Saturday, February 27, 2010

What does a business analyst do

The qualified business analyst wears many hats. He or she is a negotiator, a skilled listener, a motivational speaker, and a team leader. His or her title may include that of systems analyst, requirements analyst, or project manager. The business analyst may or may not have a degree in business analysis. He or she may not be able to write code. However, the business analyst is educated in the process necessary to produce the code. He or she may even come from an IT department. But what is it they do?

The business analyst is someone capable of troubleshooting.. He or she will be able examine data and other information gathered to determine losses experienced by the company. The business analyst will be able to compare previous facts and figures to current numbers to deduce or predict where failure may occur. He or she will be able to examine information gathered by stakeholders to assess risks of certain project programs.

The business analyst is an objective listener. He or she will be able to speak to stakeholders and hear the needs determined by the management. The business analyst will be able to ask questions which could lead to certain discoveries once overlooked. The qualified business analyst gain knowledge of a situation by listening to team leaders and end users. He or she will hear the underlying message of what is being developed versus what is needed.

Friday, February 26, 2010

How should foreign business persons behave in Japan

Some clients coming to Japan on a business trip are more sensible to matters of adequate attitude here in business situations. They are not the majority, far from it, but they do share the same concern and a sort of uneasiness ahead of meetings, maybe more than if they were to meet other partners in other countries. The Obama incident where the president bowed in front of Japan emperor has vanished under media amnesia, too fast to apply a postmortem analysis. My clients nor I ever meet with royalties. The concern about behavior is a rare show of consciousness of one's ethnocentrism. It is that rare time when ethnocentrism looks at itself and doubts of its competence, or appropriateness to what is about to come. It fears possible failure to behave. Shall I bow, shall I bow at their bow, shall I thrust a hand and expect a shake, or wait and see at the risk of being awkward? Even when not royalties, Japanese have the advantage to heavily rely on formalism and formula. I think most Westerners think of their manners as more easy mannered - call me Bill. They believe to be largely devoid of formalism. But the sense that formalism n the side is for real make them feel somewhat uneasy.

The many "doing business in Japan" are the proof that it matters, although when looking for publication over Google Books, it seems that the 70s were the golden age of the subject. There are still books being released, included refurbished versions of older books. But the golden age has been long over and the field is no longer a cash cow. The same Google Books allows to peruse bits of some of the recent books. They tend to look similar, the worst entertaining the matter around the standard Japanese "mystic", the more down to earth still stuck into that compulsory owe at these who share such an exquisite culture, versus the reader's inborn rudeness.

One such book "Doing Business with Japan: Successful Strategies for Intercultural Communication" is adorn with a very clever comment I can but only share for the most part of this literature. Here is an excerpt:

The risk of this book, however, is that it can read more as a quick guidebook for American businesspeople to come to terms with Japanese unwritten business rules, rather than as a book to learn successful intercultural communication techniques to conduct business in Japan. Nishiyama includes few descriptions and explanations of American customs. His book does not provoke any self-awareness among the reader. Therefore, American businesspeople will tend to continue thinking that Japan is especially unique and they are normal, which makes mutual understanding more difficult. Also, he often advises Americans to adjust to Japanese customs, such as sending gifts, which might appear ethically wrong to Americans. In order to establish a long-term relationship between people with different customs, this one way adjustment will be problematic at some point. Therefore, it would be desirable if Nishiyama could show how to search for a common ground between the cultures.

It is that mention of self-awareness that I find especially welcome, because these books notoriously lay out the standard comparatives of individualism versus group orientation, as if any standard readers would perfectly be aware of her own "national traits".

I have been looking in parallel at equivalent books in Japanese like "doing business with the French", but I have yet to find something. Maybe the reading of such books if any available should come first.

