STAR TS Translation Services Blog

Future Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Ireland

China’s Vice President Xi Jinping today attended the China Trade and Investment Forum organised by Enterprise Ireland, IDA, Bord Bia and Science Foundation Ireland.

The visit of China’s Vice President Xi Jinping has already delivered the signing of two agreements promoting trade between China and Ireland. Both agreements were signed by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, and by China’s International Trade Representative and Vice-Minister of Commerce, Gao Hucheng, at Dublin Castle.

The first assignments schedule a programme of events to promote collaboration between Irish and Chinese companies. Enterprise Ireland is the main partner in this programme and already has three offices in China supporting trade between Irish and Chinese markets. Enterprise Ireland reported that its client’s exports to China rose by 10pc in 2010 to €251m and initial estimates show that 2011 delivered a further 10pc.

According to the government, the other agreement consists of creating a working group to encourage investment between China and Ireland. Foreign Direct Investment has increased in the previous year and will continue to do so thanks to these agreements. Over 200 Irish companies are already exporting to China and more than the half have offices there.

The main opportunities to enter the Chinese market lies in the key sectors of aviation, education services, financial services, health, software, and agricultural machinery.

The more Irish and Chinese companies collaborate the more we will be happy to help them connecting and communicating effectively with their partners.

STAR Translation provides website, technical, document and public sector translation services in over 40 languages. Ask for a quote on http://www.star-ts.com

A great event with fantastic colour and skills.

Welcome Bejing Tourism to Dublin.

Last night we had great pleasure in attending the Magical Bejing Tour of Pandas. The event took place in the fabulous Convention Centre Dublin (theccd.ie)

The event was hosted by the Bejing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development, and Tourism Ireland and was attended by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Andrew Montague.

It was full of amazing color and spectacular. The story follows a group of pandas on their path to excellence – learning many martial arts skills along the way.

There where dancing Pandas and martial arts demonstrations that where world class and a beauty to behold. The show for me really highlighted Chinese culture and their understanding of balance. Fighting skills where combined with the beauty of dance, fantastic sound, music and action. In the same light as Yin/Yang both balance each other the show highlighted this to perfection. The Chinese have a great understanding of colour, sound, movement and balance.

Damian Scattergood, Managing Director of STAR Translation and Andrew Montague, Lord Mayor of Dublin discuss the evenings fantastic show.

The evenings event was put together by Bejing Art-creation and Cultural development Limited. The performers includes Jet Lee’s Schoolmates and some of the production team of Bejing Olympics.

The children who attended where entertained by the amazing kung-fu pandas. They had both comical antics coming into the crowd and bouncing large red ‘”Welcome Bejing’  beach balls across the audience.

Members of the Bejing Municipal Committee and Lord Major of Dublin share their enjoyment of the show.

The show featured many different styles of martial arts and dance. My favorite Tai Chi was included alongside Kung Fu, Kung Fu Boxing. Monkey warriors danced and fly across the stage showing amazing acrobatic skills.

Shi Sha Hi, street dance crowded with people and possessing extraordinary Kung Fu skills.

Overall a fantastic night was had by all. It was a perfect blend of culture and business combined. Did you know there are over 100,000 Chinese people living in Ireland.

The event was perfectly run to allow both cultures to blend together and show each other the best of tourism from China and Ireland.

Congratulations and Thank you to all involved.
Damian Scattergood

Managing Director
STAR Dublin

Kung Fu Masters show Dublin their fighting skills and the beauty of dance combined.

Chinese Masters perform at the CCD.

STAR Provides Chinese Translation Services to clients in Ireland and the UK. With our own offices in Bejing and Shanghai we can deliver professional translation of your documents, brochures and websites to help you communicate in Chinese.

Who will speak Irish during Irish Language Week?

Dáil Business to be conducted in Irish for Irish Week.

This year during Irish Language Week on March 7th the main business of the Dáil will be conducted in Irish. The Irish Times reported this weekend that Dáil Éireann will conduct business through Irish during the event to mark the occasion. It will be very interesting to see who will be able to converse correctly and if any real business will be done.

