Where You Sit DOES Make a Difference

When you are booking a business trip, there are a lot of important decisions to be made. Obviously, the important issue is your business objectives and that everything you need so the business you will do when you arrive comes off well. So you will spend the majority of your efforts on those preparations or so you are well equipped for the trip.

But to use the old phrase, it’s the little things that mean a lot especially when you are enduring the inconvenience of business travel. You put up with a lot of inconvenience and having to accommodate the needs of others in airports where everybody wants to be comfortable. Little things mean a lot on a long business flight from how well you eat to the kind of car you rent on the other end. Just a small surprise or accommodation along the way can set put you in a good mood on the trip and that mood could even influence the outcome of the meetings you will conduct when you make your business contacts at your destination.

Some people do not have a preference where they sit during the plane flight. But there are a number of issues that can become significant during those hours where you are essentially immobile as you fly cross-country. Some of those are.

The Australian model

"Interpreters' role perceptions in business dialogue interpreting situations" is an interesting paper I had not notice so far. It was published in 2006 by Takimoto, Masato at Monash university in Australia. The title is expressive enough to understand what is the subject covered. In the second page of the paper, the author listed up the interpreters he interviewed, Japanese-English liaison interpreters in Australia. I was surprised that four out of the seven listed were native speakers of English. Australia tells a different story compared with Japan. Four out of seven may not reflect a statistical reality but it shows that professional interpreters of Japanese-English are not drastically limited to native speakers of Japanese as it is the case in Japan.
Close to 30 years after graduating from university, the emptiness of the program offered at that time not only still looms in the background, but as new vistas have been open up through this blog, it tells of how inadequate the curriculum was, and still is in France, based at least on the reading of pathetically coarse exchanges of current students in public chat rooms.
I saw one point in the paper that may be a major clue to investigate the big difference, not only between Australia and France, but also between Australia and Japan. All the listed interpreters were mentioned as being accredited by NAATI. And no only only that. The Monash Japanese language faculty blurb online specifically refers to the interpreting and translation strand as geared toward getting NAATI accreditation as a launch pad into the real professional life. There are no national accreditation system, both in France and Japan. Pseudo-accreditation is in the hand of schools, and worse in the case of Japan, in the hand of private schools, like Simul. It close-circuits the scope of what could be the local market if it were not manipulated by a closed knit network of schools doing the marketing and luring students into a professional market they hide the boundaries of.

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Off-topic : The Japan that can't say no

This is off-topic, but not totally unrelated. I sent sometimes in November of last year an email to a Japanese publisher, complaining about the poor quality of the CD attached to a language manual otherwise very valuable. The lack of recorded sources of natural spoken Japanese is a major issue for learning and teaching liaison interpreting. The scope of Japanese podcasts is paltry as usual, featuring mostly lame commercial content, over formated or stifled audio journalism reciting pieces of printed material. This one rare manual was basically the recording and transcription of interviews with many next door Japanese people giving their opinions on a lot of social issues. Again, it was a rare piece of audio content I was looking forward to exploit with my students. That was before I listened to the audio CD. How such a poor recording quality could have been made into a product was beyond imagination. Even in poor over the phone interpretation, I never met with such useless audio environment.

Four months later, I received an answer to my message. The publisher is blaming the author of the book who came with that poor recording in order to sell her project. The recording was poor because the author was not a professional at recordings. The publisher originally thought the poor recording worked against the project to make it into a CD+Book product, but the idea was so good (it is), and the author so pushy that they accepted. The publisher even states that the recording was somewhat manipulated by some professional to make it a little bit less worse. She ends up being sorry but comes up with the bright news that someday, in the second print, they may consider getting the help of some (more) audio professional to somewhat try and make the recording less worse than worse.

It's a great piece of sociology and human relationship down here in Japan. I am not sure if you can call the author the winner, but in the country where the customer is king, it is the king that gets dethroned. How the publisher shifts the responsibility of the poor recording to the author and begs for forgiving to having abode to the author's desperate plea to get published is brilliant. A typical Japan that can't say no situation. You will read in books about giri, jinjo and all the paraphernalia of human relationship and still not get it until you experiment all this in an extreme way.

I, as a customer, almost forgave the poor author, but not the publisher. They have to get read of the first print and fraud another few hundreds customers to be until they may take action with the promise of a possible better version. As they say here, you just raise your hands as a sign of letting it off.

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Moving context

Liaison interpreting is all about context. You read about it in the academic papers. I shall add an important discovery - coming to awareness may be more appropriate - to the mantra. It is the fact that the context is not fix, it moves. And that movement resembles actually the pealing of an onion. Liaison interpreting gets all the more difficult to deliver and confuses the interpreter that the context during briefing didn't drill down the layers of the onion but stayed at a superficial level. Strangeness of context doesn't come naturally to someone who is already bathing in the contextual pool. There are good and bad explainers of context. The bad explainer is a client who will deliver in lofty manners what she considers to be enough to understand the situation. It may sound good for a beginning but on the field, it will reveal as patchy and a trap for false conjecture and interpretation by the interpreter. The interpreter understanding that there are additional layers of context under the one he was fed with has now to frantically pedal back, veer toward the right way while looking cool, composed and in control. I always tell my students that beyond interpreting is the simultaneous controlling of many switches and gears, one being the control of uneasiness, or worse, shame, as you and the people around discover that you, the interpreter, was wrong. Failure to correctly interpreter may be the responsibility of the interpreter. It may also be the result of confusions and false conjectural thinking and conclusion by the interpreter trying and make sense alone to stitch together the patching of meanings, or plug the holes. Yesterday's onion was deep an utterly black down there, on the Japanese side. I don't want to suggest that things are always clear on the opposite, non-japanese side, but as far as layers of onions are concerned, the Japanese side is made out of many more layers on average. And as with yesterday's client, briefing proved highly inadequate to what happened.