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TWAIN, without Mark

In the heat of a hard to navigate discussion and product demonstration, here comes TWAIN but without Mark. It pops up like that, unannounced, and I deliver You know, that software protocol. And it generates a blank. They don't get it. So the other side starts rummaging a paraphrase to no avail. And I come down with explaining how you connect any camera on the PC< and that the PC will recognize that camera thanks to TWAIN. And now they get it. Neutral but intervening must the liaison interpreter be. The question is then, how do you infuse that idea here in the interpreting classroom?

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The liaison interpreter as a business enabler

Some random thoughts.

  1. Without an interpreter, communication would flow faster and you would do more business. Right?
  2. But you have no choice today. And yes, the interpreter, as much discreet she tries to be, is setting the tone, the rythm.
  3. Instead of fuming about you loosing time, reverse the point of view and take this as an opportunity : to observe the people across the table more than direct communication would allow, and fine tune your speech, thank to the extra time provided by the interpreter.
  4. Yes, she is changing the drama, but she is an enabler as well at those times, in those situations where not wording but communication dynamics is at stake.
  5. A good business interpreter is a business enabler. She help make things happen more than the client would have thought.
  6. When requested for opinions during breaks, from both sides, the good business interpreter would have some opinion to state and flirt, or more, with the expected role to play like an unofficial consultant available on the spot.
  7. The risk is to cross over the board and loose track of each one roles.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Techon 140

Techon (Nikkei BP) twitts (and they are not along). Squeezed tech Japanese in 140 signs, or less. How direct things get that way.

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More Toyota

The Toyota affair is a mighty one. How it stirs emotion in this writer or elsewhere. But elsewhere, the matter of (miss)communication as a core issue has been highlighted here and there before it recedes away to leave room to more concerns about business. It has already started. Mr. Toyoda is in rehearsal mode and someone suggests he delivers with an interpreter and a strategic consultant on hand. Liaison interpreters are often playing both roles or at least expected to play a single duo, at a smaller level. Nothing will change. There is nothing but to wait for some book in the making hopefully analyzing the case in a tangible way.

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Monday, February 22, 2010

The world outside versus Toyoda

A little bit off topic. There is undeniably a strong awareness in the press here that "apologizing" the local way doesn't fit the world outside. Let's call the world outside, the World. I was trying and find something clever, sensible to write about this, about wheter Mr. Toyoda will testify in poor English, another dady's rich boy who spent a year in a US university for nothing as far as his competence in English goes. Did he spend the year slurping noodles delivered daily by DHL from Tokyo, sorry, Nagoya. Dried Kishimen. No. I was trying and find something clever and just bumped into this one article. And reading the many comments, I totally forgot about the article itself. The relationship between Japan and the US is sour, sourer maybe than the relationship between France and Germany. References to Pearl Harbor are a standard feature that tells a story. I think Japan's irrelevance is a wonder. It will make for a strong third world economy. Irrelevancy, but not as North Korea. Here is an irrelevancy that doesn't forbid commerce and the dispatch of wonders as interpreted in the West, that cool Japan soft power stuff. A source of wonder but a one sided interpretation of it all. The Nissan's leader hailed and marketized as a celebs here has talked more in public, that is through the media, than a leader of Toyota in a whole life. Industry hermits meet mad countries hermit leaders in their speechlessness.
The World versus Toyoda is a case study of a world apartness of language as a public act. And the rules in the World are still and always dictated by the West. And it is not a matter of lingo but of interaction gap, as huge as a black hole.
If I were a conference interpreter, thanks god I am not, I think I would dread to interpret Mr. Toyoda words when he testifies on Wednesday, granted he does it through a translator as they say. In one way or another, Mr. Toyoda is bound to automatically read aloud patterns of speech some PR specialists' team is now trying and have him swallow as a rehearsal before the grand jury test, somewhere in the top floor suite of a top class Hotel in Washington. The whole will recede in the backstage. It will come back to normal, the flawed cars and all. It will simply reinforce, or reconfirm that something is outwordly here that doesn't fit the World that decides, whether you like it or not, what format of speech must rule, at least the world of commerce. It also claims for deeper pondering about interpersonal skills in Japan, when in Japan, while not being Japanese. It is an essential issue that has been kept at bay under too much commentaries by oldtimers in Japan. Donald Richie is the exception for me. This outworldliness is here to stay. It protects this World here that does not belong. It nurtures its inappropriateness that sounds cool from outside. That why you need interpreters, for better or not worse.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Use a business analyst is a must ?

