This session is designed to familiarize attendees with LISA: its goals, management structure and operating objectives. The association's activities, member involvement and expectations will be outlined, followed by a question and answer period aimed at identifying how LISA can be more responsive to the industry's needs.

Managing content on a web portal for multiple clients and locales requires a well-defined workflow and a set of adaptative processes. It also means aggregating and integrating a number of content sources, categories and layers to generate a compelling user experience and the expected revenues. All of these challenges must be addressed through a comprehensive strategy to merge content and technology, as well as to cover complex content lifecycles.

Bruno focuses on (1) defining content strategy components, processes and objectives, (2) initiating and developing a content framework, (3) the importance of adaptative translation and localization processes, (4) the key performance indicators and ROI of portal content, and (5) implementing a content management solution to deliver content on a local, regional and global basis.

Managing language processing at a global financial services company is challengin, but Silvia’s message is clear: Process-oriented translation technology linked to enterprise terminology management based on user's consensus pays off! Consistent (and consistently used) corporate language plays a pivotal role in cost justifying and delivering timely and successful communications internally and to customers.

Silvia's presentation will help you understand how to:

• Achieve terminology consistency resulting in higher translation quality
• Contribute to a consensus-based corporate language
• Promote awareness of terminology’s added value especially as a means of achieving more efficiency in multilingual document production
• Create and maintain a corporate knowledge repository (terminology database) fulfilling specific criteria to be made available to all
• Ensure consistent and standardised terminology processing
• Involve future users of the repository by letting them assess its advantages

The panel covers legal implications of cross-border communications and services. It discusses how to manage liability and intellectual property issues in today’s international business environment. It addresses questions concerning consumer protection, international marketing, branding and cross-border communications.

While the focus in the GILT industry has been on managing key technical and product terms, there is now renewed interest in how the wider range of lexical resources can be leveraged, such as named entities, general lexicons, and domain dictionaries. What role do they play in translation, information management, and localization productivity? Are there benefits to be gained in extended areas such as machine translation, document management and information retrieval? IBM has recently considered these issues and is stepping up to the challenge.

Claude shares an example of how regulations and localization interact, with legislation as one of many localization parameters. He discusses how regulations can have a dramatic impact on marketing strategies and all operational processes supporting such strategies. He also explains how well-integrated GILT processes can make the difference between costly and uncontrolled compliance vs. sustainable, business-optimized compliance.

The ultimate goal of every international website is to achieve a steady stream of relevant, international traffic that leads to more revenue. Today, search engines are by far the best way to achieve this goal. Next to email, using search engines is now the second most popular activity on the Internet. Approximately 90% of all Internet users worldwide use search engines to find what they’re looking for on the Internet. (Source: NFO/Research) According to Forrester Research, search engine marketing in Europe alone is expected to grow from $1.74 billion (USD) in 2005 to $3.73 billion (USD) by 2010. This represents a growth rate much faster than that of the United States, which is already spending over $4 billion (USD) per year on search engine marketing. (Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers)

This presentation will highlight the inseparable connection between localization and search engine marketing, especially as it relates to choosing high ROI terminology during the translation process. Choosing proper terminology is no longer purely a linguistic issue. It is a highly valuable marketing tool that will enable search engines to properly index and rank international websites for language or country-specific searches, thus bringing a continuous flow of highly qualified traffic to each localized website.

During this presentation localization service providers will learn how to generate more revenue by providing additional value to their website clients. Localization clients will learn how to generate more revenue from each localized website and thereby increase the ROI of their localization budgets.

Andrzej presents all localization-related standards, such as TMX, TBX, SRX, XLIFF, TWS, GMX, DITA, OLIF, xml:tm, Unicode, etc. With so many standards, it is easy to lose the overall picture of how all of these standards can be integrated together, so Andrzej shows how they can be used together to improve the localization process.

In most organizations today, as the product range and the scope of localization increase, executives become alarmed about the rising cost of localization. The return on investment (ROI) for localizing a product or service remains a key challenge for many localization managers. When a former International Product Development director at Microsoft published that their revenues from localized products had exceeded $5 billion, many companies attempted to justify their localization budgets by measuring international sales as a function of localization. It’s not that easy.

