Neat contest -- Need help with ideas!!

[miclason]

I posted this in my blog and, Joan.of.the.arch suggested I would get a lot more feedback from the forums!!

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the ministry of economy of my country is having a contest for entrepreneurs!...basically, if you are salvadoran and have a small business or if you have a good idea, you can participate...I'm thinking of participating...they have 9 "grand prizes", which are $6,000 seed money and follow-up counseling for a year. Also, the ministry would be your co-signor so you could apply for credit from the local banks (which traditionally don't give credit for micro businesses)...the really cool thing is, even if you don't win, the different phases of the contest include:
1. they'll help you write your business plan
2. They'll give you special training in different areas of your choice (administration, taxes, human resource management, strategic planning, accounting, IT, for example)

so, even if you don't win, you get something very valuable out of it!

I want to do something with translations...at this stage, I have a vague idea of what and how I want to do it (that is ok, that's all I need)...but, I also need A NAME!!!....I've never thought about this...anybody have any ideas?? (good or bad, I'll take them all!...I can work with anything and see how I can adapt it or something!...obviously, I have to do something that will be good both in English and in Spanish!)

HELP!...I have a week to turn it in!

[SuzeOFan]

Re: Neat contest -- Need help with ideas!!

Here's what I would do.

Get yourself a Thesaurus to help you with the following:

Write down every descriptive word you can that best describe your business on one column. Then do the same in another column - only in Spanish.

You've heard of Bennifer, and Brangolina... try adapting the same thing for your 2 columns. And see if you can come up with a snappy name.

That's one way to do it for a single name company.

Or you might decide you want to use more than one word for your company.

Puzzle words are cool! How about:

TransRelations

But you would really need to give us a little more info describing your biz.

[miclason]

Re: Neat contest -- Need help with ideas!!

well, basically it's just translation services (no interpretation, as I really don't have the skills to do that!)... what I have seen is that many companies trying to attract foreign investment either don't have their documentation/websites in English or, they have just given it to somenone in-house and, therefore, the translations are sub-standard (at best, some are really crappy!)...there aren't that many translation services in ES (only 17 listed in the yellow pages, only 4 list e-mail addresses, only 3 have websites)....modesty aside, this is something that I'm really good at. Also, I already have some connections that could get me work, but, I really cannot commit to something that big while working here because the workload would be just too much...but, I wouldn't want to leave here unless I had a real good plan to make it work...
It also seems like a good time to do this, since many new companies are coming, and, it's not only advertising or promotional materials that could be translated...there are also things like manuals and trainings that need to be translated if you REALLY want your people to get the most out of it! (we've been getting that complaint at my company for years now and, before we just ignored it because we had enough "full -English" speakers to make a significant impact anyway...as we are now down to people with only intermediate English skills, we are already translating manuals and trainings, in preparation for the time when the only ones pending to be trained are people with basic English or no English at all)

[tgavin71]

Re: Neat contest -- Need help with ideas!!

What about something simple and straight to the point such as

English To Spanish Document Translation Services to target the new companies coming and

Spanish To English Document Translation Services (in Spanish obiviously) for local companies who need documents translated into English.

I know they are a bit longwinded but at least the ministry of economy see your entry they'll know straight away what your business idea is.

Good luck with your adventure which ever name you decide on.