Two or Three Thoughts on TAUS Tokyo

TAUS, also known as the Translation Automation User Society, is the translation industry think tank that is currently re-inventing itself as a resource center for both providers and buyers of translation services. On April 19 and 20, TAUS held an Executive Forum in Tokyo, one of ten major events TAUS hosts this year. Here are my personal - and highly subjective - impressions of this gathering.

A recipe for success: Keeping it small, interactive and focused.

This was my second participation in a TAUS event, and I must say, I liked this one even better than my first, the TAUS TaaS (Terminology as a Service) workshop in Dublin 2014. What intrigued me about this - dare I call it ‘conference'? - was the fact that it had the highest ratio of presenters to participants of any industry event I have ever attended. I think it is safe to say that almost half of  the attendees at the Executive Forum were also presenting. For once at an industry event, it was really everybody talking to everybody else.

One thing that was missing that I didn’t miss: At the Forum, there was no accompanying sales fair, and I found the absence of booths and sales pitches very refreshing.

Truth be told, there was a little bit of self promotion going on, but one that I actually appreciated: TAUS introduced Ryutaro Nishino as their new ambassador in Japan, who gave an update on the status of TAUS’ DQF (Dynamic Quality Framework). If you are not familiar with this initiative: DQF is a vendor-independent tool environment for evaluating translations and benchmarking results against anonymized industry data via the Quality Dashboard. Another piece of TAUS news was the recent release of a new API/plug-in (available for many popular CAT/TMS systems), which not only supports productivity but also quality metrics (using the newly harmonized DQF-MQM Error Typology). And while TAUS doesn’t seem to advertise this fact much, I think it’s worth mentioning that in addition to the paid Professional and Business accounts, TAUS also offers a free Basic subscription to individuals.

A magic mix: Buyers, vendors, academe

The TAUS Executive Forum in Tokyo was a surprise in yet another respect: In addition to representatives from the client side like Dell, NetApp and Oracle and tools and services vendors like Microsoft, Memsource and TM Town, several academic institutions were also represented, namely the Copenhagen School of Business, Kansai University and Rikkyo University. Being a recovering chair of an MA program in localization myself, I am keenly interested in how universities in Japan and elsewhere bridge the gap between theory and professional practice.

Below is a short synopsis of the one presentation from each of the three domains that stood out to me the most.

Successful MT Deployment at NetApp

It’s not every day that a multi-billion-dollar enterprise shares their experience rolling out machine translation. Yukako Uedo let us in on NetApp’s approach to automated translation:

• Start with the difficult languages first (in this case English into Chinese and Japanese) and develop robust processes that can easily be transferred to the other languages.
• Own the MT engines and leave post-editing to vendors who provide extensive feedback to the MT team for continuous engine re-training as part of every project.
• NetApp currently uses post-edited machine translation for text types like online help and internal white papers; raw machine translation is currently being used for knowledge base articles and community-generated content.

View the entire presentation on SlideShare.

Z-Axis helps clients free-up in-country resources

I know, I know: One should not tout one’s own horn. But I do believe that the Z-Axis talk on how to write a post-editing guide stood out. And here are some of the insights my colleague Catherine Dove and yours truly provided into the hows and whys of creating a PEMT (post-editing of machine translation) guide:

• No need to re-invent the wheel! Authors can re-use and build upon the recommendations included in two very helpful and recently published PEMT resources: TAUS’ own (and FREE!) MT Post-Editing Guidelines and the emerging international standard ISO 18587: Post-Editing of Machine Translation Output.
• Use a tool for measuring post-editing distance to identify patterns of issues in the post-edited output and write rules to address them. For best results, use this type of tool to compare post-edited output against reviewed post-edited output.
• Having a post-editing guide in place is a key component in Z-Axis’ strategy of moving (machine) translation review completely from client to (QA) vendor resources within six to nine months of initial engagement.

View the entire presentation on SlideShare (in English and Japanese).

New standards-based MA program

This was one of the talks I was really looking forward to! Tony Hartley, professor of Translation Technology, gave a presentation on a new Master’s program at Rikkyo University. Here are some of the facts that distinguish this educational initiative from others:

• Driven by the competencies outlined in ISO 17100: Translation Service – Requirements for Translation Service.
• Multiple modules devoted to translation technology, including translation memory, machine translation, and terminology management technology.
• Advanced students have the opportunity to gain work experience as intern project manager or reviser in an on-site translation service.

View the entire presentation on SlideShare.

TAUS and Oracle: A match made in heaven

TAUS has been hosting the Executive Forum in Tokyo in cooperation with Oracle since 2010 – and it showed! This was one of the smoothest industry events I have ever attended: There was not a single glitch worth mentioning – despite the fact that the Executive Forum takes place on the 13th floor of Oracle Japan’s spectacular headquarters. Oh, and I should mention that a lucky few Forum participants even got to sip tea in the traditional tea room Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison had built on the top floor of the building – with Oracle’s translation program manager Hiroko Matano presiding.

I know I speak for many when I say a big ‘thank you’ to the organizing team of the TAUS Executive Forum Tokyo 2016 for hosting a truly memorable event! I am particularly grateful to TAUS’ Jaap and Anne-Maj van der Meer, not least for rescuing me at the Shibuya metro station, where I was going the wrong way (who knew that at this subway station, you have to take the stairs DOWN to get to the exit?). Without their assistance, I am sure I would have missed the shot with the lady in the red dress standing in the middle of Shibuya Crossing that turned into the title photo of this post.

Event photos: Anne-Maj van der Meer (TAUS). Used by permission.

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If you are in the translation/localization field, you might be interested in reading some of my articles on tools, technology, and standardization. Just click the following link to my SelectedWorks bibliography page.

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