Eric and Arnaud share a common goal: validating in their respective companies that localization contributes to global revenues. Their discussion session uses cases and examples to show the challenges and issues associated with the ROI of localized and globalized products. They are careful to note the differences between localization costs, reduced costs due to localization, and the added value in terms of real revenues. A key aspect of this discussion will be to value both from an internal as well as from a customer's point of view.

Tracing and tracking translation errors and shortcomings is not only an important condition for delivering high-quality products to the customer, but is also an efficient way of evaluating vendors’ performances. Yamagata Europe, having identified the need to detect automatically measurable errors or shortcomings in translations, developed QA Distiller. This fully automated tool processes bilingual files, detects translation mistakes, and enables the user to correct the reported mistakes on the spot. This innovation leads the GILT industry towards a new stage in the perception of translation quality assurance. A successful solution has finally been found to automate and objectify the efforts involved in checking and controlling technical translations. The latest release of the software contains a number of useful new features, such as additional checks, the implementation of regular expressions to build exceptions lists, a search function and a spellchecker.

Mario will provide a general overview of Synthema’s CAT tool development, followed by a more detailed overview of its Terminology Wizard. He covers (1) automatic detection and extraction of relevant terminology from corpora, based on specific morpho-syntactic criteria; (2) checking against existing glossaries; (3) automatically suggested translations for extracted terms; and (4) an import/export feature, fully compatible with the most popular CAT tool formats. He closes with a summary of the possible uses of the tool for managing corporate-specific terminology.

Most companies take care of their Corporate Identity but neglect Corporate Language. The presentation outlines the value of terminology databases as a key tool to manage Corporate Language and, not least, to cut costs related to multilingual communication. The most important reasons for managing actively company-specific terminology are explained in this Resource Channel. Building terminology databases is a complex process, therefore detailed planning is crucial, especially in the initial phase. Potential pitfalls and professional approaches to avoid them are presented.

Customers require a clear set of guidelines with which they can assess potential localization partners. Vendors are looking for a means of “raising the bar” so that their services can be effectively measured according to customer requirements, budgets, delivery expectations and technical support. The panel will outline a Phased Approach to Corporate Accreditation addressing (1) Professional competencies, (2) Process standards, and (3) Business ethics.

At the LISA Forum USA earlier this year, we learned that by region and by customer, professional certification is well-established for translators, terminologists, interpreters and instructors of English and French as a Second Language in Canada. However, no accreditation system exists for translation or localization companies, nor for language schools. The panelists will propose an industry call to action: A three-phase model defining a common set of guidelines to manage their service partners and deliverables.

After a first time experience in 2001 with a CMS system implementation that failed, Scriptware now returns with a whole new perspective. Based on the proven X-Hive DB and DOCATO CMS system, the company now offers a fully web-hosted (ASP), multilingual CMS solution. Integrated with XML-Intl. translation technology, this solution offers complete functionality and more, simply by using an internet connection. For just a monthly fee, users worldwide can now enjoy CMS benefits without the investment in implementation or maintenance. An integrated author memory, web translation and TM access, standard or customized publications at the push of a button, are just a few highlights of the CMS solution that is shown.

This session presents some of the key issues that emerge when implementing a Terminology Management System (TMS) in a large multinational company. In this real-life case you will see some of the requirements and challenges and can see how terminology management becomes more indispensable over time.

How will the localization process be affected when organizations move their authoring to a XML- and topic-based environment? How will localization respond to the need to begin translating topics early in the information-development life cycle? What if information-development management decides to send only new and changed topics for translation? The new DITA standard, approved in early 2005 by the members of OASIS, promises to change the way content is delivered to the users and to the localization process.