For the Taoiseach Enda Kenny it should be an easy enough day for him. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív will comfortably take the opportunity to talk about issues other than Gaeilge. But the pressing question is : “Who will answer for the technical group ?”. How many deputies can speak and discuss the tougher political agenda of the day in Irish?

The Irish Times bet on Joe Higgins. Who would you bet on?

If they need help maybe they could call us here at  STAR. We provide Irish Translation Services and over 40 other languages.

Barack Obama, Ollie Hayes and Damian Scattergood discuss the benefits of Presidents Obama's visit to Moneygall and Ireland.

Holiday World 2012

Organised by Business Exhibitions Ltd., Holiday World Show Dublin 2012 gave me the opportunity to meet a large numbers of exhibitors operating in the tourism sector such as tour operators, vehicles companies and airlines companies. All the companies are doing global business and helping the Irish economy grow. It was a very busy show and it was great to see so many exhibitors attending. We had fun meeting Ollie Hayes of Barack Obama fame and discussing the great benefits the presidents visit brought to the town of Moneygall. You have to visit, its a lovely town and the people are great. I was there last year on my Holidays.

Darina Nakagawa MD Unique Japan Tours and Damian Scattergood discuss the beauty of Japan.

We also met Darina Nakagawa Managing Director of Unique Japan Tours who provide tours of Japan. They can arrange special guided tours for travellers and will make your holiday to Japan really special.  Japan is a beautiful place and well worth exploring.

60 countries were represented and over 1,000 travel and tourism professionals were there to give face-to-face advice and useful information which is not available anywhere else in Ireland. Areas included travelling to the Middle East such as Abu Dhabi on business or pleasure.

Angela Bates discussing business travel to Abu Dhabi with Damian Scattergood

Michael Ring Junior Minister for Tourism visits Holiday World Show

The structure of the show enabled us to explore the globe under one roof – from Africa to Asia and from America to Europe. Many exhibitors offered special “Show only” discount holiday deals. I had numerous opportunities to enjoy some great entertainment along the exhibition and as we were walking through the paths we even had the chance to encounter Michael Ring, Junior Minister for tourism. Business and pleasure combined we had a great time!

STAR  works with many travel companies, government agencies and design companies developing and translating marketing material for the travel, hotel and leisure business.   We translate into over 40 languages covering Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

CES SHOW, Las Vegas

The International CES show took place in Las Vegas from 10 to 13^th January 2012. This event is the largest technology event in the world and gathers each year manufacturers, developers and suppliers of consumer technology hardware, content, and technology delivery systems.

On the Irish front, one exhibitor in particular who caught our eye is WorldDesk Ltd. This Northern-Irish start-up specializes in the cloud computing and virtualisation software space. So impressive is their technology that they have reached an acquisition agreement with DeskStream Inc. a leading Californian and Indian company providing desktop virtualisation software.

They announced on 12^th January the acquisition of WorldDesk. Employees of WorldDesk, including co-founders Jonathan Chesney and Claire Moore, will join DeskStream. The 2-years-old Irish company, will still be located in Belfast. So we wish all the best for them! Job Well Done!

At STAR we love to see Irish success stories, we’d love to hear and share your stories with our visitors. Drop us a line and let us know about your success stories. STAR supports Irish companies helping them grow their global business. STAR translates software and e-commerce websites for clients in over 40 languages. We provide website translation services and e-commerce services.

The Young Scientist Exhibition opens today in the RDS. For those interested in languages there are 4 specific projects we recommend you visit.

Young Scientist Language Projects:

1. From Coláiste Eoin in Dublin “GAERLA” Language transfer and interference, a study of bilingual teenagers.
A topic worth discussing in light of the decline of the Irish Language.

2. Again from Dublin, Loreto College – St Stephens Green, Cryptography; a study of the Irish language.
This certainly looks like an interesting topic for us, original and of value.

