| Jim |
Welcome to Globally Speaking. My name is Jim Compton. I’m a partner manager for RWS and I’m here with Allison Ferch, who is the executive director of GALA, the Globalization and Localization Association. Also, I would say a friend, Allison? |
| Allison |
You bet. |
| Jim |
Yeah, we’re gonna talk about GALA today, but why don’t you introduce yourself? |
| Allison |
Sure. And yes, definitely a friend of Jim Compton. That’s the first thing in the list, and I’m the executive director at GALA and I’ve been working there for 11 years. I have a background in association management and I am, I would say, a polymath, which is your vocabulary word for the day. And just a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none, or maybe master of a few. And when I’m not working, I am an athlete. I try to continue being an athlete in my middle age. And I love swimming and biking and whatever I can get my hands on actually to do for fun. Outside, especially. |
| Jim |
Yeah. That’s the opposite of me. So, Allison, I understand, I think, is it next year will be the 20th anniversary of GALA? |
| Allison |
That’s right. 20 years old. |
| Jim |
So I have to be honest, I don’t actually know when I was, became, like, aware of GALA. It was already, you know, well-established. What is the origin story of GALA and how did you get involved? |
| Allison |
Okay, so it started in 2002. And it was a bit of a reaction to LISA, which was the Language Industry Standards Association. And at the time, LISA was available only for big client-side members. And the language service providers, especially the SMEs, were feeling frustrated to not have an association home. And so, three people with foresight decided to form GALA. And we had 12 founding members, many of whom are still members today, actually.
And that was it in 2002. So, its origin, scholars origins, are as an association for language service providers. And it wasn’t until much later, about 10 years or more, that we started welcoming people from the client side. And ironically, LISA by then had dissolved.
And I came to GALA in 2010 as a part-time events manager. And that was when the GALA annual conference was just getting started. They had done one in 2009 and they brought me in to work on 2010. And then over the years, my role just expanded. We’re a small staff association and we all wear a lot of hats. And so, I kept putting on more and more hats and eventually found myself here, in charge. |
| Jim |
Wow. So, I mean, 20 years, a lot has changed in the industry and also in the world. What are some of the ways that GALA has evolved? |
| Allison |
You know, internally, the biggest change has been the breadth of our community. In the early days, like I said, it was really just language service providers. And particularly, smaller orgs. Now that group is still a huge proportion of our membership, but now we also have client companies. 16% of our membership is from client-side organizations and then 15% are from academic institutions.
So, the composition of the membership has been one of the bigger changes. I think externally what we’ve seen it, well, there’s two things. Like, let’s say market factors and then technology are the things that have applied the most pressure, I would say, from our perspective. And we’ve seen membership change in small ways. And you guys probably know better than anybody, you know, when sometimes when we see a merger or an acquisition, we lose a member. |
| Jim |
Hmm. |
| Allison |
And that happens a lot of these days. |
| Jim |
Yeah. I mean, I think we had talked at one point about how just the role of trade organizations has sort of changed over the years. And at one point, it might’ve been really the only channel by which someone would stay connected to others in the industry, but today, there’s lots of options and channels. Why would, why should someone be in a trade organization? |
| Allison |
That, I’m so glad you asked, Jim. Let me share that with you. Yeah, that’s a great point. Back in the day, that’s the sole purpose of an association, whether it was an individual association or a trade association, was to provide the person working in that sector with a ready network. And that was their only source, really, of information. Think about the dark ages before the internet, which you and I both remember.
So now, people can get a lot of information. They can get training, they can get events, they can get lots of different things. I think what is unique about an industry association is community. And I would say, a sense of community is at the heart of all associations. You know, they band together for a specific purpose. In GALA’s case, it’s coming together to learn and to grow professionally.
I think the power of associations lies in the collaboration of people that are working to achieve common goals. And that’s true, even if they’re competitors. So, you don’t see that elsewhere, right? You’ve got competitors coming together to work on something that’s for the greater good. Sometimes you hear this expression, “for the good of the order,” right? And that’s doing something that’s bigger than yourself or your company. So that’s another reason to turn to an association.
