Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Localization Today, the podcast where we talk to the leaders of the industry, localization, globalization, translation and everything in between about the current state of the industry and also the future. Today we have the pleasure to talk once again with Charles Campbell, founder and CEO of TBO and all of its own other subsidiaries. We'll talk about them today. And also Juntos. I'm part of the board of Juntos and Vamos Juntos and we'll talk about Vamos Juntos again today. Charles, we've shared a lot of different experiences together. We've seen certain things happen in the industry and within different ecosystems that you are building. Welcome again. It's a great pleasure to talk to you again.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Thank you, Eddie. Gracias. It's great to be here.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Fantastic. Because we have a lot to cover and for me, very important to really understand your perspective, to get to see where you are at. And I want to talk about Vamos Juntos. You've had several interviews. You've talked to so many people about what they saw in Mexico. I was there. In fact, we had our company retreat, Multilingual, went there as a company to Mexico City. It was amazing. I have to say, the food was great, location was great, we had a great time. As always. I don't think that's a surprise. But how did you take it? How was it for you?
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Well, Mexico City was an amazing event for Vamos Juntos. We were aware that nobody to the very best of our knowledge had ever organized an event for translation, localization and interpreting companies in Mexico City before.
You know, the events in our industry tend to gravitate around the same old, same old. Berlin, Boston, Dublin, Malma and Silicon Valley. And they don't spread around the world much. You know, we're in globalization and Latin America, Asia and Africa, Middle east often get left off the map. So for us it was really important to have Amas Juntos in Mexico City. Mexico is the single largest Spanish speaking country in the world.
Its relevance is impossible to ignore. So we were very excited to be there. We had approximately 150 attendees from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, USA, Canada, Europe, as far afield as Australia, even somebody flew from Fiji. I mean, it was just amazing. So a wonderful gathering and definitely first time for most in Mexico City. I mean, a lot of people have been in Mexico, to the beach, Cancun, so forth, but not so many people have been to Mexico, to Mexico City. So it was wonderful from a cultural standpoint, from the food speakers. The venue was amazing too.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: And it's always very interesting or I'll find it very interesting when you get to a country that provides language services and localization services. And it's very surprising to see in a lot of cases many of these companies. And I say because it's also the case for Colombia, many of these companies don't even know what localization is. They offer language services. They don't even know they are part of the industry. There are so many of them to get in terms of, at least bring awareness to them. But I was really happy to see, you know, locals as well and also get to experience the, the local cuisine.
Mexico City definitely was very vibrant in terms of the guests, the companies that came, the professionals that came there was an evolution, of course, from what we've seen in Rio and what we've seen in Lima. What are some of the highlights in terms of the attendees that you could point to that you'd say these were characters that were amazing to have with us?
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Well, obviously in the first Vamos Juntos and Rio de Janeiro, there were a lot of Brazilians because we were in Rio, but there was also a lot of people who wanted to go to the beach in Lima. We had a lot of local people as well. Some very well known companies in the industry have hubs in Lima and a lot of people also wanted to go to Machu Picchu or whatever while they were there. So there was a lot of gravitas for Lima, the ceviche, the Pisco sours. Mexico City was strangely, however, a tougher deal. I mean, even though Mexico City is very close to the United States, was kind of off the map for the localization industry.
And also the event coincided with some tectonic developments in the language industry. The language access community, predominantly emanating from changes in US Government policy.
That meant that there was a lot to discuss.
A lot of people were very fired up, but at the same time, budgets were being cut back. So it was, it was a challenge to organize. But really we had a fantastic gathering. It was the most diverse of all the Vamos juntos so far.
15% of the attendees were Mexicans. Some of them were Mexicans living in Mexico, others were Mexicans living in other countries. That was fantastic. We always want to see as much local involvement as possible.
