COVID-19 crisis response

Back in March, as soon as a wide range of countries put in place public health and social measures in response to COVID-19, ProZ.com took steps to accompany this process and provide members with tools and opportunities they could immediately use to achieve their business objectives and realize their full potential.

COVID-19 tagging was enabled in job postings and KudoZ questions to route these faster, and approximately 100 Glossary Building KudoZ questions related to COVID-19 were pulled to create a glossary of COVID-19 related terms available for everyone.

A ProZ.com Freelancer Success Summit was held at the beginning of April with more than thirty hours of content, live Q&A sessions, virtual powwows, free training, giveaways and more.

CafeTran Espresso, the friendly, full-featured CAT tool that is available to Plus subscribers, was made available to all paying members regardless of membership level.

The community started sharing experiences from different parts of the globe in a new COVID-19 outbreak forum that is still active and open to all site users.

Meetings were made possible even during this time of social distancing with a new virtual component added to powwows. Members are making use of secure, flexible and free video conferencing software that has been integrated into the site, does not require extra logins and can be used on any device.

These resources, and others, were grouped in a ProZ.com COVID-19 resource center that is still active with the purpose of helping language professionals and anyone in the language industry to stay up-to-date, cooperate and network as the COVID-19 crisis impacts the world.

Standing out & matching

At ProZ.com, we are always reminding members that in crafting your online presence, showing what makes you different is important. To put yourself just a click away from the right clients, you need to stand out and emphasize what you offer. In other words, complete your profile consciously, for your desired client.

This year, new services have been added to profiles, including specific audiovisual services, language instruction and native speaker conversation. These services were also enabled in job postings and directories to make matching easier and more effective. 

In line with the above, ProZ.com Pools continue to expand. New pools have been launched: Native speaker conversation partners, Mentors and Students, while the Certified PRO Network pool has welcomed more than 680 professionals so far this year --the application form has been adjusted to make the process easier too-- and the interpreter pool achieved 40,000 more calls than in 2019 (approximately 500,000 USD paid to interpreters).

With over 1,800 participants --1,065 first-timers-- and 2,046 entries, four translation contests were held in 2020, including the 25th ProZ.com translation contest: “Alien first impressions” (still open for voting). The winners of these contests --forty-two so far-- are now displaying this special difference in their profiles with a blue winner badge and through the new set of community roles and achievement tags that are now shown on top of profile pages.

New marketing features have been enabled in profiles to allow professionals to better show who they are and what they offer. As specified above, roles and achievements are now visible through a set of profile tags for mentors, moderators, contest winners, event participants and others. Also, the display of events attended and training taken has been improved, and the option to add video was added to portfolios so that everyone can upload audiovisual samples, not just text. 

And while updating your profile, take a look at the modernized rates calculator tool now linked to it. Calculate rates and save them in your profile with just one click.

Active members of the community have opened the doors to their everyday lives to show how a normal working day pans out in different locations through Translation Postcards. So far, over thirty professionals have been featured and promoted on the site and in social networks, not to mention the 97,000 members of the ProZ.com Facebook group and the 47,000 members of the ProZ.com LinkedIn group who are already standing out and getting the most out of the site in those networks too.

Outsourcers too can stand out now and do work with the right providers faster and more effectively. Plus and enterprise business members can be part of a new “Enterprise Business Member Spotlight” blog series, a good way to increase exposure in ProZ.com's social media and bridge the gap between them and other businesses and freelancers.

Also, the job posting process was improved in line with direct feedback received from job posters and professionals who regularly submit their quotes for online jobs. Updates include a cross-connection with social media where posters can choose to automatically share their jobs on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and get interested service providers’ attention there too, and jobs posted on ProZ.com social networks can be brought to the site and notify suitable providers via email. The new services specified above have also been added to the new job posting form and the directory for better targeting.

Another great tool for outsourcers is the integration of ProZ*Pay with the Blue Board to quickly solve non-payment issues. In many cases non-payments result from miscommunication and conflicting payment methods. For cases like these, ProZ*Pay may prove valuable to outsourcers --and service providers too!-- and help them save time and efforts. Once a non-payment is entered, outsourcers can see a direct link to ProZ*Pay in the entry to solve the issue right away, even multiple issues at once.

Learning & networking

Learning new skills is usually a good strategy to advance in your career, expand your job options and keep up with the fast-changing world. So is networking, because when you meet, help and interact with other professionals, you gain additional knowledge and perspective, while expanding the possibilities of finding new clients or partners to grow your business.

In 2020, learning and networking were more relevant and necessary than ever before, so  ProZ.com and MCIS Language Solutions joined forces to provide linguists with global access to high quality, affordable training and qualifications. MCIS Language Solutions is one of the fastest growing language training companies, and their training curriculum consists of 27 modules that cover Fundamentals in Translation, Translation Competencies and Community Translation, including modules on code of ethics, workflow, terminology and subject matter research, legal and medical translation.

