A View from the GALA 2025 Conference

These are uncertain times for many in the language services and localization industry. There was a palpable air of concern and angst in Montreal. This is to be expected given all the changes that we face from so many directions:  

• ·         Disruption of established government and trade policies
• ·         AI hype in general is threatening many white-collar jobs
• ·         Unrealizable expectations about the potential capabilities of AI technology from C-suite leaders that cannot be delivered
• ·         An emerging global economic slowdown after an already tough business year
• ·         High levels of economic and business uncertainty

 The day after the conference, I saw the following in my inbox from CSA Research:

I also saw an announcement for an upcoming webinar from Women In Localization with the theme: Maintaining motivation during disruption, which added the byline, "with constant change, staying motivated can be hard."  There is concern in the industry far beyond the community present at GALA.

However, the keynote presentation by Daniel Lamarre, CEO of the Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, provided a memorable, uplifting, and inspiring message to the attendees. I rate it as one of the best, if not THE best, keynotes in all the years I have been attending localization conferences. His message was relevant, authentic, and realistically optimistic while speaking to the heart.

He is uniquely qualified to speak to a doomy, gloomy audience, as he also faces challenges and has risen from what seemed insurmountable odds. In response to pandemic shutdowns in March 2020, Cirque du Soleil suspended all 44 active shows worldwide and temporarily laid off 4,679 employees, 95% of its workforce. Annualized revenue dropped from over $1 billion to zero almost overnight. And today, Cirque has to work to remain relevant to digitally obsessed world where many youth have never experienced a circus.

He engineered a recovery, and by early 2023/2024, revenue had climbed back to the pre-pandemic level of approximately $1 billion, though growth is expected to moderate around this level for the next couple of years. Leadership stated the recovery exceeded expectations according to financial market observers.

For someone whose primary focus is to find outstanding artists from around the world, provide them with a regular living, and curate entertainment that leaves the audience enthralled and inspired, he had a clear understanding of the challenges that business translation professionals might have in this age of AI madness.  Somewhat similar to what his organization faced during the pandemic, when the possibility of large audiences congregating to watch a magical musical circus-like performance in 45 cities across the world was an impossibility.

The heart of his message was about building the right mindset as we face challenges, to break through, which he said begins with continual investment in research and development and a strong focus on creativity. This is very much the ethos of Cirque and pervades their overall approach and culture. A summarized highlight of his message follows:

• ·         Creativity is foundational since it leads to innovation which in turn often results in market leadership.
• ·         Ongoing and regular reflection is essential to building creativity. 

• ·         Deep curiosity and the questions that it generates are a building block to discovering successful outcomes.
• ·         While it is important to focus on the problem to get a clear definition of the challenge, it is even more important to focus creatively on possible solutions.
• ·         Investment in research and development (e.g., AI impact on translation-related processes) and organizational creativity is essential to finding your value-add in challenging times.
• ·         Debate is a foundation of evolutionary creativity, and a culture that encourages debate is most likely to find the best outcomes and the best ideas that are not possible with hierarchical mandates.
• ·         Finding a purpose is more likely to create successful outcomes than goals and objectives.
• ·         The best ideas will come from a clear mandate, debate, and a defined sandbox rather than through unstructured, frequent meetings with rambling, unfocused discussions.
• ·         He encouraged the audience to focus much more on communicating the value-add of the business.

I’m not sure I have captured the essence effectively, and as they say, “you had to be there,” as he was successful in lifting everyone’s spirits. His ability to build connections and empathy was indeed unique. He closed by encouraging the GALA community to make more concerted and active efforts to raise their profile and communicate LSP/localization value creation characteristics in the marketplace aggressively, given the unrelenting AI hype.

 

Raising the LSP Industry Profile

This keynote triggered a recurring theme that attendees raised across several sessions about finding a better way to describe the value of service/product offerings to the marketplace. There were different opinions and views on whether translation, localization, langops, or something else would be the most effective professional self-descriptor to build a value-oriented communication message.

I decided to do some basic research on this subject, via LLM, and I have mixed feelings about the utility of the output, as it lacks insight and understanding. I summarize the unedited responses from 3 different LLM models (which all had very similar results) below:

GPT 4.1 Summary  

Normalized Google Trends Frequency (2022-2025)

 

	Avg Absolute Monthly Search Volume	Normalized Monthly Searches 0-100 Scale 3-Year Mean
Translation	1,000,000	79.9
Localization	200,000	40.1
LangOps	2,000	5.2

Which term provides the greatest reach?