Um, but it really was a very diverse community. For the first time, we had several enterprise buyers present. So we had three people from Uber, we had someone from Salesforce, someone from Meta, someone from Rotary International, someone from Korn, Ferry, someone from Cooper. We didn't have any Dogs like you've got there, Eddie. But that's cool. So it's nothing like a dog on your webinar. But it was very interesting to hear from what I've always called the dark side, you know, from the buyer side, which we did not have in previous Vamos Juntos conferences.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: And I did also, I think there was a group of us that were saying, okay, there is. There is a number that have been to every single Vamos Juntos. And then there's this weird pressure, which a good. On the good side of, you know, are you going to miss the fourth when you've already done the first three and the fourth is already right there. I think everyone is almost wanting to jump all the way to March to get it there. Maybe you should be thinking about a second Vamos Juntos any other side of the world, just to get the Latin American companies to see the world. But anyways, you already know what's going to happen next year. I've heard Argentina. I've heard Buenos Aires, of course, it was announced in Mexico. How has the story evolved since the announcement announcement was made in Mexico? We've seen a few developments also on the board of Juntos. What can you tell us about what's coming up?
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's been a number of very exciting developments. At the conference in Mexico City, we announced that Buenos Aires would be the next venue. And that was really exciting. We had some tango dancers which were very good, and that was a lot of fun.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: We had a rooftop cocktail with Philip.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah, we had a rooftop cocktail party. We had our own.
We dialed in a solar eclipse and there was a like, 32nd earthquake. So it all happened during our rooftop party. We announced that Buenos Aires would be the next venue. People have been telling us to organize Vamos Juntos in Buenos Aires for a long time. You know, Argentina, red wine, beef, tango, mate.
There's a lot of things going on in Argentina that are very iconic, very exciting. Argentina is one of those countries that seems to make a lot of noise. I think the single most represented image of a human being after Jesus Christ is Che Guevara's iconic picture where he looks half hippie, half sex symbol, half communist guerrilla. So Argentina has always been on the map with Evita, Juan Peron. The tango music, a hundred years ago was a tremendously strong economy. One of the richest countries in the world. Since then, you know, plateaued, gone up and down. But it is definitely a place where a lot is happening and has always been happening in the translation, localization and interpreting Space for us. It was a no brainer to organize Vamos Juntos and Buenos Aires. But we did want to move it around. This is a little bit like the Olympics where you move it around. So we had Rio de Janeiro, we had Lima basically in terms of north, south in the same place, but one is on the east of South America and one is on the west. And we went up to Mexico and now down to Argentina. Argentina is further away, so people have to spend a bit more money on the airfare. But there's so much going on in Argentina that it makes it a very attractive destination in this industry. Everybody seems to work with somebody who's either from Argentina or in Argentina. So we're expecting a strong level of.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Attendance and I believe there's going to be a strong level of attendance. I think the Argentinian companies that have not and usually might not get the opportunity to go to let's say an event in Europe or an event in Canada, because the price private, a lot of these companies to do that, I mean it's a huge investment to take, let's say four members of your team to Europe to a conference or to Canada or even to North America also. It's very far. This is a great opportunity for companies that are based out of Argentina and even just the global South. Right.
For any company below Colombia, I believe is like, you have to do it.
I think it makes a lot of sense in terms of the connections that these companies will be able to make and what they'll be able to learn in terms of how these professionals, these global professionals. Right. I mean we're talking world class professionals, how they generate relationships that last, which at the end of the day is what this industry does a lot in terms of like the way it does its business. And Argentina, of course, you already have some speakers confirmed and some exciting developments, of course. Can you tell us a little bit more about the program and the names that we're going to see there?
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So here I'm drinking Amate. Amate is basically the leaves go in here in the hot water. You can add sugar or sweetener if you're a war criminal.
I prefer it bitter with no, no sweetener at all. And it's like a low dose caffeine. You can sip away at these all day long. A lot of soccer players do it. It's great stuff.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: And for those that are listening, Charles has a mate. If you've not seen a mate, of course it's a bowl. But this one is particular, this one is wide. I've Normally seen? Well, there are lots of varieties.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: They come in all shapes and sizes.
