The document discusses cloud computing and its potential benefits for the translation industry. It notes that cloud computing allows resources like software, platforms, and infrastructure to be accessed over the internet on an as-needed basis. This can help translation businesses reduce costs, scale rapidly as needs change, and access applications from anywhere as long as internet is available. Cloud computing may help the industry meet demands for faster, cheaper, and better translation in a more efficient way.
How New Technology Trends Will Disrupt the Very Nature of Business Dana Gardner
Transcript of a sponsored discussion on how major new trends and technology are translating into disruption, and for the innovative business -- opportunity.
DevOps by Design -- Practical Guide to Effectively Ushering DevOps into Any O...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a Briefings Direct discussion on some powerful best practices on making DevOps an accelerant to broader business goals, but at the level of a multigenerational IT activity.
Work isn’t working as well as it could…
there's a Productivity crisis and we're working more hours but being less productive.
Vodafone has identifed methods in which organisations can improve Productivity and have solutions to help organisation across a variety of scenarios.
The Productivity Gap - Lets rethink work togetherDaniel Bain
This is taken from a report Vodafone commissioned with the London School of Economics. It highlights how employing agile working practices and smarter use of information and communication technologies can help organisations improve Productivity by up to 20%.
Mobility is an opportunity to reinvent your business. Innovate your product, process or business model with the help of mobile and tap into a whole new world of service offerings and revenue streams. Here are some companies that exemplify what we mean together with tangible tips on how you can reinvent your business through mobility.
How New Technology Trends Will Disrupt the Very Nature of Business Dana Gardner
Transcript of a sponsored discussion on how major new trends and technology are translating into disruption, and for the innovative business -- opportunity.
DevOps by Design -- Practical Guide to Effectively Ushering DevOps into Any O...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a Briefings Direct discussion on some powerful best practices on making DevOps an accelerant to broader business goals, but at the level of a multigenerational IT activity.
Work isn’t working as well as it could…
there's a Productivity crisis and we're working more hours but being less productive.
Vodafone has identifed methods in which organisations can improve Productivity and have solutions to help organisation across a variety of scenarios.
The Productivity Gap - Lets rethink work togetherDaniel Bain
This is taken from a report Vodafone commissioned with the London School of Economics. It highlights how employing agile working practices and smarter use of information and communication technologies can help organisations improve Productivity by up to 20%.
Mobility is an opportunity to reinvent your business. Innovate your product, process or business model with the help of mobile and tap into a whole new world of service offerings and revenue streams. Here are some companies that exemplify what we mean together with tangible tips on how you can reinvent your business through mobility.
'Extreme Apps’ Approach to Analysis Makes On-Site Retail Experience King AgainDana Gardner
Transcript of a sponsored discussion on how technology providers have teamed as an ecosystem to develop new dynamic and rapid analysis capabilities for the retail industry.
A Tale of Two IT Departments, or How Governance is Essential in the Hybrid Cl...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a Briefings Direct discussion on how two organizations have been improving their application’s performance via total performance monitoring and metrics.
Internet of Things Brings On Development Demands That DevOps Manages, Say Exp...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect discussion on how continuous processes around development and deployment of applications impact and benefit the Internet of Things trend.
Unum Group Architect Charts a DevOps Course to a Hybrid Cloud FutureDana Gardner
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how Unum Group has benefitted from a better process around application development and deployment using HP tools.
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how a major telecom company has improved its IT performance to deliver better experiences and payoffs for its businesses and end users alike.
How To Select A Digital E Publisher SupplierYUDU Media
With so many professional ePublishing suppliers to choose from, how do you know which one to select? We’ve pubilshed a free whitepaper that highlights the eight key questions you need to ask to give you a clear indication of the size, scope and experience of your prospective supplier, as well as quality of their technology.
Learn from the lessons from decades of real experience with real (and successful) BPM initiatives for taking BPM from promise to practice. This will be great primer for beginners and will provide new insight & fresh ideas for people with experience in BPM.
A shift in the paradigm of translation practice seems necessary. Maybe freelancing is no longer the best or the only option for translators to be in the market place, and a new approach should be devised that takes advantage of the opportunities brought by the latest technological innovations.
'Extreme Apps’ Approach to Analysis Makes On-Site Retail Experience King AgainDana Gardner
Transcript of a sponsored discussion on how technology providers have teamed as an ecosystem to develop new dynamic and rapid analysis capabilities for the retail industry.