• Translation is by far the most recognized and searched term globally. It is used by major platforms like Google, DeepL, and Microsoft for their consumer-facing services, which reinforces its dominance and public familiarity.
• Localization is important for industry professionals and clients needing cultural adaptation and more sophisticated services, but it has a narrower audience.
• LangOps is emerging in industry circles as a concept for scalable, AI-driven language operations, but its search volume and public awareness remain very low.

Key Points:

• If your goal is maximum visibility and broad customer acquisition, “translation” is the most effective term. It captures the widest audience, aligns with consumer expectations, and is the default for everyday users seeking language services.
• “Localization” is valuable for targeting clients who require cultural adaptation and market-specific solutions, but it should be used as a supporting term rather than the primary one.
• “LangOps” is best reserved for thought leadership, technical blogs, or when targeting enterprise clients already familiar with advanced localization operations.

“Translation” is the term with the greatest and widest reach for LSPs seeking to increase visibility and attract a broad customer base. It is the industry standard, the most searched, and the most recognized by both consumers and businesses. Using “translation” as your primary keyword will maximize your discoverability and support value-driven messaging for the widest possible audience.

Claude Sonnet 3.7 Summary  

Search Term Frequency Analysis

The Google Trends data shows significant differences in search interest across the three terms. "Translation consistently maintains the highest search interest, with values ranging from approximately 80-85 on the relative search interest scale (0-100). "Localization shows moderate interest, with values between 30 and 35, while LangOps demonstrates minimal interest, with values hovering around 2-3.

Translation

"Translation" consistently dominates the search landscape with approximately 2.5 times more search interest than "localization" and about 40 times more interest than "LangOps." This term has maintained its strong position throughout the three years with a slight upward trend.

Localization

"Localization" maintains a consistent moderate interest level, showing some fluctuation but generally staying within the 30-35 range on Google's scale. While significantly lower than "translation," it still demonstrates substantial search volume that has remained stable over the three years.

LangOps

"LangOps" shows minimal search interest, consistently remaining below 5 on Google's scale. Despite being positioned as "the future of scalable, efficient, AI-powered localization" and "the next evolution of localization," it has not gained significant traction in search behavior.

Building Value-Oriented Messaging

To build strong value-oriented messaging:

1.      Lead with "translation" in primary marketing materials, website headers, and SEO strategy to maximize visibility and reach.

2.      Differentiate through "localization" by explaining how your services go beyond basic translation to include cultural adaptation, which adds significant value.

3.      Introduce "LangOps" as an advanced concept for enterprise clients, positioning it as the strategic integration of language services into business operations.

4.      Bridge the terminology gap by explaining how translation evolves into localization and ultimately into LangOps as part of a maturity model for global businesses.

Perplexity Pro Summary  

This output is essentially the same as the data already provided above, as it probably draws its answers from these models. However, this summary seems to be more accommodating of the potential of LangOps, quite possibly because of the extensive use of the term AI in its descriptive materials. They also analyzed each term and its implications in more detail.

Strategic Term Selection for LSPs
Which Term Provides the Greatest Reach?

For an LSP seeking to increase visibility and reach a broader customer base, the choice of terminology is strategically important:

Translation: Maximum Reach, Minimum Differentiation

"Translation" would provide the widest potential reach due to its universal recognition. It's the term used by major platforms like Google, DeepL, and Microsoft[query], indicating its mainstream appeal.

Advantages:

• Highest search volume and recognition
• Understood by both technical and non-technical audiences
• Already associated with established tools and services

Disadvantages:

• Highly competitive space
• May position services as commoditized
• Doesn't communicate advanced capabilities beyond basic translation

Localization: Balanced Reach with Differentiation

"Localization" represents a middle ground, with growing recognition and the ability to communicate more sophisticated services.

Advantages:

• Communicates a more comprehensive approach than basic translation

• Established industry term with growing recognition
• o   Aligns with current industry trends for 2025
• Suggests cultural adaptation and market-specific expertise

Disadvantages:

• Lower search volume than "translation"
• May not capture the attention of clients seeking basic translation services

LangOps: Niche Appeal with Maximum Differentiation

"LangOps" offers cutting-edge positioning but with significantly limited reach.

