The Globalization Rapporteur - Global Content Strategy

Subject Matter Expertise and Product Knowledge

2017-02-07T22:56:00.000+01:00

Subject Matter Expertise and Product Knowledge are very different things.

As a client, what can you expect from your vendors?
Each industry has its own specificity.
If you are a Life Sciences company, you can expect industry knowledge from your vendors.
If you are a Game company, you can expect industry knowledge from your vendors.
If you are a Financial services company, you can expect industry knowledge from your vendors.

But product expertise is something very different. The ins and outs of your specific products might be clear to you, and probably will become clear to the team working with, or on your product. But expecting knowledge on the specifics of new product, of a new software, or on the revolutionary new thing you built is not reasonable. As the client, you have to understand what your outsource team can and cannot provide. As a stakeholder, you have to acknowledge that your validation will be necessary.

Here are a 5 tips to help build Product Knowledge:

1. Do your research. Indeed Do require industry knowledge. It's the least you can expect.

2. Explain and, as much as possible, show what your product does, how your software behaves, how your game looks....

3. Allow and buy familiarization time. Yes, do expect the team working on your product to familiarize with it. But don't be naive, time is money...

4. Create a collaboration environment where questions, feedback and continuous communication is welcome. If you get upset each time your product specific is not understood, it's goiHav eng to be difficult that your vendor will learn.

5. Have an open mindset. It's your baby, yes... but what if the team you selected can improve it? Listen to suggestion.

You have a plan, now we can check it off (and forget about it)

2017-02-01T23:08:00.002+01:00

One of the common issues found in complex everchanging programas and projects is the disconnection between the plan and the reality.
Often this comes from the fact that the team is not perceiving the plan as the guide to follow, as the instructions book that the team itself has created to agree on a route to follow.

A plan should never be perceived as a task itself, It's not a to-do to check it off the list. It's your plan, your guide. It can be changed, discussed... but should always reflect reality.

Tech Gadget for 2017 - Surprise!

2017-01-26T09:50:00.001+01:00

You probably won't believe this, but the best gadget in 2017 so far is: a Nexus One.

I was a little tired of getting too many things working simultaneously in my mobile and got back to my 2009 Nexus One. I got it from Google on 2009, as a speaker at GDC 2009.

I'm using it for:
- Download and listen to podcasts
- Radio (yes, FM radio DOES work in Nexus One with CyanogenMod 11, despite what you could have read)
- Streaming Youtube: I use Youtube a lot... a whole lot... But most often I don't care about the image and just stick to audio. This means that I don't need my mobile to be blocked on youtube while doing other things. At the end... the easier solution is simply to have a small, old phone streaming the thing.
- Audiobooks

The final benefit is that running my awesome podcaster, in plane mode, I have a device that lasts for days. (I did buy a new battery back in 2011 or so).

Free, amazing boost to my productivity :-)

Productivity & Continuous Travel

2017-01-17T11:34:00.001+01:00

Being productive while on the road is one of the biggest challenges I face.

Some preparation helps me make good use of that time.

- Small tasks (5 to 10 minutes): Split greater tasks into smaller pieces. Some could potentially be done on mobile, or within those 5 minutes waiting for your coffee or queuing for the next plane.
If you leave those tasks, not urgent but still important, you will know what to do while waiting.
The feeling of getting a bunch of small tasks done on the road is great.

- Choose your trip wisely: When I travel in-country (this would work mostly for Europe I guess) I tend to chose train over planes. If you add wifi availability to that train trip, the extra time spent on it would basically be productive time. For me it's much better to take an early train, start working on this improvised office and get to my destination, having worked, exactly as I would have done in the office. Airports don't allow for this.

Basically a 6 hour train would get me 5 hours of productive work, while 3 airport hours for a half hour flight would allow me 25 minutes of work max...
Make the math.

- Know yourself: Choose the tasks you feel like working on, while commuting. If you choose the wrong ones, nothing would be done. That complex report done in your tiny laptop screen or ipad is probably not going to happen.

- Brain work: The office environment often pushes for tangeable results. Save that time for thinking of your next strategy, new ideas, etc...You are most probably being valued much more for that part of your work and results.

What works for you? Share your thoughts and ideas.

