The largest language service provider in the Nordic region, Semantix, has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Memsource and has become a Memsource Solution Partner. Semantix is currently integrating Memsource with their in-house system to increase operational efficiency. Memsource technology will also be used by Semantix in a bundle with their own language services and offered to their enterprise clients.

	David Canek, CEO of Memsource “It is great to have Semantix on board as a Memsource Solution Partner. This only confirms our lead as the go-to provider of cloud-based translation technology for MLVs. World’s largest translation companies have chosen Memsource”.
	Anna Kristell, Head of Translation Services at Semantix “We have worked with Memsource for quite some time and this strategic partnership will further strengthen our relationship. Together with Memsource, Semantix will continue to offer customers in the Nordics supreme language services combined with great technology”.

The applications developed by Semantix on top of Memsource Cloud will target improvements in the following areas:

• streamlining buyer and vendor communication;
• CMS integration;
• productivity boost for in-house translation and in-country review teams;
• terminology portals;
• language assets management for global enterprises

and many more.

The Memsource Solution Partner status is available for companies that have successfully developed their own technology on top of Memsource Cloud or have integrated Memsource with a third-party software. Semantix has subscribed to Memsource in August 2012 and soon after that they started integrating Memsource with their own in-house project management software.

Description of Memsource LSP partner program

About Semantix

Semantix is the largest language service provider in the Nordics with 12 offices in Sweden, Finland and Norway. The company has 300 employees, and a network of 7,000 professional translators, interpreters and language consultants. Semantix’ revenue in 2014 was approximately US $82 m.

About Memsource

Memsource, founded 2010 in Prague, Czech Republic, is the provider of Memsource Cloud, a leading cloud-based translation platform. Memsource Cloud supports over 50,000 users in their everyday translation needs: translation companies, corporate translation departments, and freelancers. Memsource users can translate themselves, manage outsourced translation and discover new translators and translation agencies.

ApSIC has released Xbench Connector for Memsource. It eliminates the need to manually export files from Memsource into Xbench to run QA passes with this software. Project managers who rely on Xbench for QA can save a lot of time and effort.


With the connector you can browse your Memsource projects on Xbench and can run a QA pass for all relevant files directly. If there is a problem in the text that requires editing, you can click on “Edit Source” to open the Memsource Editor right at the segment that is currently selected in ApSIC Xbench. All modifications will be automatically saved in the online document.

You select a project in Xbench and go to Memsource PM dashboard to manage it by right-clicking on the project name and selecting “manage in Memsource.com”.

If your Memsource project has several workflow steps, you can also choose the workflow step for the QA pass, and compare two workflow steps in the project tree. It is useful to assess the work of the reviewer or to make a report on how much effort it took to edit the text.

To install the connector you will need:

• A Memsource account with access to the Memsource API
• ApSIC Xbench 3.0 build 1299 or later
• Memsource Desktop Editor

Download the connector

Translation company Zelenka started using Memsource as one of the CAT/PM tools. They have published the following news item:

“We’ve added Memsource to our portfolio of CAT tools thanks to a request from one of our highly respected clients. We really like its cloud integration, its new features, and how generally user-friendly it is. It supports all the standard formats, and the best thing about it is that the the agency buys the license and can then lend it to the translators who either work online or download a simple editor. This software is especially popular abroad, even though it was developed in the Czech Republic”.

Zelenka is a family-owned regional language vendor based in Central Europe. They have been in the business for more than 25 years. Zelenka utilizes a network of over 3000 translators and technology infrastructure that comprises a selection of 6 CAT-tools including Memsource.

Memsource Cloud 4.12 is scheduled for release on Sunday, 12 July 2015 at 9:00 AM GMT. These are some of the most notable improvements:

Your Services

• We have introduced a brand new section under Setup – Your Services.
• You will be able to define your services, for example “Professional translation” or “Crowdsourcing translation”, which you will be able to use with your Instant Quote widgets, in combination with Project Templates. (Only “Professional translation” is available at the moment).
• Set your Price list to the service
• Add a workflow steps
• You can also set a Buyer, if you plan to use Instant Quote widget for one specific buyer only
• We will continue to improve this feature in our next releases.

Instant Quote Widget Redesigned

• The Instant Quote widget has been redesigned and users should find it more intuitive and simpler.
• Use the new “Your Services” feature to create IQ widget faster
• Use project template as additional information for creating projects
• It will be possible to drag&drop files directly into IQW
• Once a sender’s e-mail is verified, there will no longer be a need for the intermediary “approve” step.
• The word counts and prices are displayed before the IQ request is submitted.

