STAR TS Translation Services Blog

Cá Bhfuil an Obair? WDAR Radio-96fm: Launches new radio series highlighting job opportunites in Irish interviewing STAR Translation. Tuesday 29th May on 96fm
Co. Dublin, Ireland — May 2012 — Cá Bhfuil an Obair?  is a four-part bi-lingual radio series exploring career possibilities available through the Irish language.

News Release
For Immediate Release
Friday – 25th May 2012
Produced and presented by 4th and 5th year students from gaelscoil Coláiste Chilliain, Clondalkin and St. Dominic’s Girls’ Secondary School, Ballyfermot, each half-hour programme will focus on a different area of work where the ability to use the Irish language is a major advantage.  The areas covered are; Translation; Education; Communications and Media; and promotion of the Irish language.  The series is aimed at students of Junior and Leaving Cert level.  Produced in association with West Dublin Access Radio, Cá Bhfuil an Obair? will be broadcast each morning at 10.30am from Tuesday 29th May to Friday June 1st.  To listen, tune in to 96fm or go online at http://www.wdar.ie
Program 1: Translation
10.30am Tues May 29th –
Our reporters visit STAR Translation Services, Dublin, to find out about life as a translator interviewing Damian Scattergood the companies managing director and language staff. http://www.star-ts.com

Listen to the interview podcast.

Program 2: Education
10.30am Wed May 30th –
Teachers from the reporters’ schools talk about teaching in both English and Irish speaking schools.

Program 3: Communications and Media
10.30am Thurs May 30th –
A visit to Stillwater Communications, Dublin, provides our reporters with an insight into how the Irish language thrives in the world of media
http://stillwater.ie/

Program 4: Promoting the Irish Language
10.30am Fri June 1st –
The Cá Bhfuil an Obair? team find out about the type of work opportunities available in promoting the Irish language as well as potential for careers in other areas using the Irish language.
“We are delighted to work with WDAR on this community project. Irish is still a thriving language and this series shows how the language is used in everyday life” said Damian Scattergood MD of STAR translation services.  “Irish is actually our 3rd more popular language to translate.”

You can find more details about the interview here >>> STAR Interview with WDAR RADIO Interview

You can also share this article to make the program known to your friends. We hope to have a lot of listeners on Tuesday to give us as many feedbacks as you can. We are always looking for improvement so you can leave a comment to give us your opinion about the interview or make any suggestions regarding translation.

Bill Payne angel investor and Damian Scattergood of STAR translation at HotHouse event on Fundable Startups.

Thursday 19th April 2012 was a fantastic day here in Docklands when we had the chance to meet Bill Payne, Americas 2009 Angel Investor of the year. Bill has invested in over 50 companies including DoubleClick. His successful track record makes amazing reading.

Bill was visiting the Hothouse entrepreneurship program based in Docklands Innovation Park where STAR has its Dublin office.  So it was great to be able to meet and discuss this topic with him. The title of his presentation was “Fundable Companies” which caught my eye straight away. At the end of the day the real question for any investor or managing director is : “Is the project or company actually fundable?” All too often business plans have great ideas and lots of out of the air sales figures and projections but what investors look for is what the core business actually is.

Management Team is key.

One of the key factors that Bill highlighted was the strength of the management team. You may have a great product and a million dollar market, but can you actually manage the company when it gets to that size? As companies grow you have to evaluate your management skills (across the company) and ascertain who is the right person to manage it and what skills they require. The skills to manage a 5 person startup are not the same as those required to manage a 100 person company.  Sometimes a CEO has to decide and plan when they need to be replaced. If you are looking to have an exit sale of your company perhaps it is better to put in a CEO that has done it before so they can manage up and out for that trade sale.

But I’m Only A Startup.

Ok so you might not be the million dollar company looking to be bought out if you are just a startup. Again Bill offered some excellent advice on how to manage the early start investment (or whatever cash you had) and how to focus on building your company. Start-up companies should first consider:

1.Where to focus?

2.How to spend and manage cash?

3.And where to build the correct value in your organization?

Angels are people too.

Young entrepreneurs often forget that Angels are people too. They have the same concerns and worries about a business as you do. They may have the money you need to build a company but have to be careful where they put it. Bill told us that 50% of his investments go nowhere. That’s a lot of money to lose. So he looks for companies that might deliver back 20 times return. If you were looking to have an angel invest between 500k and 1 million in your company, they would be looking at getting 20 million in a trade sale in perhaps 5 years. So think before you leap.

