Greater than 3 minutes, my friend!
Taking active part in The Open Mic boosts your Entrepreneurial Spirit “An entrepreneur is someone who has the courage to do and say things differently”
A year ago, Russian Translator Dmitry Kornyukhov founded The Open Mic, “a next generation blogging community for translators and a professional social network for people looking for translators”.
Like many colleagues around the globe, I helped testing the platform during the pre-go-live stages where Dmitry asked voluntary testers to spot bugs and give general feedback on the look and feel of the site. Although I was able to devote very little time to testing the platform, being part of the “making of” was already exciting. I knew The Open Mic would be different from other websites for translators, I could sense it before it went live a year ago or so.
Now, you may wonder, in what sense it’s different from other web communities for translators?
Well, first thing first, The Open Mic’s interface has been developped and copywritten by one of us! Dmitry is a very creative and resourceful translator, and while I can’t cross my heart about his not getting any help from anybody for the development, pre-testing stage, I will say his HTML and similar skills must have played a major role in the appealing design and interesting features avilable on The Open Mic platform.
Apart from the man behind the original idea for this project, the site is completely made by and for translators who keep its essence relevant, active and kicking. Just as the slogan goes, let’s shape the future of the Translation Profession!, we translators get the chance to shape the present and future of our profession by blogging about it.
We can repost our blog content, post original stories or just read articles on The Open Mic in order to a) increase our online visibility, as well as that of our content marketing strategies, and b) interact with fellow translators, reviewers and interpreters from around the world, who may not otherwise reach our posts, comment on them and share.
When you publish a story on The Open Mic that you’ve already posted on your personal website, you can have browsers relate all the SEO content to your original post in your site, so that the credit goes for your original article, as well as the reposted version on The Open Mic.
Why write about my profession apart from, well, translating/reviewing/interpreting/localising, etc.? Well, in a world where content marketing and transmedia storytelling are the order of the day for the big brands across industries, don’t you think it’s time for us to start developping, creating and curating content in order to drive traffic to our websites, leverage our online visibility, foster interaction and knowledge-sharing among us and with potential leads, and boost our overall professional image as not just translators, but active entrepreneurs?
Recently, I asked Dmitry why he defines himself as an etrepreneur in his social media sites. I also asked in what ways he thinks his attitude to his translation business sets him apart from just being a freelancer. Here’s his response to my questions:
An entrepreneur for me is someone who has the courage to do and say things differently. They don’t follow trends blindly, they grab every single opportunity that life throws them. But above all an entrepreneur is someone who can take one leap of faith after the other no matter how hard the fall might be. […] Being an entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re driven by money, influence or success. It’s all about the journey. The journey that tests your limits, broadens your horizons, and changes you on the inside. I’m an entrepreneur because I love the thrill of running my own business. It’s a totally different mindset from being just a freelancer. And I think it gives me more powers to innovate, experiment and be weird, different and maybe even crazy. But no matter what other people think about me, I wouldn’t change a single thing.
When I read this, I could immediately relate to Dmitry’s answer. And I see a direct connection between his words and his actions every week, when he hosts yet another web session of Translators on Air, with the awesome Elena Tereshchenkova; when he recaps on the stories featured on The Open Mic via e-mail, so that we members don’t come to rest on our laurels for too long and try and read the stories we are interested in and comment on them every now and then; when he writes his own inspirational blogs for translators, such as this one; and now, in particular, when he has seriously committed to taking The Open Mic one step further, with the aid of its members, as far as possible.
At present, the founder of this unique website by and for translators has started a crowdfunding campaign in order to raise funds to further develop The Open Mic and, among other goals, introduce features such as a platform where members can publish and sell online courses, use an intuitive project management feature and get the full The Open Mic experience in the form of an app.
Wondering where your donated funds for The Open Mic will go? Check out this page and help support the most inspiring community for translators!
The Open Mic Team 
Thank you so much for sharing, Delfina! And thank you for believing in this little project. Sometimes it’s really hard to get your message across or show immediate value in something. I’m just glad that you personally found value in this community. It’s the only thing that matters to me.
Thanks, Dmitry! Let’s help boost The Open Mic!