The attitude towards CAT innovations changes fundamentally with how you use the tool: working with CAT tools is different from the perspective of the language services coordinator, the translator, the proofreader, and also from the perspective of using CAT tools for the final internal check.
In my work as a CAT specialist, I encounter several typical challenges that follow a similar course and can be described by means of a multi-step process: the step of exploring new possibilities, the puzzle time, the mind map of deployment options, the identification of most minimal collision paths and boundaries, and the conclusion is the hack of existing skills and the infecting of users with new practices.
The easiest work is with the translators, as CAT tools tend to help them, so it’s just a matter of getting the information about the new possibilities to them. This group also has easily definable needs.
On the other hand, the most difficult part of the translation process is the group of language service coordinators who ensure the smooth progress of the entire translation process. They must be familiar with working in a CAT environment from the perspective of all user groups. They do not have to be fast users, but they must understand the work to a level where they can anticipate the entire process, even when processing rarer formats for translation.
Compare information from Wikipedia: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C5%99iv%C3%A1nek_(company).
These are groups of 8,000 external and 300 internal colleagues (in fifteen countries) who may need the CAT tool for their work. Fortunately, not all of them. 🙂
In other words, finding ways to deploy innovations to such a huge user group is always a challenge.
Working with innovations starts in our small country, where we all generally have a similar, or rather lax, attitude to innovations. This is why it is not only the IT part of our work as CAT specialists that is needed.
Josef Marey, CAT Specialist