Debriefing

It's one thing to advocate this or that half-backed method for preparation. It's another step forward to try and apply some by oneself. Except for a few minutes a day before the latest OPI session, I had a look through the four pages covering the industry pertaining to the session subject on that 業界地図 book. I did find serendipity with an article, out of pure chance therefore, on TechOn in English. TechOn is one of the NikkeiBP online portal. It's a see, nay, a tsunami of info accessible for free. The challenge is as with everything else to make sense of the overall topography of the wealth available. Besides these trespassings, I waited one hour before the call to prepare for the challenge. A subject that is the name of a huge industry, and nothing else to navigate in the ocean of anxious preparation. A new look at 業界地図, quick looks at some market research indexes, a chance encounter with a video about a service that would end up in effect pop up in the discussion, et voila.
The inquirer's first question sounded like a big slap in the head, going right away into specific questions not devoid of technical hints and features. I was lucky that the Japanese side could understand English but was not confident enough to answer in English. It was a tremendous help to start with. In the end, it was one of a kind of a very dense, tough OPI session, but the preparation was pretty much centered around the real meat of the discussion. I don't think however calling luck or chance as the major factor to be of any help next time. Because there will be a next time for sure as clients in their majority can't figure out what's the fuss with getting ready for the interpreter. "You speak the language, don't you?", is not only here to stay outside the booth market, it is here to grow. Anticipation is key here and every other solitary effort must be focused on anticipating what will be the conversation's focus, based the capacity to quickly get the big picture of a specific industry, and what within that industry currently matters from the point of view of the inquirer. Therefore, the interpreter must virtually don the shoes of the inquirer and take bets at what she may be interested to hear about first and foremost. Metadata on industrial things, content that give the big picture, simple charts that broadly answer to what, who, where, when, with whom, are essential helpers in the process of preparation in the fog. Luckily enough, there are in Japan at least quite a lot of content that helps navigating the maze to get to the big picture. I don't know of anything equivalent to a 業界地図, be it in English or French. From now on, everything that spells and tells "big picture" is an essential target of preparation under constraints of time and resources.