When a company enters new markets it needs to determine its company and product name strategy. There are three core options :  

1. Maintain source English names

2. Transliterate the names using the locale language character set

3. Transcreate the names

Each of these paths will bear significant consequences on brand positioning.   Let’s explore these three paths.

1. Leave in English. In some markets, where English is widely understood, such as India, Germany, Israel, there’s the option to leave the company and product names in English. They will be understood, in the most part, and the corporate branding will be maintained. 

In India, for example, multinationals prefer to keep brand names in English as English is widely used in India today, especially in urban areas. Name transliteration in India would be relevant only if the company is targeting rural regions. Devanagari, the principal scrip for writing several languages in India–Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit—is phonetic. Therefore, name transliteration is fairly straight forward. 

The down sides of keeping company/product names in English are 1. Not tailoring for the few in-market consumers who may not understand English letters; and 2. Face issues of bi-directional text in mixed language string display. For example, a localized application into a right-to-left language—e.g., Hebrew, Arabic, Urdu—will have right-to-left (localized text) and left-to-right text (names left in source English) in the same string. This will cause text inversion bugs during testing, once the localized application is compiled.  An example for that is iPhone’s localized Hebrew UI version: When the English brand names—e.g., “Mobile Me,” “iPhone,” “Apple Store”—appeared at the beginning of the strings, there were no text inversion bugs. However, when the English names appeared in middle of strings, in between Hebrew words, word and letter inversion bugs occurred. Apple developed a tool that identifies problematic strings upfront and flags for translators. 

This decision on whether to leave a name in English or not depends on the target locale, target audience and vertical. This leads us to option number 2—transliteration. 

2. Transliterate. In some languages name transliteration from English to target language characters may be a simple and straight forward process.  Maintaining the original name phonetic pronunciation using the locale character set. However, in some other languages this could be a tricky and delicate task. This is where Western Phonogram vs. Eastern Ideogram kicks in. These two systems–language for the ears vs. language for the eyes–are contrasted in terms of binary opposites.  Here are a few examples.

 The main considerations in name transliteration are

• Ensure transliterated name is pronounceable in the locale language.
• Ensure transliterated name doesn’t bear any negative connotations. 

In Mandarin (Simplified Chinese), name transliteration is a complex task and requires much in-market research and knowledge of current trends, political sensitivities and regional preferences. A classic example for global brand name transliteration into Mandarin is Coca-Cola. When the company decided to launch in China (1927), it faced the problem that Chinese script is not phonetic. The Chinese writing system (accountable for a quarter of the world’s population) is logographic (aka ideographic). Each symbol represents one idea. To find the nearest phonetic equivalent to “Coca-Cola” required a separate Chinese character for each of the four syllables. Out of the 40,000 characters, only about 200 were close enough in pronunciation, and many of these implied negative connotations. The company finally chose a sequence of characters that would sound similar to Coca-Cola when pronounced and mean “to allow the mouth to rejoice.” However, when read, these characters could also mean “bite the wax tadpole” in Mandarin. 

Another example is the company name “Google.” In Mandarin the sound “l” is difficult to pronounce. Therefore, “Google” resorted to re-brand its search engine “Gu Ge” in China.

Unlike Chinese, Korean characters are phonetic, not ideographic. Therefore, it is simpler to transliterate a source English name into Korean, mirroring same/similar pronunciation of the source English name.

In Japanese, the katakana character set is designed for foreign name transliteration. That said, there are certain sounds in the source English that cannot be transferred in katakana because they are not easily pronounced in Japanese. For example, it is standard to replace “v” with “b” and “th” with “s” for name transliteration into Japanese, to accommodate for pronunciation issues. In the case of “v”, however, unconventional katakana “ヴ” would be used for some cases on preferential basis. For example, “Vogue” is transliterated as “ヴォーグ” representing the “v” sound, rather than “ボーグ” representing the “b” sound. The “th” sound is replaced by the “s” sound, no alternative katakana character available. For example, “Beth” is transliterated as “ベス” (pronunciation: Beh･su) with the “s” sound.

