Television in Question Marks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hello again,

I hope you have had a good week. As I said in my last post I’m happy you plan a Google hangout, and I eagerly wait for it to happen. Meanwhile, I have posted these questions in your form. I hope there will be time to answer them. I can understand if you don’t have the time in the hangout (I will not pout about that), but please feel free to answer them in another context.

1. Have you been in touch with professional organizations for interpreters? If you have, could you let us know which ones? I do not want to cross-examine them :-), but I wouldn’t mind seeking their advice.
2. If I were to take a conference interpreting assignment for you, how far in advance could I expect to be confirmed for the assignment? I realize it depends on when you get the assignment, but let’s assume that you get an assignment on April 15 for May 15. Would you immediately give the available interpreters with the right language combination a firm option for May 15? That way they would block that day for you and begin to prepare, but on the other hand you would have to pay them if the assignment got cancelled. If you wait with the confirmation (the assignment may be called off), you risk not having interpreters available, but you would not have to pay the interpreters for an interpreting not done.
3. For conferences: How do you assign booth mates? Ideally in a meeting with many languages you would want to have as many languages as possible covered directly. With your tech solution that would be easy peasy as theoretically you could have as many interpreters as you wish assigned to one booth. But then again, how would you remunerate them in that case? Stand by time, mike time or both? Also, how would the interpreter working in one booth know who else is working there and with which languages?
4. Would it be possible to post a video on what both your booth and the work would look like from the interpreters’ side?
5. Would it be possible for a few of the professional interpreters who have worked for you to either write a blog post about it or make themselves available for questions, (no I will not tear them to pieces)?
6. What happens if you’re in the middle of a conference interpreting and there is a technical interruption? I guess it could be 1) on the customer’s side, 2) on my side (either computer or internet connection) or 3) somewhere in between. Would you have interpreters on stand-by? A techie on site at the customer’s? And how would that affect my assignment both time and money wise?
7. And finally, how do you plan to screen you interpreters? Based on credentials? Customer satisfaction? Peer-evaluation? Combination or something else?

Thanks a lot!