 3 years of
- 24:55being here, I had to ask people 2 or 3 times what on
- 24:59earth they were saying. I had— I, I, I, I— there were certain people with
- 25:02really broad Yorkshire accents, and I honestly couldn't, couldn't understand what they
- 25:06were saying. I still have family that come up here to visit, and I'll introduce
- 25:09them to friends, and then they'll nod with a smile on their face,
- 25:13and the— and, and when the conversation finishes, they'll turn to me and go,
- 25:16what did they just say? Lovely, but what were they
- 25:20talking about? It is, it is, it is fascinating. And yet, and yet
- 25:23we persist trying run international events and a
- 25:27lot of people still don't consider it, you know, they'll just bang an email out
- 25:30in English and expect a decent response. Yeah, that's it.
- 25:34And kind of most of the time, I had a read of something recently that
- 25:37most people will only kind of look at websites. I say most,
- 25:41but 85% in Europe, something like that, don't quote me on that
- 25:44stat, would only look at websites in their own language,
- 25:48or people will pay more money if they could have the information for
- 25:53a product if they could have the information in their own language.
- 25:56So I do, I just feel that language is very much overlooked
- 26:02into how much they can kind of engage people,
- 26:05reel them in, get them to contribute and also engage
- 26:09with the product. Yeah, and is there a danger and I guess a worry from
- 26:14a company like yours that with the advent of AI tools and more
- 26:18people using them that they're gonna just whack it
- 26:22into an AI tool and think, oh, that'll work, I don't have to do anything
- 26:25like that. Is there a worry from you that the level of consideration
- 26:29that needs to be given on the importance of language, translation,
- 26:33accessibility might be removed a little bit because people might
- 26:37just think, oh well, I've got an AI tool there, I can use that?
- 26:40I feel people had done that even before AI, kind of thought that Google Translate
- 26:44was sufficient, but that you generally kind of see
- 26:49it in the results that that perhaps doesn't work
- 26:53and I kind of feel the industry that we're in as well, everything is so
- 26:57people-oriented as well and like yes I can
- 27:01kind of see where captioning could perhaps take over say
- 27:05interpreters for example but actually if you're an exhibitor on
- 27:09a stand you need to interact with a visitor that's standing right in front of
- 27:12your face, you're going to want a person there to kind of your
- 27:16product. So I
- 27:20feel like while there are some areas that definitely AI could
- 27:23take over a little bit more, there are some areas which you can't
- 27:27replace. I remember one example of a panel session
- 27:31at an event that I was working at, and one of the
- 27:35panelists required BSL interpreters,
- 27:38and they required 2 interpreters, and we had to— and
- 27:42quite a few people said, why do they need 2? And we had to explain
- 27:47that, you know, one interpreter there is there to interpret what everybody
- 27:51else is saying in the room, the other panelists and maybe the audience questions,
- 27:54to the person on the panel so they can stay up to speed
- 27:58with what's being said in the room. And then when they reply as a panelist
- 28:01in sign language— excuse me— the, the other
- 28:05BSL interpreter actually had a microphone and
- 28:09was sat in the front row to then deliver what that person was saying into
- 28:13the spoken word that the audience could hear. Excuse me,
- 28:16frog in the throat. And, and, and I was fascinated because I'd never seen that
- 28:20before, and I realized that that's something that could never have happened
- 28:25even with the best internet connection and the best sort of, you know, interpretation technology
- 28:29platform to facilitate such a quick two-way conversation with
- 28:34somebody on stage who, who only spoke using sign language, communicated using
- 28:38sign language. I thought was amazing to see. And I realized just
- 28:42how important the human element of translation still is,
- 28:46regardless of how good the technology can be. Yeah, that's it.
- 28:49And we often kind of, even kind of with conferences and things, we often
- 28:53find that the speakers want to kind of catch up with the interpreters
- 28:57to let them know what they're talking about as well,
- 29:01to kind of make sure that they understand and that sort of thing. So I
- 29:04think specifically in events, the human touch is, you can't
- 29:09really replace it in many areas. Yeah, and it's very apropos what events
- 29:13are fundamentally, isn't it? You know, events are human connections,
- 29:17is getting people together. So, you know, regardless of— I always find
- 29:21it sort of the great paradox of the events industry that we're constantly talking about
- 29:24new technologies and ways that technology is reshaping the events industry,
- 29:28but it's helping us to deliver and helping us to reshape what is
- 29:31fundamentally still a a person-to-person,
- 29:34an industry built on human interactions. So,
- 29:38you know, that there is that sort of great paradox there. It's been fascinating having
- 29:41a chat with you today, Julia. Thanks for sort of coming on and sharing
- 29:44a little bit of insight into what you guys do. It would be great
- 29:49if you could, if you've still got a minute or so, to just let us
- 29:51know how people find out about you. If they want to, you know,
- 29:54communicate with you at TranslateAble, how do they get in touch? So you
- 29:58can pop onto our website. We've got kind of our contact details there, which is
- 30:01translateable.com. We've also got our Instagram, which is
- 30:05translate_able, or you can find me,
- 30:08Julia Danmary, on LinkedIn. Fabulous. And we'll,
- 30:11we'll, uh, we'll put some links and, and all that information as well into the,
- 30:16uh, into the description, uh, of the podcast. So wherever you get it,
- 30:19either on audio or on the eventindustrynews.com website, there'll be some links
- 30:23and there'll be some information in the description as well for, uh, for anybody
- 30:27who's listening today who would like to access and find out a little bit more
- 30:30about what Julia and the team at TranslateAble actually do. Julia, it's been
- 30:34great. Thanks very much for taking a little bit of time out on an undoubtedly
- 30:37busy Monday to have a chat with us. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- 30:41It's been a pleasure. Thanks. Yeah, and before we wrap up today, just a couple
- 30:44of little mentions for, for stuff at Event Industry News, as we always do.
- 30:47If you've started your journey today, uh, on the eventindustrynews.com
- 30:51website, thank you very much for watching today's episode on video. Please do
- 30:56take a few minutes to have a look around the website and look at the,
- 30:58uh, special— the news features, special supplements, all of that good stuff that's available on
- 31:01the website. And of course the A to Z Supplier Directory.
- 31:05If you work in the events industry and you're looking for a product, service,
- 31:08or supplier, the chances are you'll find it in the Supplier Directory
- 31:12on eventindustrynews.com. Please don't forget to go in the
- 31:16opposite direction as well, and if you've watched today's podcast on the website,
- 31:19make sure that you are also liked and subscribed to wherever you get your audio
- 31:23podcasts from so that you get notifications on when the latest episodes
- 31:27may drop. If you've listened to us today on one of those audio
- 31:30podcast platforms, thank you very much for doing so. And please do take a
- 31:34few minutes to go in the opposite direction, head over to eventindustrynews.com and
- 31:37check out all of those things that I've just mentioned, including video versions of all
- 31:41of the podcasts. Thanks again to my guest today,
- 31:45Julia Danmairi from TranslateAble. It's been an absolute pleasure, and we'll see you on
- 31:49the next edition of the Event Industry News Podcast, everybody.