By Ailén Rodríguez

For thousands of years, ant colonies have successfully explored and exploited resources in the world to find food, built anthill and to adjust to changing conditions. It is intriguing studying ants and their collective behavior especially because this is all done without any central control.

The ants are an effective teamwork which try to cooperate, using their individual skills and trying their best in any circumstances. Also, they sometimes have to be able to tolerate the failure of individual components. They have implemented local evaluation and repair of intrusions, tolerating some level of imperfection.

As regard communication, the tools that serve large colonies well, therefore, are redundancy and minimal information. Enormous ant colonies function using very simple interactions among nameless ants without any address. Colonies make networks that respondtoa world that constantly changes, with resources that show up in patches and then disappear. These networks are easy to repair and can grow or shrink.

Ant colonies have been used throughout history as models of industry, obedience, and wisdom. Although the ants themselves can be indolent, inconsiderate of others, and downright stupid, we have much to learn from ant colony protocols. The ants have evolved ways of working together that we haven’t yet dreamed of.

Considering all these items within ants’ organization, we should take advantage of their example. Nowadays, some of our networks seem to be moving toward using methods deployed by the ants. In translation, for example, these methods are essential for achieving favourable results. It is all about teamwork and an individual translator is just one part of the process. Granted, talented linguists are key to effective translations, and there is an entire team devoted to the localization process. These individuals are charged with multiple day-to-day tasks involved in ushering a project through the various stages of localization. They communicate with clients; handle source content documents, and make sure that milestones and quality standards are met throughout a project’s lifecycle. If a client is working with multiple language service providers, the project manager may also keep track of which projects are being handled by which vendors.

At the outset of a new localization project, a project manager gathers all information and determines the project’s scope, cost, any required client training or onboarding, timelines, and milestones. They also line up the most appropriate linguists, editors and other resources because translating instructions for a heart valve requires a linguist with medical device knowledge and training, just as localizing a company’s website requires linguistic experts who know branding and online marketing.
While there tends to be some overlap among the various translation team members’ roles, every person performs a vital function. Since the major players in localization usually have knowledge of and experience with one another’s job tasks, it provides for greater flexibility and capacity.

Therefore, communication, tolerance, and teamwork are fundamental to get outstanding results. Regarding modlingua experience, interns can be linked by a strong bond which will help them to improve in their localization and translation training. This will help translators to avoid wasting time by sending an unsuccessful project which does not fulfill the client´s needs. Following ant’s example, translators can interact with each other and bring forth positive response to a world that constantly changes.  
Networks will continue to change and evolve. By examining and comparing the algorithms used by ants in the desert, in the tropical forest, and the invasive species that visit our kitchens, it's already obvious that the ants have come up with new solutions that can teach us something about how we should engineer our systems.
 
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Writer Ailén Rodríguez is Spanish and English Language and Translation Intern at Modlingua, India's No1. certified translation and Language service providers based in New Delhi