The liaison interpreter as a business mediator

This goes against the holly scriptures and what you can expect from a standard local interpreter, but advanced liaison interpreting near misses into mediation. The near-miss should not be avoided. There is that stiff image here at least of an interpreter as a linguistic agent, period. It's wrong, unless the setting is big corporate meetings who would usually use simultaneous interpreters to do the job. Liaison liaises, and liaising cannot stop at the front of mediation, unless the interpreter is not competent to do this extra service so many times welcome, if not mission crucial.

Will DRM Save the Record Industry ?

Without a doubt the single most influential agent of change in business trends in the last ten to twenty years has been the internet. There is virtually no business segment or market that has gone unchanged by this powerful force. But of all of the various businesses impacted by cyberspace, the music industry has to the one that has seen the most dramatic change and the greatest challenge to keep up, adapt and survive an onslaught of change unprecedented in its history.

The first major challenge that cyberspace brought to the music business was a complete shift to how music would be sold to music fans worldwide. In what can only be described as an avalanche, the music buying public virtually abandoned conventional record stores and retail outlets and took the majority of their music purchasing business online. But this mass influx of business could not be tracked to any one web site that was executing the revolution. Because of a revolution in how bands and Indie record labels do business online, the music audience followed and began buying their CDs and even concert tickets directly from artists or record labels online and getting those products instantly via downloads.

But as drastic as the market changes this paradigm shift in consumer behavior represented, it was nothing compared to what the internet had in store for the music world. The next wave of change represented a threat to the music business so serious that it had the potential of putting the music industry out of business forever. When music consumers began to share digital music electronically over the internet using file sharing software such as Kazaa, Limeware and BitTorrent, suddenly it was possible for a music customer to access all the music they wanted for free by simply downloading this music from another internet user’s computer.

Writing a Vision Statement

Writing the vision statement for a project can be the most enjoyable aspect of being a business analyst. He or she may have to curb their enthusiasm during the writing process. The business analyst can become lost in great expectations when writing the vision statement.

Writing the vision statement will answer the everyday questions of who, what , when, why, and where. The who is easily defined as the stakeholders and the end user. The stakeholder as the who will be listed as the person or company enabling the project to be completed. It will include pertinent information about the company stand on the technology being developed.

In writing a vision statement the "what" is the project program. The vision statement will deliver reasoning behind why the program is being developed. It will include what the program will be able to accomplish, what uses the program will have and who the program will impact. The vision statement may include statements of interest including updates available. The key is to keep the vision statement truthful.

Vision statements include when the project or program will be completed or available for use. It will set a goal for release or implementation. The when is the time frame set by the stakeholders and development teams needs assessment. Determining the when of a vision statement can be an overwhelming task. There are always reasons why something can not be done on time. The infamous phrase is "There is never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it again." To set a definitive date in a vision statement is to take a risk. This is something which should also be included. Stakeholders and end users will know the date is tentative.

The liaison interpreter as a business mediator

This goes against the holly scriptures and what you can expect from a standard local interpreter, but advanced liaison interpreting near misses into mediation. The near-miss should not be avoided. There is that stiff image here at least of an interpreter as a linguistic agent, period. It's wrong, unless the setting is big corporate meetings who would usually use simultaneous interpreters to do the job. Liaison liaises, and liaising cannot stop at the front of mediation, unless the interpreter is not competent to do this extra service so many times welcome, if not mission crucial.

A project for a Network of Freelance Language Interpreters in Japan

Past experiences of trying and set up a network of freelance of language interpreters in Japan failed totally. Yet, networking for business development purpose still makes sense to me, more than ever as the crannies and nooks of the ecosystem has never been clearer today. The first trial at creating a network failed because my partners could fully not identify themselves as interpreters. Also, the creation of a visibility for seen as the major point. It is so easy to create visibility. You pick up a domain name, set up a Google Site web landing page. Et voila. Then, next is nothing. The second trial was more ambitious and the people to be involved were interpreters. But no interaction took place. People would register then, nothing. That's where I learned about the dynamics of an ecosystem I was still viewing behind the filter of fear and anger, and uneasiness on top of that.
There is yet a new idea in the line of a network of freelancers. I am very much tempted to jump ahead and create a visibility hub even before we meet, get to know each other and see if we fit in terms of common understanding and purpose. This meeting has not yet happened. I'll keep quiet this time until we meet.

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The foreignness of things foreign

Foreignness is foreign to many who have had no life experiment of being away into a foreign environment for a tangible duration. This is the case of the majority. And even having had a life experience abroad, or even living abroad and keeping living there is not a visa to shift ones habit of reacting at things foreign. Culture shock can be a lifetime syndrome to live with. If it were possible to build a scale and measure foreignness of things foreign, Japan would by large hit a very high score. The basis of discourse about things foreign here in Japan is how weird, how different things are over there. TV channel bask viewers with views of foreign stuff that are always and more than anything else weird. The appeal of weirdness is also a motivation to start learning a foreign language. I do not mean that this is exclusive to Japan. I mean that when you are a business person coming to Tokyo on a business trip, chances are high that among the affable people you are going to meet here, it will be for more than one the first time to interact at such close range with a foreigner. It may be the same for you, on your first time visit to Japan. However, depending on personal experience, values, expectations of sameness beyond what does make things indeed different, you are looking, expecting as a matter of fact that there exists a common ground. It is often smaller than what you may imagine. Visiting a SME somewhere in the nook or outside Tokyo is your typical experiment at weirdness, although when you don't live her, you may not notice the scale of commotion your visit strickes.

Take "The world is flat" fallacy. This could only happen in the USA as they said about Al Capone in Chicago. Nobody being Japanese can ever think, fathom, fantasize that the world in terms of differences is going toward ever more flatness. This includes many Japanese workers detached abroad. Again, I do not mean this is exclusive to Japan. Most detached staff at any embassy in the world living here a cosy bubble is adding weirdness to the basic weirdness. It is weird that as a business person, you may interface first with these people who for the most part have not a clue about what daily life is all about as they do not live a daily life in the place where they are living.

