George Lois, a Madison Avenue New Yorker ad man, leader in the advertising “Creative Revolution” during the 1950’s, notes in his book “Damn Good Advice” that when concocting a great ad, text comes before image because “a line, a slogan should be famous.” Lois presents the example of one of his famous taglines: I want my MTV. “If somebody says to you, ‘MTV,’ you think of Mick Jagger on a phone, screaming into the phone, ‘I want my MTV!’ That, to me, was always the epitome of great advertising.” Says Lois.

The power of taglines. One brief phrase will define your brand identity and set you apart from the competition.  Brand name, tagline and logo bolt to make your brand sing. When consumers make the long-lasting link between your tagline and your brand, you’ve added a new verbal and emotional ‘hook’ to your value proposition.

Here are a couple of examples for taglines that convey a clear and simple message that is tightly associated with the brand voice and messaging:

L’Oréal. Because I’m worth it. This tagline links nurtured self-esteem with the product.

Nike. Just Do It. This impactful tagline energizes and inspires to buy into a slice of sportal glory.

Further, one-word taglines are easier to transfer from language to language and are more powerful marketing agents.

An example of a strong translatable tagline is IBM’s THINK.

THINK was a single-word tagline developed by IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, Sr. It appeared in IBM offices, plants and company publications in the 1920s and in the early 1930s it began to take precedence over other taglines at IBM. It later evolved into I think, therefore IBM. And yes, this later version got lost in translation.

Likewise, Coca Cola’s 2000 single-word tagline: Enjoy, as well as its 2003 tagline Real played well in the localization arena.

It is a difficult request to ask documentation authors to “write globally.” It’s essentially asking writers to crumble their creative outlet, to drop dapper jargon wording, to let go of comforting local cultural references and carve out generic examples that resonate world-wide. Here are a few basic principals. There is a multitude of automated tools out in the wild designed to create unambiguous text and controlled language, applied consistently throughout all content components, to facilitate optimum reusability of terms and phrases, thereby reducing translation cost.

• Compose clear and concise messages. (make a thoughtful decision upfront on whether you wish to name your software command “click,” “click on,” “select,” or “choose.“). There are 129 diff. ways to say “turn & switch to the run position.” in English (upper/lower case, single/double quotes, word inversions with diff. variables, noun string, split verb, adding “the”/”a”, etc.
• Omit redundant text. Keep in economic; reduce/leave out unnecessary words. E.g.: “take into consideration” = “consider”; “we think you should…” =“0”.
• Avoid constructing compound sentence structures.
• Avoid ambiguity.
• Avoid jargon, slang or local culture-specific references.

• Conform culturally-dependent data to target market. (local services, part numbers, product names, trade marks, addresses, phone number, URLs, etc.)
• Maintain approved industry terminology consistency, adherent to company glossary and style guide (e.g., never use future tense, never use competitor brand name, formal tone, etc.)
• Avoid using the following in running text: manual hard returns, index markers inside sentences, hyphenation, M dashes and ampersand.
• Avoid regional-specific icons and symbols. (Avoid regional-specific icons and symbols that may be misunderstood. E.g., When Apple first used the Trash can icon, users inEurope mistook it for a mail box.)
• Maintain consistent use of bullets, punctuation, spelling, lower case/upper case, abbreviations, acronyms convention, product/brand names, etc.
• SEO: Use of selected key words, with identified priority conjugation and synonymous variables. These keywords will later be researched for most commonly searched corresponding terms in the local markets, reflecting local key word association patterns common in the target locale.

