The abrupt transition to online meetings in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to provide simultaneous interpretation support remotely, has given rise to much discussion regarding how interpreters’ services are retained for virtual meetings.
One particular project — KUDO Marketplace — has garnered a lot of attention recently in social media, with a lot of people talking past one another.
In today’s fast-paced environment, it can be hard to cut through the noise and the chatter to separate opinion from fact. So, why not go to the source and get it straight from the horse’s mouth?
In this candid, unedited interview, Lourdes and I tackle many of the concerns that interpreters have expressed during this time of unprecedented change about distance interpreting and KUDO Marketplace. I also share the reasons why I joined the KUDO team.
We hope this will add a fresh perspective to the overall discussion regarding the paradigmatic changes our profession is living through.
Barry Slaughter Olsen.
More information on KUDO Marketplace:
· 10 Questions About KUDO Marketplace
· KUDO Information Site for Interpreters
11
Barry raises some important and topical questions that all professionals should be asking.
I have a question. You draw a distinction between PRO interpreters and those who are Kudo-certified. I understand that you vet the PROs but remain concerned that the certified interpreters, who by your own admission are only qualified in operating the system, could use your certification to launch themselves as interpreters, particularly on unsuspecting clients who will not understand the distinction. Lourdes says her mother could get certified, despite being clueless about interpreting. This is a worrying weak point in your system, in fact it was an early mistake by Kudo to use the term "certified" at all. Fairly or unfairly, professional interpreters saw it as misleading.
Hello, Phil. Thanks for the question and for the subtitles!
Some clarification is in order. While many people can take the self-study course about how to use our SaaS platform, the KUDO badge is open ONLY to Conference Interpreters, and all applicants who want to get the “KUDO certified” badge must check a box to indicate that they are conference interpreters. Granted, this is based on self-reporting by the interpreter. So, what we do is tell our clients who are hiring interpreters who do not also have the second KUDO Pro badge — or who are working with interpreters they don’t totally know — to do their own due diligence and check their credentials. Just as they should be doing when hiring interpreters off-line who could possibly exaggerate their claims to appear more experienced than they actually are.
All that said, at the end of the day, quality will be determined by how successful the experience is for both clients and interpreters. Successful engagements will lead to repeat business. Anything less than that will likely sift out the chaff as the market adjusts.
Finally, as I referred to in the interview, we are witnessing the coming together of two different worlds (SaaS and interpreting) that understand the term “certification” very differently. Both are convinced they are right in their use of the term. Time will tell if we made the right choice in terminology for this new market reality, but I can say without hesitation that we did not set out to mislead anyone.
The KUDO Marketplace is an interesting initiative, one could say, almost waiting to happen in this COVID-19 emergency and it is certainly a pleasant surprise to see experienced and knowledgeable interpreters involved in it.
However, I think there are good reasons for conference interpreters (even retired ones such as yours truly) to remain sceptical. These go beyond concerns that were already recognized (even if not adequately addressed) before COVID-19: such as the expected loss of quality under RSI conditions but also the (documented) negative impact on interpreter health of working in remote even under perfect technical conditions (not very likely to obtain in multiple-endpoint RSI).
To begin with, one has to consider the implications of a business model focusing on short, scheduled just-in-time multilingual RSI meetings. There is no question that if this currently under-occupied market niche is properly colonized it could provide interpreters with more work opportunities, potentially more income and more freedom. But this presupposes a healthy, self-regulating market (unlike what we have all witnessed in the financial sector). What will happen when more conscientious interpreters refuse an assignment because of inadequate technical conditions or insufficient time and documentation for preparation only to see this assignment snapped up by those with nothing to lose? Won’t this be an example of Gresham’s law where bad interpreters drive out good ones? And will those who refuse assignments risk being further penalized in the future through the Marketplace interpreter selection algorithm ?
KudoPRO certification is another potentially problematic domain. As an example, accrediting interpreters for the EU institutions involves both the careful verification of the candidates’ documental claims and their testing for general interpreting competence in each of the candidate’s working languages. Not everyone succeeds; out of recent graduates, even of universities considered reputable (which graduates would only need minimal experience to automatically accede to KudoPRO status), only a small minority make it the first time around. All in all, this is a difficult and time-consuming exercise resting on the judgment of experienced interpreters (a lot of them, in order to cover 500-odd language combinations). Without a significant outlay of time (and thus, money) and a similar, large initial pool of verifiably experienced interpreters, who in the case of Kudo would probably need to cover even more languages than the EU’s and furthermore span a large spectrum of subject expertise, how could the annual review of KudoPRO certification be meaningful?
Thanks for the hospitality,
Panayotis Mouzourakis (former EP staff)
Hello Panayotis,
Thank you for taking the time to view the video and for your thoughtful questions. I don’t purport to have all the answers but will try to address your concerns and share my point of view.
From the outset, I think it is highly unlikely that complex and intricate meetings of the sort organized by the European Parliament will ever be scheduled on a tool such as KUDO Marketplace, much less on short notice. So, it’s important to compare apples to apples inasmuch as this is possible.
As you note, it is important to consider the implications of a business model focusing on short, scheduled, just-in-time RSI meetings. You hint at potential negative implications of such a model (loss of quality and interpreter health), but there are many positive implications to this model as well, which many interpreters are enjoying today as they are adapting to the new ways of conducting multilingual business being adopted by governments, international organizations, private-sector companies, and many organizations the world over. Similarly, these should not be overlooked as we assess the pros and cons of any service provision model.
At the end of the day, quality will continue to drive market choices for all, and the elusive definition of “quality” in interpreting will continue to be the subject of many academic papers for years to come. But letting a meeting go uninterpreted because an individual interpreter’s conditions could not be met can (and we would argue WILL) be construed by most clients as a complete absence of quality and a detriment to both the interpreting profession and market.
At KUDO, we are also concerned about interpreters’ health and wellbeing. We were the first, and so far, only, company to develop an interpreter console that provides appropriate hearing protection for interpreters working online. The audio environment in a conference room equipped for simultaneous interpretation is vastly different from the audio environment in online settings. And applying the standards of one to the other is, again, like comparing apples to oranges, and not constructive.
Invoking Gresham’s law in connection to interpreters is also debatable. In your example, this law would imply that the interpreters who eventually accept the assignment passed on by another are necessarily bad interpreters in the eyes of the client and their colleagues. This may not be so and is, in fact, an overgeneralization.
Finally, regarding KUDOpro status, part of what we are doing is an exercise in controlled risk when doing nothing is the biggest risk of all. There is a business need out there, and we want to make sure it is tackled by industry insiders who understand interpreting. We will adapt and adjust, and we will work with interpreters who are ready to do the same. We are more prepared than most to assess and manage interpreters for events both large and small.
Thanks for your interest and questions,
Barry S. Olsen (VP of Client Success at KUDO)
Being a Kudo Pro interpreter how do I opt-in ,please ?
Many thanks,
Chris
Hello Chris,
Here is the direct link to the application. https://kudoway.com/kudo-pro-interpreters-application/
Also, if you are KUDO Certified already, you can register for our webinar on June 7th to ask any questions you may have to our Language Services Team. Here is the link to register: https://kudoway.com/webinars-events/ask-us-anything-june-2021/
Best,
Barry