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”
Although it is true that, in general terms, the tasks related to Localization, whether as a language service provider or as a localization buyer, have more similarities than differences, there are certain aspects, mainly from a mindset perspective, that must be considered so that the transition from provider to the buyer is carried out as effectively as possible.
Executives have a default style of decision-making developed early in their careers. Executives can fall into different categories when making decisions. By knowing the preference for hearing or seeing certain types of information at specific stages in their decision-making progress we can substantially improve our ability to pitch our Localization strategy
A Localization team interacts with many people in a day. A Localization team has many lines of communication and stakeholders to engage. This is great because it allows localization industry professionals to have a lot of visibility and opportunities to explain how the content we create and localize helps the overall growth of the company. But at the same time, this presents a challenge, since interacting with so many people requires a plan to know who are the people we need to interact with.
When it comes to public speaking, the focus should not be on what we want to say but on what our audience needs to hear. The focus should not be on us but on them. The same applies in the Localization industry. We must forget what we want to tell and focus on what our stakeholders need to hear.
In an economy where the average company finds it challenging not only to grow but sustain, it is worth considering which are the different ingredients needed to design a cross-cultural experience
We often have a disconnection between results and the speed with which we achieve them. We all want fast results; whether we are improving the level of a language we are learning or wishing to lose those extra pounds now that the summer is approaching. ... or .... in the Localization program, we are implementing in a company.
Unfortunately, many things in life do not follow linear progress. We face two types of curves when we want to achieve something.
And knowing which one we are in can significantly help us understand the skills we have to polish and the plan we have to follow.
The other day, I watched a movie in which the movie's central character infiltrates a drug gang. He gained their trust, which led him to get pretty much anything he wanted ... and my mind started to wonder what if I infiltrated inside the developers to motivate them to design the software with localization in mind from day one?
Sometimes, we can achieve good results by focusing on the essential parts and going back to the basics. In this post, I write about the crucial aspects to consider when defining a Localization strategy.
This year I don't have the typical list of goals to accomplish this year, no New Year resolutions. This year, I don't have goals, but I know the kind of person I want to become.
Identity-based concept, lessons learned from the book Atomic Habits adapted to my life as Globalization proffesional
Habits are formed following a sequence of 4 steps. Read this article to learn more about this fascinating topic of habit formation
Localizability readiness is a series of processes and activities that optimize a product for a worldwide launch. In this post I explain how we can achieve localizability readiness by investing our efforts in improving the quality of the English content of the source text we create.
In this post I analyze the 7 areas that a Localization Service Buyer considers important when working with a Language Provider.
Software development using sprints are great for Localization teams! Please have a look at my post and let me know if you agree :)
Creating a localization budget is not an easy task as there are multiple variables to consider. In this article I explain the 3 that are the most important from my point of view
Some companies choose to have multiple vendors to execute their localization strategy while others prefer a more simplistic approach and concentrate their activities in a single partner. But what is it that can make us choose one option or the other?
A Localization Sphere of Influence is something that can be extremely useful both to give visibility to the Localization activities we carry out and to provide us with professional development opportunities.
In this post, I explain the different phases you need to go through in order to create one and go into why it is important to have a Sphere of Influence (SOI) in your Localization strategy.
A multi-market expansion strategy for any product is most effective if the various Globalization (i.e.Localization, Internationalization) activities are understood as a cycle that runs parallel to the multiple phases of software development; This cycle repeats during the various product upgrades. It is not an activity that is executed as if it were a process once the home market version (usually in English) is finalized. It is not a transaction that simply sends files to a professional localizer shortly before the global release. No; Globalization is not a process. Globalization is a cycle that runs multiple times. It is a cycle that runs in parallel with the product research, design, and development phases.
Going global is tough. It is difficult to break into markets where you are not already present. How can we know which market has potential if we are not able to invest a lot of resources to assess which markets are the right ones for a product?
Copyedit is the process executed by a professional in the localization industry in which the editor looks for gross errors in the content they review. But how do you know you need copyedit?
On January 15, 2016, in a small but cozy hotel in London, this blog was born. In this post number 202, I make a summary of all the things I have learned by publishing a new post almost every Sunday in the last few years.
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.