Translation and Software Localization Blog

When to involve your localization vendor to translate your website

2008-08-08T16:58:00.006-04:00

During a relatively quiet week in August we received the following email from a prospective client: “Please contact us again in November of this year. We are currently rebuilding our site and are not yet ready to speak to a translation service. However our goal is to have our site in multiple languages shortly after the release of the source.”

The person that sent the email is to be commended for committing to the goal of having her company’s website localized into multiple languages. Maybe the translation and localization industry is finally getting through to American companies about the need to speak their customer’s language.

But, what most professionals who contact us still don’t realize is the level of planning and preparation that should be undertaken before translation actually takes place.

Most professionals here in the USA think that localizing a website is a simple act of translation, a step that can take place right after the English has been completed. They view it as just the last step in a website development process.

In my blog back in January of this year, I suggested to companies that they think of the following before undertaking the localization of their websites:

1. Structure the website content for maximum international impact. Let’s face it; you need your in-country staff to contribute to your localized website with their own content. This content will typically target the local audience with information that is specifically relevant to them.

So identify upfront what content to translate, what content to re-author and what content to leave un-translated. Making these kinds of decisions allows you to correctly structure your website to facilitate the translation process.

2. Structure your website’s meta-tags for international search-engine optimization. Search-engine-optimizing your website in one language is very costly, let alone having to do it into multiple languages. Why spend money more than once? There are techniques to follow that allow your SEO efforts to be propagated to other languages seamlessly.

3. Identify terminology and share it with your whole company. By sharing terminology, all your divisions and stake-holders have the opportunity to adopt it and be consistent with it. It will make your website content consistent and easier for translations to remain consistent and accurate. It will improve your corporate brand and image, not just locally, but internationally as well.

4. Keep your website’s DNA intact. Your terminology, keywords and key-phrases are the DNA of your website both in its source language and all the languages you translate to. It is only when your DNA is translated accurately and intact that geo-optimization becomes feasible.

5. Geo-Optimize your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign. Today companies spend 10 times more on PPC campaigns than just a few years ago. This is due to the escalating prices of English word bidding. You pay a lot less for non-English keywords that target non-English speakers and are a lot more effective than English keywords at generating international leads in non-English speaking countries.

6. Are you using a CMS solution to serve the content of your website? If so, does it support all the required fonts, characters and language encoding standards for the languages you wish to translate to? It pays to look into this and to find out how easy it is to interface or integrate it with a translation management system before you adopt such a solution.

Don’t wait till your source site is completed to contemplate translation. Get your localization vendor involved to help you address these requirements at the beginning of the process before they become an albatross around your neck. The earlier you start the better! They can save you a tremendous amount of time, headache and rework.

Click here to review these considerations in more detail before you engage in your next website development effort.

Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

2008-07-28T13:41:00.006-04:00

Last week we received the following from a prospect: “I regret that other pressures have meant that - for the time being at least - we've had to shelve further investigation of our options for publishing Chinese and Japanese header information and abstracts of our published articles online (and with the current economic situation we are trying to contain our existing costs without adding new ones!). Hopefully we may be in a position to pick this up again later this year or early next, and when we do I will contact you again as your proposal was certainly in line with our requirements.”

It is worthy to note that this was one out of hundreds of prospects that we have talked to this year and that a clear majority expressed the opposite view.

Despite of talk of recession and slumping economies, demand for translation and localization services seems to be at its peak and for good reasons:

1. The US dollar hit lows against many currencies that have not been seen in many years, making US based products and services relatively inexpensive and favorable compared to others. Many US companies are capitalizing on the cheap dollar and expanding their sales overseas.

2. Energy prices are in record territories compared to previous years, stressing further the need for companies and individuals to look at ways to reduce energy dependency. Telecommuting is becoming more justifiable and companies and individuals all over the world are investing in new software, hardware and telecommunication infrastructures to reduce transportation costs.

3. New technologies in renewable energy, environmentally-friendly appliances, geological testing and energy efficient manufacturing are emerging every day amidst great demand worldwide.

These trends, coupled with the Federal Reserve’s inability to increase interest rates due to major problems in the housing and financial sectors are creating a sub-surface current pulling demand for localization and globalization services and keeping our industry moving forward in spite of a bear market and economic downturn.

These are economically turbulent times and many industries are in survival mode. But in turbulent times, new opportunities emerge and many will capitalize on them and flourish. Globalization trends have never been stronger!

If your industry can benefit from ongoing global trends, don’t let pessimism slow you down. Your competition isn’t letting its guards down and is keeping its eye on its long term success. When asked by your upper management, board of directors or investors to cut back on your global expansion, borrow from Old Salamander’s adage and remind them of their long term strategic goals!

Does your localization vendor operate like an energy-efficient appliance?

2008-07-15T17:35:00.005-04:00

In an effort to help save the environment and reduce energy costs, we purchased last year a new washer and dryer that were guaranteed to save 70% on energy costs. The washer uses 80% less water, hence saving 80% of the energy used to heat it. It also does a much better job wringing water out of clothes during the spin cycle, benefiting the dryer because the clothes are less wet.

The dryer smartly recycles the heat from the generated vapor, and shuts off automatically when the clothes are dry. These features significantly reduce the amount of energy it needs.

These smart appliances were twice as costly to purchase. But the price was well justified when we factored in long-term savings in energy costs and lower CO2 emissions. We are on track to get payback on our higher upfront investment by next year, leaving us with significant savings on energy costs for many more years to come.

