Two weeks ago, we participated in the 7th Federcentri Conference in Rome. Mirko Silvestrini and Cesare Zanni brought together several organizations that work within Italy’s language industry: Associazione Italiana Traduttori e Interpreti (AITI), Associazione nazionale italiana traduttori e interpreti (ANITI), Associazione Nazionale Interpreti di Conferenza Professionisti (Assointerpreti), L10N Team, and others. Luigi Muzii of L10N Team summarized the event’s diverse attendees with the line of a famous Italian comedian: “One Italian makes a Latin lover, two together can never agree, whilst three Italians make up four political parties.” This also seems to hold true in the language services space. Industry fragmentation is reflected in the segmentation of its associations. We see more associations being created all the time, and we’re starting to see them join forces when they have a unified objective. We recently wrote about 17 interpreting organizations in the United States that created a coalition for certification, and we also facilitated the organization of joint events between GALA and ELIA. This time, it’s the Italians who win brownie points for their effort to coordinate organizations that ultimately have the same goal — to promote and increase the business of translation for all parties involved.

In February of 2004, several associations participated in the “Meeting of the Minds” — organized by the Association of Canadian Corporations in Translation and Interpretation (ACCTI) — to find common ground among the different associations and to identify core messages that all associations could promote in favor of the industry. After 4 or 5 meetings, this excellent idea faded into oblivion because of big egos and a lack of strategic vision.

It’s not just anecdotal. In 2003 and 2005, we conducted large surveys on language industry conferences, resulting in the Best and Worst Language Conferences report. We found that language service providers (LSPs) and globalization service buyers (GSBs) are frequently confused by the proliferation of associations and other industry organizations. It also contributes to calendar conflicts, weaker value of content in events, and who “really” represents the industry.

For illustration purposes, here is a sampling of some of the groups to which we have contributed: ACCTI, Abrates, AILIA, ALC, ATA, ATA-TCD, ATC, ATIMAC, CSN, ELIA, EUATC, Federlingue, GALA, LISA, Localization World, SKTOL, STC, TAUS, Tekom, Translated in Argentina, and Unicode. There are many, many more.

In the meantime, GALA is about to hire an Executive Director as part of its GALA 2010 Plan. We believe this is a major mistake.

The main justifications for the move are to relieve the volunteer Board of Directors from administrative tasks and to allow the association to generate more money for its initiatives. A key source of revenue envisaged by the board is for GALA to organize its own events — yes, more events! One of the original goals of GALA was not to organize events, but to co-locate them with other associations. That was what made GALA unique. It wanted to promote the industry, it wanted to be an influencer, it wanted to collaborate. Now, it wants to make money.

As we pointed out in Seattle last year, and in Berlin earlier this year, the Board of Directors deserves praise for putting together such a detailed plan for the future of the association. However, we believe that the road map drawn for the future of GALA makes it look exactly like the association from which it broke off in 2002. In other words, GALA is poised to become a business under the guise of an association — which means that it is likely to lose sight of its stated goal of increasing the visibility of the industry.

The bottom line is that fragmentation creates a problem of choice for members. But what’s worse, it dilutes resources that could be spent towards promoting the business of language or growing the proverbial pie. Instead, associations lose sight of their original goals, non-profits begin to act like for-profit businesses, and bureaucracies develop. The result?  Everyone ends up spending more money to maintain countless organizations than in providing benefits for disoriented members who are now unsure which associations offer the best value.