Since LISA's restructuring in the beginning of 2001, we have worked hard to position the GILT industry amongst an increasing number of vertical business sectors. The association has not only held its own but prospered this past year. John Egan, the LISA Financial Supervisory member reported: "LISA enters 2003 financially stronger and well-positioned to meet the needs of its members and to spearhead the GILT standards movement in technology and business processes." However this would not be true if not for the tremendous efforts of our members. It is through their support that we continue to survive the world's tough economic climate. Only through their shared experience will other sectors learn more about operating successfully in international markets. We have learned that to be effective at promoting this industry – we all have to work together!

Summarizing the 2002 General Assembly meeting, Bill Sullivan, the LISA Strategic Supervisory member stated, "The real value of LISA lies in its influence and ability to affect and lead needed changes within the GILT industry. By promoting the industry, LISA promotes its members' companies." LISA will continue on this goal into the New Year by building on its reputation and concentrating its efforts towards serving as a nexus for the industry where all sectors can join together to develop, discuss and implement standards and best practices for the industry. LISA will continue to serve as the bridge between customers, services and language technology developers and the standards that guide them.

The association has gained 70 new LISA members within the last year, and small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) currently represent the largest percentage of the association's membership. According to Kim Harris, LISA's SME advisor, "SMEs are the hidden force behind the industry. LISA enables single language vendors to broadcast our value to a wide group of businesses and newcomers to our industry". To reflect this growing sector, LISA has also been working with TermNet through their partnering with the European Union for the eTTEC - European Training Tools for eContent Start Ups and SME's Expansion. The eTTEC project offers an excellent opportunity for SMEs and SLVs (Single Language Vendors) to become a "best practice candidates" for the GILT Industry. The objective of the eTTEC project is to identify cross-border Critical Success Factors for the eContent industry by featuring case studies showing companies that have been successful in developing eContent ventures in a multi-cultural and multilingual context. Contact Gabrielle Sauberer at TermNet (gsauberer@termnet.at).

In spite of heightened security procedures at airline check-ins, longer VISA applications, and company imposed travel restrictions on employees - LISA held three successful events in 2002 in Washington DC, Heidelberg, and Shanghai – with a total of over 600 participants representing 36 countries. With the support of the hosts and sponsors of these events, LISA has been able to demonstrate its commitment to representing every market in the world.

The LISA Newsletter, The Globalization Insider, has also matured tremendously in the past year. Led by the SMP Marketing publishing team comprised of Andrew Joscelyne, Minako O'Hagan, Pierre Cadieux, and Arle Lommel, the newsletter improved its form, content and distribution. From a quarterly PDF file publication sent to only members and subscribers (about 1000 readers), to an up-to-date bi-weekly HTML distribution that is read by over 12,500 industry professionals, this dynamic team has raised the bar for GILT industry publications. Now the LISA newsletter is a regular source of information for a much wider scope of international business professionals, while still offering premium content to our members. This year the newsletter has also gained a Global Business Editor, Rebecca Ray, who will bring a broader coverage of how international business strategies are being deployed.

One way in which the association is moving closer to this goal is through the LISA SIGS. The diligence of such members as Daniel Grasmick of SAP, Kara Warburton of IBM, and Yves Savourel of RWS Group, among others, has yielded some pioneering work within the OSCAR and Terminology SIGs. As a result, a certification process is finally in place for TMX. It is through these SIGs that LISA is able to communicate to those outside of the GILT industry how standards are crucial to efficient. As Brian Briggs of SDL International and the OSCAR SIG said, "Accepting standards is like breathing air... how can you refute the value?" Once again the path to an industry-wide adoption of these terminology standards, lies in LISA's continued dedication to building relationships with other standards bodies such as OASIS, Unicode, W3C, the ATA and other standards and best practice professional associations.

Underpinning all of these efforts is LISA's growing emphasis on education and outreach through LEIT (LISA Education Initiative Taskforce). University memberships in LISA are increasing and a soon-to-be released major update to the LEIT site promises to provide greater usability and benefits to educational users of LISA's resources.

We look forward to seeing all of you in Foster City, California from March 3-6 for the LISA Global Strategies Summit, UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS: It's not about technology - it's about what customers want to achieve! We have a great line-up of customers, language technology users and industry thought leaders. We hope you can attend.

Sincerely,

Mike Anobile
LISA Managing Director