The article I read recounts Miguel’s attendance of a seminar given by one our industries luminaries who is also the CEO of one of the smaller (I assume) LSP’s. One is left to wonder who that luminary is but there no doubt as to Miguel’s feelings on the subject. What I agree with is that our industry is full of blowhard “experts” without much actual expertise. Most of the commenters seem to think the blog is an anti-MT rant… but personally I think its an anti-stupidity rant. Here’s my favorite quote

The real mystery isn’t the killer MT app. It is why a senior executive of a company that is being run into the ground by subpar competitors is so philosophical about this process.

Of course: I dread to think what Miguel would think if he ever saw me present. I just hope he would let me buy him a beer afterwards to compensate.

Links from this blog entry

Machine-translation-and-the-gigantic-hamster-wheel

Today SDL launched BeGlobal - the combination of the Language Weaver boffins MT science and SDL’s cloud computing delivery mechanism. there has been a flurry of analyst reports and blog entries. I particularly liked Spencer Dalziel’s  blog entry and the Reuters release.

For the most part SDL technology team have concentrated on the impact of real time automated translation to translate content that otherwise wouldn’t be translated. Obviously this is very important to them and the localization world at large because usable real time translation represents a seismic shift in the way organizations communicate – but for me, as a localization solutions professional it piques my interest more as a part of a enterprise wide strategy for manging and translating all global information.

Ideally we would like all content delivered in all languages with perfect quality instantly and for free. Although this idea is impossible, this is goal we are all driving towards using a combination of technology, linguistic assets, and humans. SDL Language Technology’s launch of the BeGlobal platform takes us one big step closer to our goal and any sensible strategy for global information should examine how real-time automated translation should be included into their wider strategy.

The trick though is to be able to construct solutions to business problems combining all the tools at our disposal and make the right business decisions for each content type, each language, each market. With some creative thought systems like this can actually change the way we think about reaching customers, allowing us to take more chances with in-language content  delivery. Since my day-job is creating global information management strategies for clients I am very keen to see where we can take this technology.

Links from this blog entry

SDL’s press release for BeGlobal

Spencer Dalziel’s blog at V3.co.uk

Reuters analyst report

By Adriana Beaton

One of the most challenging aspects of global-scale translation is deciding on and creating a corporate style for each locale. Every company has a specific way to speak to its audience in domestic markets, but once the potential audience crosses global boundaries it becomes very important to assess whether that style is appropriate.

This impact localization because a translator needs to understand three things

• The source content to be translated
• The context of the source content
• The style in which the client writes for the language in question

This entry is aimed at tackling the last of these three.

Every translator should be able to translate linguistically correct translations but for many types of content, especially in areas where strong brand identity is important, understanding how the message should be delivered becomes as important as an accurate translation. It is creating this balance that makes the difference between a good and a great translator.   

Taking this one stage further – each language has peculiarities of construction and grammar that are linked to the culture of that country that also evolve and mutate with time and usage.  Languages are a living thing, but as such they need to be “harnessed” and their users, in this case the translators, need to be given clear parameters to be able to produce quality results that clients expect from them.

Documenting language style

One of these tools is the Localization Style Guide. Every good localization vendor has created “standard” localization style guides that remind translators about the usage of specific components of a language. The European Union recognizes the need for style guides and has drawn up instructions containing items that should be included in translation style guides. (See the Annex D of European Standard 15038 for translation services) .  

But what really is the most useful tool is a Style Guide created specifically for a client and it has to be a collaborative effort with said client, only this way it will be a useful and reliable document for your linguists to base their projects on. The creation process should include localization vendor and client working together on deciding the Table of Contents, taking into account the general Style Guides information, plus some specific client information necessary for best quality results as far as linguistic rules and tone of translation. Also, the client should supply the vendor with their specific information and examples (Audience, Tone, Specific Terminology, List of Names to be left in English, Trademarks, Acronyms, etc). 

Once the Style Guides are created (in English, but with in language examples of correct and incorrect translations, plus any grammatical rule pertaining only to that specific language), the client in-country associates or designated reviewers should review the document and either approve it or make any changes or additions they deem necessary. This opens up a dialog between the linguist and the reviewer which will then form the basis of a good relationship and which will be invaluable for later on, during the review phase of the main project. As soon as final Style Guides are approved they must be published and distributed to the localization vendor linguists and to the client in-country associates or designated reviewers to be the foundation of any localization work moving forward.

Getting to the ROI

In localization, we always talk about 3 elements that drive a project:

• Time
• Quality
• Cost

A client specific Localization Style Guide can help improve all these elements.