Advantages:

• Positions the company at the forefront of industry evolution
• Communicates AI integration and advanced capabilities
• Potential to attract forward-thinking enterprise clients
• Lower competition for the term itself

Disadvantages:

• Very limited search volume and recognition
• Requires explanation to most potential clients
• May alienate clients seeking traditional service

Perplexity Conclusion

For LSPs seeking to maximize market reach and build value-oriented messaging, "translation" remains the most effective foundational term due to its universal recognition and substantial search volume. However, a strategic approach that leverages all three terms at appropriate stages of the customer journey will likely yield the best results.

As the industry continues to evolve, LSPs should monitor the relative popularity of these terms and adjust their terminology strategies accordingly. The rapid growth of "LangOps," despite its currently smaller search volume, suggests that forward-thinking providers may benefit from early adoption of this terminology when targeting enterprise clients seeking comprehensive language solutions.

Ultimately, the most successful terminology strategy will align with both current search behaviors and the evolving direction of the industry, positioning LSPs at the intersection of what clients are looking for today and what they'll need tomorrow.

AI in Enterprise Localization Panel

I was also involved in an interactive panel organized by Johan Sporre with Britta Aagaard, Gaëtan Chrétiennot, Georg Kirchner, and Konstantin Savenkov, who auto-summarized the session with GPT shown here.  We discussed misconceptions, opportunities, and the changing role of humans.

Here is the auto-summary:

🔹 AI is not just a better translation tool. It’s a set of technologies that require the right setup, people, and processes to work.
🔹 Many AI deployments in the enterprise are not delivering ROI. Localization is one of the few areas where AI shows clear value—but only when applied with care.
🔹 Clients now care about language in a new way. That opens the door to conversations we couldn’t have before—across IT, marketing, and other teams.
🔹 The real work is not about chasing new buzzwords. It’s about understanding complexity and helping others navigate it.
🔹 Our role is changing—from translation providers to solution architects, guiding AI through data, process, and purpose.

Also, a shoutout to Marina Pantcheva, who gave an instructive and entertaining presentation, which somehow managed to make Cleaning Dirty TM sound fun.

Congratulations to Allison Ferch and the GALA team for holding a successful and substantial conference in such difficult and tumultuous times.

Four Steps to Uncover New Business Opportunities (as a Translation Project Manager!)

 This is a guest post by Romina Kohei. She is the co-founder of GliderPath, a SaaS product that helps translation companies owners run and grow their business, and of GliderPath Academy, an online learning platform for translation & localization professionals. She is the founder of Cool Project Management, a website where I aim to give information to help people get started in project management, excel in leadership and venture into entrepreneurship.
 
Romina is originally from Rosario, Argentina and has lived in Czech Republic for the past six years. Romina has more than 10 years of experience in the translation and localization industry, having worked in various project management and sales positions prior to starting her own endeavor with GliderPath.

All opinions and statements are hers and I have not edited or changed them in any way. Her Twitter handle is @GliderPath
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For many years I believed project managers did not need sales skills. I was not very fond of the image of the car salesman that appeared in my head every time someone mentioned “sales skills” to me and, because of that; I was not very interested in developing sales skills as a project manager. I thought my focus was to deliver my project according the triple constraint, good quality, on time, on budget. I was trained that way, after all. My view of Sales has evolved from those early beginnings… and later on I was able to see it as a more collaborative and mutually beneficial process.

Why sales in project management?

You may have noted, however, that throughout PM training we may never come across any mention on sales or improving our sales skills. This is a shame. Now I can tell you: as project manager, it has to be part of your game. In fact, selling should be part of our project management strategy. Why is that? I’ll get to it in a minute.

First, let me tell you about the realization I had as soon as I moved from production to sales. I realized that a big part of the sales process is in the hand of the project manager! That’s right. As project managers we spend more time with the client when we manage a project than the sales people will ever spend. Most importantly, we are responsible for the customer experience they will have.

Having realized that, I looked back and noticed I was not aware I was selling all the time when I managed projects in organizations. I was selling myself and my experience as a brand, I was selling when consulting with the client, I was selling when delivering a project.

So, since it’s going to happen anyway, the best you can do it so make a conscious effort and incorporate a few techniques that will assist you, not only in your everyday work, but also in working with the sales people of your company to help them close deals. To help your company bring in new business by uncovering opportunities with existing clients you don’t have to become a sales person.

