Localization Fireside Chat
Meet OTTIAQ's President Betty Cohen, an inside look at OTTIAQ's interworking
(upbeat music) - Good morning everybody. This is Robin Ayyuk from the Localization Farsight Chat. And welcome to another episode. Today we are recording episode number 74. And I have the honor and distinct privilege to be joined by Betty Cohen. Very interesting individual. I've known and I've worked with Betty for many years, but recently we've been more engaged in terms of seeing each other, talking to each other a little bit more. And so Betty is the current president of Otiak, and we'll get to know what Otiak is in a minute. I can't wait to hear about Betty's localization story. How did it all start for her? - Betty is on what is it, like two, three careers down the road now, like how many careers you've had already. So you've had a few. - Continuing parallel. - Excellent. Well, thank you for joining me Betty this morning. I really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to be on the channel. And the audience and myself. I'm very excited to have you on. And I can't wait to hear more about your history. How did you get into the language industry? And what are you up today? But we'll get through this. First question, first is first, I guess, for us and on the channel. First thing, first question for all the audience or all the guests that came on the channel, tell us your localization story and please introduce yourself to the audience. - Okay, so the name is Betty Cohen, you just said it. How did I get, actually it goes back quite far because I was always interested in languages even when I was in high school. I was in Morocco at the time and I was in the French education system. And the first language we learned was English. And I was very good at it, which I hope I'm still at. - You are, you don't need to ask. - You don't need to ask. - In person. So I liked it a lot. And when people ask me at that time, you know, what do you want to do? I said, I want to be an interpreter. But then say, you know, life happened. And we ended up here in Canada. And actually I was in a CJEP, I don't know. In Quebec, we have colleges, two years before the university, I was there. And that's how it happened when one of my teachers said, you're good at languages. I said, yeah, I like it. I said, you know, translation in Canada is very good in Quebec, maybe if you're interested, do that. That's what I did. So I had my bachelor's, master's degree in translation in Montreal, University of Montreal. And I went on. So that's what happened. And from there, I started, of course, as a salary employee at the Canadian Securities Institute, which made me specialized in finance markets, et cetera. Then an insurance company where I learned insurance. So, you know, I kind of mentioned my specialization or, you know, expanded it. And then I started a career, you know, I went on my own as a freelance. Then I created my little micro company. Then I decided that I wanted to go to France. That's where I had my graduate diploma in science, not science languages, but science, the science of languages, if you want, I would know how to translate that really. And worked at Bong Du France. So that was a big, big thing too. And then came back here. Came back in a small company. And then by the time I became the partner in charge of PWCs, linguistic services, and I ended my working career there. But meanwhile, and that's my localization. It's part of my localization journey, if you want. At the very, very beginning of my career, a friend of mine came and said, you know, I'm responsible of the one committee at the STQ associated editor of the UK Day. Why don't you join? That was in '82, '83, 1983? Not '18, I'm not that old. And since then, I have had a kind of parallel career in associations, et cetera. So I have been president of STQ, which became, under my president of STQ, which became, although it had rejected our main role, we had a particular education back. We will probably talk about it a bit later. And then I was vice president of STQ. Then I became treasurer of the International Federation of Translators, then president. Meanwhile, I've been very active at OTAC until last, you know, doing many things, communications, any committee. I think I've been through all the committees. And then last year, I came back, and well, came back, not came back, came as president of OTAC, because I've not been president of OTAC before. I've been president of STQ before. So that's a point we have to make. And then there you are. So in a few words, this has been my journey. Always interested in what's happening in our profession. I'm trying to keep up to date with everything that's happening, which is quite a journey in itself these days. But there you are. - Absolutely, Betty, for those who don't know, you are located in Quebec, right? And so for those, so now that you've opened the topic on the, and that's the purpose I think for our conversation today, is for people to get to know who OTAC is, get to know you first, but get to know who OTAC is, what is OTAC, what does it do, how does it work, how does it function, what is the responsibilities and obligations, et cetera. So tell the individuals who don't know what OTAC is. If you don't mind describing that association or that author, as we say in Quebec, it's not an association, sorry, forgive me for saying that. But what is it? Can you explain it? - Okay, the OTAC is one of the 46 orders in Quebec. What you have to know is that in Quebec, there's