Andrzej concentrates on future directions for translation technology. The internet and emerging localization industry standards are creating the foundation for an exciting future for the industry, leading to reduced costs and increased quality. In addition, advances in linguistic technology and theory are bringing us closer to the illusive goal of a totally automated translation environment. Some of the advances are enabled by seemingly unrelated standards, which used together form a powerful combination of technologies. Andrzej uses this opportunity to prepare Forum attendees for an exciting future.

Pierre focuses on the complexity of writing systems, cultural diversity and the way both of these impact software and web sites. He outlines the issues that programmers and webmasters face when authoring (or most often modifying) programs with localization in mind.

When software is developed for international markets, special emphasis must be placed on all downstream activities related to localization and translation. Eva and Regine describe the approach to information development and software localization currently in use at Rockwell Automation/Propack Data. They (1) outline the upstream measures essential for cost- and time-efficient localization, (2) point out potential pitfalls in the process, and (3) provide examples and numbers to demonstrate the improvements that can be achieved.

Is it really necessary to constantly remind content creators about the importance of consistency, clarity, terminology and translatability? After all, if they can speak the language, surely they can write it, too! But in today's global market, is it really enough to have someone (usually a monolingual writer) create information and send it off for translation? Kara and Dino share experiences about globalizing material that was originally created for a local market, and discuss problems in source materials, strategies for educating content creators, and success stories for developing content for global markets.

Since SDL announced its intent to acquire TRADOS, industry pundits have disagreed the debate whether or the merger will lead to more innovative products, particularly in the Translation Memory and Workflow domains.

Sophie reviews how an integrated approach to global information management (from authoring to content management to publishing) can deliver significant benefits. She examines some of the options for the authoring process, along with a demonstration of SDLAuthorAssistant.

Based on a case study of Canon, Dmitry will describe the pitfalls to avoid when localizing into the major languages used in the former USSR.

Angela provides a client review of a TRADOS Workbench implementation, including (1) an overview of Credit Swiss’ language services, (2) its evolution and use of TRADOS Workbench (file-based technology vs. client/server technology), (3) the bank’s motivation and financial considerations for introducing a new version, and (4) a comparison of results. She will assess Workbench on the basis of the translator's perspective, (2) the administrator's perspective and (3) the potential for improvement in future client/server versions.

Maria discusses why SEED localized its web site into Arabic, the difficulties it faced during arabization and how it resolved them with its localization partner. She also highlights the benefits gained. the feedback received and SEED’s plans for the future. Dareen shares iHorizons’ experience with SEED as a localization partner and what it learned from arabizing such a rich web site. She also describes the cultural challenges and how its translators conveyed SEED’s meaning and context through Arabic culture.

Each year, Autodesk produces tens of thousands of pages of printed manuals and online help, which are translated in up to twenty languages. The company’s content creation and translation processes followed the industry’s de facto standards until 2003, when the decision was taken to integrate the product documentation processes into one single CMS. The XML-based system went into production in 2004 and now spans the content lifecycle, from authoring through translation to publishing. Mirko highlights some key findings after one full year of production.

This session is for anyone who believes that how a company is perceived - above and beyond the merits of what it actually offers - is a critically important component of business success. The Panel will explore the overall purpose and impact of Branding, and then open a discussion on how it can help companies in today's localization industry achieve a stronger, more accurate perception of value.

Client review is a vital part of the translation process, however organisations often struggle to find a satisfactory process. thebigword is now introducing SmartReview, its latest innovative solution designed to optimise the review cycle. Simon and Per will discuss how the easy-to-use technology improves accuracy and productivity, and can eradicate the familiar problems associated with the review process.

Clients and technology developers continue to debate the implementation, cost, quality and multiple language production issues confronting a unified content strategy. What is feasible today? What technologies are working, and how are they being applied? What application areas are best suited to which technologies? How are they being integrated into workflow technologies? What are the stumbling blocks? Are they being resolved? How effective are tools for controlled authoring, terminology management, translation memory and machine translation? How are these solutions most efficiently applied to applications such as marketing communications, internet support and technical documentation for regulatory and legal groups? Panelists represent the unique views of clients, technology users and developers - all experts at creating and implementing content for re-use within an organization at a global level.