You get leather ones, you get metal ones. It's amazing. So people are coming to Argentina for the mate, for the tango, for the red wine, for the beef, for the wonderful architecture of Buenos Aires. But mostly, of course, the venue is important, the atmosphere, the ambiance is important. But people are coming for the program and the call for papers is out there. It's still open. We made a conscious decision to have a smaller number of speakers than we did in Mexico City. The feedback was that the speakers we had in Mexico city were a 10 out of 10, but that there were maybe too many of them. And it was just, to use an Argentinian metaphor, there was just too much meat on the grill. So we're not going to be splitting the room. There's not going to be two tracks. So we've got to fit everybody in into two days. There'll be a rooftop party. There's going to be a Lock lunch organized by the Lock Lunch Ambassadors in Buenos Aires, together with the founder of Lock Lunch, Jan Henriks. I mean, when you think about it, there are a lot of companies in this industry that have a significant number of team members in Buenos Aires or offices in Buenos Aires or in Argentina. So I'm saying transperfect, RWS, VistaTech, CQ fluency, translated, Aclaro, they're all here in Argentina in one location or another. And then you have a tremendous local environment, rich environment of local companies. I forgot to mention memoq, Plunet, Fryce. I mean, the industry is here, so it's great to be having an event where everyone will come out and network together and have mates and so forth.
And then there's a tremendous local environment of local companies led by amazing entrepreneurs. TBO is just one of, I don't know, three dozen amazing companies in Argentina led by very, very talented people.
So we're expecting a very strong turnout. It will be held at Universidad Catolica Argentina, which is the Catholic University of Argentina located in Puerto Madero, which would be sort of like a Canary Wharf type destination in downtown Buenos Aires. Quite modern, but also surrounded by some amazing architecture from 100 years ago and very close to other parts of the city where you can check out wine tasting events or tango dancing and so forth. So a very central location right in front of the water. At the Catholic University, we're expecting perhaps 150 to 220 people. It's hard to say, you know, this economy, the headwinds that we're all facing. In history doesn't make it easy to predict how many people will attend an event or not. But we're working hard, and the feedback of the people who attended in Mexico City was just like, a plus. So, you know, we're looking forward to a bumper turnout. As I said, the call for speakers are still open, so nothing's written in stone. We have Natalie Kelly as the opening keynote speaker. We don't have the closing keynote speaker yet, and we're just very excited to be receiving presentations from people.
There's no theme, so you can talk about sales, you can talk about marketing, you can talk about AI. You can talk about the end of the world, you can talk about language access, you can talk about language training.
The number of different topics you can talk about is kind of endless. There's no, as I said, no theme. No one will be. Will be excluded. So, you know, we're very excited and we've got, let me see, eight months.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: To go, but time flies, time flies, time flies. And topics really evolve very quickly. I'll be very curious to understand, Charles, what your current preferences are. I can definitely tell you that I'm getting mixed signals from the whole AI and the whole agentic explosion.
And the big feedback back is, huh, it might not be the year of agentic, but it might be the year where agentic really failed to deliver.
And then everyone kind of like came back to reality and started doing different things. But, you know, I love to hear your perspectives. I know, I know you have a pretty cool, cool take on it. And we talked about it in the Lang talent episode. If you have not heard that, that episode, we were there with Charles as well, and we were talking about talent. Charles, what topics are getting your attention now? What are your point, your hot takes, let's say right now?
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you just touched on so many different things regarding AI. I mean, the quicker the rise of anything, whether it is a technology or a product or a trend, a clothing fad, the quicker the rise, the harder the fall. Shooting stars. I'm not saying that AI is a shooting star, but it has certainly surged very quickly, and everyone has something to say about it. Everyone has an opinion about it. Most people I know have played with it, learned about it, studied it, incorporated it into their business model to one degree or another. You know, it's here to stay at TBO Talent. We certainly seeing a lot of requests from clients to connect them to talent that is AI savvy, whatever it is they do. So I think that AI is going to be a must have, but you know, I don't see a significant increase in unemployment due to AI. Unemployment is still at a historical low in most developed countries, especially English speaking countries in the United States has ticked up a little. But I also see other factors affecting the labor market like Brexit, anti immigration positions and policies, whether it be anti illegal immigration or anti legal immigration. A lot of countries are tightening the rules, tightening their borders, meaning that talent pool for getting things done is smaller than it used to be. And I think there's a movie with something called A Day Without Mexicans and it shows what California would be like if there were no Mexicans. So, you know, I see a lot of pressure on the labor market due to these policies that won't be alleviated significantly by AI. Like AI saves time. Yeah, sure, creates efficiencies. But I think that we have a strong job market anyway. It is. I mean, I'm not going to minimize the anguish that's involved for people who go through layoffs. At tbo, we've had our own layoff process as well, but we've also hired back people that we've laid off and we've hired people for new jobs that the other people were not unfortunately a good fit for.