Consultancy objectives

2014-12-31T01:39:00.001+01:00

I get this very often: I would be great to have you more time, to get you onboard, to have you full time... but...

The thing is that a consultant's objective is often to help YOU find out what issues you have, what changes you need to implement.

It is the organization itself that needs to embrace the change. If not ready to do so, no external help will make the change happen.

Maintenance cost and new opportunities

2014-12-27T09:18:00.001+01:00

Getting your product localized is not the only consideration for having an international presence.

Your international clients will surely need:

- Support: Don't forget your new clients will need the same level of support you are providing your local clients. You can probably leverage efforts, but that service cannot be avoided.

- An adapted (yes, localized :-) ) message that will sound appealing in your new markets. You don't communicate the same in different geographies and cultures. Each locale you target gets a new product. Build and leverage around that idea.

You can't forget these if you want satisfied customers, growth, and repeated business.

Convince to go global

2014-12-27T08:54:00.001+01:00

Going global is a choice. We can try to convince our clients that they need to go global, localize their products...but that is hard if they don't have that in mind already.

Getting clients to come your way because your service answers the questions they have is much simpler than convincing someone to change their strategy and buy a new service that maybe was not considered.

Is a pivot language always necessary?

2014-10-21T12:08:00.002+02:00

In multilingual translation projects, using a pivot language is mandatory: often English is the non negotiable choice.

Your engineers are more confortable writing your documentation in German and then you need to seel the product in multiple languages in Europe. Going from German to English and then from English into the rest of the languages will be a smart choice. It will generally save you money, finding the right linguists will be easier...

BUT... what if.. your product is very niche. AND the effort to find a niche translator that will understand the documentation would probably be as hard as finding the specific language combinations you will need.

Industries I've seen this work very well: Games (lots of Japanese games are translated into FIGS directly from Japanese...ok, not so much anymore), cosmetics, financial (Financial statements for instance).... to name a few examples that come to mind.

What is your experience? Do you always use a Pivot language if the original source is not English?

Bad news for LSPs: life is hard.

2014-10-20T10:54:00.001+02:00

One of the recurring requests when speaking with LSP business owners is:"I would like to have those easy big volume projects everyone else in the competition seems to get, not sure what my sales guys are doing, but we always get the complicated, low margin projects".

Well, I have bad news for you. When you see this question coming back again and again from all sorts of LSPs you realize that those "easy, high volume projects" don't really exist as such.

Those projects are normally the result of a hard digging and mining work, a price you get for a long relationship, lots of solved messes you got stuck with, where you proved your value.

Multitasking done right

2014-07-20T09:40:00.001+02:00

We continuously receive the feedback that multitasking is a productivity killer.

But is it really?

Many of us need to multitask to survive: we manage several projects for different clients, industries. Single focus is not a.luxury we could afford.

Managing several tasks should not always be a curse however.

Multitasking done right:

Plan:
No task unplanned should get priority over a planned one.
Set aside in your day moments to perform those little urgent tasks, get them out of the way and use your brain power to focus on adding-value activities.

Planning and prioritization allow for this focus and concentration important activities deserve.

Breaks:
Switching focus require lag time. This is something often difficult to notice at the moment that it is happening, still it's often during those activity transitions that you feel blocked, lost, turning around a solution without really landing on it.

Forced, pre-established breaks are a good idea. I'm an enthousiast of the "Pomodoro" technique, where small breaks are planned ahead. I do normally also like to hear the "Tic-Tac" of my Pomodoro android app (Clockwork tomato, many alternatives exist too) , but for some that continuous reminder to keep concentration could be annoying.

No matter the technique, do plan for short and some longer breaks during the day. Your brain needs them and most often the difficult solutions come up during these pauses.

Know your stakeholders:
I suspect you are continuously dealing with humans (inevitably :-)). Some individuals lack the hability to establish urgency, priority.
Some even consider that their own issues, should immediately become your number one item in your To-do list the moment that idea hits their brains.
Learn to read between the lines. Learn to communicate and negotiate deadlines. Often, the next step of a task that should force you to drop all you are doing, is not going to be dealt with until much later in the day, week,...or month.

Never, ever let someone else's stress become your stress. You have enough with your stress to live with. If you need to absorbe the one from all around you, you won't survive long enough to serve right your clients and team mates.

