Events
Hybrid Meetings – Technology and the Human Touch
Hybrid Meetings – Technology and the Human Touch
Authors: Context Conference Interpreting Team
Hybrid meetings are becoming the norm both for European Works Council meetings and other types of events. ‘Hybrid’ means different things to different people: participants and interpreters on site with remote key speakers ‘dialling in’, or everybody on site and only the interpreters remote. Let’s take a closer look at the second scenario.
Language service providers (LSPs) and Remote Simultaneous Interpreting (RSI) platforms offer an apparently similar package including platform use and interpreters, so does it matter whose services you engage? The packages offered may look the same at first, but under the bonnet they are very different and suit different requirements.
Platforms draw from a huge pool of interpreters available at very short notice in all time zones. They are large organisations that offer a standard ‘on-demand’ product. Project Managers may be dispersed, difficult to contact and busy with several meetings running in parallel at the same time. Information sharing between the various layers of the organisation can be slow. Their web sites and internal tools offer video tutorials and digital training material. Audio and video are usually managed via the platform without any additional equipment like table microphones and cameras on site. As a result, sound and vision are often less than ideal and impact user experiences.
Clients have access to a platform, interpreters are an add-on; a good choice if you are looking for a standard product available on demand and at short notice worldwide. Perhaps less suitable for sensitive negotiations where continued support by a steady team of interpreters, technicians and project managers ensures smooth meeting experiences for all stakeholders.
If you work with a hands-on LSP like Context, the approach will be radically different: we start from selecting the best interpreters for the job and focus on a tailor-made solution to meet your individual needs. Our team of experienced Project Managers, who are themselves seasoned interpreters, are based in Europe and will be happy to discuss with you the pros and cons of a range of different platforms to find the one best suited to your requirements and your budget. Not all platforms offer the same functionality! Advance introduction to the use of specialised platforms is delivered by competent humans and actively supported. Crucially, one of our support managers is always present in the background throughout your meeting, to assist participants and coordinate with interpreters and technicians. We work closely with a wide network of skilled equipment providers in many European locations to make sure that additional microphones and cameras are installed where necessary, and to achieve high quality sound and vision. In a nutshell, we ensure that the participants in your meeting make the most of the service provided and communicate successfully.
So, what would work best for you? A standard on-demand package or a solution tailored to your company, your people and your goals? You can call us on +353 91 353820 or email conference@context.ie to discuss your needs.
Save Food, Save the Planet - the Context Food Waste Challenge
Save Food, Save the Planet
– the Context Food Waste Challenge
Author: Miriam Finglass & Alice Gallanagh | Translation Project Managers
Following on from taking part in the Climate Heroes Challenge earlier in the year, the Sustainability team at Context is now organising our next Climate Challenges!
First, we will hold a Food Waste Challenge starting Tuesday 29th October and running until Tuesday 5th November aiming to reduce our food waste.
Context and some of our freelance linguists will compete in two teams to reduce our food waste as much as possible over the week! The week-long challenge will help us develop better habits and awareness of our consumption and food waste patterns.
Globally, around 931 million tonnes of food go to waste each year. 61% of this comes from households, 26% from food service and 13% from retail (1). The EPA estimates that Ireland generated 750,000 tonnes of food waste in 2022 (2). This equates to 146kg of food waste per person. Food waste is a significant contributor to climate change, with food loss and waste contributing to 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions (3).
We’re really looking forward to learning about the steps we can take to reduce food waste. We know that there’s much more we can do to make a significant impact.
There will be a well-earned prize at the end of the challenge for the winner of each team. In the Climate Heroes Challenge we held earlier this year, we sent one of the winners for a weekend away to an eco-retreat which you can read about here.
After the Food Waste Challenge, we will hold a Plastics Challenge from 11th to 18th November. More details on that to follow!
How do you feel about food waste? Do you ever ask a restaurant or business about their food waste policy? Doing so can help businesses to see that their customers do care about the issue and can bring about some positive changes. Why not organise or take part in a food waste challenge?