A Tale of Two IT Departments, or How Governance is Essential in the Hybrid Cl...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a Briefings Direct discussion on how two organizations have been improving their application’s performance via total performance monitoring and metrics.
Internet of Things Brings On Development Demands That DevOps Manages, Say Exp...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect discussion on how continuous processes around development and deployment of applications impact and benefit the Internet of Things trend.
Unum Group Architect Charts a DevOps Course to a Hybrid Cloud FutureDana Gardner
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how Unum Group has benefitted from a better process around application development and deployment using HP tools.
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how a major telecom company has improved its IT performance to deliver better experiences and payoffs for its businesses and end users alike.
How To Select A Digital E Publisher SupplierYUDU Media
With so many professional ePublishing suppliers to choose from, how do you know which one to select? We’ve pubilshed a free whitepaper that highlights the eight key questions you need to ask to give you a clear indication of the size, scope and experience of your prospective supplier, as well as quality of their technology.
Learn from the lessons from decades of real experience with real (and successful) BPM initiatives for taking BPM from promise to practice. This will be great primer for beginners and will provide new insight & fresh ideas for people with experience in BPM.
A shift in the paradigm of translation practice seems necessary. Maybe freelancing is no longer the best or the only option for translators to be in the market place, and a new approach should be devised that takes advantage of the opportunities brought by the latest technological innovations.
We designed bright and spacious interior by removing part of the wall that separates the balcony and the interior rooms, thus creating alternating garden between each extension. The living area has an open space and combines family room, dining, smoking room, and living room. Although the living room is completely open it is defined by a wooden structure that visually divides the space.
Adelante con juicio: manicheismo e ragionevolezza nell’evoluzione della linguaLuigi Muzii
Purismo e protezionismo linguistico sono di sicuro tratti sciovinisti specialmente quando diventano ossessivi e maniacali e si rivelano spesso controproducenti perché sintomo di avvertita debolezza, tipici di un falso problema sollevato da una classe dirigente ipocrita e incolta che se ne serve come alibi per l’elusione dei propri impegni e interpreta la difesa della lingua come una sorta di Fortezza Bastiani. I traduttori sono tra i più fervidi difensori della lingua anche se dovrebbero esserne soprattutto testimoni dell’evoluzione e sono impegnati soprattutto sul fronte della lotta all’impoverimento della lingua di cui la semplificazione sarebbe il primo passo. Ma la semplicità rappresenta davvero un pericolo?
Has the washing machine changed the world more than the Internet? Do the latest technological advances really free translators or just tether them to their desks more than before? Why should one consider switching to cloud computing? We will search an answer to these questions by discussing cloud computing and collaborative translation technology to make process simpler, lean, and parallel and face the new translation industry mantra of “cheaper, faster, and better” to meet the growth in volume, velocity, and volatility. Doing more with less costs more, and technology is not enough; it must always be coupled with people.
Has the washing machine changed the world more than the Internet? Do the latest technological advances really free translators or just tether them to their desks more than before? Why should one consider switching to cloud computing? We will search an answer to these questions by discussing cloud computing and collaborative translation technology to make process simpler, lean, and parallel and face the new translation industry mantra of “cheaper, faster, and better” to meet the growth in volume, velocity, and volatility. Doing more with less costs more, and technology is not enough; it must always be coupled with people.
Cloud Computing by Industry: Novel Ways to Collaborate Via Extended Business ...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a sponsored BriefingsDirect podcast examining how cloud computing methods promote innovative sharing and collaboration for industry-specific process efficiencies.
How Digital Transformation Navigates Disruption to Chart A Better Course to t...Dana Gardner
A discussion on how HPE Pointnext Services advises organizations on using digital transformation to take advantage of new and emerging market opportunities.
Gartner named customer data platforms (CDPs) one of the key technologies that will demand marketers’ attention in 2018. Michael Katz, Cofounder and CEO of mParticle, explains why CDPs are not just another acronym and how consumer brands ranging from Airbnb to NBCUniversal to Zappos are using them to optimize omnichannel customer experiences and marketing outcomes, in all the moments that matter.
Originally presented at AdExchanger Industry Preview 2018 by Michael Katz, Cofounder and CEO, mParticle.
Defining Digital Transformation - the researchTom Rieger
Everyone is talking about it but not many are doing it. Or they think they are and doing it wrong.... I am talking about defining 'digital transformation'. In working with Lane Severson we completed some great research where nearly 200 executives in the LOB and IT helped us give their take on their present state and where they WANT to go.