Focusing on a task at a time is the right thing to do, but that does not mean that you cannot have different projects in your active portfolio.

Global Freedom of Speech: not careless talk

2014-07-18T12:04:00.000+02:00

You can't always express exactly what you think. Or can you? Or should you? It's a difficult question, specially if you work with people of all sorts of backgrounds, points of view. In personal conversations it is normally easier to explain where you stand, how you see the issue, the conflict. If you are publishing your thought, your ideas...then I believe the approach is very different. Allowing for misinterpretation is a risk I personally usually do not like to take. Curiosity, interest, respect is the only approach.

Setting priorities: Intuition

2014-06-30T18:49:00.002+02:00

You can have a good week. Clients happy, preparing new projects, new options coming up.

The most difficult part always seems to be setting priorities and chosing wisely what is the next task you should be doing.

Same goes with projects. Unfortunately I had to say no to projects recently, but you have to put your focus somewhere.

Some of the projects that I've put on top of my list are still not as fruitful as they should have been, but you have to put your bet somewhere.

The request for going "All in" with one of the projects is there... Choosing and making difficult decisions is part of life. Very paralell to Portfolio Management: a decision has to be made on what Project gets priority.
In order to make the decisions, you have to count on your values, your wishes, your gut feeling, your intuition.

How to become a good leader

2014-06-06T11:51:00.002+02:00

Around the World With a Single Brand - Interview to Ermenegildo Zegna

2014-04-24T17:49:00.001+02:00

Very interesting short interview to Ermenegildo Zegna on controlling a global brand.

IESE Insight - Around the World With a Single Brand

Source for news on translation and localization? Twitter and Lists are a great tool

2014-04-09T15:19:00.001+02:00

Which is the best source for news on translation and localization topics?

A Quora question on the topic shows answers with many interesting links:
http://www.quora.com/Localization-and-Translation/Which-is-the-best-source-for-news-on-translation-and-localization-topics

Apart form all the references mentioned, all of them great, I suggest searching for #localization #translation on twitter, building lists of the people that mention interesting stuff on the topic and then creating a free online paper with tools like Paper.li – Be a publisher or similar based on that list. Specially when you don't have time to browse through several sites, having one of these tailored to your needs, helps you save time. I use mine: The localization-translation Daily to be up to date on the new changes and news on the Localization industry.

Break free from your mold!

2014-03-31T19:39:00.002+02:00

Et qu'est ce que vous rêvez aujourd'hui? pic.twitter.com/vAhb6YJHiN
— Carrie Ballard (@VestriOpti) March 31, 2014

Afraid of being too expensive?

2014-03-31T00:27:00.000+02:00

There is always someone that offers lower prices. Does this mean that you have to lower your rates to equal that offering? Prove that you worth your price, prove your added value, go the extra mile. Sometimes it's not that difficult and requires limited extra effort. Sometimes, just a little more effort than your competition is enough. Still do even more if you can and you will be rewarded. If you cared about their projects, worked with good attitude and professionalism, clients that try other solutions, most often come back. If not, move on and find new clients that appreciate the work you do.

Inspired by: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/03/will-they-switch-for-cheaper.html

Art of negotiation: build rapport, be conscious of culture differences

2014-03-28T10:06:00.000+01:00

Relationships are established today throughout multiple media: email, IM, phone, Skype, video conference. Face to face is the ideal of course, but when working in international projects that is often (maybe too often) not possible.

Relationships are built with conversation. Talking about things outside projects and work are wonderful ways of building rapport.

Still, not all cultures are open to personal conversations. This needs to be respected. Be yourself, but don't force your interlocutor to be as open, nor be shocked if you believe your interlocutor is sharing too much.

Disengaged employees? Rules to simplify

2014-03-27T16:21:00.000+01:00

You should have a look at this talk from Yves Morieux:

http://on.ted.com/tlXv

"Why do people feel so miserable and disengaged at work? Because today's businesses are increasingly and dizzyingly complex — and traditional pillars of management are obsolete, says Yves Morieux. So, he says, it falls to individual employees to navigate the rabbit's warren of interdependencies. In this energetic talk, Morieux offers six rules for "smart simplicity." (Rule One: Understand what your colleagues actually do.)"