something unique. The way professions are organized in Quebec is very, the only thing is the only way how do I call it? It's unique in the world, actually. The principle of that, it's called system, profession that you give back, so Quebec professional system, and it is ruled by a law called the cut the profession you give back. So all the 46 professional orders are under the same law. - Can you get us some examples of other professions? - Yes, actually, there you have doctors, you have lawyers, you have dentists, and you also have technicians, radiology technicians, for example, nurses. Now, what you have to know is I have two kinds of orders in Quebec. You have orders that, you know, if I'll accept this exclusive, that means exclusive exercise of the profession, meaning these are the lawyers, the doctors, meaning that you cannot be a doctor, or you cannot be a medicine doctor. You cannot be a lawyer, you cannot be a doctor, you cannot be a dentist, for example. If you are not a member of the order, then you have another kind of order where you call chitrores de rave, which means it's a reserved title. That's where we are as translators, interpreters, germinologists, and OTAC is all but they try to do their immuno-log at a high level. So we kind of really, you know, United Street Professions. This means that you cannot call yourself a certified translator, certified interpreter, certified terminologist if you're not a member of the order. If you're not a member, you can still exercise, you could still work. But you cannot call yourself certified. So it's the title that's reserved. Yeah, go ahead, you had a question. - So you mentioned earlier, it's very unique because, you know, one of the things that I've, you know, since I've entered the industry 22 years ago that I heard the struggle around the conversation that was taking place in around all the industry of elevating the translator profession to be equal to other professions. And that's happening, that was happening globally. It seems that Quebec, the province of Quebec have figured out a way to put the profession at a level where you mentioned earlier other professions as well where you have it now in a, by the way, the agency that you mentioned, the department that you mentioned in the province of Quebec, that's a provincial department. That's not an outside department as well. So the, I'd love to, I love the idea of a translator being equal to other professions because, you know, let's face it, they did this same amount of study, may not be equal study, but the same amount of studies, some of them more, some of them they went and enhanced their studies by getting PhDs and a bunch of other things. So they have intellectually have upgraded their skills to that level. And they deserve that kind of status, obviously. And as you mentioned earlier, that doesn't preclude, that doesn't, you know, take away the rights for some other people they want to do translation, they can do translation. But if you want to be called certified, you have to be part of the order. That's what I'm hearing. - Exactly. Just to put, you know, to be more precise, the same exists in Canada in British Columbia, New Brunswick and Ontario. These three provinces also have laws recognizing the translators as professionals. But the system is not the same. Quebec system is, again, is very unique. And the reason, well, the reason why is because we, I was there at the time also. We convinced the government that a bad translation could be a risk and could cause prejudice to the user, to the public, because the whole system in Quebec turned around protecting the public. This is the first mission of an order in the order in Quebec, this protection of the public. And everything, you know, comes from that. - Now, when you say protect the public and I'm assuming, this is regarding a critical type of work that they're gonna be doing. And what was the aim there? What are we aiming at by saying, protecting the public? Is it, you know, pharmaceutical related? Is it, I don't know, user manual about something? - Anything. - Anything, right? - Anything. It can touch anything, because when you say prejudice, you know, we think immediately about physical prejudice, of course. But this covers more, you know, the span is larger because it's physical, it's mental, financial, it's reputational. So when you think about this and think about what we translate every day, unless it's, you know, the memo that has a lifespan of 10 minutes, just, you know, to translate a speech, either the CEO speech or whatever. It can be, a bad translation can be very, very damageable. - That's right, that's right. - Yeah, give us an idea. If you don't mind betting on the membership structure at OTAC right now, how many members do you have? Are they, you know, how many members are you attracting every year? Is there like a big push for membership? Is there no, like, how does the membership work? - We are actually working very hard. On that, because we, Quebec has 22,850 members, something like that. I didn't check the last numbers. But when we look at this, the numbers, statistics Canada numbers, we only have maybe one third of the translators in Quebec. According to the statistics, there are around 8,000 translators in Quebec. We only have maybe a third of it. And it's, you know, we really would like to have more. So we still have the same problems as any translators associations. We have to convince people to come to us. But because being in order entails more, I