Hard to go on a 'digital transformation' journey if you aren't sure what it is.
A forecast of the needs of future business communications users, based on research by Martin Geddes and Dean Bubley. We address the questions: What are the future communications needs of workers? How and where do people work?
Keeping your touch screen kiosk content creation business futureIntuiface
From a software perspective, here are some all-encompassing strategies that could help your content creation business for touch screen kiosks stay resilient and future-ready through the industry rollercoaster
Measuring for success: Goals, performances, and outcomesLuigi Muzii
Every business should measure performances against goals, substantiate its existence, and justify paychecks on solid arguments and data that customers can understand. This presentation focuses on the value KPI may show of a business. Suggestions are given about developing KPIs that can be understood by customers.
Preparing for disintermediation: Or what will the future look like in a global gig economy?
A presentation given at the tolk- en vertaalcongres in Breda on March 9, 2018 titled “The Language Industry 4.0: Embracing the future?”
The slide deck of the presentation given on June 16 at Localization World 34 in Barcelona.
To successfully run an MT platform and MT projects, a very specific skillset is needed. The right combination of MT and post-editing (PE) can help reduce turn-around times even in low-tech contexts while maximizing cost-effectiveness.
This presentation introduces to the strategies for an effective solution for translation buyers and vendors.
Read about the dos and don’ts when dealing with MT + PE in regard to improving productivity and increasing speed and ease of translation; the best setup for an operating environment based on the right project requirements and practices specifically devised; and the primary challenges posed by MT and PE, as preparing data, assessing quality of outputs, estimating the post-editing effort, vetting, selecting, instructing and compensating human resources.
The unredacted original version of Luigi Muzii's and Isabella Massardo's article on Europe, standards and terminology for the March 2016 issue of Multilingual.
Il Traduttore Nuovo, rivista dell'Associazione Italiana Traduzione e Interpreti
N. 1/96
Numero speciale dedicato alla Terminologia, con contributi di Christian Galinski, Donatella Pulitano, Claudia Rosa Pucci, Klaus-Dirk Schmitz, Blaise Nkwenti-Azeh, Annamaria Tagliabue, Alan K. Melby, Bruno de Bessé
Term Mining and Terminology Management in a Corporate Setting PerspectiveLuigi Muzii
The time spent looking for and not finding information cost an organization a total of $6 million a year, not including opportunity costs or the costs of reworking existing information that could not be located. Only 41% of localization-mature organizations have some terminology management policy in place, almost solely translation-oriented. Then we must show how terminology management works, demonstrate its power, through controlled languages, ontologies, search engine applications, content and knowledge management applications, and e-learning systems.
A short essay on translation quality standards, the new standards ISO 17100, translation quality assessment, sampling and translation data quality for statistical machine translation.
Diversità in rete: distanza che si trasforma in ricchezzaLuigi Muzii
Appunti per la partecipazione alla Social Media Week di Milano del 20 febbraio 2014 per il panel "Diversità in rete: distanza che si trasforma in ricchezza" organizzato dalle Girl Geek Dinners Milano.
Il testo è disponibile su http://goo.gl/AMq7nn.
Presentazione del webinar su vendor e project management volto alla revisione delle best practice in fatto di selezione, valutazione, analisi prestazionale e sviluppo delle risorse e in fatto di gestione progetti, con particolare attenzione alla definizione e distinzione dei ruoli e dei profili di vendor manager e di project manager nell’industria della traduzione, specialmente per quanto riguarda le fasi di analisi preventiva, programmazione e monitoraggio e i relativi strumenti.
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
The French Revolution, which began in 1789, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France. It marked the decline of absolute monarchies, the rise of secular and democratic republics, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. This revolutionary period is crucial in understanding the transition from feudalism to modernity in Europe.
For more information, visit-www.vavaclasses.com
Model Attribute Check Company Auto PropertyCeline George
In Odoo, the multi-company feature allows you to manage multiple companies within a single Odoo database instance. Each company can have its own configurations while still sharing common resources such as products, customers, and suppliers.
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
Antifertility, Toxicity studies as per OECD guidelines
Francesca Gottschalk - How can education support child empowerment.pptxEduSkills OECD
Francesca Gottschalk from the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation presents at the Ask an Expert Webinar: How can education support child empowerment?
