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We completed the first 2 months of testing with our Translation Quality Score (TQS) and have enough data about our findings, what we achieved and why it is important for our platform. Time to share with our colleagues...

MotaWord CRM is the ultimate tool in your sales arsenal. You can learn what Leads - Contacts - Accounts and Opportunities are by reading this short article.

As previously mentioned, MotaWord has successfully transitioned into the Single Proofreader Model (SPM).

But what exactly is this Single Proofreader Model?

This week we invited translators to our office to mingle over refreshments and talk more about developments in both the translation industry and MotaWord.

Given our industry, the conversation ultimately turned to questions from these translators about more of the details on how MotaWord works (as you can see in the photo above, our Lead Russian Translator Dmitrii was the life of the party).

The fact that translators had questions about MotaWord is not surprising, given some of the mantras that are on the walls in our office.

Unbeknownst to many, MotaWord is in its 10th month of existence. During that time we have provided over 4 million words of translation, over 600 thousand words of post-editing and a few manual projects - all of this in over 40 languages.

We have learned a lot from this experience.

We started MotaWord with the vision of providing a collaborative platform that would give translators with down time between their regular translation work the opportunity to participate in projects as much or as little as they like, without the hassles of deadlines, invoicing, or word counts.

Our ultimate aim is the same - provide our vetted and trusted translators with a constant stream of jobs that they can always count on.

Our unique platform allows multiple translators to simultaneously work on projects, which brings us speed and, if our translators are well versed in our platform and understand our best practices, good quality. Our array of tools (namely, the concordance search, term lists and comment tool) all assure that.

Add to that our new Translator Quality Score (TQS) that we are continually working on, and it is little wonder why we are getting even better.

But the last piece of the puzzle is a simple one: assigning a single proofreader to any project and allowing them to take their time with making sure that all is going according to plan.

The advantages of working on MotaWord that we most frequently love to boast and reiterate are the ones that fight the most common frustrations that linguists in this industry face:

• You don’t have to email us a document with your translations

• You don’t have to worry about project deadlines

• You don’t have to do dreary word counts

• You don’t have to send us any invoices

But did you know that there is one other added benefit that you may have not realized by now? We realize that the immediate advantages of being a MotaWord translator may have led to this added benefit slipping under the radar.

What we’re talking about is that by participating in certain MotaWord projects, you will have the opportunity to be included in specializations that are unfamiliar to you.

Things are brewing at MotaWord’s state of the art research and development laboratory (it is Halloween, after all, so something is bound to be brewing).

Our development team has been hard at work making some useful adjustments for your Translator Dashboard.

Last Wednesday here in New York City was quite rainy. The kind of rain that can put a damper on your mood, especially with the change of seasons.

But luckily, MotaWord’s October Translator’s Happy Hour was there to save the day! We had a fantastic time when we met up with talented translators from the New York City area at Midtown Manhattan’s Galway Pub for some drinks and great conversation.

One translator in attendance remarked, “I've been wondering how to meet translators in the area and you seem to be the answer to my prayers.”

What do you take pride in as a translator?

Is it your astuteness in filling out invoices? Your precision in tedious word counts? Being able to deal with always shrinking deadlines?

Probably not. We are certain that as a translator, what you are proud of is that very thing that you do best: being able to provide the best possible translation from one language into another - taking your time and making sure that it is perfect. It is your talent for understanding a language, the meaning of a communication and all the cultural nuances that make you better than machines (because let’s face it, machines do love tedious work and are much faster at gibberish than humans).

Halloween is around the corner. And nothing drives this message home more than everyone’s favorite monster.

Even with his ability to love and be kind, do you know why people were frightened by the monster in Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein?

Many argue that what made the monster's appearance so frightening was from being a  patchwork of a number of old body parts.

Now, you may think that multiple translators working on a document simultaneously would result in another one of Dr. Frankenstein’s creations. But on the contrary: the “Translator’s Workspace” (akin to Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory) has the tools to help you create a beautiful and consistent translation.

Imagine that you are in the year 1980 and decide to take a quick nap. But somehow, your nap ends up lasting over thirty years. 

If you were to look at a translator in 2014 finishing up another one of his or her projects, you might notice that not much has changed at all: manually doing word counts, filling out invoices, and worrying about deadlines and scrambling to find where they saved their translated document.

Add to that all the issues that can arise due to translation agencies still working manually, not being able to provide clients with a transparent workflow, not having an automatic way of paying translators and often paying them late.

Considering the pace that technology has penetrated the translation industry, translators might as well still be using a feather pen and inkwell to do their work!

But they shouldn’t, and they don’t have to. That’s because MotaWord is this industry’s long overdue wake up call.

When you log onto MotaWord’s homepage, the first thing that you might notice is its clean, seamless layout with the serenity of a zen garden (okay, we may be tooting our own horn here). But like any garden, people are needed to tend to its care. MotaWord’s team works tirelessly to ensure that the platform runs smoothly for its translators.

When talking about a human translation platform, the translators are just part of the story: our team is made of real people striving to work with other real people ready to give their best translations from all over the globe.

We are often asked why MotaWord insists on “human translation”. After all machine translation does exist and human translation is outdated, right?

The best answer we could find is a little poem we would like to share with you:

Last year, legendary Japanese game designer Keiji Inafune (best known as illustrator and co-designer of the Mega Man character) started a new project called Mighty No. 9. Inafune’s project was able to raise over $200,000; an impressive feat. But the English translation of the Mighty No. 9 project, on Kickstarter, ended up raising an astonishing $3,845,170. It was the 3rd most successful Kickstarter project by total funds pledged and over 400% of the original goal.

We know that MotaWord is the fastest human translation platform. We emphasize MotaWord’s human component - as the dedicated work of our translator community is what makes our vision for collaborative translation possible.""