• Handle product development and internationalization (i18n) as 1 integrated process.
• Isolate translatable text from programming code.
• Enable language support | Unicode.
• Separate databases for English and target langs (for e-commerce).
• Perform pseudo-translation. (translation verification for special characters).
• Centralize translatable strings in minimal resource bundles.
• Support locale conventions: time, date, currency, measurements, decimals, numerals, etc.
• Create a multilingual build environment.
• Avoid concatenation and variables.
• Avoid proprietary platforms; go with clean & structural UI, single file deployment and runtime language switch.
• Set file names and paths portable and interoperable.
• Set per language folder structure.
• Store strings in well-defined standards (special character sets/fonts) for correct parsing.
• Support multilingual site hosting (website platform, server, navigation, software palette).
• Track user’s language preference for return site visit: store info. from user’s IP’s GEO coding.
• Add CSS (cascading style sheet) support for vertical text or other non-Latin typographic features.
• Add markup in your DTD (document type definition) to support bi-directional text.
• Enable text expansion for dialog boxes, graphics, nav bars. (e.g., FR/ES inflate by 30% over from the English. Design dynamic, expandable dialog boxes.)
• Preserve layered PSDs for localized graphic recreation.
• Limit text within graphics.
• Avoid regional cultural symbols (icons/bitmaps).
• Assign unique hot keys and use function keys, not letters.
• Preserve content context. (namely for translation of isolated UIs)
• Segment translatable text per TM tool applied.
• Create test script.
• Prepare for separate staging servers (in-context testing).
• SW UI design specs to avoid truncation bugs:

1: Design your interface in big font.
2: Minimum font size in Chinese should be 9.
3: The maximum string size should be 200 characters.

Here are 12 internationalization (i18n) do’s and don’ts that developers should apply:

1. Do externalize messages in Message Catalogs, resource files, and configuration files. Messages are textual objects that are translatable components. These catalogs or files, such as Java resource bundle message files or Microsoft resource files, are installed in a locale-specific location or named with a locale-specific suffix. This i18n practice will facilitate the localization process, since localizers can work on these resource bundles without the need to modify source code. It will also permit the use of a single source code for all languages, where only the resource bundles will have different language flavors.

2. Don’t internationalize fixed textual objects. These are objects that should not be translated, such as comments, commands and configuration settings. Externalize only the translatable strings. If these objects appear in resource or configuration files, they should be marked “NOT_FOR_TRANSLATION.

Here are some examples of fixed textual objects not requiring i18n:

• User names, group names, and passwords
• System or host names
• Names of terminals (/dev/tty*), printers and special devices
• Shell variables and environment variable names
• Message queues, semaphores and shared memory labels
• UNIX commands and command line options (e.g., ls -l is still ls -l in all locales)
• Commands such as /usr/bin/dos2unix and /usr/ccs/bin/gprof
• Commands that are XPG4-compliant (in /usr/xpg4/bin/vi) and have equivalent non-XPG4 commands; non-XPG4 commands that are not fully internationalized. For example, /usr/bin/vi does not process non-EUC codesets, but /usr/xpg4/bin/vi is fully internationalized and can process characters in any locale.
• Some GUI textual components, such as keyboard mnemonics and keyboard accelerators

3. Do allow for text expansion in messages (especially for GUI items).

Here are some Microsoft translations into German:

• bullet    –>  Aufzählungszeichen
• bundle  –>  Einzelvorgangsbündel
• Link      –>  Verknüpfung
• Login    –>  Anmeldung
• Update –>  Aktualisierung
• Undo     –>  Rückgängig (machen)
• Geschäftsaktivitätsüberwachung replaces the acronym BAM (Business Activity Monitoring)!

Apply the following expansion rules when possible during i18n. When the source text is:

• 0 – 10 characters: The expansion required is from 101 – 200%.
• 11 – 20 characters: 81 – 100%
• 21 – 30 characters: 61 – 80%
• 31 – 50 characters: 41 – 60%
• 50 – 70 characters: 31 – 40%
• Over 70 characters: 30%

But keep the string length well below your limit (usually 254 characters) to account for the extra characters needed.

Try to place the labels above the controls, not beside them. The expansion of a label can increase the width of the form more than the expected resolution, which will force horizontal scroll bars or cause truncation. This also simplifies localizing applications required into bidirectional languages (languages that are read from different directions [RTL or LTR], such as Arabic and Hebrew).

