First, Happy New Year from the Content Globalization team & hope your holiday season included rest and relaxation. Now back to it!
I'm not big on once a year resolutions; I like ongoing "continuations" better - i.e. keep doing what works and throw out what doesn't. In terms of our education mission, what worked best in 2008 is exactly what we set out to do via our inaugural mandate -- talk to practitioners, CIOs, strategists and fellow analysts about our view of the "globalization mandate" and understand how it fits into the "field view." So in terms of "continuations," we're increasing this commitment -- because it works.
Our 2008 experiences throughout corporate consulting gigs and Gilbane conferences underscore a simple truth -- when folks share, communities gather, and corporate operational champions for multilingual communications band together, "things" happen. And our "thing" is solidifying industry awareness that content is a vital part of web experience, customer satisfaction, and multinational expansion programs. The monolingual "one size fits all" approach? Doesn't work.
So what's with my elevator pitch title? It's an ongoing conversation we're having with our community about making the business case for content globalization strategies that are funded, valued, measured and successful. Basically, the elevator pitch for multilingual communications in five minutes or less. Here's one of our favorites, courtesy David Lee from 3M:
