In the Globalization, Internationalization, Localization and Translation (GILT) industry, we use globalization with a very specific meaning (usually to mean the process of adapting products for international marketing and distribution, including all of the business decisions needed to reach those markets). However, most of world doesn’t understand globalization in the same way. If you ask the “average person on the street” what “globalization” means, you’ll probably hear about sweat-shops, exploitation, slave labor, McDonalds and Coca-Cola, imperialism, colonialization, protests against the WTO, GATT (pick your favorite acronym), etc., etc. If you ask this same average person if “globalization” is a good thing, you’ll probably get a solid no, even though most of them probably would have no objection to what we do under the rubric of globalization. While there are die-hard opponents of globalization who would oppose even what we do (for ideological or political reasons), most of the opposition to globalization refers to the consequences of economic globalization.

What this means is that we face an uphill battle to overcome the negative understanding of the term globalization. We are in a defensive posture from the beginning, but we really don’t have an alternative term to use that adequately conveys what we do. To overcome the negative aspects of the term globalization we have to show another view of globalization — we have to show why what we do is not only moral, but also beneficial for those typically seen as the victims of globalization (as it is commonly understood). Our burden is to disprove the “sweat-shop” view of globalization. To do this, we need to be able to point to instances in which globalization has benefitted the disadvantaged of the world.

In my last editorial for the Globalization Insider, I reported on the Gyandoot project, a novel solution to some of the problems of the Digital Divide, the differential access to the benefits of computing technology around the world. The Digital Divide and what to do about it are issues that defy simple answers, but as people involved in GILT, we are among those who will make a difference. We are the people who can show an opposing view of globalization that helps solve the Digital Divide, and benefits the poorest and least-advantaged people among us. While we can’t solve all the problems of economics and society that contribute to poverty and the Digital Divide, we are uniquely situated to solving our piece of the problem.

If anything, this issue of the Globalization Insider is intended to illustrate the very real accomplishments that have been made, the very real positive force of globalization as we understand it. As I mentioned in my last editorial, some of what we do in the pursuit of immediate short-term goals (entering a given market, dealing with a specific language to sell a piece of software, a toaster or a movie) can have long term effects by contributing to the infrastructure that makes future efforts possible. This is the contribution of the GILT community to the world: in pursuit of our making a living we have helped enable a better life for others, even without necessarily intending to do so. (I actually think that what we do does directly contribute to the economic and social well-being of people around the world, but I want to focus on the technical contributions we can make.)

As an example of the good work the GILT community, broadly speaking, can do, we start this issue with an interview with Victor Gaultney of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Victor is the creator of Gentium, a free, high-quality Unicode type face that covers just about any Roman or Greek character (as well as basic Cyrillic) you are likely to use in localization, plus a whole load of characters you may never need (but which someone somewhere vitally needs today to communicate using his or her language in a computing environment). While Victor’s effort may be unusually altruistic in our industry, it relies on the everyday work of the GILT community that has enabled software to use Unicode and computers to use various languages, and it represents a flowering of what I have called the “culture of localization.” Victor’s efforts are inseparable from the broader currents of globalization and would not exist except for them, but I think few would argue that his work is not beneficial — it gives people the dignity of seeing their language treated the same as English, German, Russian, Japanese, or any of the other major languages of the world.

Another beneficial aspect of globalization is that, in order for us to carry out globalization, we have to know something about the people we are globalizing for — we have to know about their language, their culture and their society, and this means that we have to engage them as human beings worthy of the same benefits and options we enjoy. This knowledge is something that the GILT community can offer to the broader world, and indeed, in the end, we are hired primarily for our knowledge of how to deal with language and culture. In this light, we present Tex Texin’s article “Which Direction Is This Language Written In?,” (premium content) which examines the impact of the direction text is written in on how to appropriately deal with the language. Only when we understand a script and how to use it can we implement appropriate systems for it and really deal with it properly. (Besides which many of us get into GILT because we like language and writing systems, and we have fun dealing with this stuff.)

(Also with the same educational ideal in mind, LISA has announced a new workshop, to be held in Washington D.C. along with the LISA Forum USA, entitled “All About Arabic.” If you’ve ever needed a concise, but immediately usable, introduction to working with Arabic, this is your chance to learn more about this widely-feared script.)

We also present an article by Ann Rockley (premium content) on implementing a content strategy. In it, Ann outlines what it takes to implement a strategy from the beginning and to keep from becoming a content horror story. As companies broaden their reach to more and more countries, and the average number of languages supported creeps up from a handful to dozens, the issue of how to control content will become more and more critical. If we are ever going to reach the less-common languages of the world in a systematic way, content management will be a vital piece of the puzzle.

As well as understanding your content needs, it is wise to understand what GILT industry trends and tools are with regard to content and global content management (GCM). Last year LISA published the Global Content Creation Survey, which quantified trends in content and global content creation among LISA members and other global business leaders. The free LISA Global Content Management Guide provides readers with an overview of the functionality needed in GCM systems, as well as detailed overviews of global function for selected GCM products, and a comparison matrix for over 100 general content management programs’ basic functionality. For a more in-depth opportunity to learn about GCM systems, you should consider attending the LISA Global Content Management Seminar, a program for users and potential users of global content management systems to be held on December 8, 2003 in Washington D.C.

Last, but certainly not least, we return to the issue of controlling terminology, in an update on LISA’s Terminology SIG that outlines the SIG’s recent successes and changes in broad awareness about the need for terminology management. Corporations are increasingly realizing that, just as politicians need to control terminology to maintain power, they also need to control it to keep costs down, increase customer satisfaction, and build market- and mind-share.