4. Don’t use variables when you can avoid them. During translation, variables raise queries as to the gender of the term to substitute, making it difficult to correctly translate the sentences that incorporate it. If variables are to be used, offer a list of replacements. Also allow for gender and plurals variations in the translation of the sentences that incorporate the variable. For example:

if err = 400, errtext = “server” else errtext = “connection” end if <P> The <%=errtext%> is currently unavailable </P>While this displays grammatically correct sentences in English, the translation in French will be problematic. In French, the word “server” is masculine, while the word “connection” is feminine. The translator cannot use the correct translation for the article “the” based on the translation of the differing genders of server and connection. The code should be instead:

if err = 400,<P> The server is currently unavailable </P> else <P> The connection is currently unavailable </P>

Likewise, avoid concatenation. A composite string is an error message or other text that is dynamically generated from partial sentence segments and presented to the user in full sentence form. Use complete sentences instead, even at the expense of repeating segments. This will ensure the accuracy of the translation, regardless of gender, plurality, conjugation, or sentence structure.

Also, avoid using the same placeholders when using multiple variables in the same string, since the sentence structure does change in different languages. For example, <Total %s, %s of %s> (as in Total 5, 1 of 5) might read “5 of 1, Total 5″ in the translated text. Instead, use numbered placeholders (e.g., “Total %1, %2 of %3″).

5. Do perform pseudo-translation. Pseudo-translation is the process of replacing or adding characters to your software strings to detect character encoding issues and hard-coded text remaining in the source files. Here’s an example of a few strings from a C resource file, with their respective pseudo-translations in Japanese: IDS_TITLE_OPEN_SKIN “Select Device”

IDS_TITLE_OPEN_SKIN “日本SイlイctDイvウcイ本日“IDS_MY_OPEN “&Open”

IDS_MY_OPEN “日本&Opイn日”

In these strings, Japanese characters replace the vowels in all English words. After compilation, testers can easily detect corrupt characters (junk characters replacing the Japanese characters) or strings that remain fully in English (source strings still embedded in the code).

6. Don’t use IF Conditions or rely on a sort order in your code to evaluate a string value. For example, avoid (IF Gender = “Male” THEN). Always depend on enumeration or unique IDs.

7. Do use Unicode functions and methods to support all scripts. Applications that store and retrieve text data need to accept and display the characters from any given language. Using Unicode encoding solves the problem of unsupported character sets and the display of junk characters.

8. Don’t insert hard carriage returns in the middle of sentences. Translation memory tools key off hard returns and assume that the sentence has ended. Inserting them in the middle of a sentence leads to incomplete sentences in the translation database and corrupts the sentence structure in the target language files. Instead, replace hard returns with soft returns (or better yet, use a break tag of some sort, such as <BR>). Also be aware that sentence structures change in different languages, as well as the length of sentence parts. So, additional breaks may be needed in target languages.

9. Do choose your third-party software provider carefully. Insist they support Unicode and comply with the above internationalization (i18n) practices. Often problems are encountered with third-party software and the fact that you don’t have control over their code to fix the problems makes the localization tasks particularly difficult.

10. Try to avoid text in icons and bitmaps. The translated text may be too long to fit. Also, avoid using symbols with cultural connotations and locale-specific idioms.

11. Do use long dates or month abbreviations instead of numbers when identifying dates. Month vs. day orders in different parts of the world vary (e.g., mm/dd/yy in the US vs. dd/mm/yy in Europe).

12. Don’t alphabetically sort strings in string tables and resource bundles. Try to offer as much context as you can with the externalized strings. This will help the translator better adapt the translation to that context. If there is no context, run-time QA will take much longer to correct the translations.

For example: “Update” could be the action (to update) or the software itself. “Check” in a financial software could be the action (noun or verb), or the monetary equivalent. “Email” could be a verb or a noun.

Following these simple internationalization (i18n) principles will expedite product localization and reduce testing, rework and quality assurance costs, ultimately allowing you to meet the strict time-to-market requirements expected from companies selling products worldwide.

When brands go global, their brand assets (logo, brand names, taglines) can either remain in English, get transliterated or transcreated.

In contrast to the mono-word taglines that are transferrable across languages through translation, these timeless taglines, that rule local audience, get lost in translation:

Although these four taglines are clever, witty and right on target for local US market, they are very difficult to localize into any other language because of the unique play on words and use of idioms which make sense in English, but lose the layers of contextual meaning in the locale culture. For example, Sony’s “make.believe.” slogan is a double play:

1. Idiom “make believe” endorsing Sony’s corporate philosophy introduced in 2009: “Believe that curiosity is the key to creativity.” And “Believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real.”
2. The literal meaning of each individual word “make” and “believe” broken down by the use of periods.