would say a bit of rigidity or more rules to follow, some people hesitate to come. But what they forget is that being a member is a signature, being a member is a sign that you're serious about the permission, that you are there for your clients, and that you do everything you have to do to maintain your competencies, to follow code of ethics. And you are inspected also, because this is what people forget, contrary to an association, where you are admitted, and then nobody looks at your work anymore, as long as you pay your dues in Quebec, when you are a member of an order. - Yep. - You can be called anytime by somebody from the order and inspector saying, hey, this year, we are going to come to you to see you and look at how you work, what you have, et cetera. It's not a pass or don't pass thing, it's more to advise the member saying, hey, maybe you should go get more competencies in such and such domain, or such and such part of your work, et cetera. So it's more about advising them the members and helping them get their competencies up to date. So, but this is what's unique. - Okay. - No. - There are so many questions in my mind about the, what you just said. So one question is, can somebody from outside the province of Quebec become a member of the order? - Yes. - They don't need to be a resident of Quebec, but they can apply and become a member outside the order, outside the promise, right? - Yeah. - The second question is, and you alluded to it earlier, the part around continuous education. How do you manage that? - Okay, it's not mandatory. I like to say it yet. Because again, you know, it's very easy for orders who have exclusive exercise, you know, you don't have a choice, you have to be a member to impose continuing education. - Okay. - When you are a reserve title, you still have to be, you know, to have some attraction. So, you know, the more mandatory things you have, less you're attractive, right? - Yeah. - So, but what we do is that we have quite a program. We had around, we offer around 40 to 50 trainings in all subjects during the year. And our members, it works quite well. Our members come to those trainings. And actually, those trainings are open to non-members too. - Okay. - So, there's a page on the Otak's website. It's called, "Promise Show." - And they can take the training online, Betty, or in class. - It's always online. - It's always online. - Always online. - Switching you a little bit, speaking of education, what is the relationship between Otak and academia in Canada or in the province of Quebec? - Yeah, we have a good relationship because, you know, just a few months, a few weeks ago, I had a meeting with, I said, you know, the Canadian Association, how do you call it English? Canadian Association of Transition School, it's CATS. - Okay. - And usually, they invite us to their general meeting, annual general meeting to speak about, you know, the trainings and all, you know, the, okay, I'm losing my English here (laughs) programs, the University programs. Then so, part of, part of, under the law in Quebec, any order has to have a committee that maintains relationships with the universities to recognize the program. To, what we say about recognizing the program is that, to be a member of Otak, one of the, you know, the main stream is University diplomas. - Okay. - But for the university diploma to be recognized by Otak, it has to respond to a few criterias, which are based on, of course, the main programs that we have, you know, we're not gonna in the world, the world. And so, once the program is recognized by Otak, then any young graduate from this university can be a member of Otak with a certain other conditions, which doesn't mean you cannot be a member of Otak if you don't have a diploma. We also have this path. - Do you have levels for them, Petty? Do you have levels like in terms of how much they pay per year, do you have levels for them, or are they, everybody pays the same? - No, the first three years when you're young graduate, well, I shouldn't be CEO because some people go there, because you know, but a new graduate, I shouldn't. (laughing) Anyway, when you get out of university and you become a member of Otak, there's a, you know, the first two years you pay only 50, 50%, if I remember where, or it's at 25 and 50 and then 75 and then four. - Okay. - I don't have the numbers in mind, but there is a-- - You got the beginning of their career. - Yeah, to help, of course. - Yes, for sure. - The second question is, obviously these individuals that there are part of your order, or members of your order, they end up being either working on their own, but most likely they're gonna end up being employed by somebody else. What is the relationship, if you don't mind speaking to that, between the Otak as an order, and the industries who are language service providers who are not necessarily just language service writer, but they could be an internal department in another enterprise as well. - Will you build those relationships? Is there an activity to build the relationships? Are you on a good contact with them? I'm sure you are, but how do you view this? - We do have contacts, and we try to maintain them. Of course, usually the president of Otak maintains contacts. Now with, we try to be at each other's events, we try to speak at each other's events. I for one is really, really for that. I am really for that. I'm trying to my discourse. What I'm saying is that we are on the same profession, we're on the same basket. Let's work