I think the other unique thing about an association and about GALA is that we’re not for profit, so our motivations are different than some of the other competition out there. And we’re the total package, right? So other organizations, like you said, offer content. Or they offer events. Or they offer visibility opportunities, but very few of them offer a true a community and a professional network like GALA. And none of them offer everything in one package like we do. And so, there’s, I would say, a lot that’s unique about us and worth looking at. |
| Jim |
One of the things, I mean, I know for sure, because I’ve, you know, participated in this, but I think is really on the note of getting, you know, competitors to come together and collaborate would be the work that GALA has been doing on standardization, right? Like, trying to reduce friction and waste in the system and really float everyone’s boats. Maybe you can share with us some of the things GALA is doing in the field of standardization. |
| Allison |
Sure. I’ll also say first that standards are important to our people. And we know that because we ask them. You know, we do an annual member survey and we ask people to tell us what’s most important to them and to stack-rank these topics. And standards, this last year that we did it in Q1 of this year, number two in terms of level of importance. So, we’re actually at a bit of a threshold, I would say, with standards for the last several years. And you know this well, because you have been one of the heavy lifters on the topic initiative. But we have focused on technical interoperability standards in the last few years. And that comes from a frustration of our member companies at the owner’s work of integrating multiple technologies.
Everybody’s using multiple technologies now in their workflows. Their tech stack is deep and complex. And when they, you know, connect with a new partner or a new client, there’s another layer. And so, there’s this proliferation of APIs, custom APIs. So, standards lately has been focused on that technical interoperability and trying to kill this, you know, one API for every integration so that there’s millions out there.
That said, I think we need to pause and ask the members again what’s most important to them when it comes to standards. Because, you know, maybe certification readiness is more important. Maybe there’s a lot of companies that wanna get an ISO standard certifi-, you know, -cation, but they are not sure how to go about it. Or maybe they want to influence standards development at some of the big standards bodies. So later this year, we’re gonna launch a standards committee that’s built of members to address some of those questions. And I personally hope we’re gonna pick up the technical interoperability task again. |
| Jim |
How does someone, if they’re interested in standards or they’re interested in, you know, having a voice in this, what is the best way for them to hear, have their voice heard? |
| Allison |
Mm. At the end of June, we’re going to do a call for volunteers. And there are a limited number of spots on a committee, like the standards committee or programs committee. But, that said, I wanna remind people that GALA is a representative organization. So, the board of directors are meant to represent the members. And so, there’s always an open channel there. Also, the staff is really easy to connect with too. So, it’s a very democratic, very egalitarian system we’ve developed here. And we want to hear from our members at any time, whether it’s kind of through official committee work or just an email or a phone call or a Zoom chat, whatever. So, if they wanna get truly involved and roll up their sleeves, there’s gonna be opportunities for that. But if they just want to chime in with an opinion or a suggestion, that’s really easy. Reach out to any board member or any staff member really at any time. |
| Jim |
What are maybe some of the other things that you’re hearing from your members that they would like support from GALA with? |
| Allison |
Well, content-wise, the number one topic is automation and AI. Always, technology has always been at the top of the list and followed by linguistics topics. And I would say that means things like terminology or getting even more specific. Like, I’m working with right-to-left languages. So those three, that, those two, along with standards, fill out the top three, I would say, topics or areas that the members are interested in getting information on, learning about, following trends in. And then, after that, believe it or not, and sales and marketing topics, leadership and soft skills. And then surprisingly, to me surprisingly anyway, is operation. Operations issues ranks last. So, I guess they’re doing great on that front. |