You just need to know how to have a sales conversation and follow a process that facilitates relationship-building with clients. So let me give you...

An easily reproducible 4-step process

There is a really easy to follow 4-step process to have a natural sales conversation using these skills.
When it comes to structuring your conversations, I suggest using the approach developed by Neil Rackham as outlined in his book SPIN selling. It is a four-part question framework to use when talking to clients. It goes like this:

1. Situation questions

These questions help you learn about the client’s current situation. For example: what’s your current budget for translation/localization? What are your plans for the year? (Only ask one or two of this questions, it’s likely that the sales person in your company has already asked tons of these. If you have the info, you can bring it up in conversations with your client to learn more.)

2. Problem questions

These are questions that will clarify your client’s pain points. Here is where you will shine. As project manager, and being in constant contact with the client and working on their projects, have and ongoing relationship with the client and you are uniquely qualified to know exactly what ask, to get information on needs, desires and new requirements from your everyday conversations or your post-projects reviews. You can ask questions like: what is currently not working with the current solutions you have in place? What problems are you facing when outsourcing your translation/localization projects?

With these questions, you want to define the problem they are facing so you can focus on the implications of this problem and how you can help.

With these first two steps, you have already tons of valuable information you can share with your sales team. This will definitely help them move forward doing what they do best, but you don’t have to stop there, you can go on to the following two steps.

3. Implication questions

These are meant to make your client aware of the implications that stem from the problem they are facing. These questions are based on information you uncovered on your previous steps. Some examples could be: How does this issue affect your budget? What is the impact this has on the productivity of your team? What’s the impact this problem has on the quality of your own internal deliverables in your company? The purpose of these questions is to help your clients to gain some perspective and frame the problem that they are facing in their minds. You help them get a sense of urgency for it.

For example: Your client’s content writers are not taking into account localization and are generating content that is difficult to understand and takes longer to translate. This has an impact on budget, time, probably some management issues internally. You can help them, through questions, to understand the real impact this is having. You can then, move on to the final set of questions.

4. Need-payoff questions

These questions focus attention on your solution and get the clients to think about the benefits of addressing this problem with you. These questions should stem from the implication questions you asked earlier, and can include: How do you feel this solution can help you? What type of impact would this have on your budget/team productivity/internal deliverables if we were to implement this within the next X months?

The SPIN question model is a natural progression. You can safely use it in your regular conversations with your clients, in your weekly or monthly meetings or in your post-project review meetings.

The best part? Your clients will love you for it because you are helping them solve problems… and, so will your sales team, because you are helping them close sales. That’s a lot of love for you there, while you are incorporating invaluable skills for you.

So going back to our initial question, then:

Why selling should be part of our project management strategy?

Well, because one of the best - and easiest - ways to increase revenue and profitability is to sell more to existing clients.

Let me repeat that: one of the best - and easiest - ways to increase revenue and profitability is to sell more to existing clients. And you, as project manager, know the existing client the best.

It’s your turn now. Go out there and start having awesome conversations with your clients!

If you would like to know more about this topic, check our latest video here.

Choosing the right people for your projects

This is a guest post by Romina Kohei. She is the co-founder of GliderPath, a SaaS product that helps translation companies owners run and grow their business, and of GliderPath Academy, an online learning platform for translation & localization professionals. She is the founder of Cool Project Management, a website where I aim to give information to help people get started in project management, excel in leadership and venture into entrepreneurship.

Romina is originally from Rosario, Argentina and has lived in Czech Republic for the past six years. Romina has more than 10 years of experience in the translation and localization industry, having worked in various project management and sales positions prior to starting her own endeavor with GliderPath.

 

All opinions and statements are hers and I have not edited or changed them in any way. Her Twitter handle is @GliderPath
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What’s the best way for agencies and freelancers to interact?

There’s nothing better than an agency-freelancer relationship that goes right. There is a mutual respect, with big wins for both sides, and there is the satisfaction of a job well done. These are all attractive treats.

Yet… we so often screw this up. Why?

During my career, I had the chance to work from both sides of the fence. But the largest part of my experience comes from project management. In this role, my responsibilities included selecting and interacting with freelancers. During the course of my work I had great, not so great, and downright terrible experiences with freelancers.