Linguists MUST Change Status to Accepted before Starting to Translate

• This is an important change that will affect a lot of users and it should be well noted by all Project Managers
• For the time being, translators can start translating even if they leave the job status as New. In order to make the whole process more transparent, we have implemented the following changes:
• If a job IS NOT assigned to any linguist, then any linguist who gets access to the job can edit it. You may therefore distribute a link to the project or send mxliff files to your translators, even without assigning the files to the specific linguists.
• However, if a job IS assigned to a linguist, the linguist will only be able to open the job in a “read-only mode” and will not be able to start translating before changing the job status to “Accepted”. There are messages and links to guide the linguists to take the necessary action before starting the translation process.

File Conversion

• Improvements to New MS Word Filter
• We introduced a new filter for MS Word files in version 4.11. Based on user feedback and live experience, we have made more improvements to it.
• New option to “Import document properties”

• Friendlier Import of MS Excel files
• For Excel documents, you can now specify which columns contain which data for the translation process. Similar to what is currently available for CSVs, you can now specify the following for Excel files:
• Source text
• Target text (to be replaced with the translation)
• Context note (will be displayed in Memsource Editors as context)
• Maximum length (maximum translation length in characters)

• New import settings for iOS string format
  
• Additional features:
• use HTML subfilter
• convert to Memsource tags

• IDML filter improved
• Cross-reference definitions are now automatically imported for translation.  The definitions are imported as the first segments in bilingual Mxliff file.
• Bilingual XML filter improved
• New options added:
• Option “Segment bilingual XML” is now available.
• There was a slight change in the import XPATH settings. The opening slash character is no longer needed (see tooltip at Import Settings)

Mobile Friendly

• Memsource Cloud is now made even more mobile friendly
•  Memsource Cloud will look better on 5″ screens

New QA Check

• New QA check added: “Newer version in a preceding workflow step available.”
• The purpose of this new QA check is to give users warnings whenever a segment is by any mistake edited in the previous workflow step after it is edited/confirmed in a later workflow step.

Miscellaneous

• New Project / Job  Status
• We have added a new project status and new Job status: Cancelled.
• Metadata in TM Export (XLSX)
• If you export your TM into Excel, it is now possible to choose which metadata you wish to be included in the exported data.
• New Language: Tibetan
• We have introduced new language into Memsource: Tibetan (bo).
• New macro for Email templates
• {linguist.email} can be now added to the CC field of “Job Status Changed” template, so the linguists can have email confirmation of their action.

API

• API for Multiple TB Search
• It is now possible to search through multiple TBs with one call.
• API for Listing Deleted Users
• There is a new API call to list the deleted users.
• Terminologist Attribute included in API
• The “Get User” and “Get By User Name” API calls now return the terminologist attribute in the JSON response.

The following user testimonial has been provided by Tino Hother, Head of Business Operations at text & form GmbH.

Problem:

• pressure to deliver within 24 hours
• multiple source and over 26 target languages
• daily assignments

Solution: Memsource + XTRF integration via API

Results:

• automated language pack distribution
• streamlined project setup
• reduced turnaround times: from 2-4 to 1-2 workdays

text&form GMBH had an ongoing customer relationship that required a lot of data management and file preparation on the project managers’ side, in addition to coordinating with linguists from all over the world.

The customer, a consumer electronics manufacturer and distributor, sent daily hand-offs between 50 and 300 words. Translatable texts include single text, single words, bulleted lists, and sometimes small instructions for use. Batches consisted of multiple files sometimes in one, sometimes in several source languages, and had to be translated into a varying mix of up to 26 target languages. The client requested very short turnaround times, ideally within 24 hours, and insisted that all target language files were delivered simultaneously.

Initially text&form used a desktop CAT-tool, and achieved turnaround times of 2-4 working days.

Then the project team decided to switch to Memsource. The move from sending assignments over email to collaboration in the cloud allowed to radically shorten delivery cycles — almost by half — and reduce the amount of time project managers spent preparing on the projects. Memsource’s browser translator’s workbench and the licensing model with free access for linguists helped coordinating the translators. But it was the environment’s connectivity that made the biggest impact.

“The API was a huge factor in the success of our implementation. Thanks to a tight integration of Memsource with XTRF, our project management system, we can now easily set up and manage a project with multiple source and target language combinations in XTRF and select suitable providers, while Memsource automatically distributes the relevant language packs to the respective linguists. As soon as the linguists have finished their task, we automatically receive all files and data well organized in the correct project in XTRF” – explains Tino Hother.

Enterprise translation and localization professionals can now receive more Memsource support in Japanese language, and you can book live consultations in the Tokyo area.

Junko Kato, an independent consultant, has joined the Memsource team as a representative.She will provide the following services to organizations in Japan:

1. Memsource training;
2. First response to support requests;
3. Live demonstrations in Tokyo;
4. Streamlining translation workflows and optimizing project management.