With much higher energy costs today, many people are reconsidering purchasing the lower-cost but inefficient appliances. They are no longer simply comparing the sticker prices before they make the purchasing decision. Buyers are becoming more sophisticated, looking at second- and third-order parameters to calculate the real cost of ownership.

When it comes to localization, what kind of consumer are you? Do you look at the translation rate alone when choosing a vendor? Or, do you look at the long-term costs associated with future updates and maintenance of your products and literature?

With hundreds of translation vendors competing in a fragmented market, many capitalize on the limited knowledge or time that most consumers have to select a vendor. They adopt lower upfront costs per word to lure new clients, hiding the long-term maintenance costs and rates. Later, they apply unfavorable rates on leveraged translations during follow-up projects and updates.

In the short term, this may appear to be a benefit to the client and a solution to their often limited budgets. But in the long term, it is a much costlier scenario. Subscribe to the upcoming GlobalVision Newsletter for the details about what is involved and how to best calculate future update costs.

When looking for a new translation and localization vendor, just like when you are looking at buying a new appliance, do not simply compare advertised rates. Ask about fuzzy-matching rates and the costs applied on already-translated sentences. Any upfront savings due to lower per-word rates will quickly evaporate when you factor in the recurring charges imposed on text you already paid to have translated!

Terminology management takes the lead

2008-06-20T14:41:00.009-04:00

In our previous blog, we discussed the survey that we preformed at this year's STC conference. Here are the remaining results of the survey.

We asked technical communicators to rank the significance of different technologies in localization (N/A if not applicable or unknown):

• Web 2.0 Technologies
• Online Collaboration
• Crowdsourcing
• Translation Memory
• Machine Translation
• Wikis
• Terminology Management
• Query Management

Below are the results from our 72 respondents:

Please note that the results are from the perspective of a technical communicator, and not a localizer. Terminology management was ranked as the highest, even higher than translation memory. Machine translation was ranked relatively high as well, which was a surprise to us, but not very many respondents gave it a "very high" ranking.

It was disappointing to see the confusion around query management as more than 40% of the respondents marked it is not applicable to their work. At GlobalVision, our experience has been that the queries that the translation and localization staff ask technical communicators are an essential part of getting the translation done correctly.

Automating the process will greatly improve both the efficiency of the localization project and the quality of the results. To facilitate this exchange of data, GlobalVision has developed gvCollab. gvCollab routes queries automatically and securely to the appropriate personnel, who can in turn respond online in a web browser.

We then asked technical communicators to rank how technology can help in these areas:

• Saving time
• Improving consistency
• Reducing translation costs
• Facilitating collaboration
• Improving text reuse
• Simplifying the process

This is how they answered:
The benefits of technology were not underestimated by our survey participants: 50% or more of the respondents rated technology very highly in improving consistency and text reuse, as well as in saving time. Some were a bit concerned about the influence of technology on their work, stating that it complicates the process.

It is interesting to note however that improving consistency took the lead. This confirms our calculation that query management will be important to technical writers.

The best editors of any text are the translators. This is because they don't just read to edit, but to understand and translate. Their input and queries ultimately improve the quality of the source, its consistency, and its accuracy.

If you are interested in participating in a follow-up survey, or you would like to receive a copy of our STC conference presentation on the benefits of Translation Management Systems in localization, please contact us.

Single-Sourcing Is In

2008-06-09T15:15:00.011-04:00

Technical communicators have influenced the localization industry for many years. The tools they adopt and the processes they follow impact what we do for localization. For instance, in the 90s they adopted RoboHelp and FrameMaker for online help and manuals. Then in the early 2000s some migrated to FrameMaker and Webworks Publisher in an attempt to use only a single-source. Recently they transitioned over to using FrameMaker, Flare, X-Metal and AuthorIT in structured XML authoring mode. The localization industry has had to pay attention to their moves and adopt the tools and processes they adopted to deliver files in all the languages and formats they required.

So this is why we sought an opportunity to meet them, see things from their perspectives and participate in this year’s STC conference in Philadelphia on June 1st to the 4th. To experience this fully and make good use of our time, we decided to participate in speaking and exhibiting as well. It was GlobalVision’s first STC conference.

The best way to get to know a large group well is through a survey and interviews, and so we set out to poll 50 or more technical communicators about their latest technology trends. We ended up talking with 72 attendees. We kept the focus of our survey and discussion on more generic technologies because we wanted to keep our analysis unbiased and did not want to promote specific tools or products.

One of the questions we asked was: “Please rank the significance of these topics in technical authoring: Web 2.0 Technologies, Online Collaboration, Crowdsourcing, Wikis, Single-Sourcing, Controlled English and Terminology Management. If not familiar with the topic please mark N/A.” Below are the results from our 72 respondents:

Single-Sourcing had the highest score; 68% ranked it high or very high with 42% as very high and no one raked it as nil! We can relate to this view since more and more projects we’ve been processing lately are implemented in structured XML outputted to help, web and docs. So this was not a surprise to us and confirmed the ongoing trend in the industry.

A bit of a surprise was the high ranking of Terminology Management; 67% ranked it high or very high. Our experience has been that most technical communicators don’t have time to invest in managing their terminology. At GlobalVision, we have advocated the importance of terminology over the years and invested significant resources and energy into gvTerm, our terminology management portal. We’d love to see the sentiment present in the survey materialize into action and see more technical communicators take a proactive approach to DVD (Discover, Validate and Deploy) terminology. It is no secret that consistent and well defined terminology greatly simplifies and facilitates localization tasks.

It is also interesting to note that 50% of our surveyed audience marked crowdsourcing as not applicable. We relate this to the likelihood that the concept of crowdsourcing is foreign to many and when it was understood, it was deemed as not applicable to their activities, despite the enormous success that Wikipedia enjoys!