| Jim |
And when you, let’s just take an example there, like someone wants support, like, operationally. What’s GALA’s approach to try to, you know, serve that need for your members? |
| Allison |
We try to provide them with learning opportunities. We don’t do consulting services. That’s one thing GALA doesn’t do, which some of our competitors, if you wanna call them that, do. And so, they’re going to have to take it upon themselves to, you know, read or watch or listen to information that we develop with expert content leaders. And they’re also gonna have to connect with the network, with the professional network. And they can do that in a few ways. It is, I will say that it’s a bit tougher than it used to be, because our events were always, our in-person events were always a really easy way to forge connections. And sometimes it was about doing business, but just as often, it was about learning from each other. |
| Jim |
Hm. You, I did wanna ask that, right, because the, I mean it, I think there’s lots of channels that you guys have put together for people to collaborate. There’s the different discussion threads, webinars, blog, but yeah, the in-person events seem to be a catalyst for all sorts of interesting, you know, collaboration that might, maybe wasn’t even planned. Right? How is, how has the pandemic impacted that dynamic? |
| Allison |
Yeah. I’m not gonna lie. It’s been rough. It’s been rough because you described these serendipitous interactions that just can’t even be planned, right? The hallway discussions or discussions over dinner or drinks or lunch or something. And we can’t replicate that. We’ve done the best we can to provide some opportunities. We’ve done a few virtual events with a load of networking time. And we’ve gotten positive feedback about that, but we also know that it’s kind of a pale substitute to a real in-person event. So yes, it’s been challenging. We’re looking forward to the day when we can get back together. And at this point, it’s looking like San Diego in March of 2022. |
| Jim |
Mm-hmm. |
| Allison |
And if you, if you’re curious, I can share some info from a survey that we did about people’s willingness to travel internationally. If you— |
| Jim |
Yeah. I’d like to hear that. |
| Allison |
—if you wanna hear that. |
| Jim |
Yeah. |
| Allison |
It was— |
| Jim |
Yeah. |
| Allison |
—really interesting. And I was tickled because we had a huge response rate. We had 702 responses to the survey. And we tried to ask questions in a pretty thoughtful way to give us actionable data. And what was interesting was that you saw the full range of opinions and emotions and plans. And what was most telling were the comments. I’ll summarize it like this. People are not ready to travel internationally in 2021. They are so eager. They cannot wait.
They’re dying to get back together again, but not this year. And it has a lot to do with vaccination rates and people’s comfort level of being in a, you know, an environment where you’re bringing together people from potentially like 50 countries. So I think that it’s gonna look different for 2022, but, you know, in the comments, like I was saying, for every one person that was saying, “I can’t believe you’re even considering, you know, getting together in Dublin this year. You’re so irresponsible,” there were, you know, three people that were saying, “Do it, do it. We can’t wait. We’ll be there. Tell us when.” Yeah, it was interesting. |
| Jim |
I mean, I’m really excited about the next GALA event. |
| Allison |
Yeah. |
| Jim |
But I know you’ve had some online versions of GALA, you know, in lieu of in-person events. Has there been any kind of a silver lining or something that arose from that that you’re gonna keep going or maybe double down on? |
| Allison |
Yeah. I would say that it is about, well, this is slightly corny, but you could say that digitization of the conference equals democratization of the conference. So traditionally, the in-person GALA conference has been attended by executives. People with budget and people with time. And it’s been a certain sort of echelon, right? Of company owners and the higher-ups. And it’s not been as accessible for junior project managers or linguists or people serving in middle, you know, middle management roles.