Another issue to consider for Japanese transliteration is “Elongation,” i.e., length of vowel stretch to reflect desired accent and emphasis. For example, some companies prefer to transliterate the word “User,” as “ユーザ” (pronunciation: yu･u･za), keeping the end vowel sound short, while others would prefer to transliterate as “ユーザー” (pronunciation: yu･u･za･a).

Yet another challenge is multiple transliteration options for the same source English word. For example, the word “Manager” can be transliterated as “マネジャ”、”マネジャー”、”マネージャ”、”マネージャー”. These are all preferential alternates, defined by the company’s approved styles.

It is important to establish a transliteration glossary for all name usage across the different content components and platforms. This is one of the key Brand Localization reference assets.

Here are some examples of transliterated company and product names that carried negative connotation in the target market and got lost in translation:

• “Oness” security door lock. Company launched this product into 14 languages bearing the source name “Oness.” Its sound, visual and connotation worked perfectly in all 13 markets. However, they had to drop it, because in Israel Oness means “rape.”
• “Dreck” soap. 70 years ago, when Procter & Gamble wanted to launch their soap product “Dreck” to US consumers, they discovered that it sounded like the German and Yiddish words for dirt, garbage, body waste (and another four-letter pejorative word).  Since P&G was proactively researching their name branding acceptance, they, thankfully, changed the name to “Dreft.”
• “Barf” detergent. Paxan Corp., an Iranian company, produces a line of soaps and detergents under the name “Barf.” This word means “snow” in Persian, hence is most appropriate to the product. That is, most appropriate in Iran. In English speaking markets, however, this product name doesn’t server as an optimal marketing pitch.
• “Pocari Sweat” drink. Likewise, the Japanese sports drink “Pocari Sweat” doesn’t do service to the product among English speaking consumers.
• “Efes” beer. The Turkish beer “Efes” lost its chance to reap revenue in Israel, one of its exported target markets, just because of its inappropriate name transliteration. “Efes” means “loser” in Hebrew. 

 3. Transcreate.Provide a new appropriate name in the target language that bears the brand messaging, or a name that carries the conceptual translation of the source English name. For example, the company Shell Oil chose to translate the meaning of the external skeleton of a mollusk: 壳 shell (pronounced ke2 in Mandarin).

Based on the company’s global brand strategy and international market usability and visibility expansion, transcreating the company name may be a good fitted choice. The main considerations listed above of ensuring that transliterated names bear positive/neutral association in the locale market and easily pronounceable, also apply to transcreated names. A name bearing a negative connotation will drown the brand. Likewise, icons/images associated with the brand name and identity messaging need to avoid negative connotations. For example, Twitter’s high visibility “egg” icons allude to a sensitive/offensive association in the Arab culture. A localized product should have a name free of negative associations (nor rhyming with a word bearing a negative connotation) and a name that can easily be pronounced by a non-native English speaker in the target market. It is also important to choose a name that isn’t confused with another similar word in the local language.

The additional considerations in name transcreation are

• Ensure transcreated name is available in the locale market.
• Ensure transcreated name is safe.

Google registered its “Gu Ge” brand name in China only 7 days before another company, Gu Ge Technology, did. Gu Ge Technology actually sued Google, but lost in the trial.

This lady is called for: Corona, the Mexican beer producer, had to negotiate in different countries to secure its name, which means “crown” in Spanish. Corona eventually adapted its name to Coronita in Spain, as a compromise.

 Name Evaluators generally develop a “name safe” test to make sure that an anti-depressive does not sound too similar to a strong tranquilizer, or that the name does not get lost in the doctor’s handwriting.  In the pharmaceutical industry naming a product is literally a matter of life and death. According to the FDA, 13 percent of medication errors stem from name confusion. 

Name evaluation Process: Suggested source English names considered for transliteration/transcreation in international markets, should follow a name evaluation process to ensure the above considerations in play. The names are submitted in a survey to three validated in-country linguists who conduct the market research and provide a report suggesting alternative names, if the source words bear negative connotations, are difficult to pronounce locally, are not available or easily confused with another branded name.