Additional Resources:
1 UN Food Waste Index Report 2024
2, 3 Environmental Protection Agency – Food Waste Statistics
Tackling Climate Change - Strength in Numbers
Tackling Climate Change - Strength in Numbers
Author: Emily Scott | Translator
I started working with Context as a freelance translator in 2022. In April of this year, the Context Translation team invited me to take part in ‘Climate Heroes’, a fun, team-based challenge that invites you to learn about the contributing factors to climate change, develop positive habits and compete in reducing carbon emissions. Participants tracked their individual actions and efforts on an app and competed within their team as well as almost 60 community groups from 18 counties across Ireland, with a total of 443 people participating nationwide. It’s a really worthwhile endeavour and free to join for community groups and organisations in Ireland. The donation Context made was of course appreciated.
I took part in the Climate Heroes Challenge with Context because I know that sustainability is one of their enduring values and I was already conscious of my impact on the environment. I’m also a big fan of friendly competition and was confident in my ability to rack up a few points on the scoreboard! While taking part, I found it fascinating trying to discover ways of tweaking my lifestyle in order to gain as many points as I could. During the challenge, I often found that there were numerous small changes I could make that would make a big difference in terms of my carbon footprint. For example, I’m already a vegetarian, so having oat milk some days wasn’t too much of a change and I enjoyed finding new vegan recipes to try. And while I couldn’t do them every day, doing a few big energy saving actions was a real motivator, for example, on days when I wasn’t washing my hair, I challenged myself to shower in under four minutes in order to get those all-important points!
I was delighted to have topped the leader board and I thoroughly enjoyed taking part. The Climate Heroes Challenge has helped me become more climate conscious in my day-to-day life and I’ve kept some of the habits that I picked up while taking part in the event – I’ll definitely be looking to join in the next one! I was blown away by the fantastic prize offered by Context – I had a lovely weekend with my husband and my dog staying in a luxury bell tent in a secluded corner of the North York Moors, not far from where we live. We roasted marshmallows on the fire, cooked in the open air under the trees and fell asleep listening to the stream that ran through our camp, all while living in keeping with the site’s eco-friendly ethos.
We can all make small steps to be more sustainable and changes that seem big at first soon become second nature. Last year, I found out that UK supermarkets have recycling points for packaging like crisp packets and bread bags. Initially, it seemed quite cumbersome to remember to separate out this type of packaging and take it to the supermarket but it’s now become part of our routine at home and the amount of general waste we collect every two weeks has dramatically reduced. There are little things we can all do that will make a big difference.
That said, we as individuals can only do so much and need the cooperation of large companies in a number of industries in order to make a real difference. I believe that working with organisations who prioritise and are committed to climate conscious practices is essential for a sustainable future.
So, what are you waiting for? Visit the Climate Heroes website and enjoy the challenge of trying out some new habits to reduce your carbon footprint.
Winner of the Context Climate Curlews team,
Emily Scott
Media Coverage:
The Future of Work - Beyond Hybrid
The Future of Work - Beyond Hybrid
Author: Ulrike Fuehrer | Director at Context
What allows us to thrive and perform in happy, well-functioning and high-achieving teams?
Much has been said about hybrid working. A recent experience profoundly changed my way of looking at virtual and hybrid teams.
In 2019, I alone had 83 work-related flights. There seemed no other way of doing my job. When Covid forced me to stay put I was grateful, not for the pandemic but for the paradigm shift in multilingual simultaneous interpreting, despite all its technical challenges. Our first international online meeting with 6 languages was held on 26th March 2020. Hundreds of similar events followed. Two years later we introduced combined meetings with an online and an onsite element. Participants were able to have chats at the coffee dock and over dinner while keynote speakers from the US logged in remotely for their half-hour input. Once the technical hurdles had been scaled, the benefits of reducing travel to the necessary and meeting in-person for clearly defined purposes became apparent and were met with approval and relief.
Our ‘in-house’ team doubled in size during this period and was geographically as dispersed as our thousands of freelancers and their respective meeting participants.