Foreignness and the negotiation of this is at the core of interactions, be it on a personal or corporate basis. The Toyota "fiasco" is just another blow among daily blows at the fallacy of world flatness. Only simpletons seeping coffee at in Starbucks in Tokyo feel that the world is flat. International brands and the visibilities of these when you walk down the avenues of big cities are fooling you up that things are indeed flattened. But at the granular level of people to people relationship, the road is bumpy.

Crossing the road, reaching out may imply the intervention of an interpreter. Choose wisely.

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Guiding clients to get results

I am having these days a kind of flashback at a situation I witnessed a good ten years ago at an embassy. I don't remember the setting, nor the subject. But there was an interpreter and I was sitting close by a friend who was working at that embassy. And at one point, the interpreter interpreted a question in a way clear enough to me at least that it would not yield the expected kind of answer. I tipped my friend but he quipped back that there was no reason to intervene. I was shocked. Work with an interpreter who works for you, that is, for your benefit. The liaison interpreting must guide clients into getting them having the results they are after. That is why I always ask clients ahead of time about their purposes, objectives, what they want to take away back home, what they want to avoid, what they want to yield. I have yet to find anything pertaining to the need to work close to your client, not close to the lofty goal of neutrality.

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Not my job

The French daily Le Monde published an article today about the severe shortage of interpreters at international organizations. A friend of mine sent me the link, thinking that would be good news for my career. I had to explain him that I do not belong to the minority of high flying conference interpreters, but to the majority of unknown interpreters sweating together with clients and counterparts.

On another subject. I am back into reading "Interviewing Clients across Cultures". The purchase of the book came as a misunderstanding. I was looking for something about "interviewing" in the broader sense and found that book with a chapter about how to choose an interpreter for interviewing. I was not aware that interviewing was referring here to the practice in psychology and social support area. Despite this, it's a meaningful reading even if you are in business liaison interpreting where psychology at times is also required.

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Role of a Business Analyst

The role of a business analyst can be very difficult. He or she must wade through the mass of information presented to determine the underlying problems. This information may or may not be correct. The business analyst much research to comprehend the true situation of the business. The information supplied to the business analyst is given from many perspectives. Opinions can influence how one perceives the related issues. At times, the opinions can add unrelated information which only complicates the role of a business analyst.

Problems can occur for the analyst when persons with the business know how try to explain what must be done. The role of the business analyst is to understand what is the desired outcome. He or she will listen and put into perspective what is being relayed. The business analyst will be able to determine what is feasible and what just can not be done. The role of a business analyst is that of a problem solver. Understanding both aspects as a user and as one affected by the application will allow the business analyst to perform his or her role.

The role of a business analyst is to merge the Information Technology (IT) department with the business departments. He or she will be able to separate the separate the individual teams while still maintaining a uniform team management system. Teaching these two teams how to work to overcome obstacles and strive for completion of a goal is a main directive for the business analyst. He or she will act as a liaison between the two. Performed correctly will result in project completion. Success will be achieved.

Management may be impatient when the business analyst begins resolving the project program issues. The role of the business analyst will allow him or her to understand the project scope. He or she will determine what the project objectives are and who is trying to implement them. The business analyst will assess the needs and determine the project goals. He or she will not jump ahead to the solution without utilizing the proper steps. A good business analyst will be skilled in explaining the structure of each step and co-ordinate them with each department. This will reassure management the job is being done in a timely manner.

Assuming sameness of value and experience is wrong

It's totally wrong, and I believe a majority of Japanese nationals trained interpreters believe that their job is to be a conduit of words, a translating machine better than Google Translate. But they, and you probably too, are assuming sameness. And you are totally wrong. Take the following example. I was involved with the presentation of a system for a client probing Japanese market and the potential to find a local partner. Although the service allowed by the system was very much similar to what is already available in Japan, patterns of interaction between the system/service and the consumers were totally different, worlds apart. On top of that, the presentation's document that had been translated into Japanese was using a common wording to explain it in Japanese, a common wording pregnant with a world of meaning that would not match the demo video that were shown them. Ad to this the "world is flat" fallacy and the assumption that even if both side could not communicate in English that made the presence of an interpreter compulsory, the difference lays only in the realm of language.

The presentation quickly turned awkward, and I quickly side-ligned brief suggestions to help it sounds more appropriate, that is more meaningful. The first in-situ rushed and hushed suggestion I blurred to my client was to invite him to stress that things being shown now were "of course" different from what exists here in Japan. One could argue that it would be a useless service. People know how to reckon for differences in life styles. Maybe, but not here in Japan. You have to stress that things, life styles, consumption patterns are different. You have to spell the word "different", then spell "some resemblances". Assuming that your Japanese counterparts know that things are different as a matter of fact, that differences are not mysteries but just that, differences, is wrong. In the introductory chatting, it is a good strategic thing to check whether your opposite sides have any experience traveling abroad for business, besides Guam and Hawaii, two foreign locations that do not qualify. For, despite the hours of TV shows showing foreign lands your counterparts have been soaked in, differences are mysteries, weirdness, beyond understanding unaculturedness runs deep. The mind is not set to nod without awes at things being different. It doesn't matter that you counterpart graduated from a famous local university. Unless they have had some serious business experience abroad, some serious student oversea staying experience, you will have to tell things you may believe are a matter of fact. A standard locally trained interpreter will usually do nothing but interpret. It will be a loss of money and considerable time and opportunities on your side.

A soon as I noticed that things were weird during the presentation, I intervened, at several times. Over the week, we rehashed the same presentation to some nine different businesses. Although the document was not modified, the stance and arguments were transformed so deep you would not recognized the first and last presentation as a talk about the same stuff.

