Stop Attending Localization Conferences!

We have long thought localization conferences were places where people spend time lining up their next job or where localization CEOs try to put together "strategic partnerships" with other companies to create the illusion they are increasing sales.

So we were particularly interested in the wisdom in this article: So Many Conferences, So Little Return : ...Am I actually growing my business, or just satisfying my bottomless need for validation and approval? Am I actually delivering value to others, or just sitting in a corner trying to perfect myself? Am I actually connecting with my peers, or just playing dress up for the wrong audience? Am I actually part of a community, or just feeding into another ballwashing circlejerk of mutual glorification?...

Do You Hate Localization?

From our interaction in the industry, we can detect just how many localization production people seem to hate their jobs. The pressures are too great and project managers are rarely hired for their experience any more. Instead, they are always young college students or recent graduates hired for peanuts (or even interns). This leads to client dissatisfaction and sales dissatisfaction with production.

We stumbled across this article today: 10 Secrets to Being a Millionaire. It that has a lot to say about enjoying what you do. If you "hate localization" at the moment, maybe you should read this and see if you are doing everything you should be doing to live the life you want.

The Localization Pain Pyramid

The goal of getting sales in under any condition is creating a pain pyramid in localization companies:

It starts at sales expectations starting at the

CEO ("We need to increase sales!")

then down to...

Sales ("I have to met my sales targets or else!")

then down to...

Vendor Managers ("Who can I get to translate this and maintain these insane margins?")

then down to...

Project Managers

Who can only look at the projects and wonder "how in the world can we do this?”

The inevitable result is dissatisfied end clients (as well as angry salespeople). This dissatisfaction is because the promises sales made in the rush to secure the sales cannot be fulfilled.

Production people are expected to work all night under impossible deadlines, but even this level of commitment can't fulfill promises that are impossible in the first place.

This syndrome leads to project manager attrition (burnt-out PMs) that further impacts the expertise a company can bring to bear on a project.

The failure of this localization company model continues to benefit middle-sized companies who offer specialized resource and key project management skills BEFORE salespeople promise end-clients any crazy thing they want.

The lesson is-> if you don't have localization expertise and if this expertise is not being applied to new projects, then your clients will never be satisfied and won't return.

“I love Armenians” to “I love Turkey.”

 Google Explains Translation Glitch
...Concerned internet users this week initiated an online campaign after one activist, Lebanese-Armenian Serouj Baghdassarian, noticed that Google’s online translation service (translate.google.com) was mistakenly translating “Ես սիրում եմ հայերին” (“I love Armenians”) to “I love Turkey.”
 “Google Translate is an automated system. It makes guesses based on patterns gleaned from large bodies of human-translated text. It doesn’t do word-by-word dictionary-style translation,” Jason Freidenfelds, from Google’s global communications and public affairs department, told the Armenian Weekly.
“So sometimes [the service] makes mistakes which seem obvious to a human translator, but aren’t to our machine-learning system,” he added...

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.