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.

Seed. Sow. Grow.

A decade ago, when I worked as a Localization Account Manager for one of the principal localization houses, San Francisco site, one of my challenging tasks was to process masses of useless Requests for Proposals (RFPs). These requests came from companies of all verticals and I was surprised at how off-target they had been. Rather than setting up the stage for providers to effectively present their solutions, these RFP’s were innocently structured as a dash-in-the-dark roll-dice. A significant factor of that was the fact that the RFP writers were not from the localization industry and, therefore, were not familiar with the workflow nuance specifics required for optimized localization production implementation. 

Evolving through globalization program development roles, navigating from the vendor to the client side, I have since vowed to make the world a better place by creating to-the-point RFPs on behalf of companies going global. A poignant RFP serves as a spring board to the company’s purchasing power with suppliers, as well as identifies risks and benefits at the pre-project plan phase. Throughout the RFP process both buyers and suppliers gain insight into solution strategies, perspectives and price points. When I founded Copyous,  I made sure that customized RFP creation and RFP response analysis were included in my roll sleeve service suite.

So, here it is: some best practices for effective RFP How To’s.

First and foremost, keep it short and simple! I like to buzz it as the 3 C’s: Clear. Concise. Consistent. We live in a fast pace dynamic world, full of distractions and stimulations. Our attention span is limited. No one is going to read a 50-page RFP and retain its content. A 10-15 page RFP would work just fine, thank you very much! Next, ask good, relevant questions to get good, relevant answers. You could, potentially, recycle from a same industry template available online. It will often include generic relevant questions to pin down your vendor selection. But in order to produce a truly fitted RFP, tailored for your company’s specific needs and priorities, you should back track for a moment and carefully consider the following:

• Core attributes and unique assets of your company’s products and services: Contemplate current, but also your future product/service offerings.
• Your current global and local business setup and brand strategy: HQ versus regional operation sites, role ownerships, localization positioning within the company’s internal architecture, localization budget through Q4, your international alliances and partnerships, your status in relation to industry competitors in target markets—what makes you stand out.
• Your target languages and geo locales for imminent releases.
• Your target audience: socio-economic, cultural, ethnic and expertise level of industry knowledge.
• Technical specifications for cross-platform operability. Define the following: what is your content repository? What Content Management System (CMS) are you setup with? What is your preferred Translation Memory (TM) tool and do you have littered legacy TM? Do you process high volume content in frequent release cycle updates for multiple components and engaging different resource groups to justify integration of a Translation Management System (TMS)? Do you follow an Agile workflow with Sprint publication releases? Are you interested in implementing Machine Translation (MT) for your low-visibility content? Would you benefit from data-mining and text analytics?
• Pipeline go global goals: your international growth objectives— worldwide usability and visibility expansion, target languages and locales scoped for the next 5 years.

These above factors will have direct wow impact on your scalable and sustainable localization program planning for the long run. They will ensure that your time and cost spent today will go a longer way to yield optimal results tomorrow. Before setting off to select your localization production vendor and automated tools provider, you first need to identify your company’s will-house current and future setup strategy.

Many localization vendors nowadays provide a wide range of comparable services, from source content global readiness and system internationalization, through translation/edit/proof, to hosted testing, language voice talent, MSEO, global brand strategy and brand culturalization. However, the multitude of providers differ in their company culture, their business service model, specialized verticals, in-country resource availability of screened quality language specialists, in preferred globalization technologies and in their magic dust. In order to team up with a localization vendor partner that matches your values, your company culture and your global outreach scheme you first need to define your company’s values, culture and globe go goals.

Think about YOUR priorities. For example, you might be embarking on your very first localization adventure and having a local contact on the vendor side for hand-holding personal service may be a priority. You’ll then consider for your RFP pool only vendors that have a local operations site, or at least a local assigned resource, for ongoing onsite meetings.

