Last day of LRC X8 lead with a keynote by Jack Shulman of Sony Computer Entertainment entitled “The Global Game”. Jack’s presentation charted the history of Sony Computer Entertainment through references to milestones such as product releases, news stories and key moments of brand recognition. The outline of his presentation was portrayed through the analogy of gaming metaphors.
The power of gaming machines was illustrated to us with various statistics: 350 (PS1) to 30,000 (PS4) polygons per character to give near photo-realism. IBM built a supercomputer from 13,000 cell processors.
In building SCE’s capability Jack used information design principles to efficiently transfer knowledge to consumers. He also referred to their ultra-reliable work ethic. SCE have offices in Cambridge, England, Tokyo and San Francisco.
Other bytes of information I was able to capture were:
- The types of personality gamers adopt: killers, achievers, socialisers, explorers. (Bartle)
- Scientific research shows intrinsically need for experiences of autonomy, relatedness,
- Dynamic Capability – ability to adapt to trends.
Finally we were treated to a viewing of the TEDx talk by Stanford Dan Klein. Accepting offers. Your partner, your mind, the world.
Isabelle Weiss, founder of Alpha CRC was next up. Interesting presentation on the employer/employee viewpoints of the translator role in industry as elicited by short survey of both parties after a graduate being in a job for a short time.
Graduates do not have: routine; awareness of commercial factors; personal productivity assessment; availability (and requirement to use) of tools; quality requirements and roles within employment.
Graduates surprises: speed; output; (alpha have the means to measure translator productivity); quantity (they feel less emphasis on quality); range of tools that have to be learned and used; requirement of adherence to terminology; accuracy and consistency more important than creativity; demand to work out of context; poor quality of source text.
Isabelle emphasised the broad range of related disciplines that translators/linguists can diversify to: native language testing, project management, language lead, etc.
Professor Debbie Folaron of Concordia University responded from the academic perspective. Prior to moving into academia full-time, Debbie had industry experience so she understood Isabelle’s perspective. It came across that Debbie felt restricted in addressing the needs of industry by set curriculums; available teaching time; technology constraints; and budgets. In a world where there a so many open source tools and free online resources it is a shame academics have such challenges.
Bill Rivers of the Joint National Committee for Languages, (supported by Terena Bell of In Every Language) felt that the “signal from industry” is much more fundamental and wide ranging. The industry has a growth rate of 10% and industry is finding it impossible to fill positions. Lots of debate ensued (I cannot touch-type so won’t even try to capture all of it).
GALA gave an open invitation for people to talk to them about industry/academic challenges.