How effective is a blog? And what on earth is a wiki? On Saturday March 10th 2007, the UK chapter of the Society for Technical Communication will be hosting a one-day seminar at The Studio in the centre of Birmingham that will answer those questions. Now I must declare an interest at this stage, as I am currently Vice President of the UK chapter of STC. But even if I did not have an interest, I would still be interested, as it were! I joined STC about four years ago, and I enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and the can-do approach that all members seem to share. I've certainly been made very welcome, by colleagues in the UK Chapter, and by a wider STC membership when attending or speaking at STC conferences elsewhere in Europe or in the USA. If you are interested in learning more about what blogs can do for your business communications, or how a wiki can help as a teamwork tool, then do come along to STC UK's one-day Blogs and Wikis event, where speakers Crawford Currie and Ellis Pratt will be sharing hints and tips with us.

The ITI Marketing seminar in Birmingham went very well, and we have had some very positive feedback. We had 26 translators and interpreters at the event, and everybody went away fired up, full of enthusiasm and re-energised - even the speakers! Ros Mendy and her team from the West Midlands Regional Group of ITI did a super job of organising everything, and The Studio proved to be a superb venue. And if you are ever looking for a top hotel in Birmingham, look no further than the superb Hotel du Vin, which was just a short walk away.

Travelling by train in Britain can present certain .... challenges. The technical translation company that I work for is based in Manchester, and I often travel by train when I have meetings in London. And I do seem to hit more than my fair share of travel problems. A few months ago, our company was approached by David Pincott, a PR man who decided it was time to fight back. So he had the wonderful idea of producing a dictionary of useful phrases for foreign travellers on Britain's railways. Click on the link to see for yourself. If you have ever wondered how to say "The trains are delayed because the wrong type of snow has fallen" in Dutch (that'd be "De treinen zijn vertraagd omdat het verkeerde type sneeuw is gevallen", of course), then this is the dictionary that you have been waiting for. Once can only wonder what travellers from Poland must think when they realise the train driver has just announced "Pociąg nie odjedzie, gdyż jest już stary i się zepsuł". We liked the idea so much that Salford Translations Ltd provided the Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Polish translations free of charge!

New technology can be a challenge for all of us. I know we invest a lot of time and energy on training across our team to keep our people up to speed with new technologies, such as XML, or structured FrameMaker, or even just the latest advances in translation memory. So I enjoyed this humorous little vidclip of a Norwegian monk trying to get to grips with some pesky new technology - a book! Fortunately, it comes with English subtitles. Enjoy.

Getting off to a good start is important in any profession. And for many translators, taking those first professional steps can seem daunting. The UK professional body for translators, the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) runs a course called the Peer Support Group, or PSG, which aims to give qualified translators the life skills that they need to start out on their own. For the past couple of years, I've had a lot of fun tutoring on this course, and I have seen the huge boost in awareness and confidence that the PSG course gives to translators when they first start out. Now I am pleased to say that ITI have published a couple of helplful articles for translators who are interested in taking Peer Support Group course.

Marketing for freelance translators: This ITI marketing workshop for translators is proving highly popular, with over 25 bookings received so far. I'll run a general marketing session in the morning, looking at ways that freelance translators traditionally contact potential clients, at how successful these traditional methods are, and at new ways to bring yourself to the attention of potential clients. Then in the afternoon, Vernon Blackmore of Ambit New Media will provide insights into setting up your own web presence (I'll leave it phrased as loosely as that, since both Vernon and I think it goes beyond just "having a web site"). Along the way, we'll look at ways of developing sustainable long-term relationships with your clients.

Our venue for this exciting one-day Saturday conference will be The Studio, an upmarket, funky, prize-winning conference and training centre right in the heart of Birmingham. Organiser Ros Mendy tells me that there will be groups meeting for dinner on the Friday evening and the Saturday evening, and to round off the social programme there will be a guided walking tour of Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter and a visit to the Pen Museum. All in all, it sounds like a perfect opportunity for a weekend away in one of Britain's exciting, revitalised former industrial heartlands.