My main concerns were missing deadlines, unresponsiveness and poor quality, of course. But I have to admit that I have too been guilty for my fair share of blunders when dealing with freelancers.

Where does it get so complicated?  In my experience, the issues usually start with misaligned values and unmet expectations. And here lies the problem. The agency and the freelancer usually expect different things from the collaboration. They tend to place value on different things as well.

From the freelancer’s perspective...

• It is important that their effort is valued. They are not treated as a commodity. And they have a point! There are tons of talented and prolific freelancers out there who have a wealth of diverse knowledge and experience. They know how to bring it home when working on a project.
• They value companies that act professional. And they define professionalism as respect. They prefer working with agencies that respect previous agreements on rates and availability, and that provide appropriate support.  And, of course, they prefer agencies that pay on time. And can you blame them?

From the agency’s perspective…

• Quality is the obvious mandatory requirement. It is the norm, and yet sometimes it is easy to forget that quality must be defined. Quality requirements can vary from client to client and even from project to project.
• Price is always a factor of course, but should never be the top priority for a good agency. Yet, it is extremely valuable that the freelancer is flexible enough. Just in case push comes to shove and a there is a need to renegotiate.

Finally, there are two important factors that both freelance translators and agencies value. They are:

• Having a trusting relationship
• Great communication

Is there a chance to bridge that misalignment? Certainly! How? There is one simple answer to that question.

It’s all about communication!

Communication plays a major role in the cooperation process.

· While negotiating specific project details.
· When communicating with the project manager; or other team members throughout a project.
· Also during the post-project review; specifically in situations when changes or inquiries have to be discussed, or when giving feedback.

Great communication will also benefit the agency. When the channels of communication are open, it is easier for the freelancer to provide the agency with feedback, comments or solutions for different issues or situations.

The agency must lead the way by example. The project managers should also be open for communication and discussion. This will show the way to open communication.
This is also how great partnerships are formed. Good communication builds trust as well.

Communication and trust are the keys to creating an ongoing and fruitful freelancer-agency relationship.

Good communication acts as a fail-safe against misunderstood expectations. It helps to prevent incorrect assumptions. It’s important to never assume that the other understands what they have to do just because it’s a given.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” - Bernard Shaw
To get the work done, both the agency and the freelancer have to be on the same page. How do you accomplish that? Here are 3 steps easy to remember:

1. Develop Some Communication Rules

You can save yourself lots of problems if you develop some communication rules.
You can agree on availability time for calls if you are located in different time zones, for example.  You can also agree on an acceptable delay in answering emails.  We all know it’s not nice to sit by the phone or the computer waiting for an answer. If you are going to ask for progress reports, it is a good idea to agree on their time and frequency.

By the way, years of working both as a freelancer and with freelancers have taught me that written communication is the best! Yes, it does take a lot of time to put everything in writing; but at least for the major decisions about a project this should be a must. Sometimes there are language barriers that you have to consider.

Regardless, the truth is that you can never be sure if what you try to communicate is being received by the other in the way that you intended it. With oral communication, misunderstandings are common. It is also very easy to forget what was agreed. These problems, either accidental or on purpose, are gone when you can go back to the written message to double check.

2. No Need for Total Control

Micromanagement doesn’t work. More often than not, it is a waste of time and effort.
Freelancers usually love having more freedom. Be prepared to give them their task and hear from them once a day.

Of course, you can adjust this depending on your project and your needs. But better than total control is to go back to step one and set some ground rules and expectations.

And while we are on this topic: there is something as too much communication. Don’t waste time with meaningless communication. Keep your communication efficient and to the point. No need for endless Skype calls or emails every hour. Freelancers are usually efficiency-oriented; and for them time really is money.

3. Plan with milestones

Milestones and progress reporting are common sense in project management. These prevent unpleasant surprises just before the deadline.

If your project is small then you might not need them. For large projects, it's too risky to get started without milestones and rules for progress reporting. Progress reporting rules will eliminate many delays and help to early diagnose potential problems.

Make sure you have your project plan ready before you hire. Don’t have freelancers in downtime waiting for you to get your plan together. By the same token, you should plan around potential lack of availability too.

Communicating your expectations for deadlines and availability can prevent major issues from the start.

Effective communication with freelancers will help you avoid frustration, lost time, and lost money.

