It is difficult to summarize an event with over 20 sessions and a tribute

By Arancha Caballero, Founder and Managing Director of Nuadda

Last week I traveled to beautiful Vienna not only to enjoy a real Wiener Schnitzel but to to attend Elia´s 22^nd Networking Days. There was a great programme scheduled around the following areas: IT, Business Success Stories, GDPR, Interpreting, Soft Skills and Business Strategies. Having different tracks at the same time means you always miss something interesting but I trust some colleagues will share their experience too. In this event, content always aims at really helping LSP (Language Service Providers) owners or executives in order to be more efficient, learning from others big failure or success stories.

With such a target group, the keynote (fantastic Tom Venning about Leadership in a Digital World) as well as other sessions aimed at making the leader in you (driving us to think of the tangible and intangible skills needed) or your team (like the session by Andrew Hickson) shine.

Other sessions also discussed the benefits of stopping and reorganizing your company.

We saw this in the story shared by Klaus Fleischmann and Anita Wilson. They explained how implementing a formalized organization, in their case with the help of Bob Donaldson, transformed their respective companies, eurocom and Kaleidoscope. The work they did identifying visionaries vs. integrators was key for them. Along these lines was also the session by one of the individuals with greater vision in this industry, Roberto Ganzerli, who shared his 30+ year journey as head of Arancho (full of mistakes according to him, a success story according to many).

Another interesting series of sessions focused on the hidden talents in your teams. After all, we are what our teams can achieve. No more, no less!

Starting with her reflections regarding her work with students, we had some fun with Tetyana Struk recreating how to leverage talent the “millennials” way. Equally interesting was the session by Luiza Szafranska, Resource Specialist at Argos Multilingual, who introduced us to her findings about team expectations vs. reality. She shared the results of a survey run among some of their top providers but the session soon moved our attention towards the profile of PM leaders.

This linked beautifully with the last session of Day 2 carrying some insight from Paul McManus, CEO of XtenSOS. Having spent a long part of his career in big firms, he shared how a structured competence-based management can help LSPs. This approach will also be helpful to avoid making mistakes once and again. I was very glad to see an overview of a really professional consultancy service. He mentioned that moving from a manufacturing company to the translation industry, he soon realized this is a people industry.

And it is indeed as the tribute to François Bajon’s dedication to Elia for the last 7 years proved. Having worked with her during my terms as member of the Board of Directors of Elia, and currently as Chair of Elia´s Together event, I got to know and appreciate her. Françoise’s firm conviction to make Elia a better organization has been an inspiration for me. Its development as a business association where one could grow as a professional and talk among peers has been a major step forward for Elia. Her commitment to the association during busy times in her private life is a great example of someone committed to the industry. Fortunately, we are in the hands of a very capable board and another amazing lady, Clio Schils, as new President.