Time.  With a client approved Style Guide your linguists don’t need to go back and forward with questions during the project like: “What do I do with acronyms?” or “Do I convert the measurements in metric values?” or “Is this a proprietary name for an application? “. The answers are already there, they are already approved and the linguists can do their jobs without uncertainties. Moreover your reviewers also have clear guidelines to follow and should not re-write or change what has been already approved.

Quality. We all want to give a quality project back to our clients, of course, and quality is only achieved if linguists have all the tools they need. The Style Guide (like the Glossary, like a good Translation Memory) is a fantastic tool because it establishes some clear rules to follow during translation. And these rules are not only language and grammar rules, but also client’s approved requests.

Cost. We all know Time is Money. If your linguists are working without having to come back for questions, they are saving time. When the translation is edited, the editor does not need to change anything, or to go back to the project manager asking for information. It is all already there, in-country reviewers are clear already on what they have approved, no need for extensive changes. Moreover, a Style Guide promotes consistency among documents throughout the company. This not only leads to fewer arguments over questions of style and format, but also promotes the ability to re-use material already written and already localized.  Translation memory can work its wonders without problems.   The project will move faster and smoother, and will take a lot less time…did we not say Time is Money.

I was fortunate to speak at the SDL Irvine Small Forum Networking event on Thursday, October 14, 2010. A majority of the attendees were from the Biotech and IT industries. While we talked about a myriad of subjects (controlled authoring, world-readiness, language prioritization) the biggest item on everyone’s agenda was MT. Having attended LocWorld in Seattle, WA the previous week, I was expecting the same level of excitement and “when can I get it for my company?” questions I received from prospective clients there. However, the tone was much different… it was a mix of resignation and (for a lack of better terms) fear.

Each attendee spoke of their rising costs for translation services, the increase in languages required to remain competitive and the stringent requirements springing up all across the globe. While I was prepared to talk about the advancements in MT, both in the industry and the steps SDL is taking to provide class-leading services built on these platforms, I was struck by a comment from a young woman who works for a large diagnostic device company. She said, “MT is in my company’s future, I know this much. What concerns me is if it will ever be good enough for our needs and the regulations we are held to in the life sciences industry.”

It was the “good enough” part that struck me. Last week at LocWorld, almost every MT evangelist was buzzing about using MT to open new content for localization. Global customers were demanding ubiquity and immediacy. They “want their content now and in their language” was the statement quoted over and over again. Providing “good enough” translation through MT was the way to appease the global markets in a way that held down costs. Every example was Twitter feeds, blogs, or profiles on social media.

What was lost was the next step beyond “good enough” MT. If anything has held true from the markets, is that the customer will expect higher quality that just “good enough.” They will accept what they are given now, but they will not truly be happy. The customer will get tired of material that is “good enough” and never improves. While the majority of MT evangelists are touting “good enough” it is a band-aid that will be ripped off in 18 months, when customers are sick of poor translation… which our industry will tout as still “good enough” for them and their language. How does “good enough” help the life sciences companies reach millions of injured and infirmed citizens in countries far from the United States? How does “good enough” help the medical community help the global citizenry? When “Translators without Borders” spoke, they talked of the millions of children who die each year because there is not even information on basic preventative care and immunizations, let alone complex medical devices, in their local language.

The real innovation is not providing “good enough” translation through MT for a global market, but providing a solution that utilizes MT as a starting point and putting together a strategy that puts the “good enough” material into a high-quality, publishable and regulatory compliant format. Then taking the improved material and putting back in to the MT engine, letting it learn and improve. This is a solution that will drive success and opportunity well beyond the next 18 months. It is scalable, sustainable and over time it will deliver an MT engine that provides publishable content for all customers in all languages, not just “good enough” for those who want to know what Lindsay Lohan or Ashton Kutcher posted on Twitter.

Talking to this young lady, you realize how valuable information is to people, not just the companies. “Good enough” is a step, but to be successful you cannot just step towards quality, you have to walk and potentially run to it. That is what I told her during and after the event. While she is not “sold” on a specific solution, she considers it a much more viable option now.

Increasingly, localization “experts” are telling prospective clients (and anyone else who will listen) that the key to driving significant change in your organizations localization processes is finding a high-ranking executive to act as the champion for your cause. While that is a true statement, what is consistently missing in these “sermons from the mount” is a roadmap on how to win the champion over.

Most experts, when asked about the roadmap either a) push back with the “it varies from company to company”, or b) push for the individual to meet with them separately to generate a sales lead. To get l10n off of the back-burner for most executives, you need to think like executives think.