Most global taglines are currently NOT transcreated for international markets, but rather either left in English, as is the standard implementation for brand names in markets where local consumers read English; or transliterated, maintaining original pronunciation (as much as possible), while applying local  language character sets, for markets where English is not a commonly read script.

The Urban Nomad. Sounds familiar? Like someone we’ve transformed into, slowly and steadily, encapsulated by the virtual ritual. Yep, we’re on the GO.  And we demand instant, interactive information anytime anywhere. The Urban Nomad in us is never bound to one place. Wherever we are, across oceans and continents, our carry-on mobile device is our port of communication with the world around us. We pull it out to check our calendar, to interface with our connections, to play games, purchase goods, manage photos, read books, watch movies, or just idly slide-flick through its menu bar, while waiting for our transit.  If 2011 was crowned as the year of the tablet, 2012 is the year of the ultra-thin, ultra-light ultra-book black box, leaving laptops and PCs in the backseat.

Mobile commerce: stand out in the cloud. Mobile web traffic is already surpassing PC-based traffic. According to ABI Research, by 2015 mobile commerce will have reached $119B worth of goods and services purchased via mobile phone. In the less developed world, mobile phones will play a center role in e-commerce, as they are often the only pathway to the internet. This means that companies are now quickly planning their mobile commerce strategy to get a fore and stand out in the cloud within this dominant market. Mobile storefronts now fit into companies’ broader multichannel outreach to consumers. Therefore, when we examine pipeline paths for the localization industry, it is the mobile vertical that frantically calls for our attention.

Reaching markup goals. One of the key hurdles localization vendors face in the mobile vertical is the conceptual method of budgeting localization accounts. In most other verticals, reaching markup revenue goals is largely determined by word count volumes. In the mobile arena, however, text is minimal and LSPs need to transition their work scope budgeting to a different ball game model. Typical features in mobile localization are short user interface strings, multiple target language simship releases, focus on layout design, on usability and on compatibility with a variety of platforms: iOS, Android, BlackBerry. Culturalization plays a key role in mobile localization, culturally adapting the usability and design elements to enable a native look & feel for each market.

Global strategy for new market entry. When you explore new market opportunities for your application performance, research what types of applications are popular in the target markets. Brazil, Russia, India, China, Japan and Korea are markets with heavily growing mobile traffic use: smartphone sales, apps store installation, ads revenue and virtual goods consumption.

Visibility & usability. We often customize the application performance, usability and functionality to the locale culture and usability. Another consideration is determining dominant mobile operating systems and carriers in the target markets. For example, China Mobile is the leading carrier in China. In the Arab world, BlackBerry is still the leading device, while Apple iOS takes the 2^nd place trophy. Switzerland is an example for a challenging mobile market, featuring 3 spoken languages: French, German and Italian; 3 dominant operating systems: iOS, BlackBerry and Android; 3 major carriers selling these operating systems: Swisscom, Sunrise and Orange. This translates into a total of 27 test instances, all for one market locale!

Got Game? Measuring ROI of localized goods. ROI from localized apps is given, providing you implement sustainable and scalable localization processes and conduct careful market research for product acceptance in new market entry. Electronic Arts’ revamped car racing games localized into Russian yielded a 600% ROI over the English version! Likewise, Julio Vieitez, Director of LUG—distributor of online games in Brazil, reported that a game version localized into Brazilian Portuguese yielded a 15 times higher revenue than the English version in the local market. Not bad for ROI! An example for revenue loss due to mis-culturalization is when “Age of Empire” was localized into Greek. It was banned by the Greek government because of the name “Macedonian.”

Find out who loves your apps and make them love you more. Determine the top 3 non-English locales for your apps traction. Localize into these 3 target languages first, as tier 1 pilot. Not all languages in a localized app will generate significant added revenue. Make sure your translators understand your app and are active users. Detecting terminology nuances is a landmine in apps localization, where jargon and context shape the content. For example, the Chinese translated term for “User” is different in a standard app compared to a gaming app.