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The liaison interpreter as facilitor

Conduit or facilitator. These two stems seem to summarize the two approaches to what the liaison interpreter is doing in the middle of the scene, very often a setting with a table. There is an extension to the facilitating role when the client do agree for the need for more, especially where post-meting follow-up is concerned. Here, I am not referring to the mundane task of translating post-meeting emails between the protagonist. I am referring to situations where the client now back home request the interpreter to liaise, keep the momentum running by calling the other side, reminding them to send the brochures, the estimates, the drafts, etc., whatever tangible things and actions that were pledged during the meeting. This appointing can expand to larger scopes of responsibility for the interpreter. It may be time for him or her to switch business card from Liaison Interpreter to Business Continuity Facilitator. I was summoned by that other side the other day for a post-meeting meeting, that is, alone as my clients were back home 10 000 km away. I fed back the client about the request and ended up carrying a mission of conveying a set of messages, working here to make them understand this and that, rehash the intentions and the expectations, that is persuade them of a set of items that would prepare the ground for a future meeting. I was paid to persuade and did it the local way. First, coffee shop, exposing consideration about the weather, next the business. We then move on my suggestion to a nearby good place for beer and sashimi as I saw the opportunity to massage the purpose and have it seep through the skin of this side of the world. They said with satisfaction that I looked more Japanese than ever. I thanked them but didn't tell back that I was rather looking more strategist than ever. If the liaison interpreter is to turn at times, and where cultural barriers make the simple conduit role simply impossible to stand, a facilitator, then getting wet about what facilitation is all about appears to be yet another subject to consider as part of a liaison interpretation curriculum. And that's exactly what I am going to get wet into the coming weeks. I bet they don't teach you that at school.

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Travel to Foreign Shores

International business travel is rapidly becoming common to work out deals and to organize international partnerships. The economy is becoming more global as the world becomes “flat” due to increased communications and the rise of the economies around the world. No longer are businesses deals assumed to occur only on a national scale. To look at the business community as an international neighborhood is in step with the markets of this century. And that means that you could easily find yourself flying overseas to conduct the business of your company. And international travel takes some preparation.

Long before you book your flights to travel overseas, you will need to get your documentation in order so you can pass through customs and get on your way. Due to increased security, an up to date passport has become essential to even travel to adjacent countries. Due to the increased requirement of passports, it takes longer to get that documentation together so plan early to secure your passport so you don’t come up short when it is time to conduct your overseas business.

Also, keep in mind that a visa is required to travel to some countries. So when you set up the business meetings, find out from your contact at your destination country what is required. To get a visa, you will need to have had your passport for at least six months. In addition, you will need an original copy of an invitation from your host in the destination country. Those documents will be taken to the local embassy of your destination country to get your visa issued to you. So plan these steps if a visa is necessary for your trip.

What Are Use Case Studies ?

A use case study is designed to describe a situation in which the program is being utilized by the end user. It will tell a story of sorts describing how the program works and the input of the user. It does not tell how the program was developed. The details of the programming are not included in the use case study. You are trying to express the concept behind the creation.

Use case studies are generally one of two types. Type one is the essential use case. This is the type of use case study which is created at the beginning of a project. The idea behind the essential use case is to show what the program is going to do. There is no technical jargon or reference to programming procedures in the essential use case study.

The second type of use case study is the real use case. This use case study will show the hands on of the application. Usually there will be slides showing how the system is operated. This use case study is developed mid-way through the development of the program. Stakeholders can see how the program is instrumental in it's usage.

There may be several use case studies written for every scenario the development team can think of. This way the application is put through it paces, so to speak, on paper. Notes can be taken or suggestions made to better the program. Allowing the stakeholders to see the end results of the program without going completely through the development stage can save time and money.

The business analyst will ask for suggestions when writing the use case studies. He or she will draw on the knowledge of the IT department. He or she will account for what the end user is asking for as well. The business analyst will draw up scenarios with the stakeholders in mind also.

May I suggest ....

There was a terrible mistake on both sides of the ocean yesterday night when two views of cultures and totally different attitudes collided on the sides. As my agent told me later, your standard Language Line interpreter could not match the situation. Collision smashes those things taken for granted, the holly canons of the holly scriptures about communication, that harmonious beast.

Talk about for instance face and the absolute forbiddance to make it loose it. You know, all the stuff they write in "patterns of Asian communication" and the likes. If realities matched lofty esoteric principals, there would be no fighting samurai movies. Faces must be lost if you end up reaching for the sword. Yesterday, the Japanese side verbally mugged the US side - I was in no way briefed that the purpose of the Japanese side was indeed verbal mugging from the start. So much that the US side slammed the phone receiver and it took it to an end. It was a business setting, not brawl at OK Coral.

Blame it on Spring now sprouting out, the blood rushing through the young veins, the adrenaline and mucus, you know, life that throbs and make you go over the board. Last week, my client was smilingly put under shame (he didn't feel it though), being teased during a first time meeting by the other side's bragging boss. And this interpreter too got its share of verbal sneering and fresh arrogance laced with xenophobic smell (all this mixed in guffaws and pranky stances) on his competence at understanding and faithfully transfer meaning from his side to the other. Meaning was transmitted with instant reverse engineering, to the pleasure of my client enjoying the surrealist scene. Again, it was Friday and the cherry blossoms were about to pop. Is there in the background and all this the expression of a malaise regarding the Toyota fiasco?

Anyway, if not an interpreter (over the phone, due to the lack of visual cues, keep it to the scripture level of what liaison intepreting should be), I would have say : "May I suggest ...." you put a sock in it and focus instead on objectives. Objectives based meeting, and that's why I always ask client what their objectives are.

On both side of the ocean, they both lost track of objectives, and the invisible interpreter, in-between and above at the same time, God in a sense, could only but witness a failure like a crash accident taking place in front of his ears.