Think about whether you have an internal resource with bandwidth and expertise to handle the ongoing roundtrip localization projects from your end, interfacing with the vendor. You will need to either 1. Pull in an internal function (typically the Product Manager, who is already maxed out performing the duties she/he were originally hired for) to now also manage the localization projects, working with the vendor contact; or 2. Hire an external localization expert to manage your localization program on your behalf, representing your interests and interfacing with the vendor contact to ensure smooth project runs. Managing localization projects on the client side is a very time consuming task that requires industry know how for effective performance.

Whether your company endorses a global, local or glocal brand strategy will also affect the selection of the vendor with the right in-market expertise. For example, if your company adopts the glocal strategy—a hybrid model of managing your company overhead globally from HQ, while producing, delivering and marketing locally—then you’ll want a localization production team that offers in-country culturalization services of marketing campaign transcreation and support of local e-commerce setup and testing.

Your localization budget will, likewise, carry significant weight on the type of vendor you’ll partner with. The extra-large localization agencies and the boutique medium-large houses will operate on a higher mark up because their overhead cost is higher. Most localization vendors may be able to reduce per word/hourly rates , or offer a flat discount on total bottom line quote, for high volume word counts and work scope or for purchase of proprietary tools integration.

Your target language set will also determine which vendor will fit best with your needs. You’ll get a better price range from a single language vendor (SLV), compared with a multilingual language vendor (MLV). However, if you are planning an across-the-globe outreach to a multitude of markets simultaneously, you will get discounted rates for running several languages in simship releases. By selecting a multilingual simship release strategy, you save on pre and post file processing production work and cost. You will also benefit from centralizing all your localization effort with one larger vendor that has worldwide operation sites.  This will come in handy when you’ll want to coordinate direct communication between your in-country reviewer/regional site producers and the in-country translators, to iron out any linguistic issues and for weekly status meetings.  

An important element to factor in, when considering integration of automated globalization tools and infrastructure, is interoperability. A big word with big implications. You might find a proprietary tool that offers you a good and in-budget solution for a specific current need. However, in the long run, when you’ll need to add on new customized functions and workflows or in the event that you later partner with another vendor that uses a different tools set, you will greatly benefit from interoperable compatible systems.

When you consider which globalization management system (GMS) to integrate, make sure it is seamlessly compatible with your content management system (CMS). Make a conscientious decision on whether to go with an open-source tool  versus a commercial domain. Remember, the objective of creating a tools RFP is to explore relevant customizable industry technologies for optimized cost and time to market performance through centralized automation. Your selected GMS/TMS tool should be modular and flexible for tailoring and adjustments, as your localization workflow will vary across different content components–website, software, mobile, MSEO and documentation. Also, your internal and external resources on the workflow will vary with time and project type and your GMS will need to adapt accordingly. Implementing a centralized and streamlined globalization management system that is a hybrid of home-grown and commercial automated technologies achieves the following:

• Optimize translation velocity and quality consistency.
• Maximize effective workflow and import/export of text to/from translation.
• Reduce localization cost and defects.
• Provide real-time translations.
• Enable shared linguistic assets and cloud review process.

Integration of GMS/TMS tools is effective only when it gets out of the way, enabling the collaborative teams a user-friendly seamless process streamline.

Here are some criteria to consider on the search for your fitted TMS:

• Support integration with your CMS. Is your current export and import of content manual? Hopefully not!
• Automate task/resource hand off workflow with translation reuse for cost reduction and terminology consistency.
• Allow a flexible and technology-agnostic system, compatible with a variety of TMs and CMSs.
• Assess vendor-agnostic SaaS solution versus a hosted license solution, to avoid being locked into a long-term proprietary contract.
• Enable shared linguistic assets in the cloud: TM, glossaries, style guides, reference material and project instructions.
• Facilitate online review approvals (enabling client regional reviewers to view the localized content in context and provide feedback input within the system).
• Centralize project management, including project progress status tracking, vendor management, change detection and budget tracking.
• Support compatibility with a variety of file formats.

