Dear LISA Members and Industry Professionals,

LISA is now following her good example and beginning only her second transformation. The first was the transition from the INK Roundtable (a private industry club) in 1990 to an IT industry wide association representing both the supply and demand sides of the business in 1992.

This year, following on the heels of a majority vote to restructure its mandate last year, LISA embarks on another renaissance as she stretches in two directions. On one side, LISA membership will be expanded to reach new groups of professionals, specialists from the growing ranks of independent suppliers and experts in the multilingual information processing business sector. This new member category will target Industry Professionalslike translators,engineers, project managers, website designers, management consultants and the many specialists in vertical market sectors whose work centers on GIL tasks. LISA will also be reaching out to educators, students and researchers in the growing internet and international business education environments. On the other side LISA is reaching, through its marketing and press programs, into the Boardrooms of multi-national companies and organizations just going global, as well as into MBA schools and to their candidates, who will be responsible for the true, very positive globalization of the planet in years to come.

These Outreach Programs will be initiated by LISA’s new Supervisory and Advisory Executive Committees highlighted in this issue. They will be taken forward by LISA members who have the foresight and knowledge to realize that by being united, we are in the position to forge the strategy, and focus, for the international business community.

Programs already underway include a series of strategic Content Partnering initiatives developed to include LISA content and member presentations in other organization’s events such as SIIA, DCI, IWIPS, AIIM, among others. Under the leadership of Executive Committee Advisor Smith Yewell, President of Welocalize.com, these are being managed by our licensed Public Affairs group—Robert Brandon and Associates in Washington D.C. Additionally, in conjunction with SMP Marketing, we are developing greater links to business periodicals including Global Business International, eStrategy International, AIIM, and DASAR publications for additional advertorials, supplements and advertising opportunities, each of which are discounted to LISA companies.

We will shortly be circulating a questionnaire to LISA members asking for information and contacts with other associations, and vertical market publications, where we can gain further exposure and provide additional opportunities to members.

As we roll-out the new membership programs, we will ask for your ideas and support in reaching this growing body of GIL industry specialists and service providers, who should be offered the opportunity to benefit from the Best Practices and Standards that LISA members have defined and created in the past decade.

By reinventing the Association to meet the needs of the new consumers of our products, programs and services, we can insure the growth and longevity of what can become a dynasty in the global business sector!

I look forward to working with you all to meet this long-term objective.

Sincerely,

Mike Anobile
LISA Managing Director

P.S. - Special thanks to John and Margo Freivalds, and Arle Lommel for the extra effort they put into this issue. we all agree how much we miss Deborah Fry!