How to think like an executive

Executives are either a) influencers or b) decision-makers:

• Influencers have authority, but not in the tangible way. They drive change because their “sphere of influence” is great enough that they are trusted by those above.
• Decision-makers care about numbers. It is all about ROI with these individuals. With a flick of their pen they can make or break your plan

With the above knowledge as context, you can see that any roadmap to change requires tangible proof that a) the current way of doing things is flawed, and b) the proposed changes are significantly (and financially) better. Why? Because influencers will not use their influence on something that may not be successful, and decision-makers won’t pay for something that is not a better value for their dollar. So, here is a roadmap to deliver the results you need to get the changes you want.

Start by taking a look at your existing model. Variants of this model can deal with single or multi-vendor environments as well as an in-house model. For simplicity, I will share a roadmap for working in a multi-vendor environment since it the most common.

First, gather the data on how much you are currently spending on localization. If you or the vendors have not been formally tracking the information then ask the vendors for it. Next pick the two vendors with the highest “spend” and run them as your “control” group for this test. The remaining vendors should be discounted for this project because their data won’t add any value. Then for a “variable” group, work with a new vendor and finally analyze the performance of all three.

Now, the analysis of the data requires you to have measurements that are appropriate to what you are looking for in a vendor. The most common ones are cost, quality and turnaround time. However, each should have a separate strategy, each carrying equal weight in the equation. This means that improvement can happen in any of the three measurements, but it is not acceptable for the performance to degrade in any of them. So, you cannot get “cheaper” translation that is poorer quality or begins to miss delivery and say it is a success. Now, each of these three factors (cost, turnaround time, quality) should be defined prior to gathering your data for analysis. I recommend the following guidelines:

Cost – Overall value of the offering. Not on a “quote” basis, but an ongoing review of how the cost is lowered over time continually. In L10n this comes in a number of ways, but most notably in an active strategy around maintaining and managing TMs for each language.

Turnaround Time – 4 main measurements should be a) number of jobs late due to vendor issues, b) percentage of jobs late due to vendor issues, c) total number of days late, and d) average days for actual turnaround versus the average of the “scheduled” days for turnaround.

Quality – This is the most difficult measure because few organizations truly take the time to define quality around localization. This is more than just saying “we want to be error free” and telling vendors that. Even the most efficient systems allow for some element of error. Six Sigma methodology puts in place for companies to achieve a Sigma level of 6 (the best) they must have fewer than 3 defects per billion… that is very tiny but still not 100%. Whether you purport to Six Sigma or not, I would recommend using the following guidelines these key items you should consider for validating and defining quality, and the basic issue behind each. Use the 0-3-6-9 scoring system, where 0 is the best of the three, 3 is the middle and 6 is last. If one of the vendors does not have something for these key drivers, they receive a 9. Tally the score, with the lowest score being better. This will be your quality ratio. Key drivers and their Basic issues are

1. Basic Organizational Capabilities  which include the skills & tools required to implement improvements in business processes are lacking.
2. Process Variations Poor process capabilities results in high COPQ (rework, multiple review cycles, longer cycle times).
3. Business Process Variation and when product cost estimation is often widely off the mark (additional funding is needed to complete job).
4. Process & Documentation Systems where processes and documentation are often inadequate and flawed (longer cycle times, higher costs, poor quality).
5. Supplier Capabilities which calls out the vendor’s potential lack of quality translators and supporting organizational support, resulting in poor-quality translations, late deliveries, higher costs.

Once you have this information, and the quality ratio, use the following equation throughout the gather and measure portions of your project to analyze the results from the two existing vendors, as well as the new vendor:

Efficiency (E) = Cost(c) x Qualty(Q) x Time (T) with that product being divided by (W), the total number of words in the projects submitted. The lowever the number, the better the overall efficieny.

OK – so clearly this isn’t a foolproof step-by-step process because a blog can only say so-much – but I hope to have given you a flavor of what I spend my days doing for clients interested in improving their localization environment.

Months ago I relayed a conversation I had with a client on commercial support for rare languages – in that case it was Dhivehi, spoken by around 200,000 inhabitants of the Maldives. I also mentioned the work of K. David Harrison on the subject of endangered languages. You can find that entry here.

