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The events described below took place around February 1998, which means the article is outdated especially in terms of computer technology, and I haven't worked at the agency concerned for five years, but the basic theme is still the same today. That is, this particular translation agency is always looking for a new business strategy that will raise profits, whether it involves learning new technology, buying machines, hiring new people or creating a 50,000-word online glossary. In other words, they are still introducing new services that will look attractive to their clients. Although the events occurred a few years ago, even if I knew the current situation of this agency, I would not be able to write about it. If I did, competitors might catch up on the new idea and steal it for their own use. So it can be said that business strategies are 'Top Secret'. Anyway, here's another way to phrase the basic theme: Changing the process of receiving the Japanese document, translating, laying-out and delivering the final product in English to the client in as short a time as possible?just as long as the change results in greater profits. But raising profits is easier said than done, and this article talks about one strategy that's reserved for the 'gung-ho' (profit-seeking) agencies.
This is my third article about my experiences working for a translation agency in Nagoya (–¼ŒÃ‰®). In the first two articles I talked about getting along with my Japanese colleagues ('Working for an Agency,, JAT Bulletin June 1998, and 'The Prudent Translator', JAT Bulletin October 1998). This time I will talk about getting along with machines related to computer technology.
My two years at this agency saw tremendous changes in our computer environment. Many small and medium-sized businesses like us, who receive work from larger clients, are at the mercy of these global manufacturers. The small guy must change along with 'big brother', or risk getting left behind and maybe even deserted, which would mean bankruptcy.
I started working at this agency before the advent of Windows 95, when the Internet bubble was just beginning to grow and Apple Macintosh computers were at the peak of their popularity. However, the head of the company avoided Apple computers, and so most of our hardware was in the form of word-processors, a system called Oasys. There was no network, and all work was saved and delivered to the client on floppy discs. We also had a few DOS computers, which I avoided as far as possible since I myself was an Apple user. We had one Apple Power PC 8100 for the occasional job in Quark and for Chinese documents. For several years before I joined this agency, the layout of the translated material had been done in Oasys. Sometimes, when I had caught up with translating and the layout people were overwhelmed with work, I would help out with the layout. I must say with honesty that I was very glad the day we got rid of almost all our Oasys word-processors.
When Windows 95 came on the scene, our clients made a major shift to not only Win95 but also to the Internet. So did we. This saw us switch from Oasys to Microsoft Word 95 for the layout for the documents. We started receiving a lot of work from our clients, and eventually each member of staff received a new computer with Windows 95 in order to help with Word layout. We also installed a computer network with server, printers and scanners, which cost in excess of \4,000,000. Everyone received their own e-mail address. All these changes to sophisticated hardware and software resulted in a tremendous decrease in the volume of paper used, because now we were transferring work between the client and ourselves over the Internet. Furthermore, all paperwork was scanned and saved on the server. In other words, we became a paperless office.
The next major advancement by our client in terms of computer technology was the move to HTML. So everyone had a crash course in HTML, and a week later we using it for layout. This was my first experience of working with HTML.
The next step was to learn how to use Acrobat in preparation for the next big project, which consisted of entering the data in PDF format. Again, this move was in line with our biggest client.
I was able to learn a great deal about computer technology at this translation agency, and feel fortunate that I was able to work for it. I hear that among all the agencies our main client deals with, we had the reputation of always trying to find new ways to improve the translation process. This is why the head of the company was always looking for new information.
No one was to know what new computer technology our clients might decide to try next. The head of the company was always telling the staff that we must be ready to learn new ways of thinking in terms of computer technology. We must never say, 'But that's not how we did it before.' In particular, we must prepare for the new challenges that internet technology will bring on the way agencies carry out the translation process.