It’s the Urban Nomad bit again, for closure. The Early Nomad would travel in search of fresh pasture. The Urban Nomad travels in search of fresh opportunities. His modular, fast pace life style demands multiple adjustments, relocating from one place to another. But all along it is the little lit screen flickering in the back pocket that keeps the humdrum aligned, centralized in cyber space, home away from home.

Bouquet-full, bountiful and balanced.

Crisp & Copious.

Yours,

-Copyous

On a frosty Wednesday night my friend and I head to a garage. I suppose I should say The Garage: a magical black box that hosts artists in residence for 12-week workshops. Tonight’s event follows a new mentorship project designed to bring together San Francisco choreographers to create a model for presenting work in larger theaters with completion of RAW (Resident Artist Workshop).

Presenting Raw and Uncut: six 10-minute dance fragments by Christine Bonansea, Michelle Fletcher, Malinda LaVelle, Minna Harri, Alyce Finwall Dance Theater and Tanya Bello’s Project. B.

The Garage on Howard Street, San Francisco

When you first enter The Garage, you’re still infused with the street clamor and wet night air. The pre-show chit chat and beer bottle clatter chime the space. Last calls for the Nano bathroom at the end of the stage are announced. At 9pm sharp, Joe, the founder of The Garage, kicks off the evening show. Lights are switched off and quiet anticipation is turned on.

There is something attractively gritty in this intimate dark space, where viewers are at an arm’s stretch away from the dancers. The performers’ panting and vibrating steps rattle the carry-on seats and draw us in. We are instantly teleported to another planet, a Jigsaw Puzzle of faces and voices and objects and shadows.

Bonansea’s No Exit opening scene explores the conflict between mind and body, subject and object. Tormented features emerge from heavy hair pieces, pulling and dragging, defying gravity. The movement is sharp and biting. The German outcries are chilling.

Fletcher’s dance snap that follows is a complete contrast to the first piece. Bubbles fill the air with sweet soothing calmness. The dancers’ focused back bends look like kneaded dough and all of a sudden I feel a strong urge for a back rub across my spine.

Next march on stage Malinda LaVelle’s girls. Rouge lips and summer flirt dresses. Audacious, luring femininity interplays with domineering masculine vigor.

By the time Tanya Bello’s ProjectB dancers seize the stage, we feel like we’d just gotten off a dozing roller coaster, dizzy and frayed. Black corsets and turquoise pants twirl like a tornado through and around with grace and delicacy. The full length dance, of which only 10 minutes are shared tonight, interlaces Pablo Neruda’s poetry that punches right in the guts.

We take a brief break to breath and return retuned. Then we hear quiet quick feet dashing through the dark. Julia Hollas and Vivian Aragon quietly set in. I’m absorbed with images of center body circulations revolving, evolving. This piece, titled “Angel” and performed by Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, is an exploration of feminine sexuality. It lets out to hang unanswerable questions.  -”Is there anybody out there?” whispering into the mic. -”Stop. Looking for somebody real.”

The last piece, by Minna Harri, is a blatant, poking query of death. “When are you going to die?”; “Can you tell me about dying?”

And we quietly leave the black box and exit with this existential question mark.

Shimmering excitement fills the theater, when Bouchaib, Yassir, Hafida, Abdellatif, Khalid and Oussama slowly pace in and settle by their instruments. We won’t see them for the remaining of the show, but oh, will we hear them! In a moment, their voices will echo from across the Atlantic and reel in warm desert breeze.

The vibrant drumming of Gnawa ceremonies sets a backdrop for the haunting strains of oud and violin. These traditional Moroccan melodies by El Hamideen are paired with a stage draped in golden glossy fabric and bare brick.

The dancers sweep through dense, thick air. Heart thump and drum beat merge at accelerating pace, speeding faster and faster. And faster yet, with subtle movements breaking down the chords into syllables of fragmented vocabulary. King’s signature choreography of dancing, at times, against the music is in play here with his use of dissonance.