So what can we draw from this survey? Simply put, single-sourcing is regarded as a technology that can cut down on cost without a significant shift in process. Our hope is that the savings in time and cost will be invested in terminology management and quality source. As someone at the conference’s opening panel told the attendees: Think more, write less!

We also asked technical communicators to rank the significance of different technologies in localization. I will present you our findings in a following blog. Stay tuned!

Localization and a Pixar Movie

2008-05-13T13:49:00.009-04:00

A localization project is like the porduction of a mini Pixar movie.

Unlike traditional animated movie makers, Pixar entered the business by depending on the use of the latest technologies in computers graphics, animation, simulation and rendering.

They invested heavily in these technologies to address many of the issues that were too expensive or too time consuming to address with hand-drawn animation techniques. They perfected the use of computers in the process and even built specialized software and customized hardware to help them achieve their goals. They influenced the entire movie making industry with their creative processes and technology.

But as we all know, technology alone is not enough to produce successful movies. Pixar had to enlist the help of talented authors, actors and artists to create appealing scripts and bring the characters to life.

Similarly in localization, we rely on a mixture of both art and science. Translation Memory tools and Translation Management Systems (TMS) are the foundation of the science used to facilitate the process, workflow, communication and collaboration aspects of your projects.

But no matter how sophisticated the science may become, people still need to be involved with many of the tasks and project issues. Even now, translation continues to be an Art in this regard. So localization, like a Pixar movie, is both Art and science fused together by process, people and technology.

Almost a decade ago, at the Society of Technical Communication’s 46th Annual conference, a paper was presented about Managing Large Localization Projects with Virtual Teams around the globe.

The authors started their presentation with the statement: “The challenge in managing large localization projects into multiple languages is to develop excellent project management processes…” Well, processes are made up of sets of tasks that take place in a workflow. The more these tasks are automated and streamlined the faster and more efficient they will become.

Then, they went on to say: “…while communicating effectively with virtual teams around the world.” This is particularly true with localization projects since we are dealing with in-country specialists living all over the world having different languages, cultures and time-zones. We need to communicate and collaborate with them more effectively than we have done in the past to reduce mistakes and unnecessary delays in projects.

They then continued on to say: “It is also keeping focus on the customer’s requirements in terms of quality, time, and cost.” As you know, your clients demand from you on a regular basis that you do your work better, faster, and cheaper. And you in turn ask that of your localization team as well.

With TMS, we can help automate the process, improve communication and collaboration, and facilitate the required tasks for all stakeholders. This will ultimately lead to reduced costs, faster deliveries and improved overall quality.

Today, nearly a decade later, these statements still ring true. We have TMS developed with Web 2.0 technologies specifically to address and minimize these challenges. Even so; TMS in itself is not a silver bullet, Art is still required.

Localization is not a simple push button procedure. TMS should be customizable to facilitate your workflow and tasks. Don’t rely on it to dictate your process or restrict your workflow. Pixar built its technology and processes based on input from animators and directors, not the other way around.

TMS facilitates online communication, collaboration and access to information. Moreover, it can provide transparency to the process and remove the black-box persona. But, it does not replace decision making and due diligence. Pixar relied on the strength of their project managers to deliver quality movies consistently. In the same way, even though you may use TMS to assist your localization projects, they will nevertheless continue to depend on good project management to meet client requirements.

Finally, TMS should not shrink costs and schedules by sacrificing quality! It is not Machine Translation, and will never replace quality people, experience and excellence in service. Without excellent authors, actors and artists using and pushing its technology, Pixar could not have guaranteed hit after hit, year after year.

When it comes to producing localized products, like animated movies, it takes a strong team in both the art and science departments to seamlessly produce a masterpiece. Don’t short-circuit the process by relying on obsolete methods or technologies. Consider TMS and how it can help you succeed in your next project. Read the related blogs and articles or contact me to learn more.

Benefits of Translation Management Systems (TMS)

2008-05-05T13:10:00.004-04:00

Translation management systems are designed to host and facilitate localization and translation projects for all stakeholders-- clients, translators, localizers, vendors and partners. They give users secure 24/7 access to project information and assets via a simple web browser and preferably require no software or administrative tasks from its users.

TMS offers transparency to all users so they can see translation and localization project activities and monitor progress. The process no longer needs to be a mysterious black box.

While some companies charge for the use of their TMS solutions, others, like GlobalVision, realize that most companies don’t have budgets to purchase TMS tools and offer them free of charge with their services.

Depending on your function in the organization, the following are the benefits that you can enjoy from TMS:

Executives

Reduced project costs and faster time-to-market: This is particularly true with larger projects that have multiple requirements in terms of project modules to localize, languages and schedules. Often, the product itself changes throughout the localization process requiring changes to the localized files. With the transparency that TMS provides, project tasks are easier to track, manage and deliver, often resulting in lower overall cost.
Visible project metrics (costs, quality and schedules): TMS tools are often based on SQL databases where all project data resides. This makes it easier to create reports, track changes and present metric data on a regular basis. Pertinent project statistics are no longer buried deep within the organization or vendor emails and files. It can be easily mined and reported on.
Control over company assets and IP: Translation assets are as important to the company as its source code. Translation Memories, Terminology databases, Query Databases, Intermediate Files, Style Guides and Requirements are key elements to ensuring quality continuity between releases. They are major sources of cost reduction in follow on localization projects. Every company should have unequivocal and unrestricted access to them 24/7.

