Welcome back to our blog series “Industry Insights”, where we interview members of the production world that we have had the opportunity to collaborate with! This week, we are featuring a career marketer with a love of language. Meet Nick Strozza!
As Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Interpro Translation Solutions, based in the Chicago suburb of Lisle, Illinois, Nick manages all marketing, client service and business development team members. Interpro Translation Solutions is a professional foreign language translation and localization company with over 21 years of experience assisting organizations of all types with their translation needs. Nick’s additional roles include representing Interpro at industry events, forecasting, meeting with organizations interested in translation and localization services, and overseeing proposals and estimates.
Growing up in a bilingual (English and Italian) household, Nick has always had a passion for languages and cultures. Nick is a 2008 graduate of Northern Illinois University, where he graduated summa cum laude, with honors in Marketing and a minor in French. Prior to working at Interpro, Nick worked as a marketing intern at LiveText, a university accreditation management software organization, in addition to working as a marketing/sales assistant for a leading web development company.
Nick currently lives in Warrenville, Illinois, where he enjoys spending time with his wife, Julie, and their Jack Russell terrier, Winston.
MS: What types of translation services do you offer?
Interpro translates a wide range of written materials including documentation such as user manuals and marketing collateral, videos, online training/eLearning, software user interfaces, and websites.
MS: What differentiates your services from an online-based translation website/software?
There really isn’t a comparison when it comes to quality when working with a professional company versus online machine translation. An organization that really cares about their branding should not consider Machine Translation; we’d actually say they would be better off keeping their copy in English only instead. Machine Translation is a direct translation, oftentimes out of context and grammatically inaccurate. Our translations are conducted and reviewed by human, native-speaking translators paired by subject matter expertise, and located in the target country. By being in-country, our translators are immersed in the culture and ensure that translations provided are up-to-date. There are also multiple steps of quality review involved in our process, allowing for the translation to be looked at by different sets of eyes.
MS: Just how many languages can you actually translate?
This is a really great question! There are around 30 to 40 languages that we translate into quite regularly for many clients, but there are other languages that come up less frequently that we handle as well.
We actually challenged ourselves with the same task- to find out exactly how many languages we can translate into. Inside our new marketing collateral, we translated a handful of words that describe us into as many languages as we are able to. The result? With confidence we can translate into 82 foreign languages (and from 82 languages, into English!).
MS: Where can your services be used in the video production industry?
There are a few different ways I see our services being used in the video production industry. Each project is a bit different, so we are able to customize and work with our clients on the option that works best for them. Video translation can take on a couple of different forms. Usually the first step is script translation; however, if a script doesn’t exist we provide transcription services.
For a video itself, what we provide most frequently is professional voice over recording in lieu of the English audio. This is the most popular, and arguably the most effective way to go. We also translate and format on-screen text that appears in the video to replace the English with the localized version of the text.
Another translation option for videos is to subtitle the video and keep the English audio as-is. While this is a less expensive alternative, if you are demonstrating a product on screen, there is a risk that subtitles could interfere with the learner viewing the video since they may get distracted by the subtitles and miss critical information being displayed. Another option that is a little more rare, but super effective would be to replace the English actors with localized actors of the target language. This option of course is a bit more intense, but if required, can be done!
Bottom line- if you truly care about a multilingual audience, video translation is something that should be considered, and we can help provide different options for you to choose from.
MS: What is your favorite part about the translation industry?
My favorite part is hearing how happy our clients are with the services we provide. It’s rewarding to be able to assist clients and act as an extension of their team. For example, it’s amazing to realize that a translation we provide can be seen by millions worldwide on a website, could be used to train employees all over the world in their native language, or even used daily to prevent safety incidents/deaths from occurring in a warehouse.
MS: What types of projects do you enjoy working on the most?
I really enjoy eLearning and video translation projects. It’s very cool to see (and hear) other languages in action. Especially languages I don’t understand!
MS: What is your personal mantra?
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Here’s a picture of my dog Winston* to prove it!
*Winston also makes a guest appearance in our company video at the 2 minute 40 second mark!
MS: What are some of your favorite movies?
I like a lot of movies! Limitless, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Silver Linings Playbook, Catch Me If You Can, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins are some faves for sure.
MS: Can you give us a fun fact about yourself?
I love going to Six Flags!