together. - Yeah. - You know, we're still, even if we have this order in Quebec, we still have the same problems as associations. We say, you know, we're not, this is a nice thing, but it's not done yet. - No. - We're not there yet, you know? It's not like, when you say you're a translator in Quebec, people don't look at you as like, wow, wow, no, no, no. We all say, it's the same thing. - Yeah. - You know, as I say, we are, as water in the tap, electricity in the wires, people say, hey, when we stop. - That's right. - Otherwise, we're invisible. - Yeah. - We have to work together to make, to do this. - We do work together. I mean, one of the initiatives that we work together on is that CGSB standard, when we all got together and tried to figure out, you know, what is the best quality standard for Canada, and how can we put it together? Industry, government, the order, and few other associations, we're involved in that. And we're going through a renewal right now. But, and it's, you know, it's one of those initiatives that together collectively, industry, the order, the associations and the government and the customers are getting together saying, how can we do this better? - Not just, you know, I know today you're, we're presenting Aotyak, which has a very, very unique, I think you guys are unique in the world. I don't think there's other entities somewhere else where they try to be in that profession to be recognized. It's very unique in that space. And you also mentioned two or three other provinces in Canada, Quebec have put a law around that, which is very interesting, and that whole safety for the public, it's very, very interesting as well, to be recognized, which is absolutely true. Now, one of the, one of the items that we talked about is, you are in a very unique position, being the order, et cetera, to advocate with, with the government, to work with the government. So I'm assuming there is regular contact between Aotyak, the president of Aotyak and the government, you guys meet together often, is there like channels or how does that work? - There is a channel. No, actually we don't have access, direct access to the government. Actually, in Quebec there's a minister responsible for the professions, but we are, we are ruled or managed if you want by a government body called the (speaks in foreign language) - Yes, I don't know. - This body controls what we do. And if we have a new rule, a new policy, et cetera, that's one of the place, it has to be approved by the (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) Now, in this in the professional system, you have the minister, you have (speaks in foreign language) who is the kind of the police for the orders. And then, according to that, you have (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - Okay. (speaks in foreign language) - Who is the other body who, kind of of unite if you want all the 46 orders are in say Q and say Q talks to (speaks in foreign language) So it's like we talk about common issues at the (speaks in foreign language) and these common issues go to the government. Now, if one order is us and we try that it's not easy because what we try to do in Quebec and we haven't succeeded yet is to tell the government, listen, you gave us a title, that's fine. But if you don't, what we are trying to do if you don't reserve some professional acts to us, the title is not really efficient. What we wanted, what we said is like a lawyer, a lawyer has, you know, has standard, has, you know, a contract issued by a lawyer obeys so many-- - Can not be issued by a third party. - Exactly. And there are requirements for that. And my message to the government, and I've been hammering that for years, but still not succeeded, unfortunately. - And on top of that, I mean, this is one issue we're dealing with, and we'll talk about it here in a second, but, you know, try to reserve the translation to the translators. I think, if I get you right, I think this is where you're going with that. And now you put on top of that is, okay, so this is one direction, but the other direction is the world is going, is with, you know, and I had a couple other questions, like about Bill 96, like must have had a positive impact on the, on the translation in general, right? Wanted to also ask, you know, what is your opinion on Bill 96 and the impact in Quebec? Have you guys seen any impact or no? - Yes, we have, but just to finish off what I was saying about my discourse to the government, I just want to go to the end of that. It's just what I'm saying to the government is that if the lawyer has to obey so many, you know, have to respect so many requirements when they write their documents, how come as soon as the document is translated, it's not ruled by anything. So the logic would be to, you know, if the contract is regulated, then the translation of the contract should also be regulated. That's my thing. So I just wanted to-- - Yes, yes, yes, you're arguing on that one and, you know, it makes sense. To be honest with you, it does make sense. Now, how, you know, with all this precision around, you know, who's got the authority to deem this translation is official? And I think that's where you're going with this. - Exactly. What we would like to say is that this translation is official if it's a, if it has been at least reviewed, of course, not translated, maybe, but reviewed by a certified translator. - Yes, right. - That's what we're trying to do, but it hasn't worked yet. I mean, I hope it will one