These performers, on stage and in the pit, are dissolved into a world beyond themselves. And it is incredibly liberating.

Dashing through dimming lights and fading murmurs, we hurry to fill in the last 2 vacant front row seats. Light out. Curtain up. Here we go…

Jason Moran, Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits fill the dark theater with piano, bass and drum beat. Jiggered, edgy, ragged beat. They whip out sound, yank it, and observe its shattered fragments dazzle the dancers into a jazzy whirlwind of snaking arms and surging leaps, sweat spewing against the black backdrop.

At times, though, the intensity of the original improv. is greeted with low gear, almost slowmo’ gestures, contemplative movements lingering, relishing the sound and digesting its impact, one pace per double beat. That’s when, eyes shut, you can hear the delicate pawing of a foot on the floor, the heavy breathing, the quiet faces.

King’s broad-gauge ballet and Moran’s jostling jazz make for a fine fusion. The two like-mind collaborators communicate on the same vibes. When King asked Moran to compose music that is both ancient and new, that belongs to no place, the pianist picked it up, no explanations needed. Jason submitted roughly 20 improv. pieces; Alonzo mixed & matched, rearranging the order to snugly fit with the choreography.

Although Moran’s trio physically started playing with the dancers only a couple of days before the show, an intimate dialog between music and dance has clearly clicked. The dancers are not simply following the white ball. Rather, they form a natural extension to the musicians, who are stranded to their static position at the pit.

King and Moran inject classic structures with urban dynamo. Both are in tune with their consciousness, their internal, intuitive voice. “You want to tap into the gold vein where you are dealing with beautiful truths and profundities,” says King. “When people observe choreography, they miss so much if they’re being intellectual because intellect is not how you really understand depth,” he adds.

“When I observe the world, “ says King, “I can’t see anything that is not dance; everything is measure or force, manipulation of energies, spatial relationships… Everything is sound and motion. In the big bang theory, what came first, movement or sound? They’re inextricable.”

Yep, they did it again, we nod, exiting the theater. Genuine Music and Dance were delivered here tonight, on a platter of sensual sensibility.

After watching a bounty of dance performances back-to-back at the 2009 International Exposure Dance Festival/Suzanne Dellal Center, it was Rooster that hit home and made me go see the show a second time the following week.

Rooster opens with the night chirps of grasshoppers and ends with the twitter of morning birds. The events unfold in & out one night. One night that digests interactions in a Kafkan sequence, that throws in the mix Theater of the Absurd, Vaudeville and Greek Mythology, that reels in Balkan, Gypsy, Middle-Eastern and American-Yiddish tunes, all mashed up into one burning stew.

The show reveals a man’s subconscious stream of thoughts under the spell of a dream. And trailing through this flow of feverish thoughts is the vivid image of the Rooster, which also means Gever (“man”) in Hebrew. The allusion to the story of I.L. Peretz’ Bontsha the Silent, implies Barak’s appeal for self-assertion: “trust your desires and act on them.”

The Rooster, with its flamboyant erected cockscomb and fluttering feathers–pecking, idling, roosting, kakadoodledooing–mirrors the villagers: their rapacious jealousy, pestering gossip, vaunting vanity.

And in all that chaos of color and cruelty and caring, of plucked feathers, warm embraces and longing to our womb roots, there lays the connection between hen and human. Being chicken—fearful; plucking feathers—slaughter; Tarnegol Kaparot—sacrifice (the Jewish ritual of sacrificing a rooster for atonement); and the forever existential loop: Which came first, chicken or egg?

Barak Marshall was born in Los Angeles to a Yemenite Israeli performer—Margalit Oved—founder of the Inbal Theater Dance Company. Barak, a true auteur, nursed on the rich brew of his cultural diversity. In his creative work, he draws themes, flavors and voices from the exotic ingredients that nourish his roots. He peppers his staged art with implied Jewish heritage, Yemenite folklore and biblical text, like the excerpt noting the twelve tribes (this piece is written for twelve dancers).

Barak created Rooster for the 2009 Tel Aviv Dance Festival, after the great success of his former piece—Monger—featured at the 2008 Tel Aviv Dance Festival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK_4yCbCxgM