Lost in the Translation

Marco Montemagno
Originally uploaded by shelisrael1.

I am in Rome as a guest of the US State Dept., who has set up three days of conversations for me with Italian entrepreneurs, most of them involved in the social media. The people I have met have been superior for giving me a crash course on what is going on in Italy right now. The executive summary is—a great deal, but I’ll deal with that in a few days. The Jolly Hotel Via Vendito, an otherwise great hotel, charges 10 Euro an hour for WiFi connection. Yes, I said an hour.

But I thought the price was worth it in this one case, so I could share with you how much I enjoyed making an absolute fool of myself live on national Italian TV last night.

It all started with Marco Montemagno, the bright, passionate founder of Blogosfere, Italy’s largest blogging network. Blogosfere and b5media seem to be alike in a great mant ways, except that ours speak in English and theirs, of course, in Italian.

Marco has the heart and soul of a blog evangelist, so we immediately hit it off, and when he invited me to join him for dinner last night, then to be interviewed by him on the air at 10:30 pm, I thought it was some sort of videocast and I agreed, thinking I was doing him a favor. It turned out that the reverse was true.

Marco’s show airs weekly on Sky TV, Italy’s third largest and most independent TV network. Sky is a global player, with a worldwide network of news gathering affiliates. While his program Sky TG 24 Reporter Diffuso, looks at new technologies, Marco often interviews prominent entertainers and public officials. For example, next week he’ll be interviewing Italy’s minister of information who has a blog.

In addition to it’s on-air slot, Reporter Diffuso is also made available via streaming video, his blogs and Youtube. Through this mix of new and traditional media distribution, Marco reaches over a million viewers, a much larger audience than I’ve previously sat in front of.

Marco told me language would not be a problem [heh], because they had an inhouse Italian to English interpreter. On air, Marco would ask me questions I Italian. I would ear them via ear bud in English, reply in English and my answers would be translated into Italian on air.

We arrived on the station, my 7th visit as an interviewee this year and was impressed with everyone and everything I saw. This was a tight operation, yuet everyone seemed relaxed and happy.

Marco and I were placed on the set more than 10 minutes in advance, which helps relax you. They gave me my earbud, and every 30 seconds or so, my interpreter would make like the Sprint guy in the ads. “Can you hear me now, “ he would say and I would say yes.

Then we went live. Marco swung into an intro that I assume was nice. He then turned to me an speaking in Italian asked me his first question. I assume it was a good one, but I wouldn’t know. The earbud had gone dead. I was on national television. Marco was sitting and waiting for me to answer a question and I did not have a clue what he had said.

There was a long moment of “dead air.” Marco’s eyes got wide, as if to say “Well? Say something! Say something now.” I kept waiting for the translation but it never came.

Finally, I mumbled, “the translator is not coming through.” This was becoming the nakedest of conversations and it was being held in front of a national Italian audience.

Marco never lost a beat. He proclaimed “then I will translate.” He proceeds to ask me a question, in Engkish then tell the audience what he said. I would then answer and he would then tell the audience what I said. At one point I noticed in the monitor that I was leaning so far back in my seat that it looked like I was trying to slip under the desk to hide. Not such a bad idea. This was perhaps the longest 20-minute interview in recorded history.

When it was over, Marco and I broke up laughing. We knew that we had just shared an experience that we would never forget. I was worried however, that this might have hurt my new friend with Sky.

A few minutes ago, Marco’s director called him. He said that he had just viewed it and thought it was great video.

Go figure. At least on TV, a naked conversation, with a little improvisation may play pretty well after all.

Comments

[jim Forbes]

Way to go, Shel! When do you come home?
Watch out for the thousand year old eggs in Asia.
Be well, i've enjoyed your "non-travel" blogs and am quite surprised by how refreshing you've made Estonia appear.
chowchilla, have a bus load of fun,
jim

[peter zandan]

Shel,
Your travels remind me of a modern day Jack Kerouac - without the sex or drugs.
Thanks for the stories.
peter

[/pd]

seems you really had a blast.. interesting spin on the conversational mode itself !!

[L.L. Barkat]

Oh, this is too funny! A great way to start my week... reminds me, though, that flexibility is key to life.