Junko has recently started a website that contains instructions and demonstrations of Memsource use, including video instructions.

Configuring translation memory and termbases

Assigning jobs to translators

Translation in Memsource Web Editor

Download completed translations

You can contact Junko via email: japan@memsource.com

Professional bio

Junko Kato graduated from Waseda University, Graduate School of Literature, and has worked for 10 years at the Honyaku Center, the largest translation company in Japan. Since May 2012 she has been responsible for in-house Memsource training and user support, as well as tool development. Beginning in August 2015, she will work as an independent certified Memsource trainer.

A translator can boost throughput from 2,000 to 4,000-8,000 words per day while maintaining a good level of quality if she (or he) switches to post-editing of machine-translated texts. A huge increase in productivity after a certain period of adaptation is the reason that post-editing of machine translation (PEMT)  is quickly overtaking regular translations. Already over 50% of translations from English to Spanish and from English to German in Memsource are done combining translation memory and a machine translation engine.

First Steps to Post-Editing

To start a post-editing project in Memsource:

1. Choose a machine translation engine under Settings > Machine Translation.
2. Upload the file you want to translate and open it.
3. Start translating. On the right-hand side of your screen you will see the MT suggestions in blue and the MT result will get automatically inserted in the target text box where you can edit it.
4. You can post-edit the machine translation suggestion, rewrite it entirely or simply accept it.
5. Once you have completed and saved your translation, run a Post-editing Analysis to see the actual leverage of the machine translation output.

Memsource users rely on interactive post-editing, which leverages the fuzzy matches and the suggestions from the selected machine translation engine inside the translator’s workbench. Interactive post-editing is the most affordable and convenient form of post-editing, as opposed to conventional post-editing, which happens when the machine translation raw output is sent to the post-editor “as is”.

Useful post-editing features in Memsource

Features that will help you in your post-editing effort:

• Microsoft Translator with Feedback OR Your Engine of Choice

Memsource offers the free use of Microsoft Translator with Feedback. Translations remain private, but every time a user confirms a segment, the input is fed back to the Microsoft Translator engine and reused to improve further the quality of the engine. This option is automatically enabled at the set-up of a project but users can always opt out.

The Memsource platform can also connect to general machine translation engines – like Google Translate and Microsoft Translator Hub – and to customized machine translation engines. In our knowledge base you can find a list of all the engines currently supported.

To set up your own customized engine, go to Setup > Machine Translation > Create and select your engine.

•  Post-editing Analysis

Post-editing analysis provides the user with a retrospective overview of every post-editing project. You can find this option under Analysis > Type > Post-editing

The feature makes a comparison between the machine translation raw output and the final post-edited translation. It calculates the so-called edit distance, i.e. the number of operations/keystrokes necessary to transform the string of the machine translation output into the final translation. If the post-editor accepts a machine translation output without making any changes, the analysis shows a 100% match. If, on the other hand, the user makes changes to a segment, the match percentage will reflect these changes.

It is also important to underline that the post-editing analysis combines the translation memory analysis and the machine translation analysis. The user can run a translation memory analysis before starting a project and, therefore, he/she can have an indication of the potential use of the translation memory. On the other hand, the post-editing analysis shows the actual use of both the translation memory and the machine translation suggestions: The target text of each segment is compared against the original translation contained in the translation memory and the machine translation raw output.

• Discount Rate Scheme

Memsource helps you set up a fairer remuneration for your post-editors and a fairer fee for your customers.

Under Project > Setup > Discount rate schemes > Predefined you can enter your own discount scheme. This feature allows you to create an analysis based on the translation memory (with the usual repetitions, in-context matches, 100% matches and fuzzy matches) as well as an analysis based on the machine translation output, which therefore offers an analysis of the post-edited translation against the initial machine translation raw output.

Now that you have seen how easy it easy to post-edit in Memsource, why don’t you try it? And if you are an experienced user, we invite you to share with us your post-editing experiences in the comments below.

We have improved the Memsource desktop Editor automatic updating service in this fresh release, but one last manual update may be necessary on your side. We would like to ask everyone who’s using desktop Editor on Windows to check its version under “Help” – “About” in the menu.

If your version is lower than 4.171, please download and install the latest version. After this, the Editor will automatically update with new releases.

How easy it is to buy translations from you?

The boom in e-commerce offers a valuable lesson to translation companies: an automated purchase experience drives sales.

Shopping for translations is not as easy as picking up shampoo. As an intellectual service it needs a lot of customization, and a human touch. Sometimes it is simply not possible to go with an automated step-by-step wizard. Still, it does save time in 8 cases out of 10. Below are four business scenarios in which companies can use automated interfaces to offer translations.