So jobs have been destroyed, jobs have been created, money and wealth have been destroyed, money and wealth have been created. But that process means that there's no business as usual. There's no same old, same old. So if you were kind of in a rut or kind of stuck, or if you were just very, very heavily doing what you were doing, this can be very upsetting for you. And companies do live and die on their cash flow. So if you hadn't made investments in being tech savvy and investing in technology, investing in technology people, and you're, you're now playing catch up and maybe you're short on cash. So, you know, these are challenging times. But from a talent point of view, I think that the talent shortage in the United States and other developed economies will continue.
It just takes people a long time to finish to, sorry, to furnish, to fill an AI related vacancy or a sales related vacancy inside this industry or in others. And it's very difficult to keep those people as well. The amount of churn that's out there, people moving from one job to another, you know, is a little bit lower than it used to be, like straight after the pandemic, but it's still significant.
So a lot of work to be done, a lot of action. I think that at Vamos Juntos, people will be talking about AI nonstop. Bet they'll be talking even more about language access. So there'll be a lot of different things people will be talking about. They're going to be talking about the mates and the vino tinto as well. So I don't know. There's a lot going on. It's a challenging time. That. That's undeniable. And there's definitely no rising tide that's lifting all boats. But there's plenty of opportunity, both for individuals and for companies. That's why you see a lot of optimism and a lot of pessimism at the same time.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Thank you so much for putting it that way, Charles. And it's great to see it from the perspective of someone who runs a company.
And, of course, most of us know you in the industry, but there might be some new listeners that are coming into the industry, but that might not know that. Tell us a few words about tbo, but I'm much more interested into how you're navigating these times. What's happening with TBOs and TBO talent and all of the different TBO branches that you have out there.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, TBO is not a new kid on the block. I founded tbo 20 years ago, actually, in August. 20. Well, 2005. Gosh, it's a long time. It's been a fantastic ride. It's been my personal passport to the world. Created a huge amount of value for our customers, for our employees, for our vendors. It's been a very, very rewarding experience for me and I believe for everyone on the TVO boat now, right now, I mean, we're in full transformation. As I said, we've let people go, we've hired more people. Headcount is roughly the same as it was before, just people doing different things. I'd love to say more sophisticated things. That's not really. That doesn't sound right. But certainly a lot more AI in the mix. You know, TVO has offices in Argentina, in Peru, Mexico, Ukraine and Vietnam. So we're around the world, five different international quality norms. We've been investing a lot in our people, in our processes and our technology, and in our marketing for a very, very long time. So I don't think we're playing catch up with anybody, but we are reinventing ourselves. And, you know, that is, as I said, it's destruction and creation. It's hard work, but, you know, no one said it was meant to be easy. So right now, we have been hunting for a couple of salespeople for like, two months, and we haven't been able to find them. We have AI engineering vacancies that the vacancy opens, we fill it, and another vacancy opens like mushrooms growing in a forest.
So we're working hard.