A Strategic Approach: GenAI in EducationPeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Acetabularia Information For Class 9 .docxvaibhavrinwa19
Acetabularia acetabulum is a single-celled green alga that in its vegetative state is morphologically differentiated into a basal rhizoid and an axially elongated stalk, which bears whorls of branching hairs. The single diploid nucleus resides in the rhizoid.
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
Embracing GenAI - A Strategic ImperativePeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Honest Reviews of Tim Han LMA Course Program.pptxtimhan337
Personal development courses are widely available today, with each one promising life-changing outcomes. Tim Han’s Life Mastery Achievers (LMA) Course has drawn a lot of interest. In addition to offering my frank assessment of Success Insider’s LMA Course, this piece examines the course’s effects via a variety of Tim Han LMA course reviews and Success Insider comments.
Re-thinking pricing and business models for cloud translation
1. Re-thinking pricing and business models for cloud translation<br />Abstract<br />Innovation is not simply the introduction of something new, it is a change effected by implementing an invention. Change revolves around innovation, and innovation-originated changes provide better results than any quot;
invisible handquot;
.<br />It is ironic that the localization industry, specialized in adaptation and customization, has been insistent on its existing process model and is not adapting itself.<br />Do the latest technological advances really free translators or just tether them to their desks more than before? Why should one consider switching to cloud computing? We will search an answer to these questions by discussing cloud computing and collaborative translation technology to make process simpler, lean, and parallel and face the new translation industry mantra of quot;
cheaper, faster, and betterquot;
to meet the growth in volume, velocity, and volatility.<br />The number of customers interested in translation is rising, but the economic slowdown constrain their willingness and capacity of expenditure. In addition, these customers mostly see translation as a commodity, and no one wants to spend much for a commodity that is believed, as such, to be available in large quantities without qualitative differentiation.<br />To win the challenges of global business, a systematic re-thinking of the translation process is necessary. To keep pace with the changing situation, the translation process must become quot;
agilequot;
, and quot;
cloud translationquot;
could be a way.<br />Today, speed and agility are the drivers. Costs become truly important only when these two requirements are met. A close combination of highly skilled individuals and technology with a new process model to create and support communities on demand to maximize knowledge reuse and increase speed could be an answer to arrange the translation production lines that the continuously flowing content streams require.<br />Cloud translation could reduce intermediation and open the way to disintermediation. Is this good or bad? Neither! Innovative LSP's should just capitalize on the opportunity.<br />Wording<br />About six years ago, I went to the gap to buy a pair of jeans. I tend to wear my jeans until they’re falling apart, so it had been quite a while since my last purchase. A nice young salesperson walked up to me and asked if she could help.<br />“I want a pair of jeans—32–28,” I said.<br />“Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy, or extra baggy?” she replied. “Do you want them stonewashed, acid-washed, or distressed? Do you want them button-fly or zipper-fly? Do you want them faded or regular?”<br />I was stunned. A moment or two later I sputtered out something like, “I just want regular jeans. You know, the kind that used to be the only kind.” It turned out she didn’t know, but after consulting one of her older colleagues, she was able to figure out what “regular” jeans used to be, and she pointed me in the right direction.<br />The trouble was that with all these options available to me now, I was no longer sure that “regular” jeans were what I wanted.<br />Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice, Why More Is Less<br />Cloud computing is a vague and obscure term conveniently used to convey a poetic vision of the Internet and of something we already know and do. Is it just a buzz, then? Not exactly, because the underlying technologies are mature, but it may sound just like this, and talking about cloud computing may thus be like talking about nothing.<br />Wernher von Braun was the German-American rocket scientist that led the development of the booster rocket that helped land the first men on the Moon. When asked what was the purpose of the moon race, he used to say: «What is the purpose of a new born baby?»<br />Innovation is not simply the introduction of something new, it is a change effected by implementing an invention. Change revolves around innovation, and innovation-originated changes provide better results than any “invisible hand”.<br />Typically, the language services industry has a conservative approach to crises, and sees any change as a major change, with companies relentlessly seeking to cut costs. In an industry almost entirely based on outsourcing and freelancing, reducing staff is not a impractical solution to cut costs, so language services companies commonly resort to lowering pays and occasionally to technology. In fact, a recent Common Sense Advisory report showed that the translation industry is generally a low-tech industry where “do more with less” is an imperative that very few can follow.<br />It is ironic that the localization industry, specialized in adaptation and customization, has been insistent on its existing process model and is not adapting itself.