I’m pleased to be co-chairing the IQPC Web Globalization Conference here in San Diego on October 22-24.

I’ll also be speaking on Web globalization navigation on October 24th.

The conference is taking place at the Crowne Plaza San Diego, which isn’t all that far from where I live. So if you need advice on directions, etc, feel free to drop me a line.

And if you’d like to meet separately while you’re in town, please let me know.

For hotel reservations, mention IQPC & the conference name for a special discount of $140/night (this expires Sept. 30).

Crowne Plaza Hotel San Diego
2270 Hotel Circle North
San Diego, CA 92108
Reservations: 1-800-882-0858
Hotel: 619-297-1101
Fax: 619-297-6049

Web Globalization Conference Web Site

I’m headed to Charleston next week for the Services Industry Summit an annual event sponsored by Service Strategies. I’ll be speaking on the unique opportunities (and challenges) of localizing your customer service Web sites and knowledgebases for audiences around the world.

Although customer service isn’t the area that companies first tackle when they take their Web sites global, it can play a huge role in the ultimate success (or not) of each localized Web site. For starters, the global navigation has to make it easy for non-English speakers to find what they need.

On the Web, customers (like me) sometimes check before they buy a product to see if they can make sense of the user manual, and if that manual is poorly translated, well, user manuals can be hard enough to understand even if you do understand the language.

And then there is the knowledgebase, which in addition to the manuals may include user forums, product updates, and other assorted information. This is an area where I expect we’ll see a significant amount of investment in machine translation (MT) in the years ahead. Microsoft already uses MT to automatically translate parts of its knowledgebase into Japanese and Spanish — and reports very strong reviews from users. That’s not to say that MT content is perfect; far from it — but MT content is better than no content at all.

And it’s not just your customers you need to localize your Web sites for. You also need to consider your in-country distributors, phone support team, and other partners and how they interact with your Web content. I know of one company that uses MT specifically for in-country customer support people who will translate the knowledgebase in real time to provide support for customers in their country.

Anyway, if you’re going to attend the event — or just want to meet up in Charleston, please give ma a shout.

Every time I say I’m too busy to sit through yet another Webinar, I get a few more emails promoting Webinars that just might be worth sitting through.

Here are two that caught my eye — and might be worth an hour of your time…

Interwoven, Hilton International, and Translations.com to Host Webcast on Improving Customer Experience Worldwide through the Delivery of Personalized, Localized Content
Okay, so it looks like Interwoven installed the software, Translations.com did what their name says they do, and somehow Hilton Intl. got roped into doing a Webinar about it all. Actually, I do love a good case study and the hotel industry has been very agressive lately about Web globalization. I sat in on an SDL/Best Western case study awhile back and learned a good deal. Hotels have major content management challenges — from decentralized content creation, often-chaotic franchise/corporate business structures, and complex transactional and search challenges. According to the email:

Hilton International operates over 400 hotels across Europe and Asia including 260 Hilton-branded hotels as well as an additional 140 Scandic properties. In 2002, Hilton International outlined an aggressive strategy to build a series of highly-personalized and localized Web sites for its largest markets including the UK, Germany, and Japan. As part of this initiative, local language Web sites were also to be developed for the Hilton-owned Scandic brand hotels across the key Scandinavian countries and Finland. The company was faced with a number of challenges in implementing this new strategy. The project required the translation and editing of more than 4.5 million words of content and over 25,000 individual content files.

(UPDATE: I gotta keep up on my email. This one happend two days ago. But you can still catch the recording…)
(UPDATE, Part 2: Okay, I just listened to the Hilton call. The sound quality was horrible and the intros took forever, but there was some good meat to it. For instance, Hilton had estimated that it would take three years to pay back their Web globalization investment and found that they hit payback in 1.5 years. Translations.com says that the translation memory database is so built up now that they leverage a whopping 70% against new translation; what this means is that only 30% of new content needs to be translated by humans. )

And here’s another Webinar that might squeeze another hour out of my day…

Using XML for Product Information Publishing – The Road to Success at Siemens Medical Solutions
This Webinar is put together by Astoria, SDL, and Frank Gilbane, publisher of The Gilbane Report. The medical device community has been grappling with major content management and translation issues for years now — and the EU keeps increasing the number of languages they have to support just to do business there.

This call looks interesting because it promises to shed light on a real-world DITA application. According to the email, you’ll “learn how an effective information architecture can help you reach global markets faster and easier. And from Tanner AG, the information architects, learn how Siemens Medical went from strategy to solution implementation to publish its 2,200 product operation and maintenance documents in over 22 languages.”