(Lunch will have to wait).

Remember, late October I sent out an email to the whole team inviting you to fill in your additional language pairs in a Google online form. By this I was trying to evaluate which language combination (others then the existing form and to English ones) I could add to our regular online service. This is what we call in Babylon jargon and in a terrible wrong way: Cross-Translation.

The whole thing turned out to be a catastrophe! The forms we filled out wrongly and I ended up with data I couldn’t use. Still I think that “Cross-Translation” would an important step forward for BHT and for you. So please let’s give it a second try:
1.) Send me emails (please either send it form the email account you use for BHT or clearly state your BHT email account - this is the only way I can connect between you and your translator ID)
2.) Because this is missing in so many of your profiles - let me know your native language.
3.) List all the language combination you work with.
4.) Use this as the subject line of your email: Cross-Translation

So the email I would like to get should simply look like this:

BHT email account: test@test.com
Native language: Japanese
Language combinations:
German to Japanese
French to Japanese
Italian to Japanese

Please - the sooner I get your feedback, the sooner I will be able to finally have your full potential represented in the system.

Thanks,
Ursula (very hungry)

Dear colleagues,

some important issues need my attention right now.
I will post about the new features during the next three hours.

Sorry and please return,
Ursula

Dear team members,

We added new languages to our service: Danish, Korean and Urdu.
Active team members that happen to cover one of these languages may add them to their “Translation Skills”.

Regards,
Ursula

Dear team,
while writing this, the latest email update is still being sent to you.

Please notice the following change concerning your comments on the blog. Each day a huge amount of Spam comments (placed here for gaining links) are added. I therefore changed the settings and your comments will only appear after I approved them. I apologize to everyone on team, in case I deleted a “real” comment by mistake.

Sorry for this inconvenience. I wished we already would have a secure, password protected forum on our site. Until then, this public blog will do the job.

Thanks for your understanding,
Ursula

Hi all,
from the reactions I get I fear that my email wasn’t clear enough.
YES - English IS NOT an option in the online form I sent.
WHY - because this is all about language pairs that are NOT connected to English (e.g. German to French, Spanish to Hungarian).

If you want to update me on additional English related language pairs fell free to send me an email.

With best regards,
Ursula

Dear colleagues,

thank you for stopping by to get the important news.

Those of you who joined us from the very beginning might still remember moving from a subdomain on www.LingoZ.com to the main domain. Now another, certainly more important move is on its way. In these very moments we started transferring the traffic and functionality of LingoZ to our final domain: translator.babylon.com.

This is more than only a very challenging technical step: This is the end of our beta phase and a strong sign of trust from the Babylon management into your abilities. It is a trust you earned by a an outstanding performance during the last months. Congratulation to all of you!

So what are the changes:
• LingoZ as a brand name for our enterprise belongs to the past (I am still busy to adapt the website texts…)
• Our new name is: Babylon Professional Translation Services
• You will find the new name in the emails sent out to you … so don’t feel fooled, it is still the old team.

I kindly ask you to bookmark our new URL: http://translator.babylon.com/
All your personal information, including username and password have been automatically transferred to the new page.
In case you experience any difficulties on the new URL we recommend deleting the cookies in your web browser.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need assistance of any kind. (As always: Ursula [at] Babylon.com )

Accidently these changes are made on the International Translation Day, but I couldn’t have had asked for a better date.
May I use this opportunity to wish you all success in and satisfaction from your profession.

With best regards,
Ursula

Hi all,

first of all thanks again for your kind help and the fantastic feedback.

I received several angry emails from translators, saying how can I dare to ask for a translation without paying for it. Just to make clear: my call for help wasn’t about saving LingoZ some dollars.I am regularly using LingoZ (and paying the translators) for translations of e.g. LingoZ banners and materials. Also many Babylon departments are using LingoZ, paying you just as they would do using other services.

I really like to see us a team. And this specific task/slogan is very important to the team, so I wanted you to have a word in the decision and not only relying one translators’ personal view.

I am sure, looking at your comments, that most of you understood me in the right way. It was fantastic to see the interaction going on. By reading the translations I also learned a lot about how you see LingoZ. And I am very pleased that together we take pride in doing our work professionally.

I hope I will have the golden touch when choosing from your suggestions.

With love,
Ursula

Hi all,

Source and target language of a translation job are specified by our customers. So here it can and does happen that a customer is entering wrong information. Latest example, from last Friday: The customer specified the source language as Dutch, while in fact it was Danish (a language we still do not cover in our service).

Thanks to Peter and Shakhnoza from our Dutch team for pointing this out to us. We eventually would have notice (as every job that doesn’t get translated is investigated by us) but it is extremely helpful to get this additional “alerts” by the team members.

So in general:
If you have to decline a job because the source language doesn’t actually represent the language of the text, please inform us (best would be an email to support [at] lingoz.com).
Thank you in advance!

With best regards,
Ursula

Hi again,

Back from my holidays I am trying to share with you as many issues as possible that are raised in your emails and comments.

Dorothea asked me about the times during the day we expect our translators to be available for LingoZ:
• We would like to see LingoZ as a service that smoothly fits into your work and daily routine.
• LingoZ is a global service and works 24/7, so we are sending out the job offers as soon as the texts are submitted by our customers.
• If jobs enter your Inbox while you are away from your PC or you are busy with a work – that’s fine. We are not “forcing” our team members to pick up a job. But if you are at your PC and happen to be available, please check your Inbox for open jobs.

Just to make clear: This sounds like a very “loose connection”, but we are asking and are relying on your devotion, during times you see yourself available. At the same time do not want to impose ourselves.

All the best,
Ursula

Hi all,

thanks to Walter Landesman I was able to detect a wrong behavior of the hierarchy by which emails / job offers are send out. The bug results in the fact that some translators were automatically skipped. I informed the developers right away and hope that the fix will be done still today.

It is my prior aim to have LingoZ based on a fair system. Everything that is in our ability to do so, will be done. Please note that are elements in the process that are not controlled by us, mainly the time and speed you receive the job offers. This mainly depends on your email server you are using.

Please, despite my truly late answers in many cases, do not stop to inform me about problems, either in the system or to adress me with any personal questions you might have.

With best regards,
Ursula