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Your Business Trip and Your Diet

Business travel can be a productive, enjoyable and even exciting experience. The time you spend doing business in other locations expands your business reach and scope and broadens you as a person as well. Getting skilled at business travel is a solid business goal because there are skills related to business travel and being productive on the road that are impossible to learn if you don’t get out there and travel.

Many of the skills associated with business travel have to do with how to live productively on the road. This is especially important if you find yourself on a lengthy business trip. The life of moving in and out of hotels, traveling by car or airplane and the stresses of the work can wear down even the most robust and experienced business traveler.

Maintaining a healthy diet while traveling for business is a serious challenge and one that really can only be accomplished with some serious planning. You will inevitably find yourself eating in a lot of restaurants on the road and that kind of food does not lend itself to a diet that is designed for weight loss or for a diet you must maintain for health reasons.

The first but biggest step forward to achieving diet goals while traveling is to communicate your desires to your traveling companions. In a business setting, there is often a lot of encouragement to eat and drink well. Everybody is on the expense account so it is easy to overdo it. But if you let your coworkers and clients know you have compelling reasons to maintain a disciplined diet, most of the time they will respect that and find ways to help you be successful.

When OPI clashes

Interpretation's imagery here is so melted down, mellowed in the aura of goodwill between politicians not at war, celebs with shiny teeth and all the fantasy of glitters that it pushes aside in the shade the less shiny, less sexy reality of communication under tension. It must be no fun interpreting at a police box in Shibuya when the client who did wrong needs an interpreter to answer the police. I have never done this. But I have now had to deal with a bout of business clash over the phone, one side putting the other at shame, with the shamed one ended up banging the phone and hanging up. An interesting situation I am happy not to have been involved with but as an interpreter. They were both business wise very unwise although from opposite sides. One cannot but think while delivering that not taking side is the hardest task, even if there is a client on one side, and another side I don't do business with. Makes you think about the fallacy of neutrality, and that the interpreter in the middle of the heat has other things to deal with than keeping merely neutral. Neutrality is an action, meaning being detached and available at the same time. That's the trick, the balance, the equilibrium to maintain.

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The communication stupid!

This is an extract from an article in The Salt Lake Tribune of March 12, 2010.
Robert Cole, a business professor at the University of California-Berkeley and Doshisha University in
Kyoto, Japan, said some of the dysfunction at Toyota that has come to light as part of the company's recall
crisis is caused by culture, including language barriers, while some is just a consequence of the tight control
in Japan.
"Pressure will build for some type of U.S. representation on the board," he said.
However, several strong American leaders -- including Jim Press, the only American to have ever served
on Toyota's board -- have defected to other automakers in recent years.
After a half-century of doing business in the U.S., Toyota still assigns a Japanese boss to mentor every
American or European executive.
No Toyota executive in America was authorized to issue a recall. That included Jim Lentz, Toyota's top
American sales executive, and his boss, Yoshi Inaba, who oversees North America.
"Most of the information was one-way ... back to Japan," Lentz testified before Congress in late February.
Replied Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.: "What you're saying is that, ultimately, the decisions are made in
Japan?"
One former Toyota executive, who asked not to be identified, said communication could be frustrating
within Toyota.

The reverse is true, that the decisions in Japanese subsidiaries of foreign companies here are also made at home. But the communication factor, that wall of communication is as thick as when you red "Japan as Number One". It's the communication stupid, as usual.

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The Wear and Tear of the Travel Business

There is very much a difference between business travel that may last a day or two or even a week compared to the life some business people must go through who travel continuously for weeks or months on end. But it is a necessity of some areas of business that professionals representing that business do stay out on the road for a very long time. These road warriors are examples of people who understand the wear and tear the road can cause on the body, mind and spirit after months of continuous travel.

As humans, we are designed to have homes and nest. So the life on the road runs against that natural instinct to settle in one place and rest there. So the first challenge of traveling continuously is finding ways to replicate a “normal life” despite the constant travel. The one factor that can help with combating road weariness is the psychological factor of familiarity.

Because business persons who travel for many weeks may not see the same people for very long and often move from city to city, the hotels and restaurants eventually begin to blur into one place and the desire for the familiar and “home” starts to make itself known. So one way to provide that sense of sameness is routine. Even on the road, one can establish a routine that you can look forward to each evening. Whether that means watching the same television shows, scheduling your calls home at the same time each day or week or establishing hotel room rituals, by maintaining a “sameness” no matter where you are living at any given time gives the traveler that sense of normalcy that is missing in a life of nonstop travel.

Your helping interpreter

I am starting revising the holy scriptures deeper than ever. You shall pass the meaning and that's the story. Don't meddle. That's the rules

Bollocks.

Take this one situation, a classic : we are at the end of a long and good vibrating presentation. There is nothing big to expect as for a next step, but the client, rightly so, asks the Japanese side what shall we do next. I translate. Then, for too long seconds, the other side is speechless and pondering. I look at them, I glimpse sideway at my client and snap in a short hushed voice (make a proposal!). Am I breaching something here, treading into the unethical, the forbidden step out of neutrality? Did this suggestion came out of the blue, spontaneously? No. I was doing what a business liaison interpreter should do, help the client move forward. Of course, there are risks to suggest and call the client into action. But that suggestion came out of experience, that moving no pawn forward and wait for something constructive in such situation would have probably lead to nothing. It's not so much a "Japanese situation" on the interaction stage, but it's a recurrent one. A small step forward was obtained by making a proposal for that next step. Taking the lead is both risky and compulsory at times. A machine like interpreter in this (recurrent) situation would have been disqualified.

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The conceptual trap

I haven't read anything about the role of the interpreter in business settings as a guide to issues that go beyond manner and behaviour. The visiting business person carries with his luggage a set of standard, usually mastered and confident speeches and stances that often crystallise in PowerPoint presentations. When asked by clients before settings, and many clients usually ask questions, I always suggest to avoid as much as possible conceptual speeches, and rather veer toward many examples and narrative that illustrate what they want to sell or push forward. Narratives, stories, that is the trees rather than the forest, have a better chance to get through here in Japan. Avoid the conceptual trap.