At Localization World – where I am sure many of you found yourselves last week – it was great to see a talk on commercialization of endangered languages by none other than Microsoft. Carla Hurd is part of Microsoft’s Local Language Program (LLP) which enables otherwise non-commercially viable languages

The LLP supports this through three “pillars”. The first is a Language Pillar, where Microsoft works with a local community to translate new terms into the local language – then a Community Glossary is created. After that Microsoft creates a Language Interface Pack (LIP) or the less functional Captioned Language Interface Pack (CLIP) which can be downloaded and installed by local citizens. The LIP is the mainstay of the Technology Pillar, which provides a native language localization application.

As i tweeted at the time i have mixed feelings that the language of my beloved Wales is considered endangered by Microsoft and therefore supported by the LLP – but i suppose you can’t have everything!

In order to remain competitive in the global market, companies are consistently pushing in to international markets for new revenue streams. With the United States, and most or Western Europe saturated in a number of verticals, there is a significant shift to the Eastern European, Middle East and African market places.

However, most of global companies are headquartered in the United States and still view native English speakers as the primary audience and write in a style that works well for these users.  As a result, a vast majority of source content created in English is often targeted at the U.S. market. The use of colloquialisms and noun strings is common within the U.S. culture and is easily transitioned into the writing by authors who are writing with an American user in mind. It is clear that an informal style is preferable for this user across all content media.

Some of the more “progressive” companies are looking to reduce cost by managing the production of this source material. More and more of these organizations are moving away from home grown document storage systems and DTDs, looking to integrate Component or Web Content Management Systems (CMS) and directing authors to use XML, DITA and XLIFF as the standard authoring formats. Some global organizations are even purchasing author assistant technologies that store previously written material for re-use and notify the author when a sentence they are writing is similar to something previously written.

Still, what I am not seeing is the active education of writers on how to author content for an international audience. It is essential to write with a good English standard while keeping the tone more informal, for an easy read. While CMS and authoring tools can provide you an increased level of consistency between the different materials, these are only tools and their effectiveness is limited by the quality of the written text provided by your authors. If the quality of the source material is poor, increasing the consistency of its reuse across offerings can actually lower the overall quality of your documents.

With the growing availability of non-English content on the web, the key to success for companies doing business in global markets is to adapt the cultural preferences and business practices of their target audiences. By doing so, the technical writer or source content author is no longer providing material solely for an American audience, but rather, material that will be read by individuals in countless languages over the lifespan of that content. In other words, it is evident that authors can significantly impact the marketplace, in turn affecting their company’s profitability over localization spend.

Creating content for an international audience requires attention to a variety of factors to ensure that the information and the messaging are clear for all types of audiences. I believe there are six primary categories to keep in mind that will significantly aid the translations for the international audiences, helping you build and maintain brand consistency on a worldwide basis:

1)      Style
2)      Grammar
3)      Terminology
4)      Punctuation
5)      Cultural sensitivity
6)      Iconography

Along with these considerations, there are a few small changes that will help improve the consistency of your overall messaging across languages, while lowering your costs and turnaround time, when authoring source content:

• Use an appropriate and consistent tone throughout your content.
• Write in an active voice whenever possible and use the present tense.
• Avoid the infinitive, present participle and past participle forms of verbs at the beginning of sentences.
• Avoid noun string and limit compound phrases to three words or less.
• Avoid using homonyms, homophones and homographs.
• Ensure the elements of a sentence are parallel.
• Avoid referring to culture-specific standards and symbols.
• Do not use (s) to pluralize a singular term.  Use the plural form instead.
• Do not use flags or national symbols.

Although slight variances exist depending on content type, I find that an active management strategy around authoring techniques can save an organization anywhere between 12-15% when translating the source material over the first 12 months of the localization process. What is also clear, but often overlooked, is that well-written information that works well for an international audience also yields higher satisfaction ratings among native English speakers.

The basic idea is   put in a phrase and see how Google’s translation tool butchers it… or will it

I borrowed TechChrunch’s example below!

Have fun and let me know your scores!

One of the most common questions asked by localization vendors when assisting clients with their translation needs is “how much do you spend on translation?” and the most common answer is “I have no idea”.

If you are one of these organizations, please know that you are not alone. However, finding out how much your company spends can be extremely difficult, depending largely on how localization is currently managed. Most organizations who struggle with this question run localization in a highly de-centralized manner. Each region or business unit is responsible for managing the cost of their translation needs, and there is little documented process or symmetry in how each performs the task. This blog will focus on these types of organizations, since a majority of them are the ones struggling to find out their annual spend. For example, one region may send work out to a localization vendor that is contracted, while another may request translation ad-hoc when the need arises. Still further, some regions may have in-house staff perform translation as part of their normal duties, so not to incur any cost for their translation needs. If this sounds like your company, then here are three things you can do to go about collecting an idea of the “spend” your organization does as a whole.

