Category: Content management & strategy (Page 176 of 481)

This week’s topic: Growth in language translations.
5 questions,
30 seconds,
Promise.

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.

The Enterprise 2.0 conference is winding down in Boston today so it’s a good time to reflect on the “two dot oh” phenomena. As industry watchers and marketers, we’ve come a long way since Tim O’Reilly coined the concept two years ago. With hordes of people crowded into the new Westin Hotel in South Boston and the exhibit hall packed like Grand Central at rush hour (I’ve yet to hear an attendance count) I felt a rush of excitement in the air. There’s a certain sense of headiness when talking with entrepreneurs about their latest products and solutions. I was floored by the breadth of creativity.
But what struck me most is the vision thing – the gulf between the claims about Enterprise 2.0 and the realities of how work gets done. Enterprise 2.0 seems to be about blogging for a living, putting up a wiki, realizing that email is broken, and communicating with customers. Oh yes, then there’s unleashing the power of teams, user generated content, and building communities. The list goes on . . .
Yet two words are missing – management and process. In our always on world, we are inundated with information, and constrained by the limits of the twenty-four hour day. We need to take a hard look at how sharing information online creates new sources of value and better modes of organization. David Weinberger said it best in his opening keynote – everything is now metadata. We need to figure out how to harness this incredible openness at our fingertips. Developing a compelling information architecture is going to be even harder than an effective technical architecture.
What comes next? I’m now planning the collaboration and social computing track for our fall conference. (Stay tuned, we’ll be announcing the program later this summer.) I think we need to take a look at the hard issues of designing collaborative business processes. What do you think? I’m open to suggestions. Let me know, beginning by responding to this post. I look forward to our continuing conversation.