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Walking in New York

Business travel can be enjoyable and a productive activity. The steps you take to assure your meetings are a success are the same you will do back at your home office. But they are made more complex by the act of “taking your show on the road”. But sometimes the challenges of business travel involve how to handle your personal affairs efficiently and safely even as you focus on your business affairs.

Business travel can take you to many different destination environments. In the same business travel year, you could find yourself on the beaches of Miami, in the exotic café’s of San Francisco or in a heavy urban center such as Philadelphia or New York. As a business traveler, your goal is to make your stay as uneventful as possible.

But businesses travel can be dangerous. Just because you are on the corporate expense account, that doesn’t mean that those who would victimize travelers will pass you over. So it’s important you have a plan to assure your safety on your travels. Probably one of the most vulnerable experiences you may have is finding yourself on foot in an urban setting. Whether you are just taking a walk or you find yourself on foot to return to your hotel, if that short walk occurs after dark or in a setting where you feel there might be a risk, it can be a very disconcerting feeling.

How not to say hello nice to meet you in Japanese

The past years have been spent writing this blog mostly to build up a clearer self-vision and analysis tools to investigate the innards of the profession's dynamic, mostly Japanese-French, Japanese-English liaison interpreting in business settings here in Tokyo. This blog was essentially motivated at the beginning by frustration and anguish and the lack of professional perspective, what with the lack of opportunities to communicate among peers who do not communicate. Things have changed a little bit now. Not that I am fully booked although this year started much better than the past years. Visibility in terms of assignment perspectives is still one to two weeks ahead although slots have been reserved for recurrent customers in the coming months down to october at this time. This new mood that has allowed to fine tune perspectives on recurrent situations where a firmer opinion must be stated. The triggers are twofold, a constant analyses of situations and some feedback from clients. A recent one was keen enough to ask me before selection whether it was a good or a bad idea to hire a non-japanese interpreter. I was so surprised that someone would ask - it never happened before - that I still have to catch up and ask him at the end of the current mission the reasons why he asked. The second less terrific situation came yesterday when we were moving between meetings and I was asked how to say hello, nice to meet you in Japanese. I told back the usual blurb that "hello" doesn't fit in the same framework here as in his language, but I quickly snap back and suggested he quit trying and do it. And I do believe these awkward tentative at spelling Japanese at a first meeting during that very formal, or theatrical exchange of business cards does not benefit the non-Japanese side. You have an interpreter? Let's the interpreter do the job of setting up and allowing communication to flow. Speak your language. When you come back for the tenth time at dinner time when beer is flowing, you can start sounding a little bit cute and ridiculous at the same time. Your interpreter is in charge to allow whatever ice there is at first sight to progressively mellow. Me think that they don't tell things that way in Japanese Business Etiquette books.

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Business Trip

The odd thing about business travel is to some extent, it is a mixture of what you know the very strange. The business you are going out to do you know how to do. Whether it discussing a new business project, developing a software product or attending a seminar or conference, the business part of your business trip is probably not the hardest part.

But if you are new to business travel, there are some aspects to it that are very different from travel for leisure and ways to prepare for the trip that will make or break whether it goes well or you come home frustrated in your efforts. Just like any business venture, the key word for success in this venture is preparation. Above all, have your business program well organized and ready to use when you get there. If you are giving a presentation, have it finished, the PowerPoint slides prepared and tested and all of your equipment ready to go when you set out. The sheer fact that you are prepared for the work you are going to this new city to do will relieve your tension tremendously.

But preparation doesn’t stop just in planning for a successful business effort. Do your homework about the place you are going and how you will handle the trip once you get there. Here are some key things you should think well in advance about to assure your trip goes well.

A sign of progress

Today, I was forwarded a job recruit announcement for a French interpreter. The forwarded mail was clear enough, at least to me. It read フランス語通訳を探しています！, with an exclamation point. It means what it means : Looking for a French interpreter.

I was however shocked although not surprised at the condition that read :

【条件】　男性/年齢不問/日本人またはフランス語と日本語が堪能な外国人

It means : Male, any age, Japanese national or a foreigner fluent at French and Japanese

When I show this to K. it was clear that we didn't share a view here. She didn't notice the mail header, but commented right away that "they are not looking for an interpreter, just someone who speak the language." I pointed to the header but it didn't change her mind. They were just looking for "someone", and the fees, with pathetic highlight that transportation, food and hotel were provided, was indeed low enough not to entice a professional interpreter, or a professional of anything.

K. did not react at the condition that specified nothing in terms of competence when a Japanese male was concerned, but was specific in terms of competences granted a foreign might apply. A Japanese interpreter was expected to fit the need for a French interpreter, whereas a non-Japanese interpreter had to be warned that double language competence was a requisite. But then, if not after a "real professional", a Japanese native had nothing to be warned about, whereas ... .

There is no ending to this. Let's call the fact that they envisaged to make do with a foreign as a sign of progress.

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Beyond liaison interpretation

It's a tale heard very often. A young lad, usually a foreigner in Japan, with some competence at Japanese language will offer services as an interpreter to visiting businesses. This will go on for some times. The young lad is making money and connexions. From day one, the purpose has never been to specialize in liaison interpreting but to it as a way to create opportunities for doing something else. It grew clear over repeated sessions that what the young lad appreciated the most and was frustrated with in the role of a transmitting pipe was to be but a serviceable part of the communication process. He or she wanted to be "in charge". And what's more, in and around, it was clear that most people working as liaison interpreters were Japanese, female, and more than often of the shy type. The young lad would not admit to be like her. He, she was a maverick from day one, and a freak from his colleagues. The young lad was too young and too loosely connected with a job he had never been trained for, nor much thought about, to consider build a professional persona of his own, that would set him apart and for good reasons in comparison with his competitors, that is, the local market at large. That is why most young lad do not end up professionalizing. The defining of service differentiation is not something you start pondering early in the business. They don't write about "why you should consider the nationality of your business interpreter when you select one". It is too much impolite, in this harmonious one. But the question was blankly asked the other with a new client I am to meet today. And I intend to ask him why he asked the question about the potential pitfalls of choosing me over of a racially native interpreter. Even after all those years, the call to expand or shift toward a role of representative, even a non-official player in the shadow, is strong, especially when some clients are asking specifically for more, or beyond liaison interpretation.