The Top 7 Tips Bill gave us where:

1. Management team is important.

2. Scalability: Your business needs to be able to scale fast (production, people and management skills).

3. Angel investors tend to invest in local companies – so do you homework on who is in your area.

4. Potential fund-able companies should be customer ready. You should have some customers and a little traction in the market. Angel money gives you the funding you need to scale, it is not research money.

5. Competitive Advantage: You need to have some form of competitive advantage. If someone can copy you tomorrow and take the market away forget it. It doesn’t mean you need IP rights etc, this can come later, just an edge to get the first 10 million in sales!

6. Niche Markets helps. If you are in a market the big companies aren’t looking at, you can take market share quickly.

7. Sales and marketing plan: Make sure you have a proper sales plan. Not we’ll get 1% of the market by 2012. How are you actually going to sell your product?

If you are interested in learning more about Bill Paynes system for ensuring you are investment ready check out his website on http://www.billpayne.com/

Are you investable ? – follow Bill here

By STAR Translation Services

On Friday 30th, March, Damian Scattergood and Phil Guthrie from STAR Translation were interviewed by students with WDAR 96fm Radio. The podcast is available.They talked about Irish, Translation and Jobs in Translation for the show ‘Cá Bhfuil an Obair?’. Lauren and Amy asked us a number of interesting questions about working in the translation sector such as:

• What jobs are available in translation?
• What skills translators need to have?
• To what extent is Irish important to our business?
• How do I learn about Irish for translators?
• How do I get a job in a translation company like STAR?

We were very impressed by their confidence and the quality of the interview. Then we did our best to answer all of their questions both in Irish an English. The radio program will be broadcast in the coming weeks as part of ‘Cá Bhfuil an Obair?’ program series. We will let you know when it will be on air so you can listen in.

Here are some photos that we took with Amy and Lauren. Thanks to them for coming to STAR and we look forward to hearing the final version of the interview. Good Luck to Amy and Lauren!

By STAR Translation Services

We were also in Kerrykeel’s for St Patrick’s Day. Enjoy the video and photos of the parade – It is always good to share  happy memories and fun.

STAR provides technical translation services, website translation and document translation services. We are an ISO 9001:2008 Certified provider of language services. We will be please to help you to make grow your business.

For a translation quote call us +353 1 8365614.

STAR Translation Services
http://www.star-ts.com

This the “Irish Word of the Day” series for Irish Week (Seachtain Na Gaeilge) by STAR Translation Services.

How to say “Can I have a pint of Beer please?” in Irish
Patrick’s Day is coming soon so those sentences will be useful to some of you.

Damian Scattergood teaches you common Irish words and sentences. In this video we learn how to say “Can I have a pint of Beer please?” in Irish.

Each day, spread your love of the language : learn and use a few irish words. It is always nice to hear – even if you can only say “Hello” and “Goodbye”.

Have a look at our other Irish Word of the Day on YouTube and share them:

How to Say “Hello” in Irish

How to say “Goodbye” in Irish

How to say “How are you?” in Irish

How to say “Excuse me” in Irish

How to say “I don’t understand” in Irish

How to say “Please” in Irish

How to say “Thank You” in Irish

How to say “You are Welcome” in Irish

How to say: “Can I have a pint of Beer please?” in Irish

STAR Translation Services
http://www.star-ts.com

Irish word of the day series for Irish week (Seachtain Na Gaeilge) by STAR Translation Services.

How to say “Thank You” in Irish for Language Week.

Help spread the Irish language by sharing our videos on  Facebook.

Alex Gibson from The Persuaders and Damian Scattergood

On Friday, 9th we got the chance to discuss translation and marketing with Alex Gibson on The Persuaders on Dublin City FM 103.2.

As more and more companies have to spread their message abroad, translation is an inevitable part of the process to expand trade. Here is a brief summary of our on-air discussion. Damian Scattergood our managing director gives some good advice as to how to make your translation easier and cheaper when engaging a translation company.

When and why should you hire a translation company?

• Contact a translation company at your design stage before translation. It can give you plenty of tips to make the translation easier and cheaper. The vendor should be able to tell you the best document structure, and look at your images for example to ensure they are internationally  acceptable. Thus, you only have to design your product material once.

• First impression counts so your message has to fit each culture. A translation company works with professional translators who have the abilities to translate your documents with accuracy and a local feel. At STAR Group, over 800 people in 44 global offices are working to make sure that the translation of your document looks like a document written in the target country’s language.

• A translation company ensures that the language of your documents is precise and clear. The simpler and clearer your English message, the clearer and more international it is too after translation.

• Why not use Google Translate? Prospective clients will obviously notice that you used a machine translation and that could affect your brand image. This is the reason why collaborating with a translation company will help you to improve the way people perceive your company abroad. Did you know that Google also uses professional translators to translate its documents?

