Episode 25: Smart Habits for Staying Safe Online With Alexander Drechsel and Josh Goldsmith

Online security seems to be more important than ever these days. Since technology has become so ingrained in our daily lives, especially as a result of the pandemic, it's essential to do what we can to stay safe online.

But how much do you know about staying safe online? And more importantly, do you implement all those recommended precautions, like smart password management?

We wanted to get a refresher on this topic and encourage fellow translators and interpreters to take the necessary steps to protect their identities and personal information, as well as any confidential client data.

The exciting news is that this episode features not one, but two special (and tech-savvy!) guests: Alexander Drechsel and Josh Goldsmith, co-founders of techforword, an online training platform for modern wordsmiths.

Alex and Josh joined us to talk about productivity and technology, online security, and smart habits that help them in their own work, professional partnership, and personal lives.

Alexander Drechsel works as a conference interpreter at the European Commission. His love of languages and communication with people is only matched by his affection for mobile devices of all shapes and sizes: Alexander has been an iPad user since day one and also knows a thing or two about Android tablets. As Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of techforword, Alexander shares his knowledge in courses, on Twitter, and on his website. An avid podcaster, he writes and produces two podcasts for language professionals, LangFM and Troublesome Terps.

Josh Goldsmith is a UN and EU accredited translator and interpreter working from Spanish, French, Italian and Catalan into English. He splits his time between interpreting, translating, and working as a trainer and researcher focusing on the intersection between interpreting, technology and education. As Co-Founder and Chief Educational Officer of techforword, Josh shares tips about technology, translation and interpreting in conferences and workshops, academic articles, and on Twitter.

If you have ever heard Alex and Josh via one of their webinars, podcasts, or any talks, you know that they are very energetic and fun. This interview is no exception! We really enjoyed talking to them and would love to welcome them again to the podcast in the future.

We hope their tips will help you stay safe, organized, and productive while you work on various projects and collaborate with colleagues. If you have any colleagues who might find this episode interesting, we hope you'll send them the link or encourage them to subscribe to the podcast!

Here is a summary of our conversation with Alex and Josh:

• How and when they started their career

• How their typical work day looks and what changes they had to make due to the COVID-19 pandemic

• What they think about work/life clarity and how they set boundaries between their work and personal life

• What smart habits have been crucial in their career

• How their professional partnership as co-founders and instructors of techforword started

• What habits have been important for keeping this partnership going and making it successful

• What smart habits they recommend to all translators and interpreters to stay safe online

• What we can do to protect our own identities, personal information, and data

• How to protect our clients' data when using cloud-based storage and back-up tools

• Other tips and tricks for translators and interpreters related to organized and safe online collaboration

Resources we mentioned in this episode:

• Episode 1: Work/Life Clarity

• techforword website, courses, and webinar series

• techforword’s Productivity Powerhouse course: get 20$ off with the discount code SMARTHABITS or by using this direct link http://xl8.link/smarthabits until September 20, 2020

• techforword’s free webinar: Staying Safe Online

• techforword’s free mini-course: iPads for Wordsmiths: Five tried and tested tips to boost your productivity

• techforword’s free mini-course: Androids for Wordsmiths: Five tried and tested tips to boost your productivity

• Follow techforword on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube

• Behind the scenes: The tech behind techforword

• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

• 1Password: Password Manager

• Meeter app: Calls and meetings in one place

• Alex and Josh’s favorite VPN apps: TunnelBear and Encrypt.me

• iPad by Apple

• Logitech Ergo K860 Wireless Ergonomic Keyboard

• Logitech MX Vertical Wireless Mouse

• Massage ball kit for myofascial trigger point release

• Ember: Temperature-controlled smart mug

On September 15th, we'll be sending our email subscribers a summary of today’s episode with a link to all the resources that we mentioned today. If you’d like to receive it, please sign up for our emails below.

Our next episode will be released on September 22nd. If you want to hear about the topics of our episodes before they’re released, be sure to subscribe to our emails and follow us on social media!

For a full list of resources, visit the show notes page for this episode: https://smarthabitsfortranslators.com/podcast-episodes/25