A price-checking customer

She loves requesting quotes from multiple agencies to compare prices. Her favourite tools are instant messengers, live chat and massmail. Responding to her requests consumes a lot of project management time, but the acceptance rate is very low, 10% at the very best. At the same time, you can’t afford to ignore the client. Automated quotes allow the <checker> to obtain a preliminary price without distracting project managers from running important projects. And if the customer is indeed interesting, you can always reach her with a hand-crafted special offer.

The night watch

Hot requests have a tendency to arrive on weekends, holidays, or at night. To process them properly, someone on the LSP team has to take the night watch. This isn’t feasible unless you know in advance that new jobs will cover overtime.

On the other hand, by setting up an automated process to deliver the night jobs to the translators on duty (perhaps working on the other side of the world), you can make sure business still flows while project managers sleep. When they come back to work on Monday morning, all they have to do is check the completed assignment and collect the payment.

Self-service fans

Some customers enjoy buying by themselves without having to talk to a salesperson. Offer them multiple product and price options to play with: MT, professional, and ultra. Self-service procurement interfaces keep this type of client bust and extremely happy.

Upselling to busy regulars

Enterprise translation buyers often don’t have enough time to purchase translations properly. Contacting the agency, confirming file receipt and quotes makes too much of a barrier for a busy marketing or engineering person. For them it is often easier to do without a non-critical translation than to go through the procurement dance. A streamlined buying process turns this attitude around.

Automating with Memsource

Memsource automates translation ordering with the Instant Quote Widget. It is differentiated by the ability to leverage translation memory from the first step, price calculation, and by powerful customization options: language combinations, pricing, net rate schemes, vendors and workflow. It also creates projects for each job submitted and saves project management time.

Here is an example: ASAP Translation embeds the instant quote widget to their contact information page.

Additional widgets can be set up for individual key clients. In this case it is possible to leverage their translation memories and termbases. Customer widgets are usually designed as buttons inside intranet portals, or as browser bookmarks for quick use.

Learn more about setting up Instant Quotes at a webinar (September  2).

SEGA Networks started using Memsource in 2015. They subscribed to the Memsource Enterprise edition to carry out on-going multi-language projects with short turnaround times. Tetsuya Honda, the Lead Localization Planner, has provided the following customer testimonial:

“For our long-term projects, it was necessary to establish a reliable and accessible workspace. Our localization group includes both in-house and external project managers and translators, and that’s why we chose Memsource: to share resources across the whole team.”

Tetsuya explained that the primary reasons they chose Memsource were:

• Workspace and data sharing with external team members;
• The ability to instantly create and share jobs from existing Word/Excel files;
• Real-time task monitoring;
• On-the-fly coordination and guidance.

“We strive to continually improve our work style” – summarized Mr. Honda.

Memsource Cloud 5.0 is scheduled for release on Sunday, 27 September 2015 at 10:00 AM GMT. These are some of the most notable improvements:

Assign Jobs to a Pool of Linguists or Vendors

• The single greatest improvement in this release is in job assignment. Jobs can now be assigned to a pool of linguists or vendors.
• Previously, jobs could only be assigned to a specific linguist or vendor.
• Now project managers can assign jobs to a pool of linguists or vendors, order them by priority and let them be notified automatically by Memsource in the selected time interval. The first linguist available will be able to accept the job.
• This feature can be made part of a number of automation scenarios. A pre-selected pool of linguists/vendors can be saved into a project template, the project template can be further associated with an automation widget and so on.

The “Instant Quote Widget” Is Now The “Automation Widget”

• We have renamed the Instant Quote Widget to “Automation Widget.” The reason is that the widget’s functionality now covers much more than just generating instant quotes. A number of automation scenarios can be designed combining the widget with project templates and various other settings.
• Specifically in this release we are introducing several new features that can be useful when building automation scenarios for the widget:
  • The new Analysis settings (described below) can be part of a project template and linked to the widget so that files submitted through it are analyzed in the desired way.
  • The new Pre-translation settings that can also be part of a project template make it possible to launch pre-translation right after files are submitted through the widget.

New User Interface

• This is something you will notice immediately and can spot from the screenshots above. We have launched a facelifted UI. It is lighter and in our opinion prettier than our old UI.
• In terms of usability, you will find most buttons at the same spots, so we hope everyone will get used to the new design quickly.

Project Management

• New Analysis Settings
  • We have introduced new project and global analysis settings.
  • It is now easier to set default settings when analyzing files in a project. The settings can be set globally under setup or per project by editing the project settings. And the analysis settings can of course be changed right before launching an analysis too.
  • The analysis settings are also part of project templates. This can be useful when you set up project templates for e.g. your key customers. Now you can include any specific analysis settings into the customer project template.