Localization Managers

Full visibility into project tasks, schedules and deliverables: This gives managers the ability to make timely decisions based on changing source, changing schedules or changing priorities. The localization project is no longer a black-box process where files are thrown over the wall to the localization group and then left at the mercy of this group to complete tasks on time and according to changing requirements.
Delegate access to company translation assets: With all translation assets available in one portal, managers can easily assign tasks, issue work orders and delegate authority to any user they need to involve in the project. This includes in-country language experts who are proof-reading or Quality Assuring the localized product.
Streamlined project workflow from initiation to release: Gone are the days of ad-hoc task assignment and hectic email dispatch to delegate and communicate. Web 2.0 makes seamless collaboration a breeze!

Localizers

Collaboration platform facilitating workflow and communication: Ad-hoc querying by email and forever waiting for redundant answers is all streamlined in a wiki/RSS environment.
Easy access to details-- Requirements, TMs, TDs, QDs: Translators and Localizers can use TMS to gain immediate access to information in Terminology and Query Databases that facilitate the online sharing of knowledge and translation assets.
Efficiency enabler boosting productivity and throughput: Localizers utilize TMS to accept assignments, process tasks and resolve project issues with the efficiency and speed of electrons.

GlobalVision is presenting Translation Management Systems benefits at the upcoming 55th annual STC Conference sessions, June 1st-4th in Philadelphia, and will be showcasing its TMS solution gvAccess at booth 226. Stop by and visit us for more info!

Geo-optimize your website to globalize your business

2008-04-21T08:43:00.007-04:00

We’ve all been to our neighborhood Chinese restaurant where the proprietor welcomed us warmly and handed us the menu wishing us an enjoyable meal. Imagine her greeting you in Chinese and handing you a Chinese-only menu. Then when you inquire about the English menu, they respond to you in Chinese. Would you stay? Would you come back again? That may strike you as odd and unlikely to happen. But we do it to our clients all the time.

Today 40% of internet users are from Asia and 26% are from Europe. Within 5 years, roughly 75% of internet users will have a non-English native language. But non-English language web content has not kept pace with international user growth. Last year as an example, Asian content accounted for less than 15% of the total web content.

With e-commerce exploding around the world, offering your products over the web in English-only, when you are selling internationally, is like that restaurant proprietor offering his US clients a Chinese-only menu. So how are global internet users dealing with this bias towards English and does that create a challenge or an opportunity for global companies?

Native Search. Most users today, when searching for information or services online, either search the web in their native language or use English. First, they search in their native language for obvious reasons. After submitting the search, results can be limited and often do not lead to satisfactory information. So they try a search with their varying English skills. When they search in English, their search results are abundant but often confusing as they don’t have the adequate language skill to enter the correct keywords or to understand the found content. So they turn to Machine Translation on Google or Babelfish to automatically translate content into their native language.

Machine Translation. Although Machine Translation can give users the gist of the meaning of the content, the quality is often laughable, embarrassing and, needless to say, frustrating. Global corporations that offer English only content, are losing complete control over brand, image and message when they rely on inadequate machine translation technology to communicate with their international users, clients or prospects.

Think about the message that you will be sending to your potential clients when you refuse to communicate with them in their own language. If they require further support, return the merchandise, or if they are not very satisfied with your product, they will have to communicate their issues to you in your language as opposed to theirs. This will create further complications and frustrations and will quickly terminate repeat business opportunities that most companies depend on.

Search Engine. Furthermore, when you rely on Machine Translation, you forfeit all potential leads generated from organic searches. Prospects that are searching for your services on the web using their own languages will not find you because your keywords in their language are non-existent on the web and therefore cannot be indexed and served by search engine websites like Google, Yahoo or Microsoft.

Solution. By professionally translating the key pages of your website, you will not only regain control over your company’s brand internationally, but you will also improve your global search-engine ranking, increasing your chances to be found on the web and increasing international clients’ loyalty.

The following is the recommended action plan to take:

Localize your web pages into the languages for the markets you are selling into. Depending on your global marketing plans, you can decide on the extent of localization to undertake.
Optimize your website’s keywords and key-phrases for each strategic geography on the most prominent search-engines. Keywords are the DNA of your website. Don’t rely on machine translation; hire professionals to help you do it right. It is worth every penny you spend.
Encourage your local staff to contribute in their native language with press releases, blogs and local events content. International users can then search and find these pages, which will then lead them to the rest of your website and services.

Conclusion. If your company has a global vision, ask yourself these two simple questions: Do all of your target markets understand English? Is your Web site multilingual?

If you answered “no” to both questions, you are not alone. You are just like the majority of the companies that have a presence on the Web. Being able to answer yes is being able to say you have a competitive edge— and that you really have a presence on the World Wide Web.

So, geo-optimize your website to globalize your business. Because after all, the language of business is not English; it is the language of the customer.

Web 2.0 and Localization

2008-04-07T13:59:00.006-04:00

Web 2.0 technologies are becoming prevalent everywhere we look on the web. More people are blogging, more are joining social networks, more companies are building online communities, more corporate executives are embracing the potential that Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) and other marketing and sales channels on the web are achieving or promising.

So how will Web 2.0 affect the localization industry? Here are some of the changes that we at GlobalVision International have identified and are taking advantage of.

1. Technologies like XML-APIs, Wikis, RSS and others are becoming more feasible and easier to use with Web 2.0. They are helping facilitate the creation of virtual work-teams and improve communication and collaboration among them. These technologies can be effectively utilized by the localization industry to help simplify project staffing all over the world, help disseminate project information and assets, and improve overall efficiencies. For instance, the ad-hoc process of sending emails back and forth between translators, project managers and the client to answer translation content queries can now be effectively handled via online wikis connected to a SQL database (see gvCollab for more info). Over the long run, those queries and responses will turn into a powerful online knowledge base that help localizers better meet the needs of end-users.