day. But for now, we're not there yet. - So I want to ask you about Bill 96 a little bit, and I want to check with you to see, does OTA have any connection with OQLF? - Yeah, but there are polite connections. I mean, we have connections, but not really. I mean, we talk to each other and sometimes, you know, this winter, (speaking in foreign language) but there's organized a conference, a one day conference at the University of Montreal about French and sciences, you know, how all the research is published in English and how AI could facilitate, you know, the publications in French. - Mm-hmm. - And so we were invited to speak at that conference and we kind of, a bit, they were a bit disappointed because they thought that it would be like, the panacea, I said, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, and I think, you know, they understood that, you know, yes, AI can help and AI can be very, very, very useful, but it still has to be reviewed revised by a professional. - Excellent, which brings me to the Laudevoir, the article that was published and I sent you a copy on LinkedIn, I guess, I put it there. Mr. Archibald sent it to me and I said, oh, wow, this is intriguing and I had to publish it. So I wanted to ask you about this one because you were quoted in the article. - I wrote the article, I'm not quoted, I wrote it. - Yeah, yes, yes, you wrote it, you wrote the whole thing. So what triggered that? What was the, what was the genesis? That, no, it's because, you know, we do kind of press review every morning at OTAC to be able to react when something, you know, when we can react on a few, so, you know, issues. And at that point, there was this judge, I don't remember the name, Judge Wagner, Wagner? - Okay. - Said, well, he was talking to Mila here, I say here because it's right there, close to where I am. But anyway, he talked to the lawyer's order in Quebec about the French, about, the whole thing is about translating the judgments of the Supreme Court and, you know, before 1970. There's a whole issue around it because in Quebec, they say they should be translated all of them because it's in the law. - Yeah. - And, but the judge says, there are too many of them, it's gonna cost too much 'cause it takes too long, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he started, you know, everybody's talking about translation of those, but nobody came to us. So I said, hey, we are the experts here. - Yeah. - Where do we talk? - Yeah. - So that's all, that's what, and I explained that, you know, by the way, AI, we know, we've been working with it since now, 2017, you know, chat TPT is not new to us. - Come on. - Yeah. - And it's what I asked you earlier because that's what, that's very interesting. I asked you earlier, like, if you have connection with the government, because this article tells me, you know, government, obviously, all governments is the same, they work in silos. And so I'm assuming this particular one probably did not know about, you know, the order, or I don't know, is there like a miss there somewhere? - Well, no, no, it was probably he didn't know. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's a judge of the Supreme Court of the federal government, doesn't he know about the transition bureau? - Yeah, that's right. - You know, it was a bit like, hey, I was quite low. - So speaking of AI, I mean, you've alluded to it a couple of times, we know TPT's been around, AI's been around, et cetera. - Yeah. - So how does this impact what you do? Like, you're trying to attract people to a profession that is, if I understand correctly, it is mandated or there's a conformity around it in government. There's a law around it. There's a profession recognized by government. How is that impacting that whole technology migration? AI, how is that impacting your business? - I do order not much. I mean, it's all about, you know, our members business. So you know about it, but how is that impacted? The thing is that since I've been president, you know, I've been elected since last September. It's gonna be like nine months now. The first thing I did, it's because the strategic plan, OTAX strategic plan was ending. So I had to renew and put in place a new strategic plan. And the first objective of the strategic plan now is to make people know, it's to, and that's why we are, we're trying to be in the media as an everything. That's the main thing. The first thing is to, if we want to protect the public, again, it's our main mission. If we want to protect the public, we have to make the public know that AI is not a panacea, AI doesn't work, you know, it can work for small things. But if your translation, you know, if the translation is an important document, et cetera, it has to go through a professional translator. And that's our main point. And the main, you know, the main argument, to maybe argue more in French argument in English. But anyway, the first point we make. - Sure. - So that's one branch of my, of my, one of the accesses of our strategic plan. The second one is preparing the members to respond to the market. So in that way, we are preparing some, again, education, conferences, information on tools, et cetera, et cetera. So we're working on things like that. And I spent the last nine months preparing all this. And I hope that by September, we will try, you know, starting to see things happening. But it's a slow process, of course. But this is, this is how, as an order, we respond to the AI progress center. - Yeah, absolutely. And