Patrick joined the Translation Technology team at EVS Translations earlier this year in Germany HQ. He’s one of those newbies for whom a little bit of buzz surrounds their name (hey, have you spoken to Patrick the new tech guy yet?). So, in the spirit of this blog series, which highlights the great work of our teammates across language and technology, a couple of us decided that Patrick was next on the hit list.
The fascinating but rocky road of e-commerce and website localisation
After a quick ‘hello’ and ‘welcome to the team’, I forge ahead with the phone interview asking Patrick about his background before he joined EVS Translations. His response is enlightening as he casually remarks, “E-commerce and web content management orbits”. My eyes start to twitch as they stare at the word ‘orbits’ I’ve just scribbled on my note pad, but he continues: “It’s a small universe of its own. I grew up in this area. At the start, there were no processes for translation when businesses were building e-commerce shops. They started to realise ‘I can also sell across Europe!’, so they needed translations. But there were a lot of misconceptions and there was also a lot of manual work. It’s not such a simple process and I’m proud of the work I did in website localisation management even though it was a rocky road, sometimes. I came into the language services industry and began building processes. I brought together business requirements with IT, looking at language service providers’ processes, server solutions and so on. After some time, I was then involved in software development solutions and also work with WordPress, contributing my experience to the open-source community.”
E-commerce for an international football club
When I ask him if he’s enjoying the different projects at EVS Translations, his response is charged full of positivity: “A few of us in the team recently met with an international football club. We discussed the globalisation of their e-commerce site, which is used for selling merchandise. They needed help understanding workflows. I explained about context material, too, which the translators need to translate product pages. Their SEO also needed review. Besides that area of things, I’m also working with Mohamed and other teammates on our Neural MT development strategy, as well concept work for business processes”.
We’re all working inside a video game
“So, do you get away from all the tech and IT in your free time?” I ask, sensing that I’m scratching the surface of everything that is bubbling away inside Patrick’s head.
“I love video games. I’m at an age where I witnessed the coming-of-age of virtual narratives. The Last of Us is an example of a great narrative. There are zombies, yes. But it’s about the narrative and the characters. Video games provide exciting stories and deep experiences. The truth is this: books, movies and novels – all these contemplative cultural artifacts – are the widely accepted mediums to digest stories through; but this is also true of video games, which deliver narratives to the player”. I’m writing this down as fast as I can while we speak, caught by his confident assertion of this ‘truth’. “Apart from that, I love punk rock and going to live gigs at small venues. You can feel the connection between the bands and the audience. That’s not possible right now, but I’m looking forward to it again soon”. (Maybe Patrick should go out for a gig with Jochen.)
As we draw the conversation to an end and I wish him well in all his tasks he adds, thoughtfully, “The work I’m doing at EVS Translations is fuelling me professionally. I enjoy understanding a business and building a narrative around it. I guess, in that way, work can also be like a video game. We’re building in the tech, working together. One happy family”.
Game on, Patrick.
Patrick was interviewed by Lucy from our marketing team for the blog.
For advice and consultation on your business’ upcoming e-commerce or website localisation project, contact our team today.
They will ensure translation workflows are designed to meet you team’s specific objectives and timeframes, ready for a successful launch.
EVS Translations UK
+44 (0)115 964 4288
salesuk@evs-translations.com
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+1 404-523-5560
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