Let’s Talk Content: Inside Global Transformation Summit Portugal

welocalize July 2, 2019

What an incredible few days we had in Estoril, Portugal! The discussions at Global Transformation Summit (GTS) were lively, probing, educational, and thoughtful. Was it the gorgeous setting of a historic castle overlooking the Portuguese coastline? Did the scorching afternoon sun provoke an intensity of focus or a day at the beach? Was it new connections with industry peers facing similar business challenges? Indeed, each of these factors definitely created a day of delightful engagement. Thank you to our customers, partners, and new colleagues for sharing your time and insights. Here are highlights from GTS panel discussions.

What are the challenges and opportunities of digital content?

Educating stakeholders. Digital content requires a different mindset to traditional localization programs and content types.

‘Everyone is in the middle of digital transformation, and it’s not easy. You need to communicate continuously with new content types, techniques, and technologies, especially to the multiple teams working on reaching global customers. It takes time and effort for ongoing success.’ Nancy Ferreira, Senior Localization Program Manager, FedEx Digital International.

Measuring performance and quality. It’s not about how many words can you translate per hour or what is the linguistic quality score. It’s about business outcomes. Are we seeing higher weekly traffic in countries with the latest localized content? Are we receiving less customer complaints now that FAQs are provided online in multiple languages?

Finding the right talent. There’s a broader range of skills required to manage digital content, especially for entering new markets. Digital and localization teams need to keep up to date with trends, keep learning new skills, and increase their circle of influence. Are we managing and analyzing the right data? Which new markets are we targeting, and do we have those language skills?

 

What are the challenges of technology and automation, especially since everyone seems to be talking about machine learning? 

Garbage in, garbage out. Quality of source matters.

‘Regardless of whether you use complex machine learning or NMT, the quality of source materials has significant impact on the output. No matter how advanced language technologies are, a well-worded piece of content lends itself to better MT.’ Robert O’Keefe, Senior Program Manager, Product Globalization, Citrix.

Don’t put the cart before the horse. It’s easy to get excited about new technology. The approach, however, must start by understanding the business problem first before seeking a technology solution. While Microsoft or Google Auto ML Translation may be viable solutions to enterprise MT programs, if there’s no methodical or continuous terminology management for the different content types, localization teams may still miss the mark if being evaluated on delivering translated content that resonates with local audiences.

A surprise highlight was introducing and welcoming SearchStar at GTS to the Welocalize family, on the very day of the acquisition announcement! At upcoming GTS, you’ll be hearing more about the intersection of localization and digital media buying and planning across paid search, programmatic, video, and paid social.

If you would like more information on future Welocalize events, please contact us marketing@welocalize.com.