<br />On the other hand, an innovative approach to crises relies on product innovation, which cannot but be very limited in a century-old activity. It could happen only with the so-called value-added services, and this partly explains why many still look at translation as a cost, and the consequent competition on prices.<br />Competing on prices also implies that compensations are no longer enough to retain the best resources, while, when too low, they could only attract the worst.<br />Vendors should compete on the scope of services and responsibilities, but this raises the range of services and the required skill set while exposing vendors to the client’s organization.<br />Therefore, only process innovation can be effective, and yet, again, technology is used to streamline processes because the new translation industry mantra is “cheaper, faster, and better,” but doing more with less costs more, and technology is not enough. Technology can help increase volume and speed, but processes are made by and pivot on people. Therefore, the people in the translation industry must first redesign processes, but very few people in the translation industry are willing to repudiate their education.<br />If the last product innovation in the GILT industry dates back to two to three decades, the last input or organizational innovations are lost in the mist of time. Many market innovations have taken place, although all minor and pertaining to the business sphere. A few major innovations came, ça va sans dire, from information and communication technology.<br />Is the Internet changing the way we think? Is Google making us stupid?<br />According to Cambridge professor Ha-Joon Chang, the washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet. Nevertheless, when the washing machine was invented, there were people rallying that it was evil, others said that it would free women, while others claimed that its price would not pay out the price of the dozen books one just could buy.<br />Technological changes definitely influence work habits, and sometimes even radically change them.<br />What is happening today with information technology happened with printing presses that according to Erasmus would «fill the world with pamphlets and books that are foolish, ignorant, malignant, libelous, mad, impious and subversive.»<br />Let’s take the software market. The market of apps is growing rapidly, and so is the demand for localized apps. To meet this demand speed and readiness are prerequisites, more than knowledge and ability. Speed and readiness can be offered through community services enabling developers to start their localization projects in a matter of minutes, with a few clicks, with nothing to download or install.<br />At the moment, these services are possible via cloud computing only, with shared servers providing resources, software, and data on demand in a typical location-independent service-oriented architecture. It is an Internet-based IT service model, where virtualized resources are dynamically scaled and provided.<br />In fact, the term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used to represent the Internet in computer network diagrams. The computing is in the cloud, i.e. the processing (and the associated data) is not in a specified, known, or static place. This is in contrast to a model in which the processing takes place in one or more specific servers that are known.<br />The spreading of cloud computing is a consequence of the ease of access to the Internet. More and more frequently it takes the form of web-based applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if they were installed locally on their own computer.<br />Generally, cloud computing customers simply consume resources as a service and pay only for the resources they use, with everything they need being out in a cloud on the Internet, where hundreds of machines are working together.<br />The typical cloud computing architecture is a three-layer reversed triangle.<br />The first layer is SaaS (Software as a Service): the software is delivered over the Internet (virtualized) by a provider licensing it to customers on demand, through a subscription; functionalities are used to augment or replace real world processes.<br />The second layer is PaaS (Platform as a Service): a runtime system and application platform available over the Internet with the sole purpose of hosting application software.<br />The third layer is IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): traditional computing resources, such as servers, storage, and low-level network and hardware resources offered on demand over the Internet.<br />So why should one consider switching to cloud computing? The advantages of this model are:<br />Accessibility from anywhere, through an Internet connection;<br />No local server installation required;<br />Pay-per-use or subscription-based payment methods;<br />Rapid scalability;<br />Reliability;<br />System maintenance included in service.<br />Cloud computing helps to bypass wasted time, money, and product limitations on traditional business applications, achieving a more efficient, centrally controlled business, and allowing access to all applications from anywhere the Internet is available, without worries concerning servers, office space, power, etc.<br />In fact, capital expenditure is reduced by not having to purchase servers or full copies of software, while SaaS can be deployed more quickly as no local installation is required freeing up resources to focus on core business activities.<br />The model also presents a few drawbacks, from security and data integrity issues to the increased revenue cost of paying for the use of the services, from the dependence on Internet connection availability to the lower flexibility and the higher customization costs.<br />Anyway, cloud computing is a major innovation also in the translation industry, with a deep impact on organization, process, and market, opening the door to real collaborative translation.