2. Communicating with clients is becoming easier and more transparent as corporate barriers are fading on the Web. With the advent of dynamic websites, blogs and RSS feeds, customers and prospects can stay tuned, or even better yet, get engaged in an industry dialog uncensored by the usual press or corporate public relations filters and gatekeepers. This and other Translation and Localization Blogs are examples of the power of blogs.

3. Winning new clients, local and international, is becoming less costly with Web 2.0. With powerful analytic tools that tie directly into Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Search-Engine-Optimization (SEO) campaigns, marketing decision makers have immediate access to the latest conversion numbers and pertinent statistics. Companies are more willing to experiment with international PPC and Search Engine Geo-Optimization campaigns when they can better gauge and measure their economic impact. RSS feeds are also making it easier for companies to communicate their value propositions directly to their clients and prospects worldwide, thus avoiding the press, snail mail, and email limitations and pitfalls. With Web 2.0, websites no longer serve information locally, and have become a cost-effective two-way communication channel between vendors and clients all over the world.

4. Demand for localization is increasing with Web 2.0. The more blogs, RSS feeds, PPC campaigns, Wiki knowledge bases and increased overall content on the web there are, the more localization requirements will grow. The more web-based communities grow in numbers and size, the more global will their requirements become, and the more localization and translation services will be required. The immensity of the need can be gauged by the growing worldwide demand for translators and localization experts.

Over the past 10 years, it has been Translation Memory that was the leading technology enabler of the localization industry making the most concrete and tangible impact on the industry’s production processes and efficiency. Over the next 10 years, we believe Web 2.0 technologies, particularly the ones facilitating community creation, collaboration, and communication, are the ones that will have the most impact on the localization industry. And this impact will not just be in a production capacity, but in marketing and sales capacities as well.

How to justify localization?

2008-03-24T16:05:00.006-04:00

For many companies justifying localization costs seems like a Catch-22 dilemma. They know that if they localize their product or website they will get more interest from their international users, but they cannot justify localization and support costs till interest in these markets pick up.

At a recent prospective client meeting, I was asked the usual question: How much increase in revenue should I expect if you localize my product? For all of you who struggle with the same question, here are a few recommended ways to come up with a meaningful answer:

Before you even contemplate localizing your product, if it is currently sold and supported in English, consider selling it in other English speaking markets. Almost 40% of the world’s GDP is generated from English-speaking countries. If you are already selling your products in the USA, consider establishing a sales channel in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland, Ireland, or other non-English speaking countries that will be able to use your product in its English form, like The Netherlands, Scandinavia, India, Switzerland… Truth is if you cannot start generating revenues internationally without localization, then localization will most probably not help.
Once successful selling in international markets and generating a 20+% increment in revenues over your local market, you may then consider localization to allow international market penetration. With the increased international revenues, you should be able to justify localization costs which are typically a small fraction of your product or web development or optimization costs.
With an international sales force and an international client base, or at least their beginnings, you can start polling your sales people, your clients and prospective clients and try to identify the non-English speaking markets that have the most potential for you. It is much less costly to translate surveys than translate and maintain a product then wait for revenues to materialize. With online surveys, the cost and efforts of polling staff or clients are very manageable.
If you are the type of executive that likes to solicit input from your lieutenants before making major decisions, refer to the write-up: To localize or not to localize. Much of the information you need to make a decision can be obtained internally from your own staff.
If you are looking for a more tangible approach, consider a search-engine based process to help you more accurately identify your most lucrative international markets. It is centered on the use of Pay-Pre-Click campaigns. Refer to the write-up “Going Global on a Shoestring?!” for more information.

If none of the above help you make a decision, or if you do not have the time to investigate, then perhaps you should hold off on localization activities. Yes you can always delegate tasks to an outside localization vendor, but we recommend you only do that after you identify your international opportunity. Selling internationally will still require much of your time and resources. So make sure you free up the necessary time before you plunge in!

No Global ECM without EMCM

2008-03-04T15:32:00.008-05:00

I attended the ECM pre-conference training session this week at the AIIM conference in Boston to learn about the latest ECM practices that address today’s global companies’ growing needs.

While presenting her points the instructor was compelled to remain independent of specific tools and vendors. By doing so, unfortunately she gave up not only the reference to and use of commercial tools, but also a myriad of other proprietary solutions, open source technologies and de facto standard tools. Instead, she opted to rely solely on theory in what resulted in a rather dull PowerPoint presentation. Needless to say, the highly anticipated and sold-out full day session fell flat on the ears of its eager audience.

This however was not the only glaring problem of the session. The first goal according to AIIM was to “Learn global best practices for planning and implementing ECM”. So the primary interest for me was to hear about the challenges that multilingual content brings to bear on global ECM solution implementers and users, and to learn about the best practices that AIIM recommends in managing them.

While starting the session by indicating the need to “think globally [and] act locally”, as the training session wore on, the aspect of thinking globally didn’t quite fully materialize. Multilingual content support was never flagged as an issue for attendees to consider!

There are obvious and significant implications that multilingual content will have on ECM practices. For those truly dealing with global ECM, here are a few to think about and plan for, while implementing your solution:

If you rely on search-engine based ECM classification, make sure your search engine accepts entries in all needed characters and not just Latin-based. Cyrillic, Asian and Middle-Eastern languages may create a problem. You want to enable all your international users to enter keywords in their native language to search for their in-country developed content and documents.

