One Profession, One Voice: Selling the Interpreting Profession to the Public

Nataly Kelly, Chief Researcher at Common Sense Advisory and regular contributor to the Huffington Post, recently created a professional meme for the Interpreting Profession as part of her blog, The Interpreter’s Launchpad.

“What I Do” memes are popping up all over social media, and provide an often humorous look at how professions are commonly stereotyped. The meme for The Interpreter, however, gets to the heart of a deeper dilemma facing our profession. A common stereotype implies a common understanding of what a given professional does. For interpreting however, few people actually know: a) what we do; and b) why it matters.

Interpreters routinely complain about poor recognition, low pay, lack of prestige, and how undervalued the service we provide is. However, before something can be truly valued, it must be first perceived and then understood.

Interested in doing something about our professional image?

At InterpretAmerica we feel strongly that it is up to us, members of the interpreting industry, to create that perception and understanding. To that end, we have invited award-winning communications consultant Spencer Critchley from Boots Road Group, an advertising, public relations and digital media firm, to moderate the PR Workgroup Session: One Profession, One Voice – Selling the Interpreting Profession to the Public. Attendees will receive a crash course on PR and then work to create unified messaging for the profession, continuing the discussion that began during the 2^nd North American Summit on Interpreting. Your contributions will be captured and published as a beginning publicity template for our industry.

Complete details can be found at www.interpretamerica.net/summit. Early bird rates, student and teacher discounts, and poster presentation submissions all still available! Register now!