3. From Coláiste Bhríde in Wicklow, Is abbreviated texting having a negative impact on our English language?
Again one close to our hearts. We believe texting is having a negative effect on the English Language, as too is the use of Facebook and Twitter on communication skills.

4. From Donegal based Loreto Community School, their project investigates whether Irish TV can help improve childrens Irish.

What do you think? Share your opinion with us on these topics.

Hands Only CPR:

We have to support this great advertising campaign for “Hands only CPR” by the British heart campaign. Its the latest campaign to show how to save someone’s life using CPR.

What I really like is that it uses a number of systems to teach the system. Audio and Video, and hits you with toe tapping music and Vinny Jones from the celebrity site to get the message home.

Watch – Learn – Save a Life

Vinny Jones showing Hand Only CPR system.

Congratulations on a great system.

For more information visit the British Heart Foundation.

New Changes in Google Search

Google has started to roll out new personal search query results.

As part of its progress into the social media area it can now index your personal photos, data etc as posted and profile you for individual searchs.

It allows them to

a) know more about you and what you search for

b) allows them to personalise searchs for you as they know what you are interested in.

c) it gives them the ability to include personal (social) information in Google searches as required.

For more information see the full release from the yahoo press.

Interesting figures from Enterprise Ireland today highlights the strengths and success Irish Businesses are delivering to International markets. According to figures published today Ireland’s results are very strong in world rankings:

• The largest exporter of Infant formula in the world: 1 in 7 formula-fed babies drink infant formula produced in Ireland.
• 5th largest exporter of beef in the world and 2nd in Europe after the Netherlands
• 50% of the world’s aircraft on lease is managed in Ireland
• €1.9 trillion in funds are administered from Ireland
• Largest net exporter (exports – imports) of pharmaceuticals in the world
• 7th largest exporter in the world
• 8 of top 10 pharmaceutical companies have operations in Ireland
• 50% of the world’s leading financial services companies are based in Ireland
• The 10th largest investor in the US, with hundreds of companies employing more than 120,000 people across the US
• Investment from the US into Ireland is greater than US investment into China, India, Brazil and Russia combined
• 130 Irish companies employ more then 8,000 people in China

Source: Enterprise Ireland

STAR works with Irish companies to help drive export sales by providing translation services in over 45 languages.

On Friday we attended Enterprise Ireland’s Social Media club #eismclub in EI’s Headquarters.

Captain Pat O'Connor and Damien Mulley discussing Social media policy.

Two fantastic presentations from Captain Pat O’Connor, Spokesperson & Media Relations, Irish Defence Forces and Damien Mulley of Mulley Communications on how to create, roll out and manage your social media presence. As you can imagine for the defence forces this would be a tricky and sensitive area. How do you allow people to blog/tweet and socialise whilst protection national security interests and peoples public/private interests. Captain O’Connor spoke excellently about how they manage this balance. They defence forces have a very well thought out policy and process for publication of information. His presentation was open and he shared a great many valuable lessons with everyone in the room.

Damien spoke about how to manage your presence and policy -and the key elements you need to have in place for a successful social presence.

1. Very important to remember is that in today’s world a Tweet carries the same weight as a Press Release. Captain O’Connor spoke about how some of the defence forces tweets had reached the news before the officical press releases – so you need to be careful how and about what you tweet.

2. So you need to have a Social Media Policy in place. A great site for lots of examples/templates for free social media policies is http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php

3. You should assign people as social media commentators and train them accordingly.

4. You should register your social media profile on all the various systems even if you don’t plan to use them. It can be an expensive and long process to get them back if someone cybersquats them.

5. Have an emergency response policy for social media. This is important to ensure you respond accordingly to manage situation. One company who had their database of clients “hacked” immediately sent out press releases about their “data breach”. This was picked up quickly by the search engines so discussions where about the “data breach” and not the “Hack”. This was a much softer message and a great PR win for them.

6. Finally ensure you tie your business strategy in with your social media strategy. Know your audience/customers, where they are (on what platforms), how they communicate and publish appropriate messages for them. Just like any offline marketing strategy you need to know the who, what, where and when of your messages.