ICD in the Milwaukee Business Journal

Recently, Catherine Deschamps-Potter, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and one of the founders of ICD, was profiled in the Milwaukee Business Journal.


She talked about how trade agreements, international politics and the worldwide economic recession have wrought huge changes to the global marketplace in the last 20 years, and how one thing has remained clear throughout: The U.S. economy will grow increasingly dependent on the global economy in years to come. This outlines the basic importance of Translation Service Providers.

Facebook's Human Translation

Facebook introduced non-English languages for the first time in January 2008. Now about 70 percent of Facebook's 300 million users are outside of the United States. Many bloggers and tech writers think Facebook's method of human translation seems promising as it combines real people behind the scenes as opposed to machine translation.

Basically, users suggest translated phrases and vote on translations that others have submitted. These crowd-sourced edits, which work sort of like Wikipedia make Facebook's translation service smarter over time. Go to Facebook's translation page to check it out or to participate.

More than 65 languages function on Facebook now, according to Facebook's statistics. At least another 30 languages are in the works, meaning Facebook needs help working out the kinks on those languages before they're put to use.

What's new? Facebook announced in a blog post on September 30 that the social network has made its crowd-sourced translation technology available to other sites on the Web. The update allows sites to install a translation gadget on their sites through Facebook Connect, a service that lets Facebook users sign in on other Web pages.

Facebook also added some new languages, including Latin and "Pirate," which translates the Facebooky word "share" as "blabber t'yer mates!"

People are good at knowing idioms and slang, so Facebook tends to get these right, but there are limited numbers of multi-lingual volunteers who want to spend time helping Facebook translate things. Also, Facebook's site is available in many languages, but its human translators don't touch wall posts, photo comments and other user-submitted items, which is a big con if you want to have friends who don't share a common language with you.

Source: CNN.com

Corporate Wisconsin Article

The blog is not dead. I've just been busy. I apologize for the lack of posts last month. To kick things off, Catherine wrote an article for Corporate Wisconsin. You can read it here. It's actually on the main page of their website under the "My View" column. It's an interesting article that provides some ideas on the current export climate for businesses.

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.

ICD Christmas Party & Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year Readers. I promise to commit more time to the blog this year. Anyway, ICD had it's annual Christmas party/lunch at The Water Buffalo in Milwaukee. The restaurant was awesome and it was fun to relax and talk with everyone. We had a wacky waiter and Madeline got everyone to try a bottle of Pierre Jacques beer, from Goose Island Brewery. Apparently it had 10% alcohol content, and it was kinda sweet tasting. Besides that I would highly recommend trying The Water Buffalo, the prices are reasonable and the food is excellent.

2008 was a good year for ICD, we grew a little with the addition of Cheryl and Madeline. I got to know Catherine and Dany better and understand the business a little better too. Translation and localization just keeps growing, and the development of new industries and technologies will continue to impact the translation world. Here's to another great year. Welcome 2009.

ICD on Facebook

ICD has a Facebook page now. We are trying to diversify our internet presence. Facebook is a large social network and we hope that you, the reader will join our Facebook page and hopefully it will get our name out. Facebook is a great tool to advertise a business and it allows interaction between fans who are interested in our company and us. You can post questions on the "wall" and post ideas or notes.

So, if you have a Facebook account, please join our Facebook page and help get the word out about our company and services, and hopefully we can keep the world connected through translation and localization.

Esprit d'ICD and New Tag Line

Things are really busy at ICD. I had a business trip planned with Catherine, but Ike beat us to the punch. Well, an evolution has taken place at ICD. Our Fall 2008 newsletter is out, and our new tag line takes center stage. The new tag line is actually the title of this blog without the no. 2, "Translate to Evolve". This tag line demonstrates ICD's belief in assisting companies with their translation needs as they move forward and attempt to capture international markets. Your business cannot evolve and grow if you don't take risks and move into new markets. The first step is getting your marketing collateral translated so your presence is known in these new markets.

The new tag line also highlights ICD's evolution as we grow and continue to expand our client base. ICD's philosophy of providing quality translations and superior service is constantly evolving. We are developing and enhancing our techniques, and exploring new software developments in the translation and localization industry. If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, just email: info@icdtranslation.com