An individual translator or SLV may find it easy enough to list the main features of their sausage and then work on the sizzle, but as the picture gets bigger, it gets more blurred. In the translation community at large, a recurring topic in recent years has been: 鈥淣ever mind the sizzle 鈥� what鈥檚 left of the sausage?鈥� Conference themes like 鈥淭owards a Virtual Future鈥�, 鈥淓volution Not Revolution鈥� and 鈥淒isruptive Innovation鈥� reflect the fact that the industry is considering its relevance and possibly redefining its identity. What are the product and service offerings of localisation and globalisation these days? What are the features of the industry? These are big questions, and it is critical that with the threat of new entrants and substitute products to the translation market, LSPs do not lose sight of their raison d鈥櫭猼re. We must make sure that the rivalry within the industry and the growing bargaining power of the buyers will not drive us into whittling down our product and service offering until there is nothing left of it at all.

Two years ago, in front of a conference audience, I was asked to describe 鈥� in one word 鈥� how I wanted clients to feel about working with STP. I replied: 鈥淧roud鈥�. I would like to think that if it is possible for an LSP to create and maintain a brand so strong that it enables the company to obtain better prices, better terms, higher sales, more partners, excellent client retention and better qualified applicants, then it should be possible for the industry as a whole. After all, if we cannot brand our own industry and service well enough for our clients to understand the value and benefits, how can we expect them to trust us with their marketing messages?

The sizzle is all about branding. It goes without saying that a good brand without a good product is a waste of money and marketing effort. Our brand must always be about who we are and how we carry ourselves. Richard Brooks from K-International sums this up beautifully in his great presentation on the dynamics of running a growing company: 鈥淭o improve the sizzle, you must improve the sausage.鈥� This applies to our industry, too.

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Walpurgis Night is a traditional holiday celebrated on 30th April in the Nordic countries. While not celebrated as such in the UK, it falls at the same time and involves many of the same activities 鈥� singing traditional folk songs, lighting bonfires 鈥� as Beltane, which is still widely celebrated in Scotland and Ireland. It is a public rather than a family holiday and often involves entire communities coming together to celebrate. In the Middle Ages it marked the end of the administrative year and gave merchants a chance to relax and look forward to a new year. Now, students in particular latch on to it as a means of celebrating the end of their exams, coming together to sing, drink and make merry. More enterprising universities also arrange events such as river rafting, champagne fights 鈥� in Uppsala, where else? 鈥� and parades. In Finland, Walpurgis Night is one of the four biggest holidays, and most towns and cities have carnivals where the consumption of large volumes of sima, a kind of mead, and other alcoholic drinks is a prominent feature. Other activities include crowning statues across the country with student caps and lavish picnics the following day.

Midsummer is celebrated on or around 23 June in the Nordic countries. Conversely, this holiday is largely overlooked in the UK except among the Pagan community, although traditional Midsummer bonfires are still lit atop a number of hills throughout the country. In Scandinavia, Midsummer has been celebrated since the time of the Vikings, with popular activities including building bonfires close to bodies of water (since in the past people would traditionally visit healing water wells on this night), erecting and dancing around maypoles, singing and having picnics. This holiday is considered to be of particular importance in Sweden, where there have been discussions of making it the country鈥檚 new National Day. More country-specific methods of celebrating Midsummer include a Danish tradition of burning a witch made out of straw and cloth to commemorate witches burned in the Middle Ages 鈥� not unlike the British tradition of burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes on 5 November 鈥� and a Norwegian tradition of arranging mock weddings between both adults and children. The latter may be connected to the fact that this day was once considered an important night for fertility rituals across much of northern Europe, and indeed, the tradition of young women sleeping with flowers under their pillows at Midsummer to induce dreams of their future husbands is still prevalent across the entire Nordic region.

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