And so, the online conference becomes vastly more accessible to those people who now don’t have to get travel budget. It’s very affordable. So usually, people can find the professional development budget for it. I think we will probably continue doing some version of an online conference so that we can reach deeper into our membership and deliver some value to the sections that, or the segments rather, that might not get the same opportunity that the executives do. |
| Jim |
That’s, yeah, that’s really interesting. Your accessibility, I think that you might also end up getting a different point of view or that kinda collaboration between people who might not have collaborated with before because they would have never been in a live event. So maybe there is some, you know, different kind of serendipitous relationship that can be made with these online-specific events. Tr— |
| Allison |
Yeah. I hope so. And I think so. We’re seeing it in some of our other, you know, I’ve been referring to quote unquote “the online event,” you know, the online conference. But we have lots of other smaller meetings or events, if you wanna call them that, where we see this on kind of a micro level. And people make connections or they’ll reach out to us afterward and say, “Oh, hey, could you introduce me to, you know, Skippy John, because I wanna talk to him about, you know, this business challenge that I’m facing.” So we do see it on a smaller scale with our other events too. |
| Jim |
So I know the industry has been changing. How has that, the changes in the industry changed the needs of GALA members and how are you supporting them with that? |
| Allison |
Well, just to reiterate, our goal and our mission is to support our members, right? So we need to figure out what it is that they need and then try to fulfill those needs. So we watch carefully and we listen carefully to their business challenges or operational challenges. Let me just also say that we don’t have a crystal ball, but we are looking at the impact of automation on the workforce and on workflows, right?
It necessitates re-skilling and adapting. And everybody’s trying to figure this out and GALA likes to say that we’re future-oriented and human-focused. And so, we’re not gonna go kicking and screaming into, you know, automation. We just wanna be prepared and stay focused on the people and what the people are gonna need to adapt to these new ways of working. So that’s one area where the changing needs of the industry is like clear and present to us. Another would be on this emphasis on language data.
And I would say it’s kind of the Wild West at the moment where that’s concerned. I don’t think there’s even any standardized, you know, definition of what constitutes language data. Topic was working on some of that. Who does it belong to? Who gets paid for it? How is it tracked? These are big topics that people are starting to wrestle with now and we’ll try to help with that. And like I said before, technical interoperability is, continues to be a big challenge. There are so many proprietary systems and so many custom integrations and all these homegrown APIs.
It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of resources, but, and you know this really well, Jim, until there’s some kind of uprising and that’s probably gonna have to come from the buying side, there’s just not much incentive to change. And sometimes I’ll joke with the GALA board that we should just become a development operation and build connectors. Like, we’d probably make a lot more money doing that, but that’s not our mission. So, we won’t do that. |
| Jim |
But you know, it’s a very interesting inherent contradiction that you’re trying to solve, you know, with an industry organization. This idea of getting competitors to collaborate, right? And maybe doing things that are not necessarily going to be of direct benefit to them, but collectively will be, you know, of benefit to everyone. I guess, yeah, it is interesting to me to see how GALA is able to get competitors to collaborate. And maybe, you know, without you giving up your secret sauce, like what, how do you approach that inherent contradiction of getting competitors to collaborate? |
| Allison |
Hmm. Well, there’s a phrase that, I don’t know who coined it, but it’s coopertition. And I think it’s what you said; people need to see that the benefit to the whole industry and to even global business, if you wanna go that far, outweighs or is worth any short-term kind of sacrifice. So it does take a certain kinda person, and I’ll be clear. There are some people that have no interest whatsoever in participating in some of these endeavors and these initiatives. Because they think that it’s giving away their secret sauce, for example. But I am not sure that we have a secret recipe, Jim, about getting people to work together, other than persuading them that it’s for the good of the industry and that they stand to gain by doing so.
And, like, I’ll give you an example. We have special interest groups and one of them is the machine translation post-editing training special-interest group, and this one is like the poster child for collaboration amongst competitors and across segments. And so, we have a very active group of academics that are in that SIG. We have small businesses and LSPs and we have a couple of really big client companies that are all participating in essentially building a cookbook, you know, or an owner’s manual to MTPE training. And they’re great. They’re fantastic. And the way they work together, I think we’re gonna produce something pretty cool for the industry when all is said and done. |
| Jim |
I mean, this might be one compelling reason for, you know, folks who are on the buying side to be members, right? Is they actually can be that, you know, voice of customer, like the demand side that can be the catalyst for the change that ultimately, you know, supports them and, you know, benefits them in their business. |
| Allison |
Mm-hmm. Well, the truth is, they wield a lot of the influence. It’s, I’m not sure that they all know how to use it. And there are examples of really kind of mature, sophisticated localization operations. And then there’s also quite a few that are brand new to it. You know, imagine like a, I don’t know, a marketing person who got tasked with like, “Hey, take this product multi-lingual. You know, take it global. We’re gonna go into these three markets.” And the person has no idea what to do or where to start.
