About

About a year ago, we decided to publish a Trend Report for the very first time. The decision was preceded by a fruitful internal debate about „trends” and the whole genre of „trend reports” itself. Do such reports necessarily have to mean hyping up phenomena that are often dubious? Could we risk wasting too many words on topics that may ultimately lack real substance? Would we be able to discuss trends in a more contemplative way, giving way and leaving room for uncertainty, doubt, maybe even skepticism?

When all was said and done, we created exactly that type of report: our first Trend Report was not trying to be overly assertive, didn’t position memoQ as an Oracle of Ultimate Truth but most importantly it gave voice to a multitude of people both from within and outside of our organization. The result was a microsite that centered around debates, a diversity of opinions and perspectives. It also became our most read content in 2018.

12 months is a long time in our industry. In under a year, we were witness to a lot of growth and change, and all of this required a lot of competitiveness and innovation, skills and passion… We released four new product versions, created our first mobile app, added dozens of meaningful new functions to our core products and reached the milestone of 1000 memoQ servers, a new critical mass of business users. With this pace of innovation and change it wasn’t a question whether to continue the tradition of publishing a Trend Report.

The 2018 Trend Report catered to the connoisseurs of our industry with fine and deep discourse. This year, we wanted to make sure we are able to tell our industry’s story to the not-yet- inaugurated. In other words, while it’s always a thrill to preach to the converted, this year we decided to reach out to readers who are still trying to wrap their heads around all those notions we often take for granted. That is why we discuss topics that bridge our industry to global trends like the way we consume content on demand, use speech recognition in our everyday lives, or the need for actionable insights for businesses that want to get ready for international markets. Overall, we have chosen five trends that have managed to break out of the silos of the translation industry and establish themselves as influential worldwide themes as well.

We’re releasing the core of our Trend Report first by discussing these five trends. It’s worth to come back even after reading the last word because we’ll be adding commentaries from internal and external thought leaders in the coming days to these articles.

I wish you all happy reading and an inspired and successful 2019!