If you rely on taxonomy, controlled vocabulary or complex thesauri for classifying your content, consider localizing them to facilitate classifying multilingual documents. English taxonomy may be ambiguous or irrelevant in other languages.

While storing and retrieving multi-lingual documents make sure your storage and viewing tools correctly deal with non-Latin based characters and not transform them into junk characters. If you need to support bi-directional languages, like Arabic or Hebrew, make sure they can handle text written and displayed from right to left.

If your web content is localized into multiple languages like most global companies’ websites, decide on how to store your multilingual content and how to associate it and keep it synchronized with its source. Also think about how to deal with source text changing over time and how that will impact your multilingual content. Web pages are dynamic and organic in nature. Keeping all languages in synchronization is a significant undertaking that should not be underestimated.

If you are dealing with outside translation vendors who will keep your multilingual text in sync with the source, work out the details of how you will interface with their translation content management system. Also, look into automating the text export and import processes. XML and custom connectors can greatly simplify the hand-off process and streamline these operations.

If you are a global company, don’t limit your thinking and work to the implementation of an Enterprise Content Management System. Instead, think about the implementation of an Enterprise Multilingual Content Management system. Only by supporting and maintaining multilingual content will your ECM solution truly ensure global authenticity, integrity, reliability and usability!

The case for FIGS

2008-03-02T16:48:00.005-05:00

In the translation and localization industry, FIGS is an acronym used to reference French, Italian, German and Spanish. Translations from English into FIGS constitute a large percentage of the localization work that takes place in the USA. Unlike Asian, Cyrillic or Middle-Eastern languages, FIGS languages are based on the Roman alphabet. This is why most computing operating systems, software applications and printers that handle English can effectively deal with FIGS requirements with minimal issues.

According to the CIA World Factbook, www.cia.gov, the following are the estimated GDP numbers for 2007. Germany had the fifth largest economy in the world. Along with Austria, whose language is also German, they have a combined GDP of roughly $3.6 Trillion. France, the eighth largest, along with French speaking Belgium and Quebec pulled-in over $2.5 Trillion. Italy comes 10th with roughly $1.8 Trillion. Spain, 11th, Mexico, 12th and Argentina along with other Spanish speaking countries in Central and South America have a $4.5 Trillion GDP combined.

With the advent of Web 2.0 marketing methods, product development costs can be effectively leveraged worldwide. By localizing Pay-Pre-Click campaigns, websites and products into FIGS ($12.5 Trillion market in 2007-Est.), US companies can roughly double the market size that they would otherwise have with US-only sales.

This is why global companies are taking advantage of FIGS localization and translation services to convert products, documents, websites and other essential materials needed to interact with the local user or buyer in FIGS-speaking countries.

With much international exposure and experience, our clients attest to the fact that the language of business is indeed the language of the customer. For information on how you can create a strategy to penetrate FIGS markets, contact me at GlobalVision International for a free consultation.

How much should you trust?

2008-02-15T11:42:00.010-05:00

This week, SDL announced the purchase of Idiom, the once leading neutral Translation Management System (TMS) solution provider. Since the announcement, the industry’s been buzzing with blogs, press releases, newsletters, web sessions and emails trying to comprehend or capitalize on the news. Here is our 2 cents.

In the coming months, WorldServer code will be in triage awaiting SDL executives’ decisions on what parts will be put away and what parts will stay. Idiom’s partners, clients and users will sweat it out for a while before they find out where SDL will lead them.

Clients and LSP partners that made strategic decisions based on Idiom’s neutrality took a big gamble. They now have to make a decision to either stay under SDL’s thumb or invest in other options.

This is why a record number of press releases from Language Service Providers (LSPs) and still neutral vendors touting their solutions as a replacement for Idiom’s WorldServer emerged this week. But wait a minute, if someone is unhappy with Idiom having lost its neutrinity, why would they go through the trouble and the expense of buying a new TMS from another LSP? At the same time, why buy from another neutral vendor and make the same mistake twice?

Idiom threw in the towel not because their product was bad but because it could not be profitable as a neutral vendor. Companies involved internationally don’t have budgets for TMS, they have budgets for TS-- Translation Services!

In 2006, we made a strategic decision to develop our own TMS solution, gvAccess.com, independent from all localization tools. We based our solution on industry standards like SQL, ASP, Java, PHP, Ajax, XML, TMX and XLIFF. Yes it was very tempting to partner with Idiom when they offered us free use of WorldServer. But if you think about it, nothing is completely free. Giving up control over one’s strategic functions and operations and putting them in someone else’s hands is a gamble that no sane executive should voluntarily take.

At GlobalVision, we will not tell Idiom’s clients to come to us to buy our TMS, we tell you come to us for our outstanding translation and localization services and you will get to use our TMS at no charge. We will help you build your own translation infrastructure if you need one, independent of ours, and we will integrate with you. You will never be at our mercy going forward. This is our promise to you.

We are taking the hard road, but we’ll take it again and again for the benefit of our clients.

Tribute to the freelance translator

2008-02-04T10:54:00.001-05:00

Before the holidays, the father of one of our key freelance translators took a turn to the worst when his grave illness spread and impacted his ability to perform his daily routines. Despite of having her family, work and own life to take care of, she could not bear the thought of leaving her father during his last weeks and not being with her mom in her hours of need. She arranged matters with her family and moved in with her parents thousands of miles away, doing her best to comfort them.

Despite the frequent long trips to the hospital, the many trying days dealing with the symptoms and side-effects, despite the strong emotions and painful times, she never failed to respond to our requests, attend to them and deliver her work when promised and within the expected standards.