So I do think that the client side has a couple of incentives and one of them is just to grow and learn from their peers and also from the service providers who have a lot to share about, you know, optimization, for example, and efficiency. But then they also can wield influence if they choose to. Because like you say, the demand side often sets the agenda. |
| Jim |
Yeah. So, I, we had talked about you not having a crystal ball, but I’m gonna ask this, ask you, or ask you to maybe pretend that you do. And you, so 20th anniversary of GALA, what do you think GALA looks like in the next 20 years? What’s the… |
| Allison |
Yeah. We’re gonna build connectors. We’re gonna… No, integrations. No, I’m joking. We’re not. I’m, as far as I know. Well, that’s a great question, Jim. And we’ve been throwing that around at the board level and at the staff level a lot this year. And there is a bit of, hmm … Let me just try to describe it. A lot of the people on the board come from companies who, whose mission is to grow. Right? To grow profits, grow client base. And so, we often have that mindset.
My mindset is that GALA is here to serve our members, no matter how many. We’re not here to get more members and get more members and get more members. We need to deliver value to our members so that they become, you know, the best companies that they can be. And they help in turn elevate the whole industry in the eyes of the global business machine. And I actually believe that GALA is gonna continue doing much the same that it has done for the last 20 years.
We’re gonna continue adapting to the needs of our members and trying to meet them where they are, try to deliver value to them in the ways that they need it, at the time that they need it. And the truth of the matter is, at any given time, that value proposition is gonna be relevant to some companies and it won’t be relevant to other companies. And so, kind of the fortunes of, you know, how many members we have, for example, are less important than are we doing a good job delivering value and giving our members what they need at the time that they need it? So, in short, I think we’re gonna be doing much the same as we are now. |
| Jim |
Adapting. |
| Allison |
Yeah, exactly. |
| Jim |
Proving. |
| Allison |
Yeah. This is not a static thing. Adapting, yes. Exactly. As the market changes and as the industry changes and the technology changes. |
| Jim |
That’s cool. It, Allison, is there any question that we should talk about? |
| Allison |
I would like to know, I would like people to know that GALA is a year-round operation with lots of opportunities for engagement. And so, I think once upon a time, people used to conflate the GALA conference with GALA. They thought that was it, that was GALA. But we, we’re doing stuff year-round. And if people wanna get engaged, they can. They can contribute content. They can write a blog. They can write an article. They can join a special interest group. They could host a Loc Mixer. You know, either in-person when that’s allowed, or online. Those are just networking events where you grow your network and you find people that are working on the same challenges that you are.
You know, the other thing that we haven’t talked about that I think I should mention is that, you know, GALA is a great visibility machine also for a certain segment of our membership. You know, we’re well-known. We have a good reputation. We have a pretty big reach and so for companies that are interested in having kind of more visibility and prominence, GALA is a wonderful platform for that. So, I just would need to mention that. I think that’s probably it. You know, we always say engaged members are content members. And so, we’re constantly trying to get people to engage with us in ways that make sense for them.