<br />Collaborative translation is not crowdsourcing that is just one model of many to leverage massive online collaboration for translation.<br />A major implementation consists in parallelized process instead of the typical serial approach found in most translation workflow systems. This approach resembles the assembly line, and it is why, in a Common Sense Advisory report of December 2007, Renato Beninatto and Don De Palma described collaborative translation as the end of taylorism in translation.<br />The new translation industry mantra is “cheaper, faster, and better”, coming from the impressive increase in technical and business content of today.<br />In a period of economic slowdown, companies apply strategies to reach new markets. Companies of all sizes and from all industries all over the world are being advised to find more international customers as fast as they can, and to increase their exports even faster as the economy becomes increasingly globalized and companies sell products and services in multiple markets. These strategies involve adding languages, and this partly explains why the content requiring translation is growing every year.<br />The content requiring translation is growing because of the unprecedented ease of content creation of the so-called Web 2.0. Nevertheless, most of this content is ephemeral and is not intended for commercial translation, but it also makes the number of customers grow.<br />Therefore, not only do companies apply strategies to release their products more quickly while adding more languages, they also strive for localization readiness, more agile development processes, and to reduce the amount of content or leverage it.<br />Even though the number of customers interested in translation is rising, in a period of economic slowdown their willingness and capacity of expenditure is limited. In addition, these customers mostly see translation as a commodity, and no one wants to spend much for a commodity that is believed, as such, to be available in large quantities without qualitative differentiation.<br />Therefore, to win the challenges of global business, a systematic re-thinking of the translation process is necessary.<br />The traditional translation process is a chain, as strong as its weakest link, and the longer the chain, the more weak links will be found in it. The supply chain in the professional translation industry still goes from the global enterprise content creator to the internal localization department to the MLV, to the SLV’s, to freelance translators who are the weak link in the supply chain. This means that the translation industry is still at a vendor management stage and makes LSP’s generally underdeveloped for a mature market.<br />Vendor management is the largest cost budget item that could be huge for companies with hundreds or thousands of vendors. It requires dedicated technology and staff and involves delicate tasks like quality assessment and several vendor managers to rotate to keep healthy relationships with vendors.<br />To keep pace with the changing situation, the translation process must become “agile”, and “cloud translation” could be a way.<br />A collaboration platform allows the client to minimize project management, and take on the role of facilitator, helping many-to-many communications, reducing e-mail transactions, capturing knowledge for immediate leverage, and providing a clear assignee at each project stage.<br />Cloud computing is the foundation for cloud translation, which exploits SaaS platforms for large scale pooling of translation professionals, terminologists, and domain experts, as well as for sharing linguistic data. These platforms could also serve as online marketplaces for translators where customers and translators can be connected directly or with a minimal intervention by a middle man, thus opening the way to disintermediation.<br />In a collaborative environment, not limited to crowdsourcing and social translation, name recognition and reputation are the equivalent of gold. Outbound marketing will still be necessary to reach prospective clients, but to build or improve reputation in the industry, and disseminate their name, translation companies could and maybe should use social media. The best use of social media is to share information, and spread views and opinions to be known and grow in authoritativeness, even with customers.<br />Speak at conferences, seminars, and webinars. Run your own blog. Contribute to industry newsletters, regularly issue whitepapers on the company’s or industry’s main focus.<br />Translation technology has laid dormant for a decade or more because the largest translation buyers invested only in traditional translation technology. In the last few years they have been looking for further cost reductions through process optimization, and invested in workflow and content management software.<br />This led these very large translation buyers to fragment their translation projects. Therefore translation jobs are getting smaller and instantaneous, while clients are expecting vendors workflows to be tightly integrated into theirs.<br />And here come cloud computing and collaborative platforms whose essential flavor is scaling and parallelism. Projects are split into tiny chunks that are dispatched to the members of a community specifically set up for each project, who will process it concurrently. The work is kept unabridged since chunks are reassembled in real time. Scaling and parallelism can help reduce dramatically lead and turnaround time and overhead or make it possible to recruit specialists who might otherwise not be willing to commit to the full job.<br />In a typical collaborative environment, team members can track the work that is left to do, rather than just the work that is achieved to date. This will improve transparency of the remaining work and highlight revision costs, inconsistent authoring, etc., while marking the areas where the whole process can be improved.