Global markets are rapidly erroding “English only” markets. It is only a matter of time before something you write or create will reach a non-English speaking audience. Find out how to prepare your content so that your ultimate audience will grasp your intentions, even if they don’t speak a word of English.

This session is appropriate for anyone who creates technical content, be it distributed via paper, PDF, the web or mobile devices. Many North Americans have become complacent due to a monolingual environment that has lulled some of us into using “worst practices” in writing and document structure. In addition, 8.5 x 11 paper is often the unconscious lens we view our content through. (How many times have you caught yourself writing just one more paragraph to reach the bottom of the page?)

Learn how to overcome these barriers and use a few simple principles and common sense to “frame” your content in the most effective way for translation, localization and globalization. This session is not another sales pitch on how much you need your translation vendor; it is a nuts and bolts “how to” session on getting your content act together for the broadest audience imaginable, the entire world.

Kyocera Technology Development produces software for printer drivers and networked device management. The technical communicators are responsible for creating user assistance and system administration manuals. We also edit UI strings and hardware messages and manage translation for 23 languages. Our information assets contain many common elements, but they were difficult to manage without a single-sourcing strategy. Consequently, we created and translated similar or even identical phrases and sentences over the years.

We recognized that if we could manage these assets efficiently that this would dramatically reduce translation costs and free us to create new and richer content that would better support our customers. The foundational strategies that we agreed upon up-front were writing in DITA topics, manging those topics in a content management system, tight integration with a translation tool set and implementing a hosted solution (Software-as-a-Service). To accomplish this, we have implemented an automated end-to-end authoring, reviewing, publishing and translating solution. We looked at every aspect of our group’s output. The result was a radical overhaul of our processes that affected not only the tech comm group, but everyone with whom we interact. Software developers and QA, translation vendors and in-country reviewers and company personnel at our manufacturing facility in Japan can now all connect to our system and work with our data in real-time. The variety of users and the many possibilities the system has opened up is leading us into new territories, as we train and support this varied constituency. This presentation describes how authoring in DITA topics and managing those topics in a content management system has contained translation costs while improving overall information quality.

Since we enjoyed benefit from others’ experience and stories, a recounting of what worked well (and not so well) as we implemented our system can help those who are contemplating a similar move.

The word apocryphal comes from the Greek word ἀπόκρυφα, meaning “those having been hidden away”. In this presentation, David will talk about the stories that companies like yours don’t want to tell.  Learn about the 24 different ways one company used to “shut down your application” or how another company localizes devices and the accompanying documents to different languages. Then learn a little on how to manage this.

Within any complex organization, the content “conveyor belts” driven by specific business units deliver similar information through different routes—the authoring practices, rules and processes particular to that business unit. These conveyer belts all converge at the point when the content is distributed to the end customer—which is where the inconsistencies take their toll. When this information is also delivered in multiple languages the problem is exacerbated.

Authoring inconsistencies combined with localization to many markets can create havoc within an organization trying to create a single face for the customers. Learn how to avoid common pitfalls and achieve consistency in global authoring to optimize, cost, time and consistency.

A marketing campaign and readiness materials needs to be distributed into 105 countries and 14 different languages simultaneously or nearly simultaneously with the US release. The average campaign includes over 40 items that range from simple email templates to complex advertorial print pieces, to web applications. It is vital to the company that the message is released globally. Executing a project of this nature will include over 100 stakeholders and over 2000 planned process steps. The content is creative and volatile, the deliverables are apt to change, and the supply chain is peripheral at best.

This case study provides an overview of an innovative and comprehensive platform, developed to optimize the production and release of global and translated content. The approach is to engage all stakeholders across the globe through a software framework that manages the content translation and marketization lifecycle.

To determine the best framework for accomplishing this recurring tasks, the Pilot team:

• Defined globalization for the content and the supply chain
• Designed processes that could objectively facilitate the needs of all constituencies
• Developed an on-demand workflow
• Institutionalized performance management and a 360 feedback loop for the entire supply chain
• Leveraging and showcasing new technology - Microsoft Workflow foundation on top of Sharepoint 2007

Find out how a simple portal was created to manage this complex process with minimum pain and maximum results.