• Remember: a translation company is your international business partner. When we translate a website we focus on the quality and the consistency of your message. When visiting your website people will make an instant decision/opinion about you, what you are doing and how good you are. They will also be more confident about the quality of what you provide if they see that you take the time and care to deliver quality translation in their language. By translating into the language of your target market you are making an effort to reach the customer.

What do I translate?

• If you don’t know what to translate you can start with a single page of your website, a brochure or a letter. First steps are to reach and test your market.

• For your website you can create a microsite (a website with only 3-5 pages – to test the reaction of your customers)

• People want to know who you are and what you are doing so translate the page that people are most likely to visit first.

What should I do to make the translation process easier?

• Watch the structure of your documents. Each language structure is different so the size required for text might slightly change from one language to another. For instance, when translating English to German you might notice that the German translation will be longer by 30%. That’s why when you create a document we recommend you leave lots of white-space in your document so the new text will flow easily. It is better to think about translation during design than have to make changes when translating. Simple design changes might be to modify the size of a picture, the layout of your document to fit with the translation.

• Explain acronyms to the translation company you are working with. If possible create your own mini-dictionary of common terms.

• Choose typefaces carefully. Certain typefaces do not include all characters in different languages.

• Make sure that you have all your source documents and check if they can be translated.

• For manuals and documents remove text from the diagrams and replace with numbers and call-outs.

• For your website check that it is encoded with UTF-8 for translation and avoid putting text on button and graphics. Graphic translation can be expensive and it takes time to translate.

• Generally it is better to avoid flags. They have political connotations which can affect the brand image of your company. People can feel excluded by flags. They can think that you are addressing your message to a specific country. It is better to use the words [English, French] etc to represent language. Only use flags when you are specifically addressing a country.

• Video is fast becoming a must tool in marketing. People don’t consider the impact of having to translate their videos later. Careful planning for video will make translation easier. For example – how many people are in the video? Is it scripted? Are there timing issues?

What if I have more questions?

• STAR helps clients with the first steps to going Global. Drop us an email or contact us and we will send you our whitepaper on going global, packed with advice to make the transition easier for you.
• Whatever the language – call STAR.

We thank Alex Gibson for giving STAR the time to discuss the importance of translation in developing your brand image abroad.

We wanted to wish a big congratulations to Ratoath mens tennis team on their victory in the Dublin Lawn Tennis Council Senior League victory last weekend.

The team was captained by our very own managing director Damian Scattergood. The leagues are played over a 3 month period and Ratoath successfully topped their group to reach the finals. It was a long summer with plenty of hard work from all involved. Plenty of summer teas, making sandwichs and hard tennis. The over 35′s team are delighted to win the tournament and rest their aching limbs again. Photographs courtesy of Simon McDermot.

The winning team are:

Mark Whitbread, Simon McDemot, Damian Scattergood (Captain), Stephen Foley, Dave Curley, Pat McDermot and Tommy White (The Super Sub).

Winning Team: Mark Whitbread, Simon McDermot, Damian Scattergood, Stephen Foley, Dave Curley

The finals where against Trim 1st, formidable opponents who had one the league a few years earlier. So it was going to be a tough battle from the start. Trim started strongly taking all the first sets in every match. Dave and Stephen where ahead in theirs but the Trim team proved too strong and edged ahead to win the first doubles in 2 sets.

Dave Curley and Stephen Foley playing for Ratoath 1st

Mark and Damian meanwhile where struggling in their match losing the first set 6-2. However pure grit and determination proved worthwhile as they fought back to deliver a tie break in the second. Meanwhile Simon and Pat stormed through their 2nd and 3rd sets to get victory. 1-1 in games so it was down to Mark and Damian.

You could feel the tension in the club. Trim stormed to a 5-1 lead in the tie break and it looked like all was lost. Winning 6 clear points in a row Ratoath turned the game on its head to win the tiebreak 7-5. The game was all to be played for again. Again trim pushed hard breaking Damian’s power serve to go 2 love up in the final set. Mark dug deep for his serve to get it to 2-1 and then with a flourish of excellent competitive tennis Ratoath won the next 5 games in a row winning 6-2. Phew – what an amazing win and hard days work. Well done Ratoath!

Ratoaths Number 2 team Mark Whitbread and STAR's managing director Damian Scattergood planning their next move in their tight 3 set victory. 3/6 7/6 6/2

Pat and Simon McDermot show the tension of a tight game.

Damian Scattergood hits a high smash at full stretch dead center of the racquet.