TILP Breakfast Meeting and Roundtable 3/03


Thursday, 16 October 2003, 07:00 - 08:30 am
Bell Harbour International Conference Centre - Seattle (Washington, USA)

Localisation of eContent and web sites including cross-cultural aspects

The ELECT expert workshop on the localisation of digital content took place during the Localization World Conference, in cooperation with The Institute of Localisation Professionals (TILP). 

27 localisation experts from different countries attended the workshop. Participants had different backgrounds, from commercial to academic, from technical to applied. The session was introduced by a number of brief position statements:

Pedro Gómez, Director Business Solutions, Bowne Global Solutions, on Localisation Technology

Teddy Bengtsson, CEO, Idea Factory Languages Inc., on the Business case for Localisation

Nancy A. Locke, Université de Montréal, on Career Development and Certification

Keiran Dunne, Kent State University, on Terminology and Language Resources

Following these position statements, a discussion took place where a number of contributors highlighted the fact that the localisation industry is maturing and many localisation tasks are now well understood and can be approached using standard processes and technologies.

At the same time, forward looking research and development groups are working on future technologies, for example in standardised translation web services and standard localisation file formats.

Business aspects of localisation are also better understood. Industry-wide groups are developing standard metrics to measure the costs of localisation with a view to producing a model for the calculation of return of investment in localisation.

A more detailed report of this workshop will be made available shortly.