Today, the vast majority of translation memory tools can be exported in .tmx and, hence, easily shared between vendors and clients throughout localization lifecycles and across different platforms. Even the bilingual files (.ttx) from the commonly used Trados can be handled by most translation environment tools. That said, you will lose some leveraged legacy memory between certain TMs, just because the fuzzy matches are configured differently. For example, if you shift from Trados to WordFast, you will experience some loss of leveraged fuzzy match words. However, most of the leveraged memory is maintained, overall. The selection of your preferred TM is looped to the TM used by your translation resources, so you’ll want to sync up with them first. Another key consideration for selecting your TM tool is, of course, your content type. You’ll benefit from a visual TM, like Catalyst or Passolo, for example, for contextual reference in layout for GUI translations.

Other automated tools you might benefit from are natural language processing applied to source content and designed to build translation-ready copy. These automated tools are developed to simplify sentence structure, omit redundancy and avoid ambiguity in order to clean the content for clarity. Some of these tools follow the basic rule of unique terms equal unique meaning. Producing global-ready  source English for multilingual translations reduces translation cost (minimizing word counts and maximizing translation memory leveraging from legacy TM), boosts translation quality & user experience and speeds time to market releases. There are several providers offering these tools on either software as a service (SaaS) model or licensed, with training and maintenance/upgrade support. Cost depends on number of authors/editors, hardware, CMS and required services.

On the system internationalization level there is a variety of automated tools designed for multilingual support:

• Client-server applications that scan source code and steps engineers through internationalization bugs. These Internationalization tools can range from $10K for small applications and small teams and climb up to six figures for large enterprises.
• Cross platform interoperable connectors for automated text import/export from and to your system.
• Visual in-context translation memory and management tools.

Your company might already have a CMS setup, but when it is time to prepare for a high scale localization enterprise launching into multiple target languages in frequent release cycles of high content volumes across different components and internal divisions (mobile, website, software, marketing, SEO), you might need to reconsider a more robust and scalable CMS, multilingual supportive and compatible with your selected TM and GMS tools. Open source systems offer flexibility and interoperability, in the most part, but, depending on your product and internal resource programming language expertise, you might prefer a java-based or a .NET platform. You should also contemplate your preferred model–SaaS play or licensed, out in the iCloud or in-house hosted content for security or other practical strategic reasons.

RFP format: Snag attention

As for the FRP document format, it is helpful to keep it in compact structure, with bulleted key points. The RFP should include clear expectations, objectives and weighted vendor selection criteria. Graphic and image visuals, when relevant, add an inviting flair to the overall format layout, transforming what could have been just another boring document to a fascinating sneak peek into your company’s what’s. Organization wise, you’ll want to start with a brief “About Company” description for contextual reference and placement. This section will be followed by proposal guidelines, contract terms, RFP response submission deadline, primary contact and project description. Next, you can jot down purpose and overview of the upcoming localization project plan and the pipeline ongoing maintenance localization projects. Target audience and use-case personas would be helpful, as well as a list of key deliverables, budget, project specs, qualifications, draft localization project timeline and launch dates. Include a section for performance technical specifications and add appendixes and attachments, as needed.  

Last note

Before composing the RFP, you should allow some research time to carefully examine the latest tech tools solutions available out in the market and to explore the pool of relevant good fit localization production vendors to be included on your RFP bid. To maximize your effort, you can hire a localization expert to leverage industry knowledge and accelerate results through the RFP process. My advice is to include between three and five vendors in your RFP pool, as long as all these vendors had already been pre-screened for relevance to your good fit. Including more than five vendors will not add more value, rather it will introduce an overwhelming water hose during the RFP response analysis phase.  Remember, the end objective is to select the One vendor that offers the best fit partnership for your localization production ride. And it doesn’t have to be a roller coaster! You may actually discover that going through a well-planned wide-eyed RFP process is a mind opener, unlocking the gate to new opportunities yet to be explored. Enjoy!

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