And we used to do, we used to have a very busy fall schedule and that’s where we’d meet a lot of people. I mean, I’d meet a lot of people at, you know, LocWorld and Tekomm and EUATC and the Meet Central Europe. You know, there was constantly this opportunity to spout off about GALA and talk about it. And now, we just don’t have that. So that’s been an interesting sort of eureka aha moment, like, “Oh yeah. Well, we did kind of lose one of our big marketing channels.” |
| Jim |
Yeah. That’s interesting. |
| Allison |
Yeah. |
| Jim |
Yeah. |
| Allison |
Yeah. We’re doing okay. We’re doing fine. Our retention rates are really good and we’re happy about that, but our new members were down. And I don’t know how to digest that. Part of me just wants to chalk it up to economic uncertainty and people being pretty conservative with investments that were perceived to be, like, “Oh gee, I can cut professional development from the budget. No problem.” |
| Jim |
Yeah. |
| Allison |
So, I think we’re gonna be focusing on that a little bit. Like, you know, invest in your people unless you wanna have a bunch of churn. This is one really easy way to invest in your people’s professional development. So cheap, so cheap. |
| Jim |
And I wonder if, you know, you mentioned this phenomenon where like people who might not otherwise go to a GALA live event, you know, in the past. Now they’re going through these online events. I wonder if that provides like another marketing channel for you, right? That you’re gonna, you know, catch people maybe early on in their career, yeah, before they become the executive or the CEO. |
| Allison |
Mm-hmm. |
| Jim |
And if, you know, this is just the early stages of, I mean, if this approach of having it be more democratized, ultimately, well, will pay off, you know, down the road. |
| Allison |
That’s the idea, is that if we can kind of grow the rank and file representation, even at existing member companies, those people will become fans of GALA. And when they move to their next job, maybe they’ll say, “Hey, this was a really great benefit. And it was pretty affordable. How about we sign up?” So that’s part of the strategy. Yes, for sure. And also, part of our global talent and why we give academic or institutions free membership. You know, because we wanna reach out to those new professionals and get them, basically get them into the GALA community so that they understand the value and can maybe become evangelists someday. |
| Jim |
Sounds like a solid plan. I think it— |
| Allison |
Well, you never know. |
| Jim |
—if it makes sense. |
| Allison |
We’ll give it a, we’ll give— |
| Jim |
Oh, yeah, yeah. You have to try. |
| Allison |
Yeah. Try, what is it? Iterate and refine. And iterate and refine. And— |
| Jim |
I mean, the— |
| Allison |
—what we’re doing. |
| Jim |
—academic part of it is kind of special. I think the— |
| Allison |
Mm-hmm. |
| Jim |
I don’t feel like all organizations sort of maybe have even inspired the will to wanna participate from academics. Right? I mean, that seems like something unique to GALA. |
| Allison |
Well, I think it is. And it’s part of the global talent initiative overall, which is sort of an umbrella initiative with a lot of, a couple of programs underneath it. And one of them is free academic memberships. Because everybody’s complaining about the talent gap. Right? They’re talking about how they have to spend six months training somebody on the way to do things because they didn’t learn it in school. And we wanna address that in a few different ways.
And so one of them is by bringing instructors into the conversation. Right? So, the fact that they’re participating in the MTP training SIG is great. It’s wonderful. You know, the people that are involved are gonna have a better curriculum for their … There are people who are gonna be entering the industry soon. We think, we hope that investing in kind of the … They’re not necessarily younger, but the newer professionals is gonna pay off. We hope.
In fact, we’re doing a mentoring event at the end of June. It’s limited. So ,we’re gonna have five mentors and 25 students. And we’ll repeat it. We’ll do it again. But they come from all different parts of the industry. You know, big client companies like Ikea and Amazon.
And then you’ve got small LSPs and one really big LSP. And we’re gonna kind of create these opportunities for connection between students and, you know, professionals that are further along. And we’re pretty excited about that. We had our first student Loc Mixer yesterday and there were like 12 different institutions there and a bunch of different countries. It was cool. So, I think the students are worth the investment, for sure. |
| Jim |
Oh, that’s great. Yeah. |
| Allison |
Yeah, we’re excited. |
| Jim |
Well, sign me up for sure. |
| Jim |
Thank you so much for being a guest on Globally Speaking. And I, yeah. I mean, I hope to see you definitely in San Diego, but, you know, I hope our paths cross sooner than that. |
| Allison |
I know. I know. Me too. Well, thank you so much for having me on and giving me an opportunity to just, you know, spout off about GALA. |
| Jim |
It’s our pleasure. Thank you. |