<br />Translation is made on the web, all the time, by the best specialists available, regardless of location or ownership of desktop translation tools.<br />In a collaborative translation project, the project manager is actually a facilitator whose task is to create a community with translators, recruit a subject matter expert to answer questions about the topic, collect and provide all the tools to run the project, and assure support to translators where they need help. A few consultants will also be hired to handle the shared translation memories and the term base, develop the style guides, and tune the machine translation engine.<br />In a collaborative translation project, there is no need for reviewers and editors that could be disruptive for harmony and confidence in the project team, with the project facilitator and the consultant doing their best to have translators strictly follow the style guide and glossary.<br />Cloud translation allows for data centralization and resource decentralization, and the relevant technologies are widely available today, even for free.<br />Yet, the translation industry is still tied to the quality axiom. A corollary to the quality axiom says that fewer translators produce a more consistent output, as if a reader could distinguish some ten thousand words in a million. Moreover, it still happens to hear translators express concern about the use of translation memories as per quality, intellectual property, impoverishment of the language, and so on.<br />Another axiom derived from the quality axiom is the asset axiom, where glossaries and translation memories are assets, and, as such, are supposed to carry some value. Conversely, glossaries and translation memories do not necessarily carry an intrinsic value, since in this case value comes from their exploitation, and exploitation, in turn, depends on the ability of highly skilled translators.<br />Crowdsourced translation is a typical implementation of cloud translation. It relies on online communities, distributing the workload across dozens, or perhaps hundreds of contributors for greater volumes, higher speed, broader consensus on meaning, and possibly lower cost.<br />This rent-a-crowd approach generally results in lighter workloads for individual translators.<br />Anyway, translation crowdsourcing is not free and does not necessarily rely on volunteers, typically amateurs. Actually, it costs money to manage work, whether workers are volunteer or paid, and build a collaborative translation capability.<br />Professional translators should not undervalue crowdsourcing, and be careful not to emphasize the difference with amateurs involved in social translation projects. When warning that a crowdsourced job was not done professionally, they might be told that even Noah’s Ark was built and run by amateurs and the RMS Titanic by professionals...<br />A model is possible to blend efficiency with highly skilled professionals by recruiting specially selected communities of paid translators. Yet, time and money are needed to set up a specialized back-end infrastructure to bolster the productivity of the community, and it could take months to recruit and pool a qualified staff.<br />Therefore, free is not the point. Time is.<br />Hence, not only are highly skilled individuals no longer enough, technology is no longer enough either. A close combination of the two with a new process model could be an answer. Continuously flowing content streams demand translation production lines. A possible solution could be to create and support communities on demand to maximize knowledge reuse and increase speed.<br />In fact, today, speed and agility are the drivers. Costs become truly important only when these two requirements are met. Speed is for volume, and agility is for content type, while quality is a prerequisite and is taken for granted, even though different thresholds are commonly envisaged.<br />Therefore, language service providers must learn to actually differentiate their service offerings to accommodate the trends in content and arrive at different levels of quality to meet their customers’ needs in terms of speed, cost, content type and quality.<br />Anyway, buyers won’t ever start going directly to SLV’s as this would require efficient processes and a collaboration technology infrastructure, and MLV’s could redesign their production workflows to tie translators rather than to pursue efficiency.<br />On the other hand, LSP’ are the only ones who see translation as a service. Buyers see it definitely only as a product. This product hardly presents any meaningful qualitative differences, and that is why LSP’s all too often struggle to make a convincing case to justify translation costs: buyers are willing to pay for the perceived value. Products presenting no meaningful qualitative differences are usually labeled as commodities, and the path to losing real and strong value-add is named commoditization.<br />This reaffirms the chance for cloud translation to reduce intermediation and open the way to disintermediation. Good or bad? Neither! Innovative LSP’s should capitalize on the opportunity to connect clients and translators directly.<br />In general, LSP’s share the same pool of resources, and testing freelancers is expensive and not reliable. The solution to reduce overhead is then shortening the production chain. Collaborative platforms combining workflow and computer-aided translation capabilities into one application are the future. Humans can translate texts of any kind, rank the translation for accuracy and provide final edits, all via a browser from anywhere in the world. Machine translation will capture the translated texts and then suggest a possible translation when the words or phrases appear again, thus reducing the overall time and effort required for translation. No overhead for administrative activities, no duplication of work.