I love February, the underdog of months... The shortest month of all, not quite spring, yet no longer the dead of winter, it is forever underrated. February is after all the month of celebration. As some of our colleagues are cheering to the year of the Fire Monkey with lion dances and firecrackers, others are dancing samba in the streets of Brazil, while the Dutch and Germans leave their inhibitions at home as they take over the streets, the French are eating crêpes and the Italians hide their troubles behind intriguing old masks. In the US, we celebrate the birthday of two our most respected leaders and presidents as well as some of our team members: from our legal adviser Terry to Tania, our project manager "extraordinaire", and my own… February is also the month that was kind enough to see BeatBabel's incorporation go through and in a few days, we will celebrate our 7 years of existence.
This particular February takes me back down memory lane... with the surprise visit of a dear friend, Clio, on a beautiful Santa Ana weekend with 90˚F (32˚C) degree weather and many conversations about our industry and our past.
BeatBabel’s story started many years ago, with many challenges, lack of capital, long work hours and infinite amounts of dedication, will, determination, and faith. At the time of our inception, a well-known industry anchor and friend, Fabiano, invited us to the "Think Latin America" conference in Búzios, Brazil. At the eve of the World cup and the Olympics, this promised to be a wonderful trip...
As we were running through Atlanta’s airport to catch our connecting plane to Rio, we received an ominous phone call from the office announcing that the company server had gone down. Just the kind of news you want to hear as you are about to board an over-night international flight. Burckhardt being patience and calm impersonated, for once lost his cool. After landing in Rio, he spent the next few days in our hotel restoring the server with Sumeet’s help. With the server up and running again, we wandered around the city, enjoying the magical sights of Rio and the smiles of its friendly residents. Until disaster stroke once more... rain! That special kind of monsoon rain that makes you feel like you will never see sunlight again. On one of the rainiest days in Rio’s history, we were stranded in the middle of the city as night was falling and our taxi was stuck in traffic that would make L.A. jealous! We took our courage and walked halfway across Rio at night in pouring rain. Several hours of rain later, the city was flooded, and the beautiful sights of Ipanema from our hotel room had given way to the view of a great and grey puddle. Still drenched, we turned on the news and learnt that a 7.3 earthquake had just hit home, leaving our Southern Californian colleagues and friends paralyzed by scary aftershocks. This, of course, caused our server to crash, again…. Ahhh what a fun trip this promised to be! Yet in spite of all the rain, the mudslides and the airport closure, we somehow needed to make our way to Búzios the next morning… The favelas were sliding down, the streets where submerged and we found ourselves in the one bus that agreed to brave the rain. This is where we bumped into Clio, our weekend visitor. As we made our way to Búzios together, travelling through landslides and collapsed bridges, we realized our driver was about to fall asleep at the wheel. At the time, a lady named Silvia, whom we had just met, volunteered to chat with our driver in Portuguese to keep him awake and us alive.
Think Latin America Búzios was the first conference of its kind and is to this day the best localization conference I have ever attended. Not only because the location was magical, despite the rain, but because it attracted some of the industry’s best talents and the laws of nature brought us together in a way nothing else could have. And, over several days, as we bundled up inside, I learnt… Not from boring and repetitive presentations about quality assurance or why Machine Translation is the next big thing. I learnt from listening, sharing, laughing and dreaming. I learnt how to sell and tweet from Renato over lunch, I discovered that Richard speaks fluent French after having studied in Bordeaux, that Eva had made it to the US West coast all the way from her native Eastern Europe and was facing some of the same daily struggles I was. I met Monique and Robson from Nokia for the first time, who later moved to San Diego, based on a wonderful dinner conversation. And Marcos from Coca Cola who shared with us new perspectives on the Latin American market. Wagner’s presentation comes to mind too, in many respects one of the best, maybe because it was not just about localization... Without forgetting Fabiano's energy and big heart, and the "Cecis", who had helped organize this great event and with whom we immediately bonded. And I learnt from so many more who were willing to share amazing stories about their daily experiences. As the conference wrapped up after a few days, the Argentineans and Brazilians took over the dance floor while we sipped our caipirinhas and I finally understood why our Latin American projects sometimes come in a little late... Time beats to a different drum in this part of the world. The night closed with Roberta and Wagner singing opera by the pool, ending a special conference in a unique way…
As our trip came to an end, Renato decided to take us back to Rio and booked a mini-bus for the day to give us a proper tour of his city. Another memorable story with a most unusual ending in an airport that brought some of us even closer together…
And as Clio leaves today and we go back to our daily routine, I look back at this time and this special trip. I learnt so much from it. Competitors after all, we left our hats at the door and simply shared stories, frustrations, laughs and became a team. An unusual team of rivals... A team who strive and learn from each other, pushing each other to be better, striking for the best and always, always caring. And no matter what tomorrow brings, we stay strong and keep believing …
So Fabiano and Ceci, when are you hosting the next Búzios conference?
Marie, longing for Brazil and Carnival...