The Lesson

Invest in the relationship with your freelancers.
This will help you share with them a deeper understanding of your motivations, objectives and working practices.

If you focus on creating a sustainable partnership, you will build trust, confidence, recognition and ultimately, loyalty.

Happy freelancer, happy agency, happy clients.

How do you choose freelancers? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!

If you would like to know more about the topic, check out our last masterclass on GliderPath Academy for free! Find it here:
https://academy.gliderpath.com/course/how-to-find-the-best-resources-for-your-projects/

The Rush to Manage and Control Standards

There has been a lot of talk about standards since the demise of LISA, perhaps because the collapse of LISA was announced almost immediately after their final event, a “Standards Summit” in early March, 2011. We are now seeing something of a rush, with industry groups setting up positions (perhaps even well intentioned)  to establish a controlling interest on “what happens next with standards”. There is still much less clarity on what standards we are talking about, and almost no clarity on why we should care or why it matters.

 

What are the standards that matter?

The post I wrote on the lack of standards in May 2010 is the single most influential (popular?) post I have written in this blog according to PostRank.  So what all this new posturing on standards is about? From my vantage point (as I stated last year), standards are important to enable information to flow from the information creators to the information consumers as efficiently as possible. Thus my view of standards is about those rules and structures that enable clean and efficient data interchange, archival, and reuse of linguistic assets in new language and text technology paradigms. Search, Semantic search, SMT, language search (like Linguee) and text analytics is what I am thinking about. (You may recall that I had much more clarity on what and why standards matter than on how to get there.) Good standards require that vendors play well with each other, that language industry tools interface usefully with corporate content management systems and make life easier for both the information creators and consumers, not just people involved in translation.  

However, I have also seen that there is more conflation on this issue of standards than almost any other issue (“quality“ of course is the winner) amongst localization professionals. I am aware that there are at least three different perspectives on standards:

1. End to End Process Standards: ISO 9001, EN15038, Microsoft QA and LISA QA 3.1. They have a strong focus is on administrative, documentation, review and revision processes not just the quality assessment of the final translation.

2. Linguistic Quality of Translation (TQM): Automated metrics like BLEU, METEOR, TERp, F-Measure, Rouge and several others that only focus on rapidly scoring MT output and human measurements that look at the linguistic quality by error categorization and subjective human quality assessment, usually at a sentence level. SAE J2450, the LISA Quality Metric and perhaps the Butler Hill TQ Metric

3. Linguistic Data Interchange: These standards facilitate data exchange from content creation and enable transformation of textual data within a broader organizational data flow context than just translation, good interchange standards can ensure that fast flowing streams of content get transformed more rapidly and get to customers as quickly as possible. XLIFF and TMX are examples of this, but I think the future is likely to be more about interfacing with “real” mission-critical systems (DBMS, Collaboration and CMS) used by companies rather than just TMS and TM systems which IMO are very likely to become less relevant and important to large scale corporate translation initiatives.

It is my sense that we have a lot of development on the first kind of "standard" listed above, but have a long way to go before we have meaningful standards in the second and third categories listed above.

So it is interesting to see the new TAUS and GALA initiatives to become standards leaders when you consider that LISA was actually not very effective in developing standards that really mattered. LISA was an organization that apparently involved buyers, LSPs and tools vendors but were unable to produce standards that really mattered to the industry. (In spite of sincere efforts to the contrary). TMX today is a weak standard at best and there are many variations that result in data loss and leverage loss whenever data interchange is involved. (Are the other standards they produced even worth mentioning? Who uses them?) Are we going to see more of the same with these new initiatives? Take a look at the TAUS board and the GALA board as these people will steer (and fund) these new initiatives. Pretty much all good folks, but do they really represent all the viewpoints necessary to develop standards that make sense to the whole emerging eco-system?

 

Why do standards matter?

Real standards make life easier for the whole eco-system, i.e. the content creators, the professional  translation community, the content consumers and everybody else who interacts, transforms or modifies valuable content along the way.  Standards matter if you are setting up translation production lines and pushing translation volumes up. At AGIS2010, Mahesh Kulkarni made a comment about standards in localization. He called them traffic rules that ease both user and creator experience (and of course these rules matter much more when there is a lot of traffic)  and he also said that standards evolve and have to be tested and need frequent revision before they settle. It is interesting to me that the focus in the non-profit world is on studying successful standards development in other IT areas in contrast to what we see at TAUS and GALA where the modus operandi seems to be to create separate new groups, with new missions and objectives, though they both claim to be in the interest of “everyone”.

