About Advocating Global
A blog designed to support globally minded communication professionals with insight into the global communication strategies that lead to desired behavior and positive end-user outcomes. We write and invite experts to write in about global communication topics in healthcare, corporate communications and marketing, as well as best practices in localization and process management.
Our topics may vary, but our focus is always on the advocacy for the communications professional; to empower them with the tools and best practices to be a global leader and make a difference in the outcomes of the end-user.
Understanding Localization Maturity
Localization Maturity is about matching your organization’s expectations on global communication outcomes with the right people, processes and technologies. As organizations grow and their localization (translation) needs grow, that organization will have to move through stages of maturity. Our Global Communication Maturity Model™ 2.0 shows an enhanced view of the stages through which organizations will progress when implementing a global communications strategy. Each stage represents a point in time when an organization faces unique challenges that must be met and built upon in order to move forward on their global business path.
What Happens after a Translation Quote loss?
Every business deals with proposals that end up in a loss and with us, that proposal may be a translation quote. A loss that happens is an opportunity for us to learn about how we do business. An important first step of any quoting process is trying to...
Translating Conditional Statements in Mail Merge Fields
Translating Conditional Statements in Word is a challenge because our industry does not seem to have quite figured out how to process these. Sometimes you have to resort to the old fashioned of working, realizing it will pay off in the long run.
Added Value with the Translation Preparation Process
The translation process can be negatively affected by a poorly formatted document. The translation workflow is often oversimplified by our own industry through the expectation that translation is a simple “word” business. However, when you look at the details of the translation workflow from start to end, there are a lot of process principles that are relevant to translation quality.
When does Global Competence Stick?
We talk a lot about building up Global Competence in the organization, but what does it mean? Does it mean that everyone in the organization needs to know the ins and outs of Global Commerce? Does it mean that everyone is Culturally Sensitive? When does Global...
How John Deere got me thinking about Translation Productivity
In a John Deere commercial we see how a customer receives an eye opening statement from the salesman: “It’s not how fast you mow, it’s how well you mow fast”. It got me thinking how this slogan could relate to translation productivity (why not?).
Translating in Word: Formatting a Bilingual Word Document
The situation is this: You have a document set up with styles, chapter numbers and a table of contents and you want to translate the document and present it in a side-by-side bilingual format. However, there are a few things in Word that could drive you nuts if you don’t set up your styles correctly.
Translation Software Compatibility
Discussion about translation software compatibility which is useful for translators and other LSPs.
Translating in Word: Creating a Table of Contents
Preparing a file for translation can save you costs. We’ll show you how to correctly set up your Table of Contents (TOC) in a Word file to have it automatically paginate. This is useful even if just creating your English document
Should you use free web fonts for translated websites?
Choosing a font for your translated website? Should you use that Google or free web font even if it says that is supports that language?
Translation Software: Work Smarter, Not Harder
If technology doesn’t help you to do your job better, why use it? The same question can be said when using translation software. We know translation technology helps us do our job better. However, it can also be a hindrance when translators or project managers are not proficient in the tools they work in.