• New Pre-translation Settings with New Options
  • We have introduced new project and global pre-translation settings that can be set globally under setup or per project by editing the project settings.
  • Also these settings can be part of a project template and can reflect customer or other specific pre-translation needs.
  • In addition, we have introduced completely new options that make it possible to set a job to the completed status once the pre-translation has finished.
    • These new options can be useful, for instance when used in a scenario that involves the automation widget and machine translation.
    • A translation agency can offer a customized machine translation service to their enterprise clients, let them submit files for translation and have them instantly machine pre-translated by this custom MT engine. Once the pre-translation is finished, it is precisely these new options that set the pre-translated jobs and then the entire project to the completed status. This will trigger the notification to the enterprise client with a link to the machine translated files. This entire process requires no human interaction and can be provided as an additional service for the agency’s enterprise clients.

• New Pre-translate Option when Creating New Jobs
  
  • When creating new jobs, there is a new Pre-translation option. When selected, the newly created jobs will be pre-translated right away, using the project’s pre-translation settings (see above).
  • Again, this new option is also part of project templates and so can also be linked via the project template to an automation widget.

• Empty Recycle Bin
  •  This new feature makes it quite easy to clear data from your organization’s recycle bin. Be careful…

• Many Tags: A New Warning for DOCX Files
  •  Sometimes when you import a MS Word file and that file happens to have some problematic formatting, it can result in tons of tags – making the translation of such a file quite painful. Memsource will now display a warning and suggest to re-import the file with a file import setting that should reduce the number of tags.

Quality Assurance

• A New QA Check on Locked X Tags in SDLXLIFF
  • Locked x tags that can be sometimes found in SDLXLIFF files can cause problems. We now make it possible to check for their presence through the “XLIFF tags” QA check (needs to be selected in the QA settings for the check to be executed).

Miscellaneous

• New UI Language: Korean
  • We have introduced Korean as our new user interface language.
  • Localization has been provided by (지역화 작업자 1-StopAsia)

• New Supported Language: Matu Chin
  • We have added Matu Chin (htl) as a new language supported by Memsource.
• cloud.memsource.com
  • Previously (and mainly for some historical reasons), the main url to login into Memsource was: https://cloud1.memsource.com/
  • Now, the main url will be just “cloud”: https://cloud.memsource.com/. However, “cloud1″ will continue to work too.

Machine Translation

• Apertium
  • We have updated our Apertium connector. This update makes it possible to use a 3rd party (or your own) Apertium engine without a key. Therefore, we have made the key parameter optional.
• SDL Language Cloud
  • We have added SDL Language Cloud as one of the out-of-the-box engines that can be configured in Memsource.

API

• Set Project Owner via API
  • It is now possible to set a project owner for a project using the edit project API call.

Memsource Cloud 5.1 is scheduled for release on Sunday, 25 October 2015 at 11:00 AM GMT. This is a minor release following shortly after our more notable version 5.0 last month, bringing mostly some smaller improvements:

Goodbye to Old Instant Quote Widget

• With the introduction of a new Automation Widget we decided to remove the old widget. This change will make the old UI inaccessible. The existing URL links will just be redirected to the new UI. No actual IQ will be removed. This will not require any action from users because even the iFrame will be redirected to the new UI. Therefore, users that still use the old type of our IQ widget will simply start getting the new Automation Widget form, with improved user interface for even better user experience.

Spellchecker for Finnish

• Finnish is now fully supported for spellchecking in Memsource Editors

New Languages

• We have added support for more languages and language locales
  • Kurmanji
  • Uighur (Arabic)
  • Sindhi (Arabic)
  • Ilonggo
  • Arabic (Israel)
  • Russian (Latvia)
  • Russian (Ukraine)
  • Russian (Israel)
  • German (Belgium)

Usernames Displayed with Full Names

• When selecting linguist users from the Edit Job menu, you will now see the linguists’ full names, plus their username in the tooltip

API

• Set Project Owner via API
  • It is now possible to set a project owner for a project using the edit project API call.

Memsource Cloud 5.2 is scheduled for release on Sunday, 29 November 2015, at 11:00 AM GMT. This release introduces multilingual XML, more job-related info in projects, new API calls and other improvements.

Multilingual XML

• Multilingual XML files include a source language and multiple target languages. They are now supported out-of-the-box in Memsource:
  • Previously, when you needed to import a multilingual XML file into Memsource with for example English as the source language and German, Spanish and Korean as the target languages, you were able to make use of our bilingual XML filter but needed to manually create separate jobs for each language pair (in this case English – German, English – Spanish and English – Korean)
  • From now on, you can work with just one file, using our new Multilingual XML filter
  • All you need to do is map the corresponding target language elements in the file import settings
  • This will lead to the automatic creation of separate jobs for each language pair, while in the background the file will remains as one and when you download the completed file after translation, you will have a single XML containing all languages

Connect Sitecore, AEM, WordPress and other CMSes with Memsource via iLangL

• iLangL, a provider of CMS-TMS integration, now supports Memsource out of the box.
  • The combined solution of iLangl and Memsource makes it quite easy to connect the below Content Management Systems and automate file logistics between the CMS and Memsource:
    • Adobe Experience Manager
    • Sitecore
    • DNN Evoq
    • Drupal
    • EPiServer
    • Umbraco
    • WordPress
  • To learn more, contact us. Or, stay tuned for more information. We will be providing more info on the integration shortly.