There was a great posting by Arle Lommel on the LISA site that is now gone on why standards matter, and there is also a perspective presented by Smith Yewell on the TAUS site on why we should care. I hope there will be more discussion on why standards matter as this may help drive meaningful action on what to do next, and produce more collaborative action.

So today we are at a point where we have TAUS saying that it is taking on the role of an "industry watchdog for interoperability"  by funding activities that will track compliance of the various tools and appointing a person as a full-time standards monitor.  Jost Zetzsche has pointed out that this is fabulous, but the TAUS initiative only really represents the viewpoint of “buyers” i.e. localization managers, (not the actual corporate managers who run international businesses). The REAL buyer (Global Customer Support, Global Sales & Marketing Management)  probably care less about TM leverage rates than they do about getting the right information to the global customer in a timely and cost-effective way on internet schedules i.e. really fast so that it has an impact on market share in the near term. Not to mention the fact that compliance and law enforcement can be tricky without a system of checks and balances, but it is good to see that the issue has been recognized and a discussion has begun. TAUS is attempting to soften the language they use in defining their role, as watchdogs are often not very friendly.

GALA announced soon after, that it would also start a standards initiative  which will "seek input from localization buyers and suppliers, tool developers, and various partner localization and standards organizations." Arle Lommel, the former director of standards at LISA will be appointed as the GALA standards guy. Their objective they say is: “The culmination of Phase I will be an industry standards plan that will lay out what standards should be pursued, how the standards will be developed in an open and unbiased way, and how the ongoing standards initiative can be funded by the industry.” Again, Jost points out (in his 188th Tool Kit Newsletter) that this will be a perspective dominated by translation service companies and asks how will the needs and view of individual translators be incorporated into any new standards initiatives? He also appeals to translators to express their opinions on what matters to them and suggests that a body like FIT (Federation of International Translators) perhaps also engage in this dialogue to represent the perspective of translators.   

There are clearly some skeptics who see nothing of substance coming from these new initiatives. Ultan points out how standards tend to stray, how expensive this is for users and also raises some key questions about where compliance might best belong. However, I think it is worth at least trying to see if there is some potential to channel this new energy into something that might be useful for the industry.  I too, see some things that need to be addressed to get forward momentum on standards initiatives which I suspect get stalled because the objectives are not that clear. There are three things at least, that need to be addressed.

1) Involve Content Creators – Most of the discussion has focused only on translation industry related players. Given the quality of the technology in the industry I think we really do need to get CMS, DBMS and Collaboration software/user perspectives on what really matters for textual data interchange if we actually are concerned with developing meaningful standards. We should find a way to get them involved especially for data interchange standards.

2) Produce Standards That Make Sense to Translators – The whole point of standards is to ease the data flow from creation to transformation to consumption. Translators spend an inappropriately huge amount of time in format related issues, rather than with translation and linguistic issue management. Standards should make it easier for translators to ONLY deal with translation related problems and allow them to build linguistic assets that are independent of any single translation tool or product. A good standard should enhance translator productivity.

3) Having Multiple Organizations Focused On The Same Standards is Unlikely to Succeed – By definition standards are most effective when there is only one. Most standards initiatives in the information technology arena involve a single body or entity that reflects the needs of many different kinds of users. It would probably be worth taking a close look at the history of some of these to understand how to do this better. The best standards initiatives have hard core techies who understand how to translate clearly specified business requirements into a fairly robust technical specification that could evolve but leaves some core always untouched.

 

One of the problems in establishing a constructive dialogue is that the needs and the technical skills of the key stakeholders (Content creators, Buyers, LSPs, Translators) differ greatly. A clearer understanding of this is perhaps a good place to start. If we can find common ground here, it is possible to build a kernel that matters and is valuable to everybody. I doubt that TAUS and GALA are open and transparent enough to really engage all the parties, but I hope that I am proven wrong. Perhaps the first step is to identify the different viewpoints and clearly identify their key needs before coming together and defining the standards. It is worth speaking up (as constructively as possible) whatever one may think of these initiatives. We all stand to gain if we get it right, but functioning democracy also requires vigilance and participation, so get involved and let people know what you think.