Localization professionals are often applauded for and encouraged to develop “thick skin.” A profesional with “thick skin” is not crushed by criticism nor destroyed by disappointing results, but how do we develop a thick skin?
Every time we communicate, we're trying to do something, change something, or move someone to action. We're trying to make a point. But the only way to make a point is to have a point. And the surprising truth is, very few communicators know their points or even understand what a point is, rendering them pointless.
If you’ve been invited to speak on a panel, congratulations! Go for it. A panel is a great opportunity to share your expertise in your field. Just one thing … do you know how to prepare the event so you can make the most of it?
My thoughts about the just finished LocWorld40 where 2 patterns emerged from all different conversations ... fear of AI and lack of innovation in the industry ... come into this post and join the discussion!
“Are there roles in the localisation industry apart from working as translator?” A summary to show how many opportunities we have as Localization professionals!
Root Cause Analysis as a way to optimize our Globalization budget. Treating individual symptoms may feel productive. It feels like something is getting done. But if we don’t actually diagnose the real root cause of a problem we’ll likely have the same exact problem over and over and over again.
A webinar to reflect on how we can help Localization individuals to get the right conditions so they can shine!
New article on my blog! Leading teams: 4 tactics to create a Localization strategy
This post outlines 4 areas of activity to focus when taking over to craft a Globalization strategy
These 4 areas are:
Understanding the Situation
Identify Goals
Identify Metrics
Individual Accountability
Is it possible to explain what Globalization is? Why Globalization / Localization are different concepts and what are the services/steps necessary to make a truly global software in just 3 minutes? Well, I thought not, but it's possible! This week in my post you can find a summary of how to explain what Globalization is in just 3 minutes!
“Welcome to my blog. The space where I document my passion about Localization, Project Management and Leadership”
Glossaries in the translation industry are essential to create consistency, to create a brand image; and mistakes in the creation and maintenance of the glossary have many negative connotations! Join me this week to cover the power of consistency and why having a process in place for glossary management is a great idea!
Sometimes knowing what to measure in the G-localization industry can be a complex task, and in some ways overwhelming. I hope that after reading this post you could feel a little less overwhelmed ☺
Knowing what to do and when to do, it is one of the most unknown areas in the world of G-localization ... for that reason, I encouraged myself this week to write a post about guidelines to take into account to craft an effective localization and scheduling process … hope this is helpful!
I consider myself a tolerant person, with patience and with a good predisposition to dialogue. Now, if you want to piss me off a quite effective technique is to tell me that Localization is a cost center; in my weekly post I reflect on this and about some hidden cost we might incur in our Globalisation world when tackling the complex art of translation ….
Cultural Intelligence is among the most valuable skills for the coming years. Our ability to obtain results in a different environment, different cultures and different countries is crucial to thriving nowadays. And there is no other industry in the world so culturally diverse as the Globalization industry … let’s have a look about how we can position ourselves as cultural intelligence super g-localizers!
Developing a videogame is more difficult than it seems, it is not a children's game, although for many people it seems that way! A video game is an entertainment product, visual and very complex. And adapting a video game from one language to another, is also a much more complex task than it seems. To translate a game from one language to another requires more steps than Google Translate and copy / paste 🙂
How can we make a game age well and get benefits for several years? LiveOps and Localization might help to achieve that! 🙂
Translating a video game is more complicated than it seems! and translating video games is different to translating software in general, you want to know why? so keep reading :)
Some services and some invoices are difficult to understand. Specially to understand how certain services are charged, and how they are explained. Sometimes we might have the feeling that we are being scammed ... have you ever had that feeling in our Globalization world? For example, in the area of Localization Engineering? If the answer is yes maybe this post is for you ...
Our app’s user experience it’s a complex mix of feelings and emotions, difficult to measure but it has a huge impact in the user satisfaction, and here globalisation best practices play an important role, and UX localization plays also an important role, but is that actually a thing? does UX localisation even exist?
The translation industry is one of the oldest industries in the world, for hundreds of years there have been needs to communicate messages from one language to another. During all these years the translators have had a fundamental role so that people of different languages understand each other. During all these years the translators have been adapting and changing their services, and even today, under the threatening look of MT, AI, NMT and BLA, BLA, BLA, they are pushing back this new reality, they re-invent themselves, and they find a way to remain relevant ... and that’s the reality, the translator is a difficult race to extinguish, they fight, they adapt, they evolve ... and hopefully they’ll continue doing it for many years!
Sometimes knowing the rules of behaviour and soft-skills that I must apply in certain environments is not enough to succeed. Being effective in a high-performance team in a multicultural environment requires something more.
Sometimes having the info and the answer only solves part of the problem of how to be effective across cultures. How do we solve the other part of the problem? How can we be effective in such a global and diverse world as is the localization industry?
That’s the topic I cover in my weekly post. Hope you like it and and please leave your comments with your international experiences on how you adapted to different environments! 🙂
Have a great week!
Miguel
The Project Post-Mortem is a Valuable Tool for Continuous Improvement in our Globalization/Localization projects. However, for different reasons we don’t take the time to perform them, or we are not sure how to drive them. If you recognize yourself in any of these situations maybe my post this week may be useful 🙂
What is the career plan professionals working in the globalization/localization industry might have? Can we become executives in our industry? Or better said, is it possible to increase our "executive presence"? And if so, how?
Doom creator John Carmack said years ago “Story in a game is like story in a porn movie: it’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.”
This week while having tapas with a friend I had a deja-vú about John’ words ….
The world of Localization is a very multicultural industry. The professionals of this industry at some point in our lives have asked ourselves the following question: but why should I be the one who adapts to this environment? Why do not they adapt to me? :) That's what I cover this week in my post, I hope you like it!
Cultural Intelligence is like a super power that we can develop to lead teams in an effective way in this globalized world in which we live. And no, Emotional Intelligence and Cultural Intelligence is not the same. If you want to know why it is not the same, I invite you to read the post I created this week on my blog 🙂
This week I finish my article on TMS and CMS, the Twins of our Translation industry. In this second part I explain the workflow and integration of a CMS and a TMS. Where the key to success lies in a bit of code that we call API ....
There are some things that look alike, but they are not much the same. Arnold and DeVito are an example of this in the movie industry in the Twins movie, and a CMS and TMS are an example in our Globalization / Localization industry. In this post I talk about cinema and what’s a CMS / TMS and why they are not twin tools :)
This week I bring a special post. It is a summary of the presentation that Maria and I gave on the fascinating topic about culture intelligence.
And why is it a special post? Well…. this post is an eBook! there are so many things that I'm passionate about the world of cultural intelligence that everything I wanted to write did not fit in a single post, so I wrote an eBook 🙂
Here you have an eBook of what I consider to be the future of management ... the cultural intelligence.
Hope you like it! Please send me your comments so we can continue the discussions around this amazing world of the CQ!
Enjoy the journey!
Miguel
Expecting a localizer will produce a translation as the client imagined, without ensuring there’s a good style guide in place is simply impossible. Some thoughts while considering to go to the cinema to watch Aladdin ….