Who owns this Localization Project?
It's almost time to ship. Do you know who's running your localization project?
Recently I met with a technology company whose Web-based service is already in seven languages. Non-US revenues are a high percentage of their total, and even though their product is available in both free and paid versions, most customers overseas pay. They take their overseas markets seriously, to the extent that they have an International Product Manager (IPM).
They contacted me about an upcoming push into Asia, and had me attend their weekly engineering meeting. Everyone in the room and on the conference bridge (probably 25 people in total) introduced him/herself, and after the last introduction I paused and said, "Nice to meet you all. Now, where is the localization manager?"
They don't have one, of course, though the IPM performs most of those duties. I rubbed my hands mentally and thought I heard a cash register ringing, until I remembered that they were live in seven languages and doing quite well without a localization manager, thank you very much.
How do they do it?
A lot of the localization expertise resides in the teams, so they told me. Documentation, Web team, Engineering, QA, and Release Engineering all have rather deep, in-group experience that shows in the localized products. That, however, doesn't explain how it all comes together at showtime.
Can you do it without a localization project manager? If so, does that mean that you've done things so masterfully that localization is completely mainstreamed in your organization?
Must be nice...
Recently I met with a technology company whose Web-based service is already in seven languages. Non-US revenues are a high percentage of their total, and even though their product is available in both free and paid versions, most customers overseas pay. They take their overseas markets seriously, to the extent that they have an International Product Manager (IPM).
They contacted me about an upcoming push into Asia, and had me attend their weekly engineering meeting. Everyone in the room and on the conference bridge (probably 25 people in total) introduced him/herself, and after the last introduction I paused and said, "Nice to meet you all. Now, where is the localization manager?"
They don't have one, of course, though the IPM performs most of those duties. I rubbed my hands mentally and thought I heard a cash register ringing, until I remembered that they were live in seven languages and doing quite well without a localization manager, thank you very much.
How do they do it?
A lot of the localization expertise resides in the teams, so they told me. Documentation, Web team, Engineering, QA, and Release Engineering all have rather deep, in-group experience that shows in the localized products. That, however, doesn't explain how it all comes together at showtime.
Can you do it without a localization project manager? If so, does that mean that you've done things so masterfully that localization is completely mainstreamed in your organization?
Must be nice...
Labels: effect of localization, international product manager, localization staff, localization team
posted by John White, Localization Guy at
08:04
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