Author: Mary Laplante (Page 10 of 13)

Your day in the sun may finally be dawning.
While preparing for an upcoming webinar on technical publications in global markets, we reviewed the content/globalizaton management topics that we’ve covered recently in white papers, case studies, and other webinars. An emerging–and insistent–theme is the role that product support content plays in the nearly universal drive for positive customer experience.
This signals an important shift in the value proposition for investment in content technologies for
technical documentation. One that should warm the hearts of techpubs pros everywhere.
Historically, companies have spent money on technical publishing technology in order to realize operational benefits–more automation, content reuse, lower headcount, and so on. The value proposition was inward-facing. Now, however, value is increasingly derived from outside the operations of the organization. High-quality technical content impacts customer satisfaction, drives new revenue in new markets, enhances product usability, and reinforces brand. The value prop is now outward-facing. And these dimensions of ROI can pour a whole lotta sunshine in the corner offices of worldwide organizations.
In addition to the July 11 webinar with Idiom and EMC, check out these Gilbane artifacts for evidence of the value shift in technical publishing.
From the Autodesk case study:

Regarded as a strategic and essential company asset, product documentation is a significant component of the company’s customer-centric information supply chain. With over 60 percent of revenue derived from outside the United States, Autodesk’s vision for content globalization is paramount to continued market leadership.

See also the Sun Microsystems case study and recorded webinars with Medtronic and Astoria.

The results are in — and they’re not surprising. Well, actually one is. A mere 35% of respondents indicated that their companies have a formal brand management team. The result to our second question, “Does the team include a localization or translation subject matter expert?” was a resounding 100% “No.” This, unfortunately, is the “not surprising” part. Although our N was smaller than we’d like, we expect that the trend would have continued on the same course.

The fact is, most companies have work to do to ensure that corporate brand flows through multi-geographical market segments in a way that’s both consistent and relevant to customers and prospects in specific cultures and locales. It’s not easy. According to Economist Intelligence Unit, authors of Guarding the Brand, almost half of their respondents believed expanding into new territories made brand management all the more difficult. The top two challenges? 63 percent cited cultural differences and 44 percent cited language barriers and translations issues.

It’s sometimes “easier” to avoid dealing with the presence of some 4000+ languages worldwide, but it’s not so easy to ignore when one investigates the facts in smaller “chunks” so to speak. Consider this list of “The 50 Most Widely Spoken Languages” as a more easily digestible example.

If your company aims to expand footprint and revenue generation in this “flat world,” globalization needs to be a part of the brand management discussion. And if you are responsible for leading the charge into a new geographic region — you need to have a voice that’s heard.

That’s Content, Globalization, or Brand manager …
As convergence of these three business practices starts to accelerate, it’s increasingly likely that the roles are Content and/or Globalization and/or Brand management. Convergence is a key theme on our globalization log and at our upcoming Gilbane Boston 2007.
If you’re involved in these practices at your company, take the Poll of the Week on Globalization and Brand Management .
If you’re just getting up to speed on their convergence, register for the June 26 webinar on web CMS and eMarketing. Websites are integral to every enterprise’s business. Learn how to transform your content management system into a global lead generation machine.

Customers we met at Interwoven’s GearUp ’07 reminded us of how much really hard work goes into complex content-centric applications. We see the glittery, exposed tips of solutions, while the bulk of the application lies under the surface, often at depths where only the experts go. A presentation by Sun Microsystems at GearUp is a case in point.

The session focused on Sun’s Starlight platform, a global information management infrastructure described in a Gilbane CTW case study. It was an opportunity to hear the Starlight story live, in a panel discussion featuring Sun’s Sean Browne, director of web publishing, and three members of his team, including Kristen Harris, content management engineering manager, and Jed Michnowicz, engineering lead. In the program, we noticed that the session was being moderated by Steve Van Leishout from NEC Corporation of America (NECAM). What was the connection, we wondered, between Sun and NECAM?

During the discussion, we learned that NECAM is a long-time Sun partner, providing program management and technical expertise in support of the redesign of Sun web properties. A few examples of the heavy lifting that NECAM has done at Sun: helping to migrate nine properties into two primary vehicles of approximately 225,000 pages and assets, and coordinating the hand-offs between more than 100 stakeholders responsible for publishing content to sun.com, java.com, two developer sites, and over 35 country sites in 12 languages. The hard work below the surface enabled us to gain a new appreciation for the success story documented in the Gilbane case study on Starlight, reminding us that there’s usually much more to successful applications than meets our eye.

If you have an iceberg application that you’d like to share, consider submitting a speaking proposal for Gilbane Boston 2007. The deadline is May 15.

To learn more about Sun’s Starlight platform, see Leonor’s entry on the Gilbane globalization blog entitled Aging: Web Years Are Worse Than Dog Years.

Leonor summed up Gilbane’s perspective on the real challenge in content globalization in her entry of January 19:

We’ve found that the problem for organizations is less about the act of translation itself, and more about aligning the business processes that support it.

The hard part of globalization isn’t translating one phrase to another. The core problem is the inefficiencies associated with how we do the translating, with how we move words from creation to consumption by their target audience.

Our latest Content Technology Works case study describes how Autodesk, a major software company with worldwide sales of $1.6 billion US, recognized that better processes and higher levels of automation are the critical elements of a scalable globalization strategy. More words in translation memory were important outcomes of its initiatives, but the real benefit to Autodesk is greater competitive advantage as a worldwide software company.

Minette Norman, Senior Software Systems Manager, Worldwide Localization, at Autodesk shares insights in a webinar on April 25, 1:00 pm ET. Registration is now open.