SDL Trados Virtual Roadshows: Reflect, recollect and review
Senior Events Executive at SDL, Erica Kyle, reflects on the success of our first ever virtual roadshows that took place in May 2020.
Due to the current global circumstances, we sadly had no choice but to cancel our face-to-face global SDL Trados Roadshow series this spring. Instead, we made the quick decision to face this pandemic straight on and take our first step into the realm of virtual roadshow events…and what a journey! We are absolutely thrilled to have achieved this and that so many of you joined us!
We completely understand that virtual roadshows do not compare to the face-to-face interaction of our typical SDL Trados Roadshows, (we missed networking with you!) however, we are delighted to have been able to still bring the latest industry news, product updates, and expert training to your computers - near and far! In a time of uncertainty and difficulty, we have still been able to continue to interact and engage with you all.
Over the course of May, we have delivered eight SDL Trados Virtual Roadshows in six languages (English, Italian, Spanish, German, French and Japanese), and in five different time zones. Over 4,000 of you registered from over 85 countries. Through these events, we managed to reach even more members of the Trados community, some of whom were attending a roadshow for the first time. Thanks to our global team, we were able to make these events a truly local experience, and this was rewarded with very high levels of attendance, specifically in Germany, the UK, Italy and Japan. It suggests that virtual events may well continue to play a part in our future event programming, as it gives everyone the chance to be part of these popular events.
The support and feedback throughout each of our events has been overwhelmingly positive, and we would like to sincerely thank our expert speakers and advisers who were able to make our vision of these online events a reality.
If you were lucky enough to be able to attend more than one of our virtual roadshows, we think you will agree that each event had its own unique characteristics. Creating an event for audiences in different languages, time zones and weather (yes, us Brits love to talk about the effects of the weather on our mood!) certainly required a different approach for each language. It was such a thrill to see the need for localization, transcreation and content delivery across the world in action – (it’s at the heart of SDL’s existence!)
Although we had many highlights, I wanted to share our top features from this new event series:
1. SDL Trados Product Spotlight - Studio 2021
The pre-launch of our much anticipated new release, SDL Trados Studio 2021, was announced at our first Virtual Roadshow. Daniel Brockmann demonstrated how SDL Trados Live integrates seamlessly with SDL Trados Studio to provide a truly unique experience that blends online and offline working. Delivering the familiarity of desktop with the convenience of the cloud, you can move between both environments seamlessly and take your work with you, wherever you go.
Read Daniel Brockmann’s blog about how Studio 2021 provides a new way of working for the translation industry.
2. Star Wars themed afternoon training sessions
- Episode I - The Deadline Menace
- Episode II - Invasion of the File Formats
- Episode III - Return of the Translator
3. Competition
We ran a competition on social media at each event, encouraging attendees to send us their favorite film title renamed with translation-related words! We were inundated with creative, funny and clever entries – isn’t language brilliant?! The competition really brightened our day. All winners won an Amazon voucher, which certainly sparked a bit of healthy competition!
Some of our favorite entries:
- La tarifa prometida → La princesa prometida
- La guerra de las tarifas → La guerra de las galaxias
- The Nightmare before Translation → The Nightmare before Christmas
- CAT in Boots → Puss in Boots
- AristoCATs → Aristocats
- A qualcuno piace Trados → A qualcuno piace caldo
4. Online live chat with expert advisors
Parallel to the live event, we opened chatrooms for you to ask the SDL product experts questions throughout the day. Whether you had specific technical issues, license queries, general enquiries or questions following one of the event presentations, there were members of our SDL team to solve problems and provide advice throughout the day.
We of course know that lots of questions can arise after an event, particularly when a huge amount of information is delivered in one day!
Why not join our Translation Productivity Community? Simply pick the most appropriate forum and ask your question.
Finally, we would like to say a huge thank you to our talented colleagues on their excellent presentation skills, and also to our wonderful external speakers who took the time from their days to help us run such a successful virtual roadshow series.
Myself and the events team look forward to seeing everyone at another virtual event and hopefully a face-to-face event in the not too distant future!