Over the next two years, we embraced a hybrid work format with small groups coming together in the same physical space some of the time for training and team activities, for project and strategy meetings. On those office days, animated conversations between peers and pairs permeated the building, creating an atmosphere of quiet excitement. Work-related road blocks tended to be removed in minutes; small challenges that may have been put on the back burner were addressed, and a sense of inspiration and contentment was palpable.
Two years on, we pushed out the boat and held a full onsite team event, bringing together all operational and support people from 4 countries and 7 counties. Some of us had been working together closely, yet never met in person. This large facilitated event took place at a beautiful countryside location with a variety of indoor and outdoor facilities, in lovingly furnished buildings surrounded by flowers and vegetable gardens. Working on an intense agenda and committing to a range of actions felt like child’s play in this environment. Meeting the 3D version of our Zoom colleagues released creative energies, courage to tackle bold projects, a sense of a shared purpose. We all came away smiling. The depth of personal and professional engagement experienced on that day made us realise what we had been missing. It showed us that we need to build regular, meaningful in-person events into our working lives.
Yes, it has its advantages to work from home some of the time. However, realising what we need and miss in our hybrid world might sharpen our awareness of the values that underpin our culture, commitments and success. A great starting point is to look someone in the eye – rather than into a Zoom or Teams camera.
There is no simple way of making this magic happen for dispersed teams. It requires organisational effort to provide for those personal and professional interactions, that depth of dialogue, the heated or measured exchanges, a meeting of minds and bouncing of ideas. It’s an effort well worth it.
Spending time together in the same physical space, sometimes away from traditional work environments, allows us to thrive and to perform as a happy, well-functioning and high-achieving team, in the interest of our personal wellbeing and to the benefit of our clients and suppliers.
How much direct personal interaction is desirable for the New Work and New Culture of 2024? What can we learn from Frithjof Bergmann 50 years on?
The Power of Technology, Teamwork and Tenacity
Case Study: Striking Success
The Power of Technology, Teamwork and Tenacity
Author: Ulrike Fuehrer | Director at Context
Strikes occur in Belgium nearly as often as in Paris, Berlin or Madrid and frequently affect the transport system. They are as powerful as they are disruptive.
On 20 June 2022, access to all Belgian airports and train stations was severely disrupted, also impacting on participation of two parallel meetings we supported in Brussels. As a project manager on site in Brussels, I received a flood of emails, phone calls and messages from participants and interpreters scheduled to arrive from 13 different countries who were unable to reach Belgium.
The stakes of the meetings were high. The organisational effort of getting everyone together – after 2 years of lockdowns – had been considerable.
At 6pm that evening, I took stock of the situation on the ground: We had some participants in Brussels, some participants from the same and/or from other countries stuck at their home airports, some interpreters on site and some equally stranded elsewhere.
During the next 3 hours, I discovered the power of advanced conference technology and the pivotal role conference technicians and a committed team of interpreters can play. With the help of the two most dedicated and determined technicians and a lot of communication back and forth, a solution was designed that allowed all participants, whether in Brussels or at home, and all interpreters likewise to connect successfully.
Both meetings went ahead the next day as scheduled. The software and hardware deployed in Brussels interfaced in a technically highly complex solution, supporting an event which ran as smoothly as the proverbial swans gliding across the lake. The amount of peddling beneath the water was extraordinary.
One interpreter received a call from her airline at 5am that morning offering her an early evening flight; she interpreted remotely on day 1, rushed to the airport at close of business, caught a flight and worked from the Brussels booth the next morning. Half of the participants made it to the destination on day 2, the other half logged in online and stayed where they were.
While travel may have been a small nightmare during that week, the technical challenges were of a different magnitude altogether. My gratitude and respect for our solution providers took on a new dimension. Our long-term take-aways have been: a creative, solution-focused, state-of-the art technical provider is worth their weight in gold. A committed interpreter team of versatile travellers, unfazed by any eventualities and ready to surmount any obstacles is as crucial as a group of excellent linguists. And: All meetings need to be planned with an in-built virtual component, to be activated in case of a volcanic ash cloud, an air controller strike, icy weather conditions and – strike.
