The deadline for submitting proposals for the Gilbane Boston conference, December 2 – 4, 2008 is June 15. See: https://gilbane.com/speaker_guidelines.html
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Our April 16th webinar on translation-oriented authoring hosted by across Systems was an excellent 360 degree view of its value from a consultancy, language service provider, and end-user perspective. Thanks to Richard Sikes from LocFlowTech, Inc., Peter Argondizzo from Argo Translation, Inc., and Amy Karls from QuadTech for and a job well done! Access the recording here.
As Sikes noted in his opening remarks, decisions that get made in one part of an organization often show up as costs in another area. This is particularly true of translation and localization costs. Those who create and translate product content (user guides, operator manuals, quick start guides, online help, and the list goes on…) understand the downstream effect of decisions made under pressure all too well.
According to Karls, demand for multilingual product support content consistently is increasing, but timelines and resources are most assuredly not. Isolated story? We think not. Check out the webinar poll on the number of language outputs required from our audience, largely technical documentation folks.
Now check out the range of tools our audience is using to create product support content.
I believe there is not a single technical writer who intends to create inconsistencies or confusion for their translator counterparts. But stuff happens. Like “hurry up” pressure. Like “we lost our editor” pressure. Like “who’s got the latest version of the Style Guide pressure.”
According to Argondizzo, translation-oriented authoring has numerous advantages, among them:
- Unlocks never before utilized value of translation memory database for writers
- Strengthens partnership with language service provider and writers
- Provides content creators with a different perspective of translation memory usage
- Easy to understand and track savings
- Time saved by author not rewriting text
- Consistency for additional reuse in other channels
- Regulatory concerns in rewriting text that already exists
I wholeheartedly agree. Check out the webinar recording. The advantages of “assistance” is demonstrable and impressive, whether one calls it authoring assistance, translation-oriented authoring, or controlled authoring.
I’ve been intrigued by MadCap Software and their aggressive push into the documentation tools space. We just got an in-depth series of presentations on their products, and I certainly came away impressed. Mary Laplante is quoted in a related article over at EContent Magazine.
The holy grail in translation is the speed versus quality dilemma. That creates controversy. Here’s what we’ve noted after posting our Multilingual Social Networking Alert citing Facebook’s crowdsourcing effort:
- Article: Facebook asks users to translate new versions for free
- Video: Facebook’s Spanish Translation Misses the Mark
- Blog: No, Getting Users To Translate Facebook Into Other Languages Isn’t Exploitation
- Article: Facebook’s Community Translation: Savvy or Just Cheap?
No doubt that these references are the tip of an iceberg. How to say “poke” in different languages is clearly not the only conversation going on. And BTW, here’s Facebook’s Translation Application.
The Gilbane Group and Lighthouse Seminars announced that Udi Manber, a Google Vice President of Engineering, will kick-off the annual Gilbane San Francisco conference on June 18th at 8:30am with a discussion on Google’s search quality and continued innovation. Now in its fourth year, the conference has rapidly gained a reputation as a forum for bringing together vendor-neutral industry experts that share and debate the latest information technology experiences, research, trends and insights. The conference takes place June 18-20 at the Westin Market Hotel in San Francisco. Gilbane San Francisco helps attendees move beyond the mainstream content technologies they are familiar with, to enhanced “2.0” versions, which can open up new business opportunities, keep customers engaged, and improve internal communication and collaboration. The 2008 event will have its usual collection of information and content technology experts, including practitioners, technologists, business strategists, consultants, and the leading analysts from a variety of market and technology research firms. Topics to be covered in-depth at Gilbane San Francisco include– Web Content Management (WCM); Enterprise Search, Text Analytics, Semantic Technologies; Collaboration, Enterprise Wikis & Blogs; “Enterprise 2.0” Technologies & Social Media; Content Globalization & Localization; XML Content Strategies; Enterprise Content Management (ECM); Enterprise Rights Management (ERM); and Publishing Technology & Best Practices. Details on the Google keynote session as well as other keynotes and conference breakout sessions can be found at http://gilbanesf.com/conference-grid.html
Click here to find out.
Cross-post from the Globalization blog.
At the end of March, the W3C announced the launch of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Interest Group (IG) as a forum to foster a community of users that promotes the tag set’s adoption and further development. Like Unicode’s CLDR initiative, the emphasis on community interaction and collaboration underscores the ever-increasing, Web-driven impact of cooperative spirit.
As the Web nears its 20th birthday, we would imagine efforts such as ITS IG continue to be music to the ears of its inventor and W3C founder, Tim Berners-Lee. This particular interest group is certainly not the first nor the last of the educational and outreach efforts the W3C has launched since 1994.
It is also not the first nor the last of the activities from W3C’s Internationalization (I18n) Activity, known worldwide as simply I18n. The mission? “To ensure that W3C’s formats and protocols are usable worldwide in all languages and in all writing systems.” The goals? Ensure universal access, support the internationalization and localization of documents, and help reduce the time and cost associated with internationalization and localization projects. Consistent and admirable objectives, described eloquently by Richard Ishida, Activity Lead for the I18n Core Working Group in his article, It’s All About Customer Focus.
I18n accomplishments include a treasure trove of information from specifications and recommendations to educational materials to the newest initiative, hosting the Planet I18n Blog aggregator. Worth checking out; give yourself time to stay a while.
In case you missed it, we published our latest report, Beyond Search: What to do When Your Enterprise Search System Doesn’t Work, by Stephen Arnold, early last week, and it is available at a special introductory price through April 25. More details are at: , or you can go right to the store at: .
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