TBO Dev, our technology staffing unit is growing fast as well. I mean, there's a lot to be done. There's a lot to be done. AI has affected our translation sales approximately 8% down, but we also achieved 25% cost savings through AI, so that, you know, favorable to our bottom line. And as I said, you know, we're in the process of reinventing ourselves. It's a lot of hard work, but the heart, you know, no pain, no gain.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: I completely understand. And of course, from your experience, and We've had several CEOs come to the show, and for some of them, they get really hardcore into it. And a lot of the things that they involve involve, of course, a lot of humans, but doing different things, not just on the technical side. Some companies are more technical than on the translator linguistic side. And those transformations sometimes are also affected by whether they're using their own AI or they have, like, an external model. And, you know, I'm curious to understand, in your, in your mix, are you finding AI to have more limitations than just unseen opportunities, or do you say, oh, my gosh, we cannot even. We're not even. We're not even getting started, Eddie. Or is it. Is it missing the mark in a lot of aspects? And I'm wondering mostly because we get mixed signals in localization today. You know, some that are saying it's missing the mark vastly and others that say it's hitting it on the nail really well and it's going to be almost perfect soon.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: It's difficult to give a concise answer to that question or statement you just made. I mean, I think we're just the tip of the iceberg at this point. There's so many options, so many tools, so many ways of using AI, but there's so many ways of using humans as well, and so many different types of customers and so many different customer requirements. We've been using technology, machine translation and so forth since the day we founded tbo. So this technology, you know, has evolved significantly, but it's not something that wasn't there when we got started. You know, I've seen Terminator. I love that movie. And in that movie, the technology takes over and kills the humans. Skynet takes over. I don't know. I mean, I've talked about this at, at length with Andre Hempker. Who I believe he sold his business and is now running a motorcycle dirt bike rental company in the mountains in Portugal. And he says, when are you going to follow me? And I said, I'm having far too much fun to go into early retirement. You know, I'm up for the challenge. I'm still enjoying every single day. Yes, it's hard work. There's no plain sailing. There's no plain sailing, that's for sure. You know, it's a lot of hard work and a lot of challenges, but a lot of opportunities. I mean, you think about it. When I started as a linguist in early 1990s, we were translating passports, death certificates, marriage certificates, driver's licenses, a medical record was a sexy translation project. Paper dictionaries, laptop computers, printers, FedEx boxes, faxes. So has technology taken our jobs away way? No. I mean, it's enhanced our jobs. I cannot stand this doomsday rhetoric that's out there that somehow linguists are being shafted by technology. I mean, technology made our profession take off. Yeah, sure, there was always an elite of interpreters at the UN and so forth, but when this industry really took off in the 80s 90s, early 2000s was due to technology enhancements that meant that you could move away from having, I don't know, some lady who spoke German in your office, do your German translations on the side, to using professional linguists, professional translation, localization, and interpreting companies with professional processes. That's when people started getting in and getting ISO standards, organizing conferences. That's when the boom took place. Place. It took place alongside technology. So I don't see technology as ruining the party or raining on the parade. I think this is just the next wave. And yeah, this wave came quick.
And maybe we were just like recovering psychologically, physically, still recovering from the pandemic when this wave hit us. But I'm excited. I'm up for the challenge. I'm not retiring to Patagonia yet. I don't do dirt bikes, but I do like mountain bikes. Maybe one day I will retire down there and do my own version of what Andre is doing in Portugal and ran mountain bikes in Patagonia. But I think I'm a long way off yet because I think there's just too many interesting things going on.
It's far more interesting than when I started. There are far more opportunities today than when I started it in this industry. So I think we got to be grateful. And I hear talk about people leaving the industry, and it's not my intention to offend anyone. Being a linguist is. Is A specialized position. It requires years of training. But that said, we're not brain surgeons. You know, if a brain surgeon leaves the profession and decides to grow mushrooms, that is a tragic loss for medicine because there is an absolute critical shortage of brain surgeons. And they, they, you know, literally save people's lives, little children's lives, adults lives. You know, translators sometimes save lives too. I'm not, as I said, I'm not minimizing the importance of anybody. But if a translator stops translating and becomes a localization engineer, most localization engineers who were once translators or they move into a different role in the industry, like sales or marketing or human resources or management or project management or account management, there's just so many, or event organization, you know, whatever. And then they do that for five years and then they move back into translation and they move on to being an interpreter and then they become a teacher.