There are some business people who are not sure why they would need a business analyst. This can be a hard decision to make. The easiest way to determine whether or not a business could benefit from a business analyst is to decide what the business wants to accomplish. If there is a problem that can not be pinpointed the use of a business analyst could be beneficial.

Not all business analysts have to be called in from the outside. There may be a qualified individual in the organization which can meet the qualifications of a business analyst. It may be someone in the IT department. It may be someone who is familiar with the workings of all the departments. A quick search of qualified applicants can determine this issue.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Interpreting +

Non-native interpreters active as freelancers in Japan seems to be mostly interpreters + something, that + being essentially competences at coordination, organization, location and the like. It tells a story of high intelligence on Japan and swift reaction and mobility. These are the axis running parallel to mainstream interpretation.

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Reengineering the market

It's a perfectly good decision to call it quit and dump the envy to work as a professional interpreter in Japan when the market doesn't want you. After all, why should you play Don Quichotte and fight to no avail against the mill wings? It doesn't make sense. If you are British, open a pub. If you are French, bake bread, if you are Chinese, cook noodles. Unless we start reengineering the market. Reeingineering means "The examination and alteration of a system to reconstitute it in a new form". Only this time, it's not so much a matter of market alteration than the creation, or boosting of a new pregnant market. The basic condition to try and figure out the shape of a new market is sometimes at some point to call it quit fighting, leave the horse, disarm the heavy metal gears of Don Quichotte, and turn ones back away from the mills.

What do we see? Something, unmet demand, potential demand potentially unmet. What do we know? That out of the booth, the interpreter, in many situations, is an interventionist. Therefore, the smart competence to nurture above language competencies is smart interventionism. Smart interventionism is related to interpersonal communication. Interventionism in the interpretation context develops within intercultural communication where the interpreter is a broker.

Look at this video, the first chunk, where that man in shock and delirium is brought to a hospital. Look at how the interpreter is ushered in as your superhero popping out from nowhere, demonstrating tact and communication skill by explaining what is happening, what it may means and the consequential action to be taken by people around who are lost. The interpreter has yet to interpret anything but she has already intervened.

Our gears, our better adequacy to the job, mainly liaison type of interpreting, must be axed onto the reality that we may boast, without pretentiousness, that we may better foot the bill, that is your need to achieve your objective. In fact, now that the vague disposition to try and realize something like a "cooperative of interpreters" could move a little bit forward, I think that on-going discussion among the members to raise awareness of what is needed for us to match performance to claims will be required. It will also be one unique way to engineer the market we are aiming at.

This post will be inconsistent enough if I did not mention that there is an ambition to create something along the lines of a cooperative of interpreters in Japan, mostly made out of non-native professionals, to cater for needs we believe are here, but will be more here than ever once we have started showing our gear to the world. Time will tell if we can do it. Someone will do it anyway.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Wanting to help

The interpreter is not to intervene in the dialog. Old belief. The only non-intervention would be the dialogic situation where there is no interpreter. Keeping neutrality is monitoring and keeping quiet that urge to intervene for the purpose of helping. The very urge to help may be inappropriate, and the intensity of it may depend on matters of each interpreter's temperament. But I believe a good interpreter wants to help. The problem left then is the managing of that urge. Calling for a total, unconditional suppression of that urge to help is utterly insane although necessary at the same time. There is an inherent incompatibility here. Through an agent as it is the case now - yes, an exception because it is a Japanese agency hiring me, a gaijin (but there's a story behind) - the client is still more my client than his counterpart outside Japan. As I follow through days of conversation, remote, their relationship, I have to suppress the urge to help, my client first, and make him maybe achieve what he wants. Which is by the way more or less what the other side wants too. For a reason I don't get and I should not think about - don't think, just interpret says the voice behind - my client doesn't take appointment with that other side far away. And as a result, there miss each other quite often these days. If I were him, I would email that other side and make sure to set up a time to call, with one or two alternative times. Which is what my client is not doing. Am I to suggest him this is not an efficient way to do business?

