hhmm surely many bloggers pause on the ‘about’ section? Perhaps I should start with ‘why’ rather than ‘what’?

Like many blogs there is an element of self-promotion and self-expression, but I’ll start with a declaration.

Declaration
This blog is written by an individual (me Doug Lawrence / www.douglawrence.org ), there are business elements in it – but is primarily aimed at supplying or discussing interesting topics / information.

Self-promotion
Web presence is about far more than simply having a website. A blog can be a critical part of a web presence strategy … uck … do I need to go on? You know what I mean right? It should be noted, however, that the self-promotion part (which would usually be by association, e.g. building a thought leader type brand) is an uncomfortable contradiction with the above declaration and the self-expression as discussed below (hhmm more and more words are creeping onto this whole page as I re-edit – what you thought this was a quick one step writing process? Come on! 😉

Self-expression
This is the interesting part right? What do I as a blogger have to say, and is it interesting to my intended, and unintended, audience (who may or may not be the same as the audience for self-promotion). After a large degree of self-investigation I decided the areas which are of interest to me, and hopefully the reader, are:

• Travel (usually connected with business so not just holiday/vacation. I have a vague wish to include information I would have found useful in preparing to travel somewhere, especially where it impacts the other list items below)
• Language (English certainly, and the languages of the places I visit / have visited). As an aside I use a fairly informal writing style and whilst I use British-English I may use international, usually US, English when I think it is required/more appropriate
• Culture (as above)
• International business (I’ll do my best to include this because it touches on the above 3, but there are times when discretion may force silence or at least anonymity of those involved)
• Vegetarianism (being a decaffeinated-lacto-ovo-vegetarian-non-smoking-non-drinking travelling business person has its challenges, especially when you’re a culture geek and therefore wish to avoid hotel and western influenced restaurants)
• Anything else I find interesting
• Oh yes ‘Milk‘! Well it’s a gimmick – but you knew that right? There are a number of reasons how, or perhaps why, the ‘milk’ link developed. One strange observation is that often, in the UK anyway, milk is cheaper than bottled water! How can that be? It’s crazy and demonstrates a triumph of marketing and brand over value and cost, especially given milk’s much shorter shelf life. I’d also argue that milk has more nutritional value than water or fruit juice, the other natural choice for a non-alcohol drinker. Yes there are fizzy sweet drinks the ‘cokes’ of this world (do they have them in the next?) but they are either full of sugar, or contain chemicals I’d rather avoid. Tea and coffee are options but I can’t handle caffeine and that can be difficult to describe when travelling internationally. And finally, milk tends to be fun, when I ask for milk, it often generates smiles, sometimes laughter, and wherever we are we all need more of that! So let’s recap good value, good nutrition, and fun!
  Footnote: any veggies or vegans out there that are going to discuss the ethical issues around milk – yep I’m aware of them and they trouble me too

Business type stuff …
Doug Lawrence is a sought-after energetic international speaker with an engaging informative style, based on two decades of translation industry experience, having held several international sales roles with leading translation companies and a translation tool vendor.

A passionate translation industry advocate, Lawrence works to raise its profile and promote its value with clients, translation companies, freelancers and educators.

Lawrence founded an independent translation technology consulting company, Amicus TransTec, in 2006. In 2007 Lawrence created the industry’s leading sales training programme Selling Translations® which has been completed by over 5,220 translation professionals from over 120 countries, and has been approved by the UK ATC, UK ITI, ALC, CSA and ProZ.com.

When not delivering training or running Amicus TransTec, Lawrence is a UK Government Export Communications Consultant for small and medium sized businesses. As a freelance CSA Associate Analyst Lawrence provides research input to sales related reports, quick takes, webinars and workshops. Lawrence is a consultant lecturer on the MA in Translation Studies and MA in Translation in a European Context at Aston University, UK, and the ITSE 6083 Managing the Sales Process Instructor at Austin Community College Texas, USA. He is also a Business Language Champion visiting schools to encourage children to study languages, and is on the Regional Advisory Board for Links into Languages which provides support for language educators. Lawrence is a UK Principal Experts to ISO TC 37 (SC 3 and 4) and a qualified ISO 9001 Lead Auditor.

Lawrence (BSc in Computer Science, MBA) is an associate member of the UK Institute of Translation & Interpreting, a member the UK Institute of Sales & Sales Management and the American Society for Training Development.