First, ask the regions/divisions/business units how they are currently handling translation. Find the main translation stakeholder in each and ask them for their process. Specifically, ask them:

• How do they bill for localization?
• Do they have written processes?
• Do they maintain existing contracts with translation vendors?
• Do they use a specific code on POs for translation?
• Do they use existing staff for translation, or are their specific FTEs designated?
• Do they maintain any assets?

What these questions will help you discover is how each group operates, and where to start looking for the money they spend on translation. In some cases, you might find a relatively well-managed process and determining the specific spend will be much easier. In others, especially where there are no processes, or dedicated FTE count the “spend” will be much more difficult to determine.

Second, look at the products that are from each group, and in what markets they are currently engaged with. Ask these questions:
• Do you translate written material for each market your products are in?
• What written material do you put in to each market? Do you have a document/page count of what each group in your division creates and sends to the markets you currently engage?
• If you are not translating content currently, do you have plans to start in the next FY, and if so, for what markets and which content.

What these questions will help you determine is where the translation is coming from for each group. This is helpful when a group has no documented process and/or uses existing FTEs for their translation services. Additionally, it gives you an idea of what content is going out the door to end-users in a localized format.

Finally, you can just do the math. While each company’s localization “spend” will vary significantly there are constants in localization that can be used to determine a rough idea of localization “spend,” such as:
• Typical translators can translate 1500-2000 words per day, not including leverage
• Quality Review is normal accomplished at a rate of 10,000 words per day
• Desktop Publishing is normal performed at 5-6 pages per hour
• Web content normally has 200-250 words per page
• User documents average 250 words per page

If you have done your due diligence in the first two steps, you have an idea of what documents were translated in which groups. Knowing this will let you find the amount of pages and the number of languages for each. For groups that use existing FTE count to translate content on the side, the first two metrics will give you and idea of how much time is truly spent translating content. Now you have a better idea of what your company translates, ask the localization vendors for the average cost to localize each language on a per word basis. Put the numbers together and you have a rough estimate to deliver to the executives. While this process is not the most efficient, it is effective in providing numbers and equally effective in showing the executive team members exactly how inefficient the localization process really is at your company.

A strategy based on individual translators and Single Language Vendors (SLVs) are most appropriate for organizations with minimal translation needs, limited language requirements or who have the wherewithal to create a large global localization vendor management group – essentially an internal MLV. Testing individual translators or SLVs is really about testing how well the individual or group of individual can take words and translate them into the language concerned. A traditional translation test of a few hundred to a few thousand words is appropriate here – as long as you have someone available to check the output!

Moving up to a localization strategy based on MLVs or using a complete outsourcing provider changes the game though. The common error most organizations make when testing these vendors is assuming that the quality of translation is most important thing you can be testing. Beyond testing actual translation quality it is important to assess how well the partner can translate simultaneously to 5, 10, 25 or 50 languages, with the most attention paid to how well their processes will stand up to the rigors of your schedule. Due diligence at this level goes far beyond whether the prospective partner can find someone to translate a few hundred words!

For MLVs and localization outsourcing providers, testing is most beneficial in a “real-world” style piloting a live project with a small number o pre-qualified vendors following due diligence. This live pilot would typically come near the end of the vendor selection process, after the short-list of viable candidates – the one (ideally – although in some cases the right approach is to pilot with a small number) who look like ideal partners based on the rest of the due-diligence. A pilot should be a real-life project for both organizations and should be representative of how your organization works on a day to day basis as well as how you want to partner over the long haul. Specifically, Pilot approach must address these questions:

• Does this vendor have documented repeatable processes for delivering content in a consistent, high quality format?
• Can this vendor scale to meet the overall needs with their current processes?
• Can this vendor make “value-add” recommendations in the context of the PLP to help optimize the overall localization spend?
• If there is a technology aspect, can the vendor properly assess the best technology and implement it seamlessly into an organization?

At the end of the project, each vendor should present a retrospective review, including concerns, lessons learned and potential gains from best practices. These “post-mortem” reviews are where the key differentiators between vendors will come to the surface.  A company will have the data necessary to answer the four questions above, as well as many others allowing a controlled and educated go/no go decision to be made.

The Pilot approach is the only way to truly gauge the strength of a vendor and their ability to meet your needs.  Typically it takes longer to complete, but it allows the vendor to demonstrate more of their specific capabilities and allows both parties to determine if they are a good fit.