Link to the paper.
Audio recording of presentation  

Sustaining your career with social media/Web 2.0

With an estimated 222 million unique worldwide visitors in November 2008, free blogging platform Blogger was recently named the top social media site of 2008. Online library and publishing service Scribd reported 23 million unique worldwide visitors over the same period. With over one third of new content on the internet reportedly produced on social media sites, the impact of such tools is clearly far from virtual. The pace of change on the web is extremely fast but, like other professionals, translators and interpreters need to understand how and why these tools are being used, and how they might integrate them into their own working practices. As a profession, it is important for us to be able to strengthen our voice both online and offline, in the same way that as business-owners, it is vital that we continue to reach our target clients. Moreover, as individuals we can benefit from being part of this enormous worldwide conversation.

These new technologies represent a wider change in the way we use the internet, a shift that focuses on the social rather than the technological. By giving users the tools they need to sort, search and store information as they see fit, the internet has become truly interactive. We are now much better equipped to manage the data available to us without running the risk of ‘information overload’, since the individual is very much at the centre of this new and improved web. Websites, communities and systems such as blogs, virtual worlds, wikis and social networks that are specifically enabled to allow users to quickly and easily share a range of content, and to participate in discussions around this content, all fall under the umbrella term of 'social media'. In keeping with the web's shift from static to interactive, such tools tend to be dynamic and flexible with a priority on easy archiving, search engine indexing and sharing across other systems and platforms. Social media therefore loosely refers to the broad spectrum of tools that allow us to communicate, collaborate and socialise in wider circles than ever before. In this sense, it could be described as one of the oldest industries in the world as it merely enables us to do what we humans have always done, only on a wider scale.

As a mobile, multilingual workforce, translators and interpreters are ideally placed to tap into the opportunities offered by social media. This presentation aims to introduce the concepts behind these new technologies and the possibilities they have introduced, by briefly outlining their categories and key characteristics.

The main focus of the presentation will be a live demonstration of a selection of the most useful tools, and a discussion of how they can help enhance and sustain the careers of translators and interpreters at all stages of their careers.

Presenters: Sarah Dillon and Philippa Hammond