More Job-related Information for Project Managers

• Info on job status changes and other job-related metadata can now be viewed by project managers
  • We have removed the blue info icon that would pop up when hovering over a job in a project and moved the information into two new tooltips and added even more details.
  • For each job, PMs can now view details about each job status change:
    
  • Also, PMs can view even more job-related data in a tooltip displayed when hovering over the percentage completed:

Project Managers Can Set Time Zone for Linguists

• The time zone setting is not new but now it can be set by project managers for their linguist users
  • The time zone setting is not new by any means and every user can set it under Setup – User Settings in Memsource Cloud. In this way, all dates/times get fully converted based on the local time zone of each user (especially important for deadlines!).
  • From now on, PMs can set time zone for their linguists when creating or editing a linguist user:
    

Context for CSV and Excel Files from More Columns

• Context from multiple columns can now be imported from bilingual Excel files
  • Multiple columns containing context information can be selected in file import settings in order to be displayed to translators. Context info from each column will be displayed on a separate line:
    

New Languages

• We have added a few more languages/language locales:
  • Arabic (Algeria)
  • English (Lebanon)
  • English (Saudi Arabia)
  • Greenlandic

New Macro for Email Templates: {project.internalId}

• A new macro was added to the list of macros which can be used in email templates.
  • {project.internalId} will display the internal project number that users can see at the top of their projects:
    

Improved Term Recognition for Hebrew and Arabic

• Term-base recognition of words with typical prefixes in Arabic and Hebrew has been improved.
  • Term base entries will now be recognized even if you enter the root of a word that is preceded by a standard prefix, for example ה in Hebrew.

API

• New API calls have been introduced:
  • transMemory/getRelatedProjects
    • Get a list of projects in which a specific TM is used.
  • JobService.splitFileBySpecificRange
    • Split jobs after specific segments.
• New optional parameters added to the Search Segments by Task API:
  • maxSegments
  • maxSubSegments

Memsource Cloud 5.3 is scheduled for release on Sunday, 17 January 2016, at 11:00 AM GMT. This release introduces a new analytics capability, Adobe InDesign previews, multilingual Excel file support and other improvements.

Multilingual Excel Files

• Multilingual Excel files include a source language and multiple target languages. They are now supported out-of-the-box in Memsource:
  • Previously, processing multilingual Excel files involved a lot of manual pre- and post-processing in Memsource. When you needed to import a multilingual Excel file into Memsource with, for example, English as the source language and German, Spanish and Japanese as the target languages, you were able to make use of our bilingual Excel filter but needed to manually create separate jobs for each language pair (in this case English-German, English-Spanish and English-Japanese).
  • From now on, you can work with just a single file, using our new multilingual Excel filter.
  • All you need to do is map the corresponding target language columns in the file import settings.
  • This will lead to the automatic creation of separate jobs for each language pair, while in the background the file will remain as one. When you download the completed file after translation, you will have a single Excel file containing all languages.

InDesign Preview

• Adobe InDesign files can now be previewed from within Memsource Web Editor.
  • We are bringing this new feature thanks to our integration with Frontlab, a leader in InDesign preview and proofing tools.
  • To use this new functionality, first sign up with Frontlab and then enter your Frontlab credentials into Memsource under Setup – Integrations – Frontlab.
  • When you are done, a new menu item, “PDF Preview”, will appear in the Web Editor under the Document menu.
  • After clicking on PDF Preview, the InDesign preview will be downloaded to your PC as a PDF file.

Business Analytics

• Translations processed through Memsource have exceeded 1 billion words in the last quarter of 2015. We are now launching business analytics so that our users can track translation volumes, costs, productivity and other metrics.
  • We have deployed a dedicated data warehouse to serve all of our analytics needs. With the warehouse in place, we can now start launching new analytics features.
  • Initially, the new analytics features are only available for Memsource customers with one of our enterprise editions.
  • To start with, we are now releasing a set of pre-configured charts that can be set up in the new Home page. 
    
  • A number of additional features and improvements are on the way in our analytics domain.
  • And most importantly, we will extend these new features also to our translation agency customers (Team Start, Team Ultimate editions) – we hope by the end of Q1/2016.

