Esprit d'ICD Winter 2009

The Winter 2009 issue of ICD's newsletter is out. The newsletter features a great article on recycling electronics. As we become a greener society, I think this article gives some helpful points about the process and how you can get involved. There is also a small article on DITA. This has become a hot topic in the documentation world as companies turn to CMS technology and XML based content. Madeline Clayton, my blogger in crime is featured in the Employee Profile. Madeline's mugshot is below for Visual representation as you read her profile. You can subscribe to the newsletter by emailing: info@icdtranslation.com

Where are we headed? Integrated and Automated Translations

With technology rapidly changing and our need for instant gratification, the translation world as slowly evolved over the years to meet the demands of our fast paced life. The advent of CMS (Content Management Systems) has facilitated this process. It has allowed us to move content from one source to another with email exchanges and zipping files. However, these systems are not cheap, and smaller translations companies are finding hard to understand the integration aspect when a client says: "Can you work with our CMS?"

The complexities vary from one CMS to another, but the clients expectations are often the hardest for translation companies to meet. The integration process is usually the easiest part, if the client is willing to allow the translation company to access their CMS and "grab" approved content for translation. There are also integration technologies like "Global Link" by Translations.com that allow a "seamless" integration between Interwoven a popular CMS that is capable of dealing with translation and localization technologies and SDL Trados.

The bottom line is the amount of work and cost involved for both sides. Current FTP technology and Web based servers can create workflows that allow clients to export content form their CMS and get it to an FTP, and a notification is sent to the translation company, who then downloads the files. The translation company reverses the process for the translation (either through their CMS, or uploading files to their FTP). In this scenario most of the work is handled by the translation company. Overall, integration technologies are common palace and it's more about choosing he right fit then the integration process itself. The challenging part lies in having a editing module where clients can access the translation memory and get translated content as the create or update documentation. A simple integration/file transfer will not accommodate this process. Always test out new technologies first, most companies offer Free Trials, so it's a no brainer.

Paper Out, Websites In

During lunch today, my colleagues and I had a discussion about the end of printed materials. Will magazine printing and book publications finally come to an end? Will we stop reading printed copies of newspapers? Well, almost every publication has an online subscription, and most major news organizations have reports and videos on the web. It's a natural progression from print media to online reading or viewing. I used to get subscriptions for auto magazines (yes, I'm a big car geek), but now I just read blogs and edmunds.com for the latest news. Occasionally, I would print an article or two if I wanted to read it at the gym, or if I have to wait in line at the DMV (hell on earth). I think it's safe to say that printed publications may come to an end in the near future, but what does that mean for translated content?

Many websites are translated, and most marketing content that appears on the web is translated. As the print media slowly dies off, the shift to web based formats will see steady birth rate. This will change the game for translation companies as they have to adapt to on-demand or live translations as content gets updated frequently, and there is no boundary to the 24 hour news cycle. Some companies have employed machine translations that are linked to an existing term base to generate professionally translated terms and ensure a certain level of consistency. It may work for smaller volumes of non-scientific or non-mechanical content, but the lack of a human translator in those fields will cause major terminology errors. The resulting effect will devastate a clients reputation. The move to CMS and database driven websites eases the translation and localization process, but a 24hour on-call human translator is still a few years away. The hybrid alternative is having a machine translation do most of the work, and a translator or editor review and edit the content. This is a little time consuming, but it will have a better result than purely relying on machine translations.

Only time will tell how far we move away from print media, and how much of the internet will consume us all. In the mean time, translation companies are starting to adopt online management tools to handle content. Server based technology has come along way with XML content and DITA constantly evolving, we might have a shot at a purely online world.

The Update Nightmare

Every Technical Communicator knows this tale. The horrors of updating translations of manuals, or updating content on a website. Is there too much content that I might get charged full prices? Maybe there's recycled content in the memory? Should I just send the updated text and not the whole manual? These are the questions facing Technical Communicators as they decide what they want translated for their updated content. The job isn't any simpler for Project Managers at translation companies. We have to see how much content is in the memory, and figure out the best way to get the content translated and placed back into the document, if required without it costing our client an arm and a leg.

You have some options for waking up from this nightmare. You can build a glossary of terms that you frequently use in your manuals. Then get that glossary translated. If your content is constantly updated, those terms will probably remain the same and appear again, and now those terms are already translated. For websites, if you use a CMS or database driven website, you can ask your translation company to provide you with an authoring tool that links the memory or glossary file with your server (you may have to pay for the licensing, and it all depends on the compatibility of your CMS and the translation companies TMS). This authoring tool will enable you to access the memory and translated glossary as you write the updates. Now you can choose translated phrases or terms, and incorporate it instead of writing completely new phrases that you have to get translated. These options allow you to maximize your translations and ensure consistency on your website's updates.