so in, in saying that, are you from an economic point of view, like, what is your view? What's the autograph view on the business in Canada, on the language industry in Canada, from an economic point of view? Knowing what we know now, knowing that we have technology that is advancing rapidly, knowing that customers probably are using them already, not going to a professional translator. They're not telling anybody about it, but everybody's got a browser nowadays, everybody's got an app on their phone. And they're doing it anyway. Are they supposed to be doing it? The answer probably no. But it's easy, it's convenient, nobody's gonna find out, and I'll just translate. Where is the translation business is going, in your opinion? Have you guys, have you guys done any of this thinking? - No, because unfortunately, we're not that rich. - It's about thinking, like, have you thought of it? - Yes, sorry. - It's okay. - Thinking, thinking yes, of course, we do, and we, you know, we discuss that and at some conferences also. What we are, what I've been saying is, of course, this is not a scientific thing, but some of our members, they're freelancers or transition companies, I've heard them tell me, well, in '23, the business went down, and now it's picking up again. And I hear some colleagues telling me, you know, this client, he says, you know, called me one day saying, oh, no, no, no, we don't need you anymore, we're gonna use AI, and they came back like three, two months later. So I think that this chat GPT, or whatever it might call it, another, you know, generally AI thing, what I'm saying is that clients reacting as, you know, when I was myself working, and sometimes once in a while I would have a client saying, oh, I found somebody cheaper than you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bye, I said, okay, bye. You know, a few months later, they would come back, could you take us back? And your quality was better. So it's kind of the same, to me, it's kind of the same process. That said, I don't think that AI will have an impact, but it will have an impact more on our processes. And of course we will lose part of the market. You know, as we say, the transition of the invitation to the Christmas party will not go through us anymore, which might be welcome actually. - You didn't want that anyway, did you? - It was interesting, but I think that if we do our job, and this is part of those checks, again, communication program now, communication plan, is to maybe the companies understand that, hey, AI, yes, it's good. But why don't you let us use it for you because we know it better than you as far as translation is concerned. You know, give the word to the specialist. So I don't think we will lose a market. Our market is gonna change, but the specialized, very specialized market, we will, I think we will keep it. - Yep. - We will still, unless somebody, something happens, you know, huge, huge change in technology happens. And as I always say at that time, if the machine becomes as intelligent as that, we'll have other problems than translation. - Yeah, indeed. From what I'm hearing you is, and that's pretty much consistent with what I'm hearing everywhere. AI and technologies are good and, you know, you can't stop the investment technology, it's impossible. But it is, use it with caution. That's what I'm hearing from you. Use it in a supervised manner. That's also, I heard that from you as well, meaning that when you're using technology, make sure you're using a certified translator or translator to make sure that they are, you know, governing the way technology is being used and to produce the proper outcome that everybody wants and everybody desires. So you definitely, you know, especially for those, you know, in Canada, we take it for granted because most people are, you know, bilingual or somewhat can understand the other side, the other language. But let's say we're dealing with unilingual individuals and they're using technologies and they're doing the translation and they have no idea what's the outcome is. Yeah, it's French, it looks French, but that's all, that's all they know. So, and they're taking it for granted that this translation is accurate. Oh, guess what, I've done it. Here's a chat GPT. Well, let me, let me break it to you. And we have to be careful when we say in Canada, we know, we know some French, we know some English, you know. In my experience, as soon as I cross the Quebec, Ontario, Frontier, it's exchanged. Not the French anymore. And even Quebec, you know, because other, yes, around Montreal, a lot of people are bilingual. In Montreal, Montreal, of course. Montreal is, you know, a very poly, poly ethnic city. But if you get out of there, you know, if you go in, you know, in other parts of the province, people stay French and they don't know word of English. Yeah, that's right. And you know what, I've seen that. And, you know, similar to any other part of the country, we might think that Canada is a bilingual country, but in pockets, not everywhere. Yeah. And you're right, like I go some places, like in northern Quebec, gas, busy, or these places, not a word of English up there. No, no, it's not. And they don't understand English. They don't understand English at all. No. All of them, you know, I've been, and I was quite amazed myself the first time I went. I said, come on, you live in an English ocean. That's right. No. No, that's right. And you know, there's, I mean, that's communities. And that's how people grew