Day 1 of Localization World 2011, Tues. 14 June
Guest blog post by @choyberg / Mary Rosberg, Director of Strategic Accounts, Content Rules, Inc.
This post is a follow-up to https://contentrules.com/blog/day-b4-locworld-2011/ … for those not lucky enough to have snagged a trip to Barcelona before the July 4th holiday.
Last night’s beer-garden friends were now busy in official pre-conference workshops:
- Derek Coffey (Welocalize) was running a GlobalSight Community Forum
- Renato Beninatto was moderating an L10n Sales/Marketing panel, with Ann-Marie Colliander Lind (Inkrease), George Gombas (CustomerCentric Selling, Europe), Jessica Rathke (L10n sales/mktg), and Melissa Gillespie (CSA)
Where was I? Well, one of the best things about LocWorld is it brings people together in the same geo. This gets everyone planning more events that orbit around LocWorld.
I spent my day with some friends from Welocalize. In the spirit of openness, they brought together several companies to share best practices. Smith Yewell spoke about trends he is observing, and the ways in which his team is moving with those trends. I so appreciated his KISS approach to communicating. One bit that stuck with me is “Collaborate, Communicate, Commiserate.” Smith also emphasized OPENNESS as a trend. This day he pulled together was a great example of that.
Folks from Cisco, F-Secure, Autodesk, Laureate, Dell, McAfee, Ciena, and more engaged in open dialogues with each other about what they are experiencing in their localization and business-driver world. The format was to have someone speak for 30 minutes, then to break out into smaller groups w/ a mediator at each table to drive deeper discussion. I *love* that format. I also had the honor of presenting to the group, on global-ready content. My preso can be boiled down to this: Optimize Before You Localize. PLEASE 🙂 And if you’re not sure what that means, feel free to ask!
Around 7pm, everyone met up at the official LocWorld reception. I loved finding Burckhardt Rueffer (BeatBabel) and Maria Flacassier (BeatBabel) by seeing their tweet that they’d just arrived. Got my hugs in from Kare Lindahl (Venga), Richard Korn (St. Jude Medical), Danica Brinton (Zynga), and more. Then, headed out to dinner by the beach.
LocWorld challenge? Too many places to be at once! At dinner, it was midnight when I thought it was 10pm. Wait, is that LocWorld, or Barcelona? So I missed out on what was surely a gorgeous affair at Pueblo Espanyol w/ Kathleen Bostwick (Lionbridge). Pictures, anyone??
Homeward bound. Nabbed in lobby, for more conversations w/ Steve Gòtz and Páraic Sheridan (both from Centre for Next-Generation Localisation). Life is more than L10n, and LocWorld conversations are the same. We spoke mostly about encouraging growth of new start-ups, the investment climate, and Peter Thiel’s 20 under 20.
Another quite short night of sleep ensued….
Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.
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