Upcoming 2012 GALA Conference

Called the Language of Business, the Business of Language, the upcoming 2012 GALA Conference is hosted annually by the Globalization and Localization Association, a non-profit organization that was created for industry enterprises to have a common forum, and to promote language services and technology. Conference attendees are anyone from language service providers and professional translation company managers and CEOs to localization businesses, and those within translation software and technology enterprises.

From what the GALA Conference website reports, 80% of last year's conference attendees said they made contacts that will generate significant business for them, and even more said they learned concepts or practices that will directly help their business. Nearly 100% of attendees said they were extremely pleased with the conference in general. The networking alone can often make events like these worthwhile, bringing various types of LSP companies together to collaborate and trade services, like high quality Greek translation for localized translation service, memory translation software for input of language translation terms to the database, and so on.

Translation Company and LSP Program Content

Program line-up for GALA conference 2012 includes rich and informative speaker meetings, networking opportunities, and discussion panels. Some of the key features includes marketing translation services and how to use current technology, inbound marketing and other popular inexpensive resources like social media and mobile websites and language translation service request availability. Development of smartphone translation apps and other creative means of reaching target audiences will be discussed by LSP marketing industry leaders. Other content includes a speaker meeting led by a Trados executive, a film fest, and plenty of other valuable information for both translation company leaders and translators themselves.

How an LSP Conference Can Benefit the Average Translator and Translation Agency

As revealed in other articles, while there are giant corporations and companies within the language service provider industry, small translation agencies make up the vast majority, which means a very fragmented market and industry made up of thousands of small LSP businesses. But this is the very reason that something like the GALA Conference 2012 can be so beneficial. Many smaller LSP companies, as well as the translators within their networks, may think that such a conference can provide them with nothing that will significantly justify the expense of travel and attendance to such an affair. But as previously mentioned, nearly every single attendee was very pleased with this particular language service industry gathering, and the vast majority came away with several ways to help or generate more business for themselves. It stands to reason that when any professional translation agency is a small enterprise, almost anything can be learned from those who have achieved high profile success in the same industry. Add the information that can be gleaned by industry leaders, to the networking opportunities, marketing information and schooling, as well as many other secrets of the trade, and it seems a shame for anyone in the LSP industry NOT to go.