At a New Year’s Eve dinner with my family, I saw a familiar situation play out: someone speaking with strong confidence about something they only partly understood. In Spain, we call this el efecto cuñado. What I didn’t realize for a long time is that this behavior has a name in psychology too. It’s the Dunning–Kruger effect, and it shows up just as often in localization and AI conversations as it does at Christmas dinner tables.
This feels like a pivotal moment. Localization teams are being asked to support more markets, move faster, use AI responsibly, and show impact, not just output. Expectations are higher than ever, but many teams are still trained mainly for execution. We are strong at delivering localization work, yet we often struggle to move from output to outcome and to clearly explain the impact of what we do.
AI isn’t just changing tools, it’s changing expectations
Three years into working with AI in localization, I’ve seen the pressure build: automate faster, scale more, do it now.
But the real challenge isn’t the tech itself. It’s the gap between hype and reality , and what happens when teams are expected to act like everything’s already working.
In this post, I break down five common challenges that keep showing up, and what we can actually do about them.
Words have the power to shape perceptions and influence actions, which is why reframing is such a powerful tool. In localization, we can reframe our role from simply translating to driving alignment across the company. By ensuring content is consistent, culturally relevant, and strategically aligned with business goals, localization professionals play a key role in helping businesses grow globally. This post explores how we create that alignment and why our work is much more than just translation.
Choosing between a single-vendor or multi-vendor localization model is not only about price. The real difference shows up in the day-to-day metrics: turnaround time, quality stability, cost control, and how much coordination your teams need to do. In this post, I walk through the core metrics that tend to improve with a single-vendor setup, and how they can help you understand which model fits your localization strategy right now
Even when localization teams aren’t directly affected by a company reorg, everything around them can change fast sponsors move, teams merge, budgets shift.
That’s when weak governance shows its cracks.
This post explores how strong localization governance keeps programs stable, visible, and credible no matter how often the org chart moves.
Over the years, I’ve noticed that localization buyers, like the emotions in Inside Out, are often driven by one dominant need. Some are in survival mode, juggling too much. Others are just getting started and need guidance. Some care about speed, others about cost, and some are laser-focused on how things feel in-market.
Most localization discussions stop at per-word rates. However, what appears inexpensive on paper can often turn into costly delays, rework, and frustrated teams.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) provides a more comprehensive view, one that encompasses engineering fixes, QA cycles, support tickets, and brand impact.
When procurement and leadership focus only on price, localization becomes a cost center. When they consider TCO, it becomes a key driver of quality and efficiency. And this post explains how to approach that
Many teams treat localization vendors as interchangeable compare rates, sign the contract, move on. But every switch comes with invisible costs: lost context, quality dips, and team fatigue. In this latest post, I unpack what really happens behind a vendor change ( and how to prepare for it like a continuity project, not a quick fix)
“Welcome to my blog. The space where I document my passion about Localization, Project Management and Leadership”
Let’s be honest. Our industry has not done a great job explaining the cost behind a good translation. What does the translation cost? Is it by word, per page, per type of document? We've been opaque for years about this topic. There are many reasons behind the cost of translation. This post will help you understand what you should take into consideration when purchasing a localization job.
UX Writing and Localization share many similarities in their reason for existence. Both disciplines focus on drive engagement, uplift conversion, improve retention and move users into action with every word. 2 crafts one goal: improve user experience, no matter where they are, no matter the cultural background they have
As a Globalization/Localization Manager to be effective and rise to the various challenges our teams encounter we must be fundamentally flexible. We must be able to have the right conversation with the different stakeholders we interact with. We must understand the unique ways in which each conversation should be handled.
To achieve our goals, we need to bring 5 different conversations into the workplace
What can a Language Service Provider do to bring value to a client’s organization? This might be top of mind for any LSP looking to hear what clients value, well, find my personal thoughts answering that questions in this post!
This post is a summary of all the different aspects that we must take into account when we embark on making a truly global game. I have created a pdf with what I consider the main milestones that we have to take into account, both from the planning phase ... in what languages should I translate my game? What markets are best suited to market my game? as the production, internationalization, localization QA or the post-release phase (continuous localization).
The professionals of the Localization industry are usually always solving problems and putting out fires ☺️ but how do we know if we are solving the problems that we really have to solve? How do we know that we are correctly defining the problem to be solved?
How to define a problem correctly, some thoughts to focus on the right problem to solve; happy Sunday/week everyone!!
The credibility of our brand is at the mercy of the quality of our translations …. so how do we know how good (or poor) our reputation is?
“Today, people buy experiences, not ONLY products.” It’s that time of the year again, Black Friday has arrived and with it comes the craziness of people. Great UX deserves Great Localization - Or how a reflection about Black Friday made me realize that great UX deserves great Localization to deliver a great user experience
How does it look a Localization Project Manager at its best? This post is a braindump of what I believe represents a Good Localization Project Manager (and what is not)
As more and more businesses go international, our approach to software is becoming increasingly intertwined with good internationalization and localization practices. One important step in this process is to choose the right font for our app/web page.
Translating everything all at once is a sure path to getting overwhelmed, there must be some better way to deal with it, right? I believe so! 😜
Attending Localization conferences might be expensive and quite often we are not totally sure how to get the most of it. This week I shared some ideas about what we can do before, during and after attending an industry event.
With so many great TMS out there choosing one that it fits nicely in our software development framework should be easy, right? Well …. have a look to my this blog post where I reflect on the challenges of integrating a TMS in the client ecosystem.
Chatting with my son this week, he told me that there was a game he liked because “ they have new things every day” that statement made me think about how we consume content today and the role that a Localization team plays.
Continuous Localization - changing mindset and the best practices/benefits of embracing this mindset
Last week I had the pleasure of being invited to the SATT 2019 conference to give a presentation on the Multimedia Technology solutions track with the title Are you ready for video games Agile Localisation?
This post is a summary of a great 2 days in Milano surrounded by passionate translation students and language professionals.
Do you know the differences between hyper-casual games, casual games, mid-core, and hard-core games? Would you know how to adapt the different localization strategies to the different genres? If the answer is no, but you are curious and have 15 minutes, then in this article, you can find some answer to these question
This week I learned an English expression. A canary in a coal mine. It's coming from the fact that British miners used birds, specifically canaries to detect carbon monoxide and poison in the air. And I wonder, if we had "canaries" in the localization industry which are the different level of poisons that they might detect in our projects?
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 ….
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.
Localization professionals often focus on translation quality and best practices, but decision-makers care about customer impact and revenue. If we frame localization as a cost, it risks being deprioritized. Instead, we must highlight its value driving engagement, trust, and business growth.