Freelance translators are exceptional professionals. Their trust in their knowledge and abilities heartens them to walk away from the security of a permanent job to lead more fulfilling lives. Once on their own, they quickly learn to become entrepreneurs acquiring business savvy and an appreciation of the impact of client satisfaction on their bottom line.

Breaking through the corporate pay ceilings, they turn into workaholics. They put in sixteen hour work-days and work on weekends and holidays to maximize their income. They surely learn however that they cannot sustain these kinds of hours for the long term, so they find their balance. When needed however, they can revert back to the long hours to get projects completed on schedule and clients out of frantic situations.

They are lone rangers. They work alone and with very little guidance. This removes any geographical shackles that tie them down. They choose to work in-country, closer to the client or travel extensively around the globe to keep track of changing cultures, languages, habits and locale preferences. They attend to family matters when needed even if they live in far places.

With time, freelance translators can deepen their specialization in key subjects and gradually diversify them. Since it is impossible for one translator to handle all the subjects that a language service provider (LSP) is setup to process, they tend to have specialties. Having access to many specialized freelance translators permits LSPs to deliver the best quality possible, regardless of subject requirements.

While evaluating vendors, clients at times ask for the number of in-house translators vs. freelancers that LSPs employ, hoping to draw a conclusion about the quality and value of the LSP-- a valid question to ask. But before making a decision on which LSP to hire, stop and consider which answer you ought to favor.

Don’t SEO your website, SE Geo-Optimize it

2008-01-19T12:03:00.001-05:00

Companies with search engine-optimized websites are increasingly awakening to the fact that the language of business is the language of the customer. As a result, they are undertaking the effort and expense of converting their websites, along with their products and literature, into the languages most used by their prospects and clients.

Those seriously targeting international markets can no longer rely on machine translation to communicate with international users. Machine translation (MT) did fill the gap by providing international readers the gist of the meaning of web pages. However, MT robs companies of control over not only international content and brand quality, but also international search engine traffic.

Professional website localization does require investing significant resources in the process. This is why companies often wait until they feel that the effort is justified before they embark on it. When they do proceed, many unknowingly neglect a key feature that can drastically improve their website’s success overseas – its organic search ranking!

“True localization, rather than just translation, is essential to international search,” explained Vice President Zia Daniell Wigder, analyst at Jupiter Research. “ Direct translations of a site are unlikely to include the most commonly used search terms, resulting in a site that can be understood by the local audience but may receive little traffic if it fails to appear in search results."

The following should be taken into consideration:
1. What content to translate, what content to re-author, what content to leave un-translated?
2. How to structure your website to encourage contributions from your international staff?
3. Why is it important to share your terminology?
4. How to keep your website’s DNA (keywords and key-phrases) intact?
5. How to optimize your PPC campaign?
6. Why is it important to retain CMS, authoring tool, file format and platform independence?

Click here to review these considerations before you engage in your next website globalization effort.

Also, subscribe to our company’s newsletter for free in-depth monthly articles about the latest localization issues and practices.

16 – 0

2008-01-05T12:22:00.001-05:00

Last week the New England Patriots made history by finishing a perfect regular football season. To the world, 16 – 0 are just numbers, to American Football fans they mean much more.

The Patriots played the last game of the regular season at the NY Giants and what an amazing game it was! Uncharacteristically, the Patriots who lead in most games trailed the game by 12 points with five minutes remaining in the third quarter.

Despite the intense pressure of being so close to perfection, to achieving world-records, playing on someone else’s home-field and the eyes of the nation focused on them, they controlled their nerves, fought hard, persevered and came through with unwavering determination.

The climax of the game began when Tom Brady delivered a long pass to Randy Moss one play after Moss had dropped a similar pass. Undeterred and relentless, Brady went back to him with all the power he had and Moss reeled the ball in and delivered a 65-yard touchdown reception!

This double-record-breaking touchdown pass gave the Patriots the lead in the fourth quarter and the ability to go on and end an undefeated regular season.

It is interesting to note that many pundits predicted the undefeated season from as early as week 2 of the 17-week regular season. They looked on and saw a great coach– one that is relentless in the pursuit of perfection, an exceptional offence headed by a champion quarter-back and top receivers, a resilient defense and an outstanding special team, all working in unison for a shot to break all records and achieve perfection.

Unlike Soccer or Basketball, American Football is one of the least globally followed sports. So our international readers may struggle to see our excitement. But most everyone can recognize excellence when they see it.

How is this blog related to localization? It is related to excellence and excellence can be found everywhere if you look for it.

When your localization project is falling behind schedule days from a major release and you deliver a long shot to your localization team with just enough wiggle room, you need a team that will not drop the ball, even under intense pressure, and kick the door of success open and deliver. This is when you know you have a championship localization team.

Being a champion is about coming through when needed to achieve, regardless of pressure and the odds. And just like many pundits recognized the perfection of the Patriots early on and predicted their undefeated season, you too can look for and recognize the important qualities of a championship localization team and make it your own!

On Behalf of everyone at GlobalVision, I wish you excellence in 2008!

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

Dear readers,

The year-end brings no greater pleasure than the opportunity to express to you season's greetings and good wishes. On behalf of all of us at GlobalVision International, Inc., may the peace and joy of the holiday season be with you throughout the coming year.

Boas Festas - Boldog Karácsonyt - Bon Pasco - Buon Natale - Feliz Natal - Feliz Navidad - Frohliche Weihnachten - Glaedelig Jul - Gledelig Jul - God Jul - Hauskaa Joulua - Hristos Razdajetsja - Joyeux Noel - Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan - Merry Christmas - Merii Kurisumasu - Milad Majeed - Prettige Kerstdagen - Sheng Tan Kuai Loh - Sungtan Chukha - Vesele Vanoce - Vessela Koleda - Wesolych Swiat

When localizing your website, keep its DNA intact!

