Yes, it was a special and challenging year, like no other.
2020 was facing us with a completely new situation. And we were all in together in this pandemic, we all shared the same fears and doubts, and had to adapt to a very unknown new way of life.
However, if I look back to that year, I find so many good things to be grateful for, that I want to share them with you.
It was a difficult year for so many people and industries, but the language industry did not struggle too much. Many translation agencies and Language Service Providers (LSPs) we were auditing with LICS, the Language Industry Certification System, reported that their business did not suffer, and their revenues were stable or even increasing. I am grateful for this.
I am grateful for an amazing Terminology Summer School – TSS 2020 Online – where more participants than ever joined us, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Japan, to share their knowledge and experience in terminology management with their peers from all over the world.
I am grateful for super committed and engaged TermNet members, such as BME in Hungary with Márta Fischer, the new TermNet President, Hendrik Kockaert from Antwerp and Doha, Christian Galinski, our Godfather of Terminology, or Frieda Steurs, our former TermNet President, who all made TSS 2020 a huge success with an attractive program and excellent speakers and trainers.
I am grateful for a magic Terminology Group Coaching community, who met every first Thursday of the month, to bring terminology issues on the virtual table, to discuss them with their colleagues and with me. Together we found helpful ways how to cope with the daily terminology challenges we are encountering. The spirit and support in this community is extraordinary. Group coaching is so rewarding!
I am grateful for the important new terminology project FedTerm where TermNet has been invited by Tilde in Riga: European Union is funding a new terminology platform with federated terminology nodes where terminologies will be shared with the world. It is wonderful to be part of such an initiative, to be able to contribute and bring terminology professionals and organizations together for a great purpose.
I am grateful for the fruitful cooperation with ECQA, the European Certification and Qualification Association, where we develop so many important new certificates and trainings in fields like software process innovation, terminology, accessibility, and sustainability. Our growing accessibility cluster of new job roles in the Language Industry, such as Live Text Subtitler, Easy-to-Read Validator, Digital Accessibility Professional, etc., is most appreciated and supported by the ECQA Board: I am grateful for the collaboration and friendship with Richard Messnarz, Michael Reiner and Andreas Riel, the driving forces of ECQA.
ECQA gives terminology and accessibility professionals a platform of visibility at the EuroSPI annual conferences, where experts in Software Process Improvement and Innovations meet, and where terminology experts give their keynotes.
I am grateful for all those colleagues who registered for ECQA Certified Online Courses to qualify as ECQA Certified Terminology Managers. They are committed to quality through terminology. Before sitting the written exam, they present their wonderful projects at the oral exams. It is a pleasure to see their progress, and to support them on their way to highly qualified terminology professionals.
I am grateful for pioneers of positive change in our industry, such as Lola Bendana, who invited me to lecture at her 2020 annual conference in December online, with a topic we both are fascinated about: How to flourish in business and in life.
And at a personal level, I am deeply grateful that I could care for my dying father, and guide him through his last night, being with him in the hospital until his gentle terminal breath. Only a few days later, this would have been impossible due to the first Covid-19 lockdown in Austria.