Home Page

• The Home page is a new dashboard-like page with customizable widgets. 
  • Currently, analytics and automation widgets can be added to the page.
  • The Home page is currently only available to our enterprise customers:

A Custom Welcome Message for the Automation Widget

• A custom welcome message can now be set for the Automation Widget.
  • The current message can be customized by going to Setup – Automation Widgets.

  Job Board

• We have made a few improvements to our Job Board (still in beta).
  • It is now easier to submit new job postings. Try for yourself:

Custom Domain for the Team Edition

• A number of our customers have uploaded their own logo to Memsource Cloud. Team edition customers can now take this one step further. 
  • A custom domain is now supported also for the Team edition (previously only for the Ultimate edition).
  • Read the support article on how to setup a custom domain for your Team or Ultimate editions.

Quality Assurance

• A new QA check has been added to our quality assurance module::
  • Target identical to source

API

• Translation memory maintenance:
  • We have added two new API calls that can be helpful when global changes (e.g. find and replace) need bo applied to a translation memory.
    • Advanced translation memory query
    • Export results generated by the query

Memsource Cloud 5.4 is scheduled for release on Sunday, 28 February 2016, at 11:00 AM GMT. This release is literally packed with new features including some major improvements. We are extending Memsource API support to all of our customers. And the recently introduced business analytics features will now also be available for our translation agency customers.

API for All Customers

We are extending our API to all of our customers.

• Memsource API is necessary to integrate Memsource with any 3rd-party software. Previously, API was only available to our Ultimate and BIZ Ultimate editions customers. We are now extending the API to all paying customers (this excludes the free Personal edition).
• The Ultimate and BIZ Ultimate editions will continue to offer unlimited API calls to its subscribers. All other editions will enjoy full API functionality but with a daily limit on API calls which we will start enforcing during March 2016:

Clone Jobs

Cloning jobs can prove extremely useful for multilingual projects.

Typically for large projects with multiple target languages, it may make a lot of sense to prep the translation jobs before they are assigned to linguists. This may include modifications that will be identical in all target languages. It is quite tedious for project managers to have to apply the same modifications job by job for all the target languages. For instance, copy source to target for segments with non-translatable content. Or, lock some segments because they should not be touched, etc.

With the new clone feature, jobs can be prepped in just a single target language and then cloned to any number of the project’s target languages.

INDD Supported

Native Adobe InDesign files (INDD) are now supported.

We have supported IDML, the translation-friendly Adobe InDesign file format, for a long time. However, not the Adobe InDesign’s native INDD format. It is always possible to convert INDD into IDML or ask your customer to provide IDML. However, it adds an extra step.

We have started supporting INDD directly in Memsource. Thanks to our partnership with Frontlab, this feature is available for everyone in Memsource.

How it works exactly: Simply select the INDD file when creating a new translation job, it will be converted into IDML in the background and the new job will be created using the IDML file. When you are done with the translation, you will receive IDML as the output target file (not INDD – as this would be unnecessary). The translated IDML can then be directly imported into Adobe InDesign.

Business Analytics for Translation Agencies

We have recently completely redesigned our business analytics component and introduced the first set of analytics features in our previous release, Memsource Cloud 5.3 (and just for our enterprise customers). We are now extending business analytics also to our translation agency customers on the Team and Ultimate editions.

To start with, we are now releasing a set of pre-configured charts that can be set up in the new Home page. The business analytics functionality will be significantly extended in our next releases.

Home Page for Translation Agencies

The Home page is a new dashboard-like page with customizable widgets. It has been introduced in our previous release, Memsource Cloud 5.3, just for our enterprise customers. We are now making it available also to our translation agency customers.

Currently, analytics and automation widgets can be added to the page. The Home page is available in our Team and Ultimate editions and all enterprise editions.

Project Management

Pre-translate on job creation.

The project’s pre-translate settings have received a new option: Pre-translate on job creation. When enabled, every new job will be pre-translated automatically, based on the project’s pre-translate settings.

This new option can be very well used also in project templates and automation widgets, associated with those templates.

Entering a pool of linguists and/or vendors into a project template.

In one of our previous releases, Memsource Cloud 5.0, we made it possible for project managers to assign jobs to a pool of linguists or vendors, order them by priority and let them be notified automatically by Memsource in the selected time interval. The first linguist available would be able to claim the job.

We are now bringing this exact same feature also to project templates which opens up a number of additional automation scenarios. For instance, creating an automation widget, associating a project template with a pool of linguists/vendors and letting the translation automation flow…

Linguist relevancy data.

Relevancy data for linguists can be entered already in the user creation page.

Original file extension added to MXLIFF.

Our MXLIFF files now include the file extension of the original source file which should help project managers for better orientation, especially when dealing with lots of files.