What is the problem with this mobility? I don't see a problem personally. It's a little bit different for ASL interpreters in the United States, where the shortage is so critical that people leaving the profession is more like that brain surgery metaphor that I used. But you know, I don't think that people should be stuck or imprisoned in the translation profession or interpreting profession or localization profession. Moving around, getting real jobs and different things, becoming a court interpreter, going to work for a software company, working for the government, taking a couple of years off, whatever is fine. It all contributes to your brain matter in terms of moving forward. And I don't see this isn't like Toyota in Japan in the 1980s where people worked in the same company, often in the same role their whole lives. So I don't think there's a huge thing about people moving from job to job. I am concerned, however, about the number of people moving into the profession, like when they're 20 years old. That is definitely dropping in English speaking countries. I don't know what people are studying in English speaking countries, but when I was a kid, studying languages was like so sexy. I mean, it was like, you know, World Cup, Barcelona Olympics. I don't know, we all thought we were going to be like James Bond living on a plane. And you know, maybe that reality is tougher these days. So I am concerned about the number of people starting in the profession. But that said, some of these trends are true in the United States, United Kingdom, Western Europe. But in other countries, I don't know, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, South Africa, India, people are, maybe China people are studying translation more than ever before. So, you know, I don't know, there's just a lot going on. It's difficult to understand all this.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: And thank you. You put it in a really good way when you said that people can do like, yeah, AI can do a lot of things, but people can really do a lot things. And if you don't have people that know languages, that understand languages, you know, the number of things that we can come up with these new technologies is going to be limited.
And you put it really well when you were talking about, you know, your history with TBO and you're saying, you know, the type of things that you use to translate. And, you know, nobody was translating even websites because there wasn't that many websites. Nobody was translating blog posts because there were no blog posts to be translated to begin with. I do see a lot of a huge need for consolidated insights and also for global. The execution of global content strategies. We see an evolution in the conversation within those. The guests that we have. And we are slowly stopping to hear about translation, just as the term translation, and rather we hear a lot about, like, the content strategy to go into, like, different places. And then that content strategy, of course, includes translation, but that's at the heart of culturalization. And then, you know, some of them are mentioning how much better it is to have someone in the actual country who speaks your language. So you'll kind of like need to study languages to be able to have that sort of, like, level of content strategy execution ability.
And it's very great to hear that your team has stayed in terms of a headcount, had stayed about similar, and then it's now in that process of evolution and functions happening. So you right now have any innovation.
And my apologies if I'm going rogue here, but I'm really curious to understand if you have an innovation team or an engineering team, how is that shaping up internally? I'm very curious.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: You put me on the spot, Eddie. Yes, certainly we have an innovation.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: If you don't want to include it, we can.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah, you got to edit this part. We have an innovation and research and development manager. He's great. Our whole team is always looking at new opportunities in terms of deploying technology using AI. We've tried almost every translation tool there is out there. We have our.
I mean, there's so many different processes going on at TBO and different ways of doing things. A lot of time is put into thinking out of the box. Lately, I have been personally committed to traveling to locations that are outside the core of this industry. As I said, you know, the old Boston, Berlin Silicon Valley, Dublin axis. So I went to Tanzania to the East Africa Interpreters and Translators conference earlier this year. In February, I attended the Plunak conference in Berlin at the end of May. Fantastic event. I'm going to the association of Language Companies of Africa conference in cape town in 10 days. Going to attend a lock lunch, lock drinks in Istanbul on my way there. Funny. You know, you have to go up to go down sometimes in the Southern hemisphere. So go up to Turkey to go down to South Africa. I'm very likely going to be at the Translation Forum in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia in November. I've also been invited to a conference in China and Wuhan, but unfortunately it overlaps with Riyadh. I'm attending the association of Language Companies in the United States conference in New Orleans, which is a wonderful destination I haven't been to in almost 20 years.
So lots going on. Oh, and Samvad, the conference organized by the India association as well in New Delhi. I mean, there's so much going on. It's so exciting. How do I fit it all in? Don't know. That's why I'm also another reason why I'm very excited that Vamos Juntos will be in Buenos Aires and home turf next year.
But so much going on, so many people to learn from, so many people to meet, so many exciting conversations to have.
It's an exciting industry. Yes. Okay. We got a kick in the guts from technology at some time, end of last year, early this year in combination with changes in government policy and a very significant change in the rhetoric coming out of the United States government vis a vis languages. But you know, way we're going to rise to the challenge. So, you know, just got to keep growing and working hard.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: I'm sure, I'm sure that's the case and I'll be happy to see different companies. Some of these events are coming up. We're probably overlapping a couple of them. So I look forward to seeing how the conversation is evolving. And at tvo before we go, Charles, is there anything else you think we should be mentioning at this point before we go?