Having the opportunity to work with different companies I see the problems Mr. Morieux is addressing, too often. Shocking enough, when working with some clients for years and years, I see "employees" come and go. It's often the case that the steady ones, with some exceptions of course, seem to be freelancers, consultants often former employees that managed to continue doing the work they like, adding even more value, and being more engaged in their client's projects.

Check the talk.

Localization - The industry who cried wolf

2014-03-18T17:06:00.001+01:00

Presentation delivered at: III International Conference on Translation and Accessibility in Video Games and Virtual Worlds TransMedia Catalonia Research Group - Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona - 13-14th March 2013 Very interesting sessions and visions.

Crowdsourcing Translation is not Fan Translation

2014-03-18T12:38:00.002+01:00

Crowdsourcing is the new Buzz word, but often the concept is misunderstood.

Different companies claim they crowdsource their translations. Seen as a way to save costs, it is often not really the case.
Still many argue that they crowdsource their translations, when in fact, what happens is that the translation is performed by a limited number of fans of the product.. And this is completely different under my point of view.

Fan Translation:
If you get your translations translated by a limited number of fans, the process does not necessarily differ from a "regular" translation project. Your resources are different in most cases (unless professional translators participate in your project), replacing "translators" by "fans" that do the work for free.

Crowdsourcing:
Crowdsourcing is a different animal.
You have loads of content that needs to be translated or localized. Considering the size of the content, having that content translated by professionals is completely out of the question.
Your content is probably not the kind that needs 100% accuracy, your translations can be continuously edited, improved during an unlimited amount of time: there is no specific launch date involved, or your content is already launched.
Similarly to the Fan translation process above, you have, this time a huge number of users, that are willing to contribute by translating parts of your content. The amount of content per person, does not need to be very big. A few strings or sentences per individual could do the trick.
You may or may not care about consistency, quality. If you do, a quality process has to be put in place. A process that would start before the input from the crowd, and after the input from the crowd. In preparation, you could have some rules for the collaborators, and of course, the source content needs to be curated, analyzed, in order to ask for the right strings. For postprocessing the content, (it does not matter if after the crowdsourced translation the content is public or not), a new analysis on the target needs to happen. Of course, for the biggest players of the crowdsourcing game, you can try to trust the crowd itself to autoregulate the translations, but for that to work, you need a huge amount of inputs every day. That analysis can consist on things like: checking for offensive words, making the translations somehow consistent, and then filtering out awful translations...
This process is really not the simplest to manage. I still have to find the company that has saved money, compared to a professional translation approach, from this process. Still there are very good reasons you could still opt for this approach, mainly marketing, but also getting your international users involved in the product creation.

There are many other factors that make crowdsourcing a failure or a success, but the difference between a "Fan Translation" and "Crowdsourcing Translation" has to be clear.

If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart..

2014-03-11T23:58:00.000+01:00

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."

Nelson Mandela

The Language of Content Strategy: New Resource [New Book] must check

2014-02-27T10:21:00.001+01:00

The Language of Content Strategy

Looks like a very interesting book if you are into global content strategy.

BackTranslating Fun

2014-02-13T21:55:00.002+01:00

You probably already heard the multilingual version of Disney's song Frozen:

Amazing example. I find incredible how the different Disney teams manage to match the original version so nicely.

But... have you seen the version translated and backtranslated into English with Google Translate? Here is the result:

Virtual teams: 3 continents, 7 countries, 12 cities in 24 hours

2014-02-12T23:26:00.001+01:00

Some days I forget the wonders of working in the environment I work and the industry I'm in.
Just made the count. Today was an average working day and I interacted with 3 continents, 7 countries, 12 cities. By interaction I mean at least a complete communication cycle: question and answer, or outbound and inbound communication. I'm not counting tasks I sent to be performed that were controlled by the workflow systems I work with.
America, Europe, Asia. United States, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Denmark, India, China, Spain. Washington DC, New York, Rochester, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Mumbai, Beijing, Malaga, Madrid, Barcelona.
All this in the last 24 hours. We live in a global world...and we are not even conscious of it.
Next time my phone rings I'll play a guess game to see where the call is coming from.