Recently in Globalization, localization Category

I am happy to announce that Karl Kadie has joined us officially as a Senior Analyst. Karl has actually been working with with Leonor and Mary in the Content Globalization Practice for 6 months as a Contributing Analyst, and was a co-author of our recently released report Multilingual Communications as a Business Imperative: Why Organizations Need to Optimize the Global Content Value Chain. Karl has been a great addition to the team, and will continue to focus on content globalization.

Karl's bio can be found at http://gilbane.com/consultant_bios.html#kkadie, and his email address is: kkadie@gilbane.com and his phone extension is
210.

Welcome Karl!

Attention: technical writers! In the spotlight next week: the availability of authoring assistance technologies that bring a living, breathing corporate Style Guide into content creation environments. Creating team-authored product support content with consistency and globalization in mind has come a long way. More on that over on the Globalization blog.

Join me on April 9th to discuss the value of translation-oriented authoring with technology provider across Systems, language services provider Argo Translation, Inc., globalization consultant Richard Sikes, and QuadGraphics, a customer reaping the benefits of authoring assistance technology in a FrameMaker environment.

SDL continues to execute its growth and expansion strategies with today's announcement that it has acquired Idiom for approximately $22 million US. The current plan is to operate the Idiom business as an autonomous unit under the direction of Idiom CEO Mike Iacobucci.

The acquisition raises all kinds of questions, of course. Idiom is one of the companies with big potential to bring innovation to the language services industry, which has been ripe for change for some time now. More resources to execute could mean more value for customers sooner. Will the Idiom technology (and SaaS offer) reach its full potential as an agent of change under SDL? What about the impact on buyer choice -- how will the acquisition affect companies coming into the market? Stay tuned for analysis of these and other key questions coming out of today's news.

The deadline for proposals for panel participation or presentations for:
Gilbane San Francisco 2008 at the Westin Market Hotel, San Francisco, June 17 - 19, 2008 is January 15.

Visit http://gilbanesf.com/ to see the topic areas we are focusing and then see how to submit a proposal.

If you've never been to one of our events and want see what we have been covering in our conference programs you can view the programs from Gilbane Boston 2007 and Gilbane San Francisco 2007.

If you have additional questions about speaking, send them to speaking@gilbane.com.

In the Global Information Age, mere information availability no longer suffices. Today's customer expectations demand relevant information that is culturally acceptable, appealing, and most important, understood. Delivering contextual, multilingual information – communications that make sense in the customer’s language of choice – is fundamental. Translation is a corporate requirement.

However, any company with a multinational revenue profile knows that fusing quality and translation is a significant challenge. Our take? Quality translation within the global content lifecycle can be elusive, but it is achievable. To learn more, download our latest whitepaper, "Quality In, Quality Out: The Value of Technology in the Global Content Lifecycle" and listen to the recording from the companion webinar hosted by Sajan.

We'll also continue the quality discussion throughout Gilbane Boston's Globalization track, particularly in the session, "Quality at the Source: Creating Global Customer Experience."

Note: Originally posted on the Gilbane Group Globalization Blog.

Attention, buyers and users of content and globalization management solutions! Wondering about the right integration approach for your company?

The globalization track at Gilbane Boston 2007 includes a session entitled "Integrating Content and Translation Processes: Managing Global Customer Experience." The panel brings together two content management vendors, two providers of translation technology and services, and one middleware company that connects multiple CM and GM systems. Our goal is to explore the different options that you have when integrating the two technologies to create solutions supporting the global content life cycle.

In the session description, we promise to use "real world scenarios" to drive the panel. We're issuing an invitation to our readers to submit suggestions for the scenarios that we'll use for discussion. Do you have CM and GM practices that need to be streamlined? Are you planning to acquire and deploy CM/GM in the future, but not sure how to best fit the technologies together? Need fresh ideas for outmoded processes? Then think about proposing a scenario for the integration session at Gilbane Boston.

We'll arrange a call with you to discuss your scenario and its context. If your scenario is chosen for use in the session, you'll help us write up a description that we'll share with the panel participants prior to the conference. Whether we choose your scenario or not, you'll have the benefit of a little free advice from the Gilbane Group in the course of discussing your situation, constraints, requirements, etc. Please note that you need not register for Gilbane Boston in order to submit a scenario for possible use in the session. But if you do plan on attending the conference, you'll have the option of presenting your own scenario to the panel.

Send scenarios or questions about the session to me or to my colleague Leonor. We'd welcome the chance to speak with you about this unique opportunity.

Activity for our 4th Gilbane Boston conference at the Westin Copley November 27 -29 is ramping up quickly. The conference schedule and session descriptions have been posted. The early list of exhibitors and sponsors is also available. And, online registration is open. We'll be updating the site on a regular basis from now on, usually daily, so bookmark the pages that interest you to keep up-to-date.

This week's topic: Growth in language translations.

5 questions,
30 seconds,
Promise.

Are here.

I was only able to make it into the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston yesterday. You can still get a demo pass for today. But I was thrilled to hear analyst, researchers, case study presenters, and yes, even vendors, drill down into one of my favorite phrases: "people, processes, and technology make it possible" and hope the mantra continues today.

Point being, obviously, that 2.0 not just about technology ;-). Its about culture, filling generation gaps, the evolution of *people* networking, and redefining community from the core of where community starts. Humans.

What I didn't hear, however, is the "L" word -- specifically language, and that bothered me. We just can't be naive enough to think that community, collaboration, and networking on a global scale is solely English-driven. We need to get the "L" word into the conversation.

My globalization practice colleague Kaija Poysti weighs in here.