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Well, we're definitely looking for speakers for Vamos Juntos. You know, as I said, we've got Natalie Kelly as the keynote and the rest is wide open. You know, many people have put in applications and it will be competitive and that will be decided upon by the board of Juntos. You know, I'd love to see as many people as possible make presentations. You know, be much better to have more high quality presentations that we could fit in than having less, but that's never been the case in the past either. So I'm very excited and I just invite everyone to attend Vamos Juntos. So much going on in Buenos Aires. As I said, everyone either works with an Argentinian or with someone in Argentina. It seems Argentina is always on this map, on the map in the industry, which is fantastic. So I'm really looking forward to the event. I'm really hoping we get more submissions and it's going to be great. See you there, Eddie.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: It will. It will be great, I'm pretty sure. And for those of us that are interested, is there an early bird, is there an event bride that we can go to and express our interest?
Something that we could put in the comments of this recording?
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Well, the registration hasn't actually opened yet because we're talking about March 14th next year. You know, it's a long way off. But the call for papers is open and un often posts things on LinkedIn that sometimes get buried by the LinkedIn algorithm. It's very unusual. If you talk about, you know, your kids or something, you're going to get a lot more reach than Vamos Juntos or some chit chat about existential stuff that goes on in the workplace. You get a lot more hits. But Vamos Juntos is a topic of substance and the call for papers is out. And then there's LinkedIn posts where you can make opinions and suggestions, you can reach out to the board members. But the actual registration process has not started yet and that will start soon.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: If then we have not yet had the registration link. By the time you're listening to this Right now is August 18th. When do you think we're going to have. When do the call for papers close? Or are you going to have it opened as much as possible and then when do you expect those that can register are ready to put the money there, are able to do it. I'm assuming you're going to do an early bird at least 50% off, right?
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Oh, sure. The call for papers will be open until September 15th, I believe. Then there will be a pretty quick decision process and the program will be launched in October and that's when we will launch the registration process.
There will be discounts for people who are members of partner associations of Juntos. We're really looking forward to it. I know people there's one past speaker at the event is already rented an Airbnb apartment to stay the entire month of March in Buenos Aires. Get away from the cold weather in the Northern hemisphere.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: So, you know, I have to tell you, there are a few entourages that I've heard of that you're probably not aware of that are already in the plans on what we'll be doing in Argentina.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: Yeah, as I said, you know, transperfect RWS phrase plunat CQ fluency translated claro. I mean vista check the list is long of people of organizations that have teams in Argentina. A lot of people would do what you did with have some kind of company retreat or pow wow, get together, you know, break bread with those team members you've never met before and so forth. So I think there's going to be a, a very strong level of attendance. I would be surprised if we didn't get between 150 and 220 attendees, which for a new conference is pretty amazing numbers. And these are, as I said, not easy times to organize a conference. A lot of headwind out there. But you know, Argentinians are very good at reinventing themselves.
A lot of the stuff that's going on in the world that people are finding challenging has been going on in Argentina forever. So we're working hard and it's a fantastic place to eat out, listen to music, theater, dancing. So people will be looking for the full package when they attend. I'll be there. A whole bunch of people from TBO will be there, that's for sure.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: And I'm sure we will have a lot of fun in Argentina. With that we come to an end. So I will just one more time put in that music just to say goodbye. Charles, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: Thank you Eddie, it's been great talking to you.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: And thank you everyone who has been listening. That was our conversation with Charles Campbell, founder and CEO of TBO and also founder and board member of Juntos, organizer of Vamos Juntos next year March. Vamos Juntos Buenos Aires, Argentina if you have ideas on papers, remember to put those in the call for papers. Open until the 15th of September and then registrations are gonna open. If you're gonna be there, let us know. Please comment, subscribe and leave us. Give us a like and a comment. This was a conversation of substance, Charles, just how you like it. Thank you so much for doing it, man. And I hope to interview you once again this year.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: Thank you very much, Eddie. Have a great day.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Bye everyone.