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The interpreter as interventionist

I am watching this Canadian video in French demonstration the job and role of a "cultural interpreter". Where does "neutrality" stand when the interpreter, and for good reasons, intervene to diffuse an otherwise dangerous situation? The first scene is a powerful enough demonstration that field interpretation is intervention. Therefore, the interpreter is an interventionist, with a role, a duty and a purpose. Life teaches how to behave but school could point a little bit at what interpreting may mean, as an activity, in extra-linguistic terms. Here in Japan, interpretation is all about language, language competency as measured by the number of vocabulary, the quality of your accent, native-like or not, and everything that goes by the language book. The fact is that cultural brokerage is not perceived as an essential part of interpretation when the focus and models show off on TV, by the side of celebs, and in books that cajole the limelight longing of the readers. Languages open up to many doors, the one to the self being the least discussed about. How does this interventionism translated into liaison interpreting in business is a subject to think about.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Wanting to help

The interpreter is not to intervene in the dialog. Old belief. The only non-intervention would be the dialogic situation where there is no interpreter. Keeping neutrality is monitoring and keeping quiet that urge to intervene for the purpose of helping. The very urge to help may be inappropriate, and the intensity of it may depend on matters of each interpreter's temperament. But I believe a good interpreter wants to help. The problem left then is the managing of that urge. Calling for a total, unconditional suppression of that urge to help is utterly insane although necessary at the same time. There is an inherent incompatibility here. Through an agent as it is the case now - yes, an exception because it is a Japanese agency hiring me, a gaijin (but there's a story behind) - the client is still more my client than his counterpart outside Japan. As I follow through days of conversation, remote, their relationship, I have to suppress the urge to help, my client first, and make him maybe achieve what he wants. Which is by the way more or less what the other side wants too. For a reason I don't get and I should not think about - don't think, just interpret says the voice behind - my client doesn't take appointment with that other side far away. And as a result, there miss each other quite often these days. If I were him, I would email that other side and make sure to set up a time to call, with one or two alternative times. Which is what my client is not doing. Am I to suggest him this is not an efficient way to do business?

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Make it better

I think they could make it better and charge the client extra for the service. Make it better so that the interpreter can see the documents they are discussing over the phone. Make it better so that one side knows how to send large files the receiver's side doesn't know how to receive, etc. And all those technology that should help put light and speed on over the phone interpretation, because not only speed but light as well mean money.

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Monday, February 15, 2010

Bearing the cost

I had a copy of their exchanges through email. In one of these, the Japanese side expresses thanks and remorse to have them pay for an interpreter as "it will add cost to your trip to Japan". It appeared later that the one who wrote that apology is in charge of managing export. He doesn't speak English though. He doesn't speak any foreign language. I wonder what costs more, not hiring an interpreter and bear the cost of miscommunication, or hiring an interpreter and investing in better communication?

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Being Flexible as a Business Analyst

Sometimes the business analyst can be so caught up in a project he or she forgets tried and true methods do not always work. The analysis team is trying to get done what the customer has scoped out and sets up a plan of action. The plan of action requires certain fundamentals. There are times when these rudimentary ideas just do not work for the client. The client can not understand why these steps may be so important. This is when the business analyst needs to step back and ask the same questions as the client. It is all in communication.

The professional business analyst must understand success of the project is not only about requirements documentations it is about how those requirements are handled. The business analyst is the acting liaison between the client and IT. The documentation may be required for the IT team to do their job. Certain explanations may be necessary for everyone to understand what is needed. Yet the client may not understand the documentation or have no need for it to begin with. Communication skills are what is required.