2007-12-08T11:24:00.000-05:00

As more and more companies awake to the fact that the language of business is the language of the customer, they are undertaking the effort and expense to convert their products, websites and collateral into the languages most used by their prospects and clients.

While investing significant amounts of time and money localizing their websites, they often neglect a key feature that can significantly increase its success– its search ranking.

Websites that are search-engine optimized rely not only on meta-tags and titles but more importantly on a set of industry-specific keywords prominently used throughout the website.

They are typically peppered in key pages, linked to and surrounded by header and strong tags to make them visibly prominent to search engine crawlers.

Keywords are the DNA of the website. Their safe preservation during the localization process is crucial.

A company that is mindful of search-engine optimization maintains an approved list of keywords and makes them known to its marketing staff so that they are used consistently during regular communications such as press releases, literature, website development, blogs and other online communications.

We talked in a previous blog about the importance of maintaining a standard corporate terminology and making it visible to your organization. Keywords should be a prominent part of this corporate terminology and gvTerm can effectively manage it and serve it for that purpose.

Once these keywords are identified, it is up to the localization experts to not simply translate them, but resourcefully recreate them while testing their creations with search-engine tools to analyze their effectiveness and competitiveness in the target markets they are intended to serve. This process is called keywords localization optimization.

The goal is therefore not only to translate the website, but to create a just as potent DNA for all the target language websites so that they can prominently rank on international search engines to draw the sought after masses.

In a previous blog we talked about how to leverage languages to reduce the cost of your PPC campaign in international and local markets. Together with a correct SEO keywords localization of your website, your goals for generating international leads can be achieved.

Don't rely on your distributor or just a translation agency to localize your website for your international markets. You will not only risk the chance of giving up control over the quality of your messages, but also your website's DNA.

Find a team that can handle the language needs and simultaneously take care of your website's international search ranking needs. The return on investment is well worth the cost when optimal search-ranking boosts your web traffic along with conversions.

Divide, Prioritize and Conquer

2007-11-13T09:39:00.000-05:00

In my last blog Much talk about Machine Translation, I suggested that the best approach to knowledge base (KB) translations, or any bulk content translations, is to divide, prioritize and conquer.

Human translation costs typically correlate to the number of words needing translation. A quick way to cut down costs without sacrificing quality is to reduce the word count to translate.

A knowledge base is often divided into two parts: the problem definition part, sometimes known as the questions, followed by the solution part, or answers. To find a solution to the problem in a KB, one must first find the problem. Once located, a solution can be viewed and studied.

A typical ratio of the number of words to translate relating to the problems vs. the solutions (questions vs. answers) is roughly 1/3. In other words, 25% of the word count in the KB belongs to the problem definition part and 75% to the solution part.

A user that is entering a query to the KB wants to do so in his or her native language. To stand a chance to find a match, the translation of the problem needs not only be accurate, but 100% consistent with the text used in the product (i.e. GUI and error messages used by the software). This is why we recommend that the problem definition part (25% of the word count) is translated by human translators (HT).

For the solution part (or answers), we recommend applying the Pareto Rule. If 20% of your KB entries are queried 80% of the time, applying human translations to the 20% that is most used will result in accurate responses to 80% of the queries performed by your users. In others words, if you are to apply statistical analysis anywhere, it is early in the process where it can have the best impact!

Using this process, translating 40% of the KB content by HT will correctly answer 80% of queries, while resulting in immediate 60% savings in translation costs.

For the remaining 60% of the text, you can consider optimized Machine Translation (MT). But proceed cautiously. MT on its own may be successful in giving the user a way, at times humorous and at times frustrating, but a way to perhaps get the gist of the meaning.

Before MT is to be used, you have to optimize it by including all your software and language glossaries and translation memories (TMs) and make the user decide if and when to use it. A policy of never forcing MT on end-users and never serving it the same way you serve your quality source and quality translated text will reduce your liabilities caused by errors in the MT output and will maintain your investment in your company's and product's image and brand.

So this is the process we recommend:

Clean up your KB source and give your users an easy online KB interface.

Allow users to view the source language if they wish to. Many international users, particularly users of scientific, engineering or other B2B applications, even with limited knowledge of English, will understand English better than the machine translated output.

Require users to perform the MT task themselves. Since this is an automatic process, don't translate and store, translate on demand. This way you are not publishing the inaccurate translations and users will use it only at their own risk. This will limit your liability. Also, if MT algorithms improve in time, the output will improve.

Provide your users the ability to request professional translations if the machine translation output is incomprehensible. A submit-for-translation button linked to your support or translation group will allow submitting a ticket and prioritizing the translation process.

Give your users the ability to suggest corrections or improvements to the MT translations via a wiki. Submitted translations are later moderated by your support or translation group and published, increasing the accurate translations content. This is a way to implement crowdsourcing inexpensively and successfully.

Your users should be provided an environment that is conducive to quality improvements over time.

This will demonstrate your dedication to quality, service and your commitment to their long-term interest.

The intent of your multilingual KB solution is to educate your international users on how to best use your product and to self-solve their problems. So track that usefulness and compare the reduction of support calls as the quality of the KB content translations improve. A properly translated KB will tremendously reduce your support costs where they are most expensive-- overseas.

Do this and you may come to the same conclusion Aristotle came to millenniums ago: The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. Yes human translations are costly, but their dividends well justify their costs.