From the Executive Director
Walter听Bacak, CAE
walter@atanet.org
ATA outreach in action: ATA President
David Rumsey speaks to members of the
Society for Technical Communication.
Colorado paralegals, multilingual educators and government employees in Washington, DC, a national gathering of technical writers in Anaheim, California鈥攚hat do they all have in common? They were the recent benefactors of client outreach efforts by ATA leaders. By speaking to potential clients we are getting the word out about working with professional translators and interpreters and how ATA can help.
As we continue to expand these outreach efforts, we want to keep you informed about what the Association is doing by sharing photos and reports in The ATA Chronicle and the Chronicle-Online. And this goes beyond ATA leaders. If you plan to speak about translation and interpreting services or careers to a group, please contact Chronicle Editor Jeff Sanfacon (jeff@atanet.org). He can give you guidelines for submitting a report and photos.
Remember, there is no need to reinvent the wheel when crafting your presentation. ATA offers a Client Outreach Kit that provides the information you need to present鈥攆rom getting an invitation to speak to preparing a presentation to handling a Q&A session (www.atanet.org/client_outreach). ATA can also send you the Translation: Getting it Right鈥擜 guide to buying translation and Interpreting: Getting it Right鈥擜 guide to buying interpreting services for your audience.
These speaking engagements and their promotion are working in parallel with the Public Relations Committee鈥檚 campaign to publish 鈥減enned pieces鈥 where they will be seen by those most likely to need translation and interpreting services. These penned pieces are written by ATA members and reviewed by ATA Public Relations Committee Chair Madalena S谩nchez Zampaulo. The articles are reviewed again by an outside public relations firm, which subsequently places them in trade association magazines and regional business publications.
By writing these penned pieces we are controlling the message (versus working with reporters, where you have much less control over what they write). The articles, which are written to appeal to business people, have so far addressed two of the industry鈥檚 key issues: first, for the non-linguist, a review of what machine translation cannot do; and second, a cautionary tale about going international without professional translation and localization. To see where these articles have been published, please check out the .
To further promote these timeless client outreach articles, they have been published in , ATA鈥檚听blog dedicated to client outreach. The Compass features a number of other articles and posts with information and tips for clients.
The bottom line for all ATA client outreach is to promote you and your professional services. Share these publications with potential clients. Reference them in your company鈥檚 marketing material. Link to them from your website and blog. Use them and let ATA鈥檚 outreach program work for you!
ATA 57th Annual Conference Registration Now Open
The Preliminary Program for is included with this issue of The ATA Chronicle. This is your first chance to look at the over 175 sessions planned and the breadth of activities set for San Francisco, California, November 2鈥5, 2016. Please see President-elect Corinne McKay鈥檚 column on page 4 for more on the Annual Conference. It鈥檚 not too early to make your hotel reservations at the Hyatt Regency and to register for the industry鈥檚 largest professional development gathering of the year ().