The business analyst may get further and move faster with just a simple meeting to explain the methods and procedures being used. The client can ask questions and the business analyst can explain. The case studies and other documentation would not in any way assure the client of progress. There are those who need to hear it because to them it may look good on paper, but how is it supposed to work? A good business analyst can explain the intricacies of what is taking place. The client can sign off. The work can continue. The goal is being met.

Friday, February 12, 2010

A common language ...

An article in the Financial Times Asia dated February 2 by journalist Alicia Clegg ponders on "A matter of interpretation".

It comes with standards as well as seldom heard about recommendations about ways to select an interpreter for business.

Some highlights.

"Telling colleagues to change the entire way they work is one of the hardest things a manager has to
do. Saying it through an interpreter is even harder. "


Unless you expose your interpreter with what's your purpose, objectives, what you want to take home, what's the message you want to imprint in their minds. The single deficit liaison interpreters may be commonly facing is less a matter of vocabulary but a matter of context scarcity. Sure, interpreters are the first culprit not asking enough their customers for background information ahead of time, not questioning them between session to clarify the big picture. Although context is the essential framework for liaison interpreting to effectively liaise, there is a limit to try and get the client fully understand the needs of the interpreter to deliver optimal services. And yet, the interpreter must stand for her job and technic, and turn clients into partners.

"That was the task faced by Gaëlle Olivier, vice-president of communication at Axa Group, the French
insurance company, when she was sent to Japan to shake up a struggling subsidiary. The local
managers, she says, "urgently needed to change their product offer, revisit their investment strategy
and become more innovative and less hierarchical". A tough message was made trickier to deliver by
the lack of a common language. "


I am not alone thinking these days that the common language they are writing about, all those journalists, is not what you may think. It is not English. Because even when delivered in English to Japanese somewhat fluent, more time than you may believe, it doesn't go through. "It", being "the meaning". There is more than often an obvious lack of common ground, that is, a deeper gap than the mere issue of common language. The gap is more of a rhetorical kind, that is, the dimension where things simply get lost is due to huge lack of understanding of the differences in rhetoric at stake. It's by far an issue of bandwidth, frequency difference. Even K. who is 100% Japanese agrees based on her daily routine that a large majority of the staff where she is working, despite their average or better English reading competency, simply don't get the point of most messages sent from non-Japanese. They don't get it. Too big a subject to ponder about here. But the interpreter may have a bigger role between Japanese and Western language than what is usually attributed to her.

"But can managers who use interpreters be sure that what their audience hears is what they really intended to
say?"


No. Period. And I skip the issue of a majority of people - including myself - not top class talkers. In natural conversation, few are clear as the discourses they use in interpretation schools.

"Someone who is fresh out of school may not be as good as someone with no qualifications and years
of experience,"


Thank you, I agree.

" in Japan. "If you are hiring interpreters, my advice is to talk to other businesses and to get recommendations."

Good advice, but why limit this to Japan? But knowing that most interpreters are delivered here by agencies and many interpreters are hooked to agencies, how are you, the customer, to get in touch with that interpreter other businesses recommend?

"Culture plays a huge part in the success or failure of interpretation, because the cultural assumptions
that come bundled with words may literally not translate. "


You could not tell it better. Cultural competency is not totally reflected in language competency. No school teaches cultural competency.

"Ms Olivier was sometimes told that a task would be " muzukashii ". Her interpreter translated this as "difficult", which Ms Olivier took to mean tough but do-able. Only when her team repeatedly missed deadlines did she begin to understand that
muzukashii is a cultural euphemism for saying "It is impossible and we cannot do it."


I tested my students the other day, asking them how they would translate muzukashii into French. None came with the idea to tell the gaijin that what they mean is "impossible". So they would all fail at interpreting. You have carloads of interpreters ready to translate muzukashii by difficult and any other cousins. But it takes, and it took me time too (I am not immune) to understand that the gaijin side must absolutely be not entertained with the "subtleties" of the language, but be informed in a way that allows him to implement a forward strategy, which is to ask why it is impossible, and not what are the difficulties. Because asking about the difficulties will put the Japanese side into the obligation to deliver mumbo jumbo meaningless straights of verbal emptiness, for they basically don't understand why the gaijin is asking about those difficulties meant to mean "no way". They usually are as culturally incompetent as the gaijin side. Which points to cultural competence as being a key factor of interpretation.

