LocLunch: an excuse to leave my translator cave

Like many translators, I am pleased to be experiencing the usual summer peak, which *fingers crossed* I hope continues well after we change the clocks back in October. Although, I do sometimes I feel a bit like a beach bar, working all summer to survive the rest of the year.

Life as a freelance translator can become very lonely. We all end up talking to our pets more than usual and there comes a point when we find ourselves telling the postman our life story. I’ve even gone so far as to make up excuses to talk to the builders that are working just behind my house, despite them driving me crazy with the cement mixer, but I guess we all need to socialise with other humans from time to time!

However, there are many meetups for translators to get us out of our caves and share the good and the bad. Some are promoted by associations, others by translators themselves or by brands, which is the case for LocLunch.

What is LocLunch?

LocLunch is a brand created by Jan Hinrichs with a very simple concept: the first person to start a LocLunch in a city where it didn’t previously exist becomes the city ambassador and is responsible for promoting the event and making a reservation in a local restaurant or bar for a minimum number of people.

It has to be a minimum number of people so that anyone can just turn up, grab a seat and join in. No menus are arranged, nor is there a special platform for LocLunchers to sign up; the ambassador just has to announce the event on social media and request confirmation a few days before so that they can give the restaurant an idea of numbers.

For LocLunch, what matters are people, not companies. That’s why ambassadors use their personal profiles to announce the events and there are no sales pitches. We simply enjoy a nice meal and talk about localization, content marketing, software, machine translation, clients, colleagues, strategies to obtain customers and gain loyalty, etc. Basically, anything and everything that any good freelance translator could need to survive this fascinating, yet difficult world.

In Malaga, our ambassador is Julio Leal and I try to help him out wherever I can. So far, we have held two events in Malaga, one in Malaga city centre and another in Fuengirola. Due to the high temperatures and influx of tourists wanting to enjoy every last ray of sunshine, we decided to skip July and August but we look forward to bringing LocLunch back again in September.

This is our last LocLunch Malaga, held in June

Is LocLunch only for people who work in localization?

Of course not! In my opinion, talking about localization is just an excuse as the events are open to translators from any field. Localization is still an unfamiliar sector for many, both in and out of our profession, so it is a great way to put it in the spotlight. What’s more, I like to invite people who may need our services in the future such as marketing creatives or software and website developers. I still haven’t managed to get them to come, though, but I will keep on trying.

I always say that communication is essential to ensuring that a translation project is successful. However, given our tight deadlines, we don’t always get chance to talk about the customer’s or the translator’s needs. I would love it if people who may need our localization services one day would also come to our LocLunches so that they can better understand how we work and we can better understand what they need. That way, we can all help improve the way we work together.

I like the idea! I want to go to the next LocLunch in Malaga, what should I do?

You just need to keep an eye on my or Julio Leal’s posts on LinkedIn and Twitter and reply with a comment or private message confirming that you want to attend.

Hope to see you in September!