Alison Rowles will be heading a large part of our marketing effort. She is forming a private company, licensed by LISA, to use its name to grow membership and industry awareness. Her recent event, the LISA Globalization Seminar in Washington, D.C., will be integrated into other conferences and public relations programs.

Alison’s company will help publicize the concept of localization—and its commercial role in enterprise globalization. This type of activity will provide the means for members and companies new to localization to work together on local issues. It will also help us to attract membership from groups outside the traditional software sector, increase the opportunity for local meetings to address specific language or regional localization topics, create more Special Interest Groups, and raise awareness of LISA’s accomplishments.

To leverage a stronger marketing base for the association, I would like work with members who are interested in forming Think Tanks in order to focus on the following areas: Membership Growth, Forum and Workshop Programs and Special Interest Groups. These three areas alone will help us increase visibility and membership while concentrating on the business issues that are driving this industry.

Our LISA Forum 2000 in Washington D.C. forum, hosted by Welocalize.com, IBM, J&A International and TRADOS was the largest localization event ever, with 319 participants. We used this opportunity to take an informal poll of members and attendees regarding the direction of the association and what we can to do to better respond to the needs of our growing industry.

E. Smith Yewel, CEO of Welocalize.com answered with the following letter, which we are reprinting here in order to generate even more member feedback. Let me know what you think of his ideas and what else you would recommend as we work on positioning LISA at the forefront of the multilingual millennium.

Sincerely,

Mike Anobile
LISA Managing Director

Letter to the Editor:

The Internet has necessitated all industries to rethink the way they do business. As a result, the associations supporting these industries must also change.

LISA is now at a crossroads, and a new LISA business model is essential for LISA to meet the needs of new businesses. LISA has the opportunity to become the association which represents one of the most important trends in business—globalization; but we must act swiftly.

Perhaps our biggest need is to get new businesses to join LISA. We need larger ranks in order to generate new ideas, to create heightened awareness of our industry and to take advantage of the benefits size offers in terms of effecting policy that serves the membership as a whole.

Our ranks are actually declining at present, and an urgent call to action is necessary in order to maintain an association which meets the needs of our industry in addition to acting as that industry’s voice.

What should the new LISA look like? Here are 5 suggestions:

1. Change LISA’s mandate to create greater flexibility and reflect a greater emphasis on new Internet business model trends and demands.
2. Change LISA’s marketing capability and increase the marketing budget to create greater marketing flexibility.
3. Change the forum structure to accommodate more forums during the year and more focused content in each forum.
4. Change the membership fee structure to make it more affordable for more companies to join.
5. Change the name to reflect the new positioning of LISA at the crossroads of Globalization (e.g., the SPA recently changed its name to SIIA).

These are just a few general ideas. If you have additional recommendations, I suggest you send them to LISA right away.

We have the opportunity to improve an already excellent association, but this association must evolve in order to meet our changing needs.

Get involved—the time is now!

E. Smith Yewell
DEO/President, Welocalize.com