It's easy to blame the state of the localization industry on the economy, September 11th, and/or the traditional ignorance and insularity of American business. Those are no doubt contributing factors, but the causes of our industry's weakness are much more fundamental. The industry is a victim of its own failure to create a sense of urgency or widely perceived value. There are a select few—you, dear Reader, among them—who understand the scope of the problem and the size of the opportunities, but for the most part these are industry cognoscenti who spend a good deal of time wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth. Why, oh why, isn't localization central to corporate strategy?