How to Be Sure About Asian-language Projects

Completing Asian-language projects can be daunting. Dealing with resources of varying degrees of professionalism can wreck havoc with deadlines and quality.

Added to this is the recent phenomenon of legions of unqualified “linguists” masquerading as professional translators of every language. This makes the search for real talent all the more difficult.

Asian projects can and often will go wrong at every turn. Clients get upset. Company salespeople go ballistic. Project Managers get the brunt of everyone’s frustration and still have to try to sort things out.

For freelance prices, Admerix's native-English speaking project managers, backed by our professional linguists, can complete your challenging projects including Asian characters and scripts as well as layout issues, DTP applications, and audio localization.

Admerix will back you up and solve your production problems. Why not send us some project files for evaluation Admerix offers you the benefit of many years of experience and will provide you with peace of mind on your next project.

Instructions or info vomit?

Info vomit—a copious supply of information intended to cover one’s butt and avoid answering questions—is a very real and growing problem in the hectic business world. Info vomit simply spews out information instead of providing relevant and specific instructions. Such action has no thought or regard for whether the intended recipient reads or understands what is being vomited.

It is a common defense mechanism for amateur staff doing a project manager’s job who actually feel it is beneficial to dump as much information as possible on a resource or supplier. This is done for two reasons: 1. To save time going through all the information themselves, and 2. To ensure that if anything goes wrong, they cannot be held accountable for not sending out ALL the information.

Below is an example of a reply in defense of clear and concise communications as opposed to massive dumps of mostly irrelevant information.

Client: I know that it’s very wordy, but it is much better to send more information than too little, don’t you agree?

Admerix: We would have to say in response to this question that we most certainly do not agree. I have been in localization as a project manager for more than ten years, and I can assure you that it is critical not to be overly wordy in handoffs.

Translators generally will not read through overly long instructions, and will rather just take files, translate, and send them back—fix them later if there is a query—rather than wade through a lot of poorly written and unnecessary information in the hand-off mail.

If the information is repeated in several points in the instructions, then it just becomes frustrating. It wastes time, and will always generate confusion. This is why, for our teams, we always take the handed off instructions and rewrite them as briefly and concisely as possible making sure the information is specifically tailored to the resource task. Instructions must be a brief, to the point, as and relevant as possible if they are going to be read and thus followed.

This is the difference between wanting to make sure the people you mange follow your instructions or just wanting to cover your own tail with management by being able to say "I sent all the instructions."

So, are you a professional Project Manager who issues accurate instructions to ensure a quality result, or are you simply an employee who shovels out info vomit so you can go on a coffee break and hope for the best?

The $300 Million Button

The $300 Million Button

This isn't obviously related to localization. However, with so many online localization process systems making clients and vendors (not to mention a localization company's own staff) navigate an online maze to accomplish anything, but is useful in reminding us that focusing on user experience must be key, not on the bureaucratic hoops management thinks everyone wants to jump through.

Despite the floods, your Thai-language projects are safe with Admerix

Considering the serious flooding in Thailand, Admerix wanted to provide an update on the situation for Thai-language projects.

With large areas of central Thailand under pressure from evacuations, power outages, and conflicting statements from authorities, you can rest assured that Admerix can run Thai projects without a hitch.

Located in Singapore and with a large base of local resources, Admerix can apply industry standard management and quality assurance to Thai language work. Even when Thai-based companies are struggling with communication and delivery difficulties, Admerix can deliver corporate-grade localization work no matter what the conditions are within Thailand.

Admerix Thai Expertise

Availability of qualified subject specialist teams

While there are many Thais willing to give general translation a try, finding professionals with relevant experience and tools can be difficult--particularly on large-scale projects. Admerix has qualified teams of tested resources for even the largest and most challenging projects. Our large Thai team of linguists is expert in many subject specialties--medical, automotive, ERP/CRM, gaming, and elearning.

Terminology specialists

The Thai language is fraught with terminology issues. Even companies selling identical products frequently adopt different (and often confusing) terminology for seemingly commonplace terms. Admerix's knowledge of the Thai market ensures your projects will employ the most appropriate terminology.

DTP and formatting issues

Thai still remains one of the trickiest languages to deal with because of line-break issues, stacked tones and font size problems. Admerix has extensive experience in handling these types of issues in ERP/CRM, online software, and mobile devices.

If you are anxious about trusting your project to a Thailand-based company at this time, Admerix can give you peace of mind in stable and transparent Singapore.

We would be happy to answer any questions about our solutions for Thai and other Asian languages, so please don't hesitate to contact us. Email: John.Wyatt@Admerix.com

3 Questions to Ask Before Adopting that Best Practice

Thought-provoking stuff from Harvard Business Review:

Best practices are alluring. If other companies have already determined the best way to do something, why not just do what they did? But before you run off to collect best practices from the leader in your industry, ask these three questions:

    * What are the downsides? Implementing a practice that worked elsewhere isn't necessarily a slam dunk. Think through the potential disadvantages and figure out how to mitigate them.
    * Is success truly attributable to the benchmark practice? There are many reasons a company succeeds. It is unlikely that emulating one practice of an industry leader will give your company the same success.
    * Are the conditions similar at your organization? For best practices to be transferrable, businesses need to have key similarities: strategy, business model, and workforce.

Adapted from Harvard Business Review on Making Smart Decisions