"The power dynamic between speaker, interpreter and listener presents another set of challenges. Ms
Sebastian has spent 20 years working for western companies in Asia. She says executives who are
unused to interpreters often make the mistake of looking at the interpreter instead of building a rapport
with their opposite number through eye contact."


The interpreter is responsable to teach on the spot the client how to behave and watch the opposite side while talking. The client is responsible to behave or not the way the interpreter tells her to do.

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Building Business Credit Scores

To be able to avail of many financing offers by many lenders, having a good credit score is a must. If you have one handy, this will allow you to get a decent amount with reduced interest rates, with flexible payment terms. But building your business credit score is no easy feat to accomplish.

If you just have started earning your business credit when you set up your business venture, then it’s quite easy to get a good rating within 1 to 2 years of its operation.

This is not the case, however, when you have a bad credit rating. You either have to repair your business credit on your own, or hire a credit repair professional to get the job done. Only when you fixed your score can you start to build it up.

But before you can actually start building business credit scores, you need to have a credit identity first. This can be done by putting up your business as a corporation or an LLC. These two are perfect statuses to start your business credit. Since most financial lenders are eyeing clients in corporation or LLC, having your business as one will allow you to get a loan faster than any business enterprise.

You also need to set up a credit record with a credit agency, or Paydex. Credit agencies will keep track of your credit transactions, rate them and give them scores. This will be used to determine how good your credit rating is when a financial institution does a credit check.

Paydex scores by big companies like Dun and Bradstreet will keep records on how well your company is paying your credit bills. The score ranges from 0 to 100 – the higher the score, the bigger the possibility your loan will get approved.

Now that you have established your credit identity, you need to apply for a loan before you can actually start building your business credit scores. First, you can choose either a secured loan, where the lender will ask you to pledge assets or properties as collateral that will serve as security for the loan. Note that this kind of loan will let you borrow a much larger amount (depending on your collateral), and a much reduced interest rate.

Another type of loan is the unsecured loan, which is perfect for those who don’t want to put their assets at risk by setting it up as collateral. Since the risk to the lender is higher compared to unsecured loans, the financial institution might be very strict with its application, coupled with a higher interest rate and payment schemes.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Plugged-in

A late morning OPI session using the iPhone with a standard canalbud headset. This is the third time I work for the same client. I am starting to understand his business and purpose. A quick one it was, but I when I pop out the earbuds, one get stuck pretty much in depth in the ear canal. At first it is nothing remarkable because the earbud has a pretty large hole in the middle so you still can hear as usual. But it itches a little and when you understand was is causing the itching, and the the little devil seems locked inside and won't move, you start spelling ORL in a flash. I ended up grabbing it back and put the bud and the whole headset in the trash. It has been maybe the second or third canabud earset I have bought for the iPhone. The problem is that the trashed one lost a single earbud once and I had to shop for a replacement. But as it was a minor or unknown brand, I ended up buying generic earbuds that would fit but not perfectly. The lesson of the story is maybe to buy canalbud headsets with spare earbuds at the same time. Or start moving away from canalbud type back to earcushion versions, and not fear the ORL.