On the ProZ.com training side, and with a whole new section look, there are new courses, videos and sessions. Those starting in the industry can now learn the trade and become part of the ProZ.com community with a new “How to Get Started as a Freelance Translator” package that includes over 15 hours of video content, one full year of ProZ.com Plus membership subscription, group coaching sessions with live Q&A, workbooks, personal guidance and unlimited support, and a certificate of completion for CPD.

For language professionals who are looking to develop their skills, earn certificates, enhance their profiles and get ready to get more work, this year a new set of Spotlight training sessions has been launched with a focus on interactive, self-paced learning and defined work-related outcomes. Since the start of the year, over 3,700 students have attended these sessions.

Additionally, in order to meet interpreters’ needs, a Bootcamp for Remote Interpreters was organized specifically for new English to Spanish interpreters, and those who wish to refresh their skills, or retrain for remote interpreting. Also, a HIPAA Compliance Certification course for remote interpreters was released for interpreters who work with United States-based patients or entities and would like to be aware of and compliant with all applicable HIPPA laws and regulations.

Along with training courses and sessions, in 2020, language industry professionals celebrated International Translation Day one more time with 16 different sessions --recorded and now available to members, over 20,000 live views and high levels of interaction across two days, including new ProZ.com Meetups for members.

Every month, dozens of professionals attended free “Meeting clients at ProZ.com” webinars and learned how to complete their profiles effectively to attract clients. And, from April to July, members met virtually every Thursday at “Thinking Out Loud” virtual powwows organized by Andrew Morris to discuss freelancers’ values, attitudes and beliefs, share practical or marketing tips, and much more.

And in between these events, translators and language enthusiasts tested and helped to improve a modernized version of the KudoZ platform while they helped each other with the translation of tough terms and earned points to increase their exposure in the freelance directory.

These are some of the members of our community who had a very important role in either training or events this year:  Rita Pang | Iryna Lebedyeva | Erin Lyons | Claudia Brauer | Tess Whitty | Integrity Languages | Marina Ilari  | Steve Rainwater | Jeff Beatty  | Word Awareness, Inc. Thank you all!

New teams & partners

After discussing some of the misconceptions that non-translators may have about the translation profession, a group of language and translation specialists worked together on a short publication aimed at letting the world know who translators are, what they do, where and when they do it, how and why. It’s called “Translation: the Inside Story” and it’s been already localized into 16 different languages. Special thanks go to volunteer writers: Andrew Morris | Nathalie G. Reis | Tanya R. Quintieri | Norhan Mohamed | Cristina Tormen | Kay-Viktor Stegemann  | Suzie Withers  | Kornelia Schneider | Retno W Munro | Silvia Benetollo | Miray Filiz | Lilit Khiat | Kornelia Robertson | Patricia Fierro | Valery Naumova | Edel Ring | Cathy Rosamond | Anikó Pető-Mordovski | Gordana Petrovska | Susanne Koll | Lucía LO | Isabelle Meschi | Tsugumi Kozuma | Richard Mort | Ilse Heyrmann, and volunteer localizers.

New ProZ.com local contacts have joined the group of professionals who represent the site locally and make it possible for members to subscribe in their local currency in 24 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Cameroon, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Croatia, Indonesia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Syria, Turkey, Taiwan, Ukraine, Uruguay, Vietnam and South Africa). Welcome Jorge Rodrigues in Brazil, JOSEPHINE STEPHANIE ENGOLA AMOUGOU in Cameroon, Mary Kagia in Kenya and Maria Llovera in Mexico. And welcome to all members who joined locally this year too!

Translator Group Buy continued offering special discounts on translation software throughout 2020. Over 1,200 members signed up for at least one TGB campaign this year, saving up to 50%. Welcome new Translator Group Buy partners: XTRF and Dragon Speech Recognition software.

The ProZ.com team is multicultural, multilingual, and made up of talented individuals in different parts of the world who are passionate about helping translation industry professionals to achieve business success. In 2020, The ProZ.com family got bigger:

Pedro Díaz joined the ProZ.com team of developers from La Plata, Argentina, early this year. He has been working on profile improvements and bug fixes in various areas, and always looking for ways to improve site features and help members to get the most out of the site. He speaks Spanish, Portuguese and English, and he certainly loves programming. In his own words: “If I were to be born again, I would be a programmer”.

Paul Urwin, a known voice in the industry and now Head of Training at ProZ.com, joined the team to help freelance translators achieve success. Paul was behind this year’s virtual conference to celebrate International Translation Day, new training sessions and the new ProZ.com podcast with listeners in more than 70 countries.

Hector Peña Torres, a developer based in Quito, Ecuador, also joined the team this year and immediately got down to work on improvements to job posting, business pages and management, and the rates calculator. Hector is fully committed to member success and, more specifically, to provider-client matching.

Isabel Thomson, an enthusiastic and energetic language student who joined our team for a two-month internship, was the one behind the addition of language instruction and native speaker conversation to the list of services. Before completing her internship, she reached the goal of enabling another source of income for members during the lockdown and now more than 130 conversation partners are available in 46 different languages through the pool of freelance native speaker conversation partners.

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