up. That's how the people living. And you can't blame them for that. And that's what they are. So it's not a big deal. I mean, in Italy, people speak Italian, right? True. I mean, hey, similarly in, you know, England, and a few other places, right? So it doesn't matter. Or, you know, I was speaking to a transition company on the previous podcast from Dubai, for instance. Their specialization is Arabic translation. It doesn't mean any, anything against the other languages, but that's their specialization. That's what they're working in. Yeah, as translators, we are the link between cultures and languages. This is how, this is our job. So we are the links. So we have to be open and we have to admit that there's a language here and language there. And it's a good thing for us. I mean, otherwise, we'd be out of business, right? That's right. This is a business that we're in. We're connecting people together. That's what's, do you have a conference coming up? I know Otia, Otia has conferences, I think. Yeah, Otia has an annual conference. And the next one is going to be on November 8. It's going to be announced very soon. On November 8. Yeah, and on my other job, somebody asked me and I told them, yes, we'll be attending. So about the conference. It's going to be about the value added of the profession. Yeah. What is that in November, you said? Yeah, November 8. That's one day. So for the audience, that's the Otia conference happening in Montreal, I'm assuming, right? Or Montreal, right? Yes. On November 8. And I will, by the time I publish this podcast, I will put the information, the links in the description for individuals who are interested in finding out what this is about and perhaps participating as an attendee or as an exhibitor. Betty and her team will be happy to help you out and reach out to them. And with that, I want to bring the conversation-- before I bring the conversation to an end, I want to ask Betty, any last comments you might have for this conversation today? How did it feel? I think this-- you've done podcasts before, right? Not really, but I'm used to teach online and I'm used to have a lot of-- So what do you think of this podcast? How do you feel? I feel quite comfortable talking to you. And I know you, so it's not really-- it's not really very difficult. No, I think it's nice. And I think it's a good thing that we spread the word. Correct. Continue talking. And when you continue talking, spread the word, because when you have podcasts like the and, again, in these times of technologies and AI, just to make them understand that you trust an engineer with their own technological tool. You don't use them instead of them. That's right. We are on the same page. We are professionals. We know the tools. We know how to use them at best in your best interest. Absolutely. And you know what? We used to use it quite a bit. We used to use it quite a bit. We used to say, I used to tell people, look, God forbid, somebody needs to go to court. You don't go and pick the cheapest lawyer to go to court. You've got to go pick somebody who's good and who can get you out of the trouble that you're in. And similarly in translation, the cheapest not always the best. But now, with AI and other technology, we can introduce mixtures of things. You can have all these technologies becoming as a calculator to an accountant, really. It's helping us do more with less. It's helping us produce what we need to produce. But at the same time, these technologies needs to be governed. Needs to be human in the loop. And preferably that human in the loop needs to be certified or needs to know what they're talking about. Needs to be educated about the topic that they're involved in. Not because you know the language in a lot of cases. That's what I keep telling the audience. Not because you know the language that makes you a translator. No, not at all. And I'm going to quote my predecessor, Donate Ba'amabihu, who says, you know, we all learn the languages and we all know how to count. You know, knowing how to count doesn't make you an accountant. Knowing two languages does not-- Does not make you a translator. --make you a translator. And having two hands does not make you a piano player. I'll know this one. Excellent. Great. I want to thank you Betty for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And I wish you come back again for another interesting conversation. Maybe we'll have you on a panel. I do have these panels once in a while on the call here. And I really appreciate your time today. It's good to see you, Ferris. First, good to talk to you with you. And for the audience, I really appreciate if you can share, like, the comment. Thank you for listening in on our podcast. And if you comment on YouTube, thank you for watching. This episode will be launched next week. That's July 8, or July 9, will be online. And I hope everybody will reach out to Betty. Get to know, hopefully, today we'll educate you a little bit on what the Otyak is and the order. In Quebec, the order of the translators in Quebec. And hopefully, by today's conversation, we've shed some light on several topics. Obviously, we scratched the surface. We did not really go deep into the topic. That's the topic for a different hour. And for everybody, thank you so much for joining me on the recording of episode 74 for the Localization Fireside Chat. This is Robin Ayub and Betty Cohen signing off. Thank you so much. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (instrumental music) (gentle music)