<br />Anyway, alongside with platform management, collaborative models will still require resources for team management, quality management and intelligent work assignment, definitely not the same as intended in the industry as vendor and project management.<br />For its intrinsic scalability, cloud translation could also help redefine the business model of an entire industry, which is now visibly obsolete, allowing LSP’s to find themselves a size that fits.<br />In the years immediately ahead, the survival of the translation industry will be played around linguistic data (corpora, translation memories, glossaries) and on the ability to deal with it. Today the focus is on compatibility and interoperability of formats and platforms: when they are fully achieved, tools will be unimportant, one will equal another.<br />Right now, online work environments offer both simplicity and completeness, bringing work tools, business administration, collaboration, and other resources together into one easy-to-learn, easy-to-use web interface. To take full advantage of them, LSP’s must build specific capabilities, and possibly applications within the platform.<br />At the same time, LSP’s should not forget King Gillette’s lesson on marketing. It took two decades for the disposable-blade safety razor to take off, and Gillette tried every marketing gimmick he could think of. Eventually, he decided to sell cheaply to partners who would give away the razors, which were useless by themselves, to create demand for disposable blades and make its real profit from the high margin on the blades. What is your razor and what are your blades?<br />On the heels of the dot-com bust in 2000, innovators realized that the future of the Web was social. Sites such as Napster (1999) for music sharing, Blogger (1999) for hosting blogs, and AOL’s instant messenger (1997) began paving the way for the interactive Internet. Web 2.0, however, debuted in our lexicon only in 2004 at the O’Reilly Media conference.<br />Today, the interactive Web is a reality, and social media is more than social networking sites like Facebook. It includes a whole network of sites and services where users interact with one another, accounting for 10% of all Internet time.<br />Social media is all about interaction, and this has radically changed even the approach to information that can no longer only be provided as downloadable, static wording.<br />This approach is unstoppably leading to parceling, and to the final affirmation of microtasking. Here lies the reason for crowdsourcing. Collaborative platforms allow all members to have an overview of a project, even when they are knowledgeable in and getting involved with one or a few portions of it.<br />The emergence of new applications for MT is raising awareness that language services can generate revenue, and many buyers are experimenting with MT, but the plethora of variables involved in channeling content through the MT pipeline and customizing it has a negative impact. On the other hand, service providers are using MT to greater productivity, but wonder about the best cost model.<br />Despite a certain interest in inventing new “value-based” cost metrics, there is a strong tendency to stay with the word as the industry unit. Mainly because workers still need to be paid in a transparent way.<br />New business and pricing models should be devised based on efficiency in translation delivery, since efficiency is now more important for many customers than perfect quality or cost.<br />If post-editing does become a marketable service, we shall need metrics that accurately predict the post-editing effort for a given document. And it will be necessary to design workflows that factor in post-editing right from the start, rather than fitting it in as an after thought as many do today.<br />The main issue is asymmetry of information. Providers have a strong financial incentive to pass all services off as “good”, especially basic services. This makes it difficult to select a vendor to buy from for good at a fair price. The result is that buyers will only pay as fair price for the cheapest, to reduce the risk of overpaying, and high-quality products tend to be pushed out of the market, because there is no good way to establish that they really are worth more.<br />Therefore, the more efficient you become, the less effective you get, i.e. when you try to go on the cheap, you will stop selling, or the less you invest in your non-tangible services, the fewer sales you will get.<br />The music industry is a perfect example of how an entire industry can change without changing the intrinsic nature of the basic product. All changes have been revolving around the method of delivery, especially over the last thirty years. In 1980, vinyl was still the king; ten years later cassettes and CD’s were equal in market share; in 2000, CD’s outpaced by far all other media; in 2010, downloading equaled the sum of all other media, but the product is the same as ever: music.<br />In 1993, fluid milk processors in California agreed to allocate 3-cents of each gallon sold to fund efforts to promote the consumption of milk through marketing, advertising, promotion and public relations.<br />Got Milk? is one of the most famous commodity brand campaigns in the United States, and now a powerful property. Items with the “Got Milk?” logo printed on them became popular. It has been licensed on a range of consumer goods including Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels, baby and teen apparel, kitchen items (baby bibs, aprons, and dish towels), outdoor ads along high-traffic commuter routes, television spots, billboards, bus stops, and decals on grocery store floors.<br />Spam canned luncheon meat has not achieved the same results, as the term spam has been associated to an undesired excessive amount. And yet Spam captured a large slice of the British market within lower economic classes and became a byword among British children of the 1960s for low-grade fodder due to its commonality, monotonous taste and cheap price.<br />