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Thee shall know everything

There is an insatiable curiosity with some clients who ask the interpreter questions on general and minute things about Japan during off or transition time. The liaison interpreter must be ready to answer with confidence in a way or another as she is expected to know everything. One client asked me the other the significance of those wood sticks shaped like skis she had seen in a local cemeteries. I could not give an exact answer but I had a partial answer enough that it settled the issue, but opened up the door for more questioning. The curiosity of the client is legitimate but the assumption that the interpreter know everything is wrong, but can't be avoided. Instead, it is a requisite for the sake of client's relationship strategy to avoid the dreaded "I don't know", even when the subject has nothing to do with the assignment's thematic.

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Off-topic : Living abroad

Off-topic : This is the book, and more will come. I am not even half through it but I already know this is the book. "The End of Belonging: Untold stories of leaving home and the psychology of global relocation" is the first book I am reading that tells a story I know, but on a common mode. Not that literature was irrelevant. Miller in Paris in the 30', and in Greece, Durrell in Egypt, or Lord Jim and others telling the story of being and living abroad. But literature has proved insufficient, even inadequate at times. This is it, and the good thing is that this will give birth to more books from now on.

Technorati Tags: interpretation, interpreter, interpreting, Japan, japanese interpreter, Japanese language, japanese translator, liaison interpreter, liaison interpreting, Tokyo, translation, translator

Off-topic : Living abroad

Off-topic : This is the book, and more will come. I am not even half through it but I already know this is the book. "The End of Belonging: Untold stories of leaving home and the psychology of global relocation" is the first book I am reading that tells a story I know, but on a common mode. Not that literature was irrelevant. Miller in Paris in the 30', and in Greece, Durrell in Egypt, or Lord Jim and others telling the story of being and living abroad. But literature has proved insufficient, even inadequate at times. This is it, and the good thing is that this will give birth to more books from now on.

Word power

I was lucky enough this week to see in action Kentaro Iemoto deliver a short but powerful business presentation in Japanese.
Good talkers, especially in the business world but in daily life as well are a rare species here. Japanese politician are typically appalling speakers, incoherent, incomplete, when not inaudible. The Toyota fiasco, also commented as a communication fiasco beyond the quality issue, was an opportunity to see, and hear a poor speaker in action. Mr. Iemoto was impressive, so much that I wished someone had recorded it. Calm and steady, he smashed down the "mysteries" of the cryptic Japanese language, delivering a clear, extra well constructed presentation, with Powerpoint slides not crammed with data as is standard here. I briefly talked with him later. Mr. Iemoto is a famous maverick, having launched his current company - Clara Online - at the age of 15. I am not worshipping early starters and it's OK to be a 15 years old teenager with teenagers interests. I am not impressed nor envious. But I am impressed and envious with speech articulation and confidence, a recurrent issue even in business liaison interpreting (an why should I write even by the way?). Mr. Iemoto spent a few years as a TV anchorman. It was not the best place to ask him for more details, but the encounter has lighted up the keen understanding that eloquence is so much at work in this job that looking for training should be part of the ever growing list of ToDoes. I am on the market for speech training in Japanese, no less. There are plenty of books, I know, but being not Japanese, the issue at stake is different. I am not into wanting to copycat the gaijin talents. It's not the purpose. Any hint from someone?

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It has been a busy week

And so many times I would have pushed the stop button and jolt down notes for this blog.

I heard simultaneous in action at the embassy. I know one of the pair of interpreters. Listening to the original stream and the translated one is painful when you understand both. What's more, I felt the efforts of these top class interpreters almost painful to hear, sprinters in action, all the more that the talkers although invited to speak peacefully quickly forgot and run at full speed. I knew the speeches ahead of time, having done the liaison-consecutive stuff on the same subject several times over the world. I knew most but not all part of the jargon, the elliptical figures of speech I still believe after those years they could be spelled differently in an easier manner for every one to understand, including the interpreters. It was a good opportunity to reconfirm that simultaneous and consecutive are different leagues. And one is not on top of the other, but simply in different realms of issues.

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Dealing with average talkers in business liaison interpreting

One day you start getting interested in your job from a more intellectual point of view. You are on a quest for articulation. Out of shame of not being allowed to state with assurance that you graduated from some interpreting school (you didn't, as most any one), that you have a stable and recognized position in society as a professional, you look for books, still not Youtube. And you start reading the classics that make you feel even worse, because they exemplify simultaneous as the technic you must master in order to qualify as a fully cooked interpreter. Otherwise, you are just a pure ad hoc sham. Oh yes, there is that Australian book on liaison interpreting so hard to get a copy of you relish like the Bible, although lately, and in contrast with your own accumulated experience on the battle field, you dare challenge a little.

You read on despite the dread now crawling on you that you might have missed a major spot in your life. You devoutly but with a certain malaise convene that in booths veritas est. And out of the booth, out of the beautiful meeting rooms with famous people, you are missing the boat. And you don't want to be associated with your brothers and sisters attending to sporsmen with no conversation at some Olympic games.

You read on and understand that you must break down in the blink of an eye the discourse delivered by that one side, to pass it on to that other side. But after years of doing it or trying, you feel even more uneasy with the discrepancies of what they tell in the books - the research paper you have tried an swallow - with your own accumulating experience. You look for comrades to share but unfortunately you are in Japan, and sharing among interpreters is like reciting love poems among soldiers of fortune. (Mostly) no one is listening, let alone participating in a conversation. Monologues rule.