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Monday, February 8, 2010

Delicate interpretation training

I was watching yesterday over the French TV5 channel streamed over the Internet a film named "Les bureaux de Dieu". It is set in a large Parisian apartment where counselors and doctors meet patients and people - mostly women - seeking advices related with abortion. The film played by actresses and actors replays real dialogues picked up by the film director in Family Planning offices in France. It is a fiction that "sounds real", very real indeed. So much that while watching the film unintentionally, I was thinking that most of the interaction being dialogues could be used for community interpreting, and dialogic interpreting training at large. But not only that. Interpretation happens in cross-cultural exchange situations, and subjects may at times clash with what is tabou in the other's side cultural world. Abortion is not tabou in Japan but as with everything sexual, it is pretty much tabou. Interpreting may take place in situations that challenge the interpreter's expected neutrality, and unset not only the direct actors of interaction, but the interpreter herself who my feel uneasy and more. Spelling aloud students that interpretation does not always takes place in harmonious settings of international exchanges - contrary to the too often sugar coated limelight basked image of interpretation here. But what about challenging students - and oneself in self-learning settings - by proposing to work on subjects that should put stress onto the student, to see and feel what affect control means, even in the pacified classroom setting? That's what I intend to try, or at least propose to my interpretation class next week.

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Protocol agent

Here in Japan where interpreting is for some a dream job - you meet celebs as anyone knows - the extralinguistic requirements to perform in liaison mode are by far and large ignored. There is a growing discourse on technics, note-taking and the likes. But the cultural brokering is so much perceived as diluted inside the language competence that it's hardly a matter of discussion. To be honest, it's not more a matter of discussion elsewhere. But what is culture brokerage in action? On the TV news, one sees very visible politicians from various countries meeting each others, basking in front of the camera, with discreet interpreters on their sides, sitting behind trying so hard not to be visible. When the celebs get down the airplane, get inside the meeting room, they have protocol agents who tell them what to do, how to behave. Very prominent businessmen may rely on interpreters for interpreting, mostly. But you average businessman gets down the bus from Narita with colleagues, sometimes alone, and he may request or at least expect the accompanying interpreter not only to show him the way but the manners of the country. More than often have I worked with client sometimes over conscious and concerned not to make a faux-pas, a blunder, in a country where the prejudice for delicacy, coming from the view of outsiders, is heavily ingrained. I won't discuss what is at stake when the client thinks too much of him as being some sort of elephant in the porcelain shop, but fact is that he may expects to have her interpreter also act as a protocol agent, majordome, maitreD, or whatever you call it. I do push my clients in the mmeting room when time comes to exchange business cards to have them ready and quick at hand, the dynamic of the protocol to be played asking for prompt readiness they usually don't have. Not helping them by delivering cues may make turn awkward and somewhat loose face a little in some situations in the eyes of that other side. That other side who doesn't help, whi may be even more tensed that the non-japanese side, often even more. That is when the interpreter may intervene to calm things down for th benefit of all, that is, the benefit of the communication dynamics. Liaison interpreting is more than often a job about keeping things moving on.

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Monday, February 1, 2010

Build Business Credit and See Your Business Grow

Planning and putting up an owned business is hard. It is a dream of millions of people around the globe. There are a lot of people who set up their own businesses but never quite get around to it. This can be due to one of the factors that can discourage these people from launching their own venture off the ground, which is the lack of capital. There are also others that fear the risk of losing their own money.

However, with careful planning, thought and effort, it is possible to raise some capital that can help to get the business started and it can be done through building a business credit. For short, you need to borrow against the business rather then from personal assets.

Carefully Produce a Business Plan and Structure

Setting up a business through business credit takes you in the world completely different from consumer credit. This only states that you are striving to project yourself in a business point of view. You must be able to prepare yourself for the transition it entails to ensure successful venture; from being an employee to being a business man. The more you think in the business point of view, the better it is for the business and allows growth in the future.

Maybe the hardest step in building a business credit is to convince the potential lenders that you are trying to achieve and set up a viable venture. The quality of your business plan and preparation is important. In order to set up a proper business structure, you must make sure that the prerequisites, i.e. licenses, documentations, are in place. You can use the business plan to show your lenders that you have placed a deep thought about the several elements in a business: the competition, pricing, products and the markets. If you are not sure about the business plan, you can always hire an advisor but it is critical to prepare yourself for the defense of your sales projections and the estimated costs of the start up and running.

 
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