GALA 2022 San Diego

GALA 2022, our most anticipated “home game” of the year, is over. There are no words to describe how thrilled we were about this conference taking place in San Diego and having the chance to go back to the in-person format. The Manchester Grand Hyatt was the perfect scenario for this reunion of old and new industry friends. As if this was not enough reason for a celebration, we also cheered for GALA’s 20 years!

Of course, this edition of GALA was particularly special to us since it took place in our city. We loved seeing the shock on people’s faces when they would ask where our offices were, and we’d say “A 5-minute walk from here”. We actually had the pleasure of acting as tour guides for some of our colleagues and inviting them for coffee chez nous. Our COO Marie tried to impress our guests with her California tan... she might have taken it a little too far. PSA: Don’t forget to wear sunscreen!

BeatBabel was happy to sponsor the Welcome Reception: we can confirm that everyone was beyond excited to shake hands again instead of the virtual greeting rituals we have all become so used to during the last couple years (“Hi! We can’t see you”… “Oh! Now it’s working”… “Wait… We couldn’t hear you”; “you’re on mute”). It was a lovely opportunity to get together, share our thoughts, break the ice, and welcome the attendees. Judging by the pictures everyone took at our photobooth, we think it was a big success!

The keynote on Monday set us to a good start: the inspiring and talented Manny Johnson discussed inclusivity and how one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to accessibility. He gave us some food for thought on how to play our part and contribute to the creation of content that is accessible to as many people as possible. What an inspiration!

Conference topics ranged from AI to marketing, resilience, growth, automation, and even mental health. There was plenty to choose from and, from our many conversations with other attendees, it seems that everybody found topics that resonated with them. We attended many brilliant and insightful presentations, so here are some of our takeaways in a nutshell:

• To be desirable, company growth needs to be sustainable and profitable. Many different factors should be taken into consideration when deciding how to manage growth, including your company vision, your current talent pool or your client assessment, among many others. Above all, you want to ensure that there is a proactive leadership, rather than a reactive one. (Marina Ilari & Colleen Beres)

• The Covid pandemic became the Work From Home Era, which has evolved into the Work From Anywhere Era. This situation comes both with challenges and opportunities. The secret to make it work? Cognitive and emotional trust. (Gustavo Lucardi &Pablo Vázquez)

• “Whatever workflow step is not documented, consider it not done” (István Lengyel)

GALA 2022 was, above everything else, an opportunity for networking, collaboration and discussion of the most pressing questions of the current state of our industry. We were happy to witness the fruitful collaboration of the attendees, who stop being “competition” for a while to sit at the same table and share their passion for languages and the localization industry. The fact that our Ukrainian colleagues were present in our minds at all times is also a sign of the cohesion of our sector. We want to highlight the intervention of our Ukrainian friend Oleksandr Bondarenko, who called in from his air-raid shelter (a basement reconditioned for this purpose). It is bloodcurdling to imagine what our colleagues in Ukraine are going through and we could feel how all the attendees in the room were moved by Oleksandr’s words. In a more tangible way, everyone came together to collaborate with Translators Without Borders during the fundraiser held on Tuesday which raised more than $6,000. Thank you all for your donations!

Last but not least, this year’s conference was no exception in the tradition of offering an opportunity to discover and support young talent. BeatBabel were the proud sponsors of the Rising Star Scholarship initiative for the third consecutive year. We were delighted to meet one of the winners in person, Claudia Wiesinger, whose interest on taking the reality of the localization industry back to her students at the Universität Wien really got to us. We hope to meet Kemel Cobresle, the other winner, in the next edition of GALA. We would like to congratulate the winners once again!

In summary, GALA 2022 was the year we got back together to celebrate our industry in person, with the highlight on the deck by the Star of India, and discuss our shared vision of where we are headed. For starters, we are definitely heading to Dublin for GALA 2023 for St Patrick’s day. See you there!