Once you have accumulated so many books - well, not so many because there aren't that many books about interpreting - you feel that note taking technics are good to learn, but they don't fit. Where in the book they take as a matter of fact real well constructed discourse as the basis of the trade, you know your own clients seldom read up discourses and seldom are able in the long run to carry on with a logical, well constructed discourse. You have to deal with communication inconstitencies more than often.

You can't remember having read anything like "Interpreting poorly articulated discourses".

One day you start reading about community interpreting and awkwardly feel that some descriptions of natural interactions almost qualify to those cases where you have to deal with business customers who are simply bad at talking, bad at delivering a logical, well constructed presentation and discourse. It's not that they are bad and deserve contempt. It's just that dealing too many times with that fact calls for analysis in terms of actions (don't tell them to speak better) and strategies, that is, how to cope as a service provider of interpretation.

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Traveling Business

One of thing that you notice when you travel with a seasoned business traveler is that they have habits worked out after dozens of business trips to make sure they don’t have trouble on the road. Learning to be safe in this world has to become second nature for all of us. When you learn to drive a car, its second nature to buckle your seat belt and check your blind spot when you change lanes. But early in your life as a driver, you learned the need for those precautions, sometimes the hard way.

We don’t want to learn the rules of traveling safe on business trips the hard way. When you are on the road for business, you are just as susceptible to danger or accidents as any tourist. The difference is that as you have become “professional” at traveling to accomplish your business goals. And those safety measures that you have to focus on at first become second nature. Let’s look at some key safety precautions that must become part of that discipline of travel.

Avoiding crowds goes a long way toward taking you out of situations where thieves might lurk. Not only that, it makes life on the road so much easier. Check in lines may be one of the most frustrating rituals we have to go through as we travel. And it is a place where thieves can “case” you because you have your luggage there, you often open your briefcase or purse and take out your wallet to show id.

So too avoid the check in line entirely, use your computer at home to log in and check the status of the flight so you don’t have to go to the airport too soon if it is delayed. On your home computer, you can move your seat if possible and you can print your boarding pass and other important check in documents. By getting all of this done at home, you can skip the check in line entirely and proceed directly to the gate. Your homemade boarding pass will get you through security.

If you have baggage, don’t overlook the convenience of street side check in. There you can check your bags quickly. Show your boarding pass and your bags are safe as you head off happily to find the coffee shop to relax before your flight.

Things that Makes a Good Business Analyst

There are several key points one needs to understand before deciding whether or not to become a business analyst. You may be qualified to do the job you were hired to do. Yet is it the job you wanted to do? Some analysts find themselves locked in a cubical writing reports all day, only to find the report was not used or even read. They realize they are in a dead end job going no-where fast. This is not the usual dream one has when becoming a business analyst.

A good business analyst is creative, a people person. Someone wanting a more hands on approach to business and problem solving. The good business analyst will look for opportunities to grow and learn. He or she will listen attentively to what others are saying. The good business analyst is like a walking encyclopedia about the company he or she works within. They will know people from every department.

The good business analyst may be a part of the IT team or department. He or she may even be able to produce usable code for practical remedies to small tasks. He or she will understand technology and the jargon that leaves the common layperson confused.

What makes a good business analyst is the ability to listen to what is being said and hear what is not. The good business analyst can read into the meaning of stakeholders words. He or she can understand the needs being expressed when the stakeholders do not always know what they are. The good business analyst will be able to determine if the requests from stakeholders or end users are viable. In some cases they are not and it is up to the business analyst to inform what can be done versus what is wanted.

What is a business analyst ?

A business analyst is a person whose job is to analyze business needs and critical problems for the stakeholders and propose practical solutions. Many times this is done with a project proposal. The business analyst is to study the proposal, determining which would be the best course of action to reach the proposed solution. At times this can not be done.

The plan and solution may look good on paper. When it comes time to implement the program, people and teams can be divided. 50% of all project proposals fail due to a lack of communication. The business analyst must also be a good people person to make the teams work together for the betterment of the business.

The entire project is based on saving money. When a qualified business analyst can not perform his or her duties because of the lack of co-operation, the result is a waste of time and money. The project is doomed for failure. A business analyst must be able to use negotiation skills and motivational techniques for the entire project to succeed short term and long term.

A business analyst will listen. Instead of jumping ahead and looking at the goal, he or she will take the time to understand the needs of the company. Asking questions is a key element to success in the world of business analysis. If the business analyst fails to comprehend the true needs of a company, the project can be sidetracked with issues unrelated. Again, the result would be failure.

What to do with the new Nikkei Online?

The Nikkei Online will be renewed soon with a full content paid version online. How and what to be made out of this for a non-native Japanese speaker involved in interpretation, that is in term of training plateform? Clueless.

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A less prestigious variety of interpreting

I picked in the prologue of the book "Medical Interpreting and Cross-cultural communication" this sentence :

"Up until the 1990s, medical interpreting was perceived as a less prestigious variety of interpreting, practiced mostly by ad hoc interpreters. Without a theoretical underpinning to account for the special type of interaction that occurs in a medical setting, medical interpreting standards of practice and ethical principles have been largely based on conference or court practices. In many cases, these standards and principles have been blindly transferred to medical setting, and in a few cases they have been adapted to address the complexities of medical interpreting to a limited extent. Central to the standards of practice has been the role of the interpreter."

A little bit later :

"Through (interpreters) words ad actions, I have witnessed the emergence of a tension, which has become a source of interest to me. It seems that a contradiction exists between the role that is prescribed for interpreters (through codes and rules, both inside and outside the classrooms) and the role that unfolds in the practice of interpreting [...]. Schools and associations prescribe an invisible interpreter. However the interpreter at work seems very visible to me."

Indeed.

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