• Previously: ABC.mxliff
• Now: ABC.docx.mxliff

Set net rate schemes by workflow steps.

It is now possible to set specific net rate schemes for each workflow step. For instance, a different net rate scheme for translation and revision.

New language added.

We have added Russian (Estonia) to our list of supported languages.

New Memsource Cloud default url.

Memsource Cloud has a new default url: cloud.memsource.com (previously cloud1.memsource.com).

File Conversion

Multiple columns for translation in multilingual MS Excel.

It is now possible to enter multiple columns for translation, e.g.

• Source – A,B,C
• Target(de) – G,H,I
• Target(cs) – J,K,L

There is also a new file import option that makes it possible to import specific rows only. Entering 2- will import all rows except the first row:

A new file import setting allowing to specify a context key.

It is now possible to select the location of a key in a file for translation which will then be displayed to linguists during translation in order to provide more context information. Newly available for these file types:

• XML
• Multilingual XML
• Multilingual Excel
• CSV.

Improved handling of index markers in FrameMaker.

We have started placing index markers following the paragraph where they were used in order to separate them better from the translatable text. This should be more translator-friendly.

New HTML file import option: Translatable meta tags.

We have introduced a new file import option for HTML files which relates to translatable content in the meta section of HTML files. Previously, Memsource would only import description and keywords for translation. Now it is possible to specify (using a regular expression) what content should be imported from the HTML meta section.

Identify translatable text in text files using a regular expression.

We have introduced a new option, Translatable text, that makes it possible to extract just translatable text in plain text files using a regular expression.

Maximum target segment length for JSON.

A new file import option, Max. target length, makes it possible to restrict maximum target length for JSON files.

XLIFF 2.0 improvements.

We have introduced a number of improvements to our XLIFF 2.0 handling:

• Standalone file import settings for XLIFF 2.0 (previously the settings were shared with XLIFF 1.2).
• srcLang and trgLang attribute support.
• Better handling of translatable content in nested elements.
• Better file-validation check when exporting a completed target file (to check whether the XLIFF file conforms to the XLIFF standard).

Chaining context note parameters for XML files.

Multiple parameters can be chained and entered into the context note field in XPath file import settings for XML files. For instance:

• @comment|@refId|@note

New file import settings for Multilingual XML files.

We have added new XPath file import settings for multilingual XML files:

• Context key.
• Context note.
• Max. target length.

Conditional text from Adobe InDesign files extracted.

Conditional text is now extracted for translation from Adobe InDesign files.

Translation Memory

Segments can now be saved to two translation memories in a project.

Previously, we only supported a single translation memory to be set up in the “write” mode in a project (the TM into which segments are saved when they are confirmed). From now on, it is possible to select the write mode for up to two translation memories in a project.

This means that we now support up to 2 TMs in the write mode and up to 10 TMs in the read mode.

Navigating search results from TMs with multiple languages got much easier.

Viewing TM search results from within Memsource Cloud got a bit more user-friendly, especially for TMs with multiple target languages thanks to a few UI tweaks we have deployed. And by the way, it is possible to drag-and-drop each language column in the TM results page to re-order the languages for better viewing.

API

New API call to list users by email address.

• api/v2/user/list

New API call to clone projects.

• api/v3/project/clone

New API call to clear all translation memory segments.

• api/v4/transMemory/clear (be careful, this action cannot be reverted!)

Upgrading software to a new version can bring lots of improvements, but at the same time can cause disruption to its users. In the pre-cloud era, a system administrator would need to install the upgrade. The software would need to be at least restarted. Sometimes data would need to be migrated, hardware re-configured. All sorts of issues could come up. For that reason, software publishers would try to minimize the number of new releases to just a few per year. This is still true for most non-cloud software.

A cloud setup makes it possible to remove most of these drawbacks. For this reason, users of a cloud-based software product will typically get upgrades much more often. At Memsource, we typically deploy 2 minor releases per day and a major new release once a month. Our minor deployments include bug fixes and minor features. The major deployments include major new features.

Our daily minor deployments cause no disruption to Memsource users: Memsource is available without interruption and users are not even logged out. This used to be different for our major deployments that would take place once a month on Sundays: Our users understood that, in exchange for the new features, Memsource would not be available for a limited period of time (30-60 minutes) once a month.

However, it has been our goal for some time to deploy our major monthly releases without any service interruption. And we have recently succeeded: Our latest release, Memsource Cloud 5.4, has been deployed without any downtime. Users may have just noticed periods of increased network latency. 

So how did we do it? The idea sounds simple: Each and every server, one by one, is removed from the cloud production environment, upgraded to a newer version and then inserted back.

The difficulty starts with the realization that, for a certain period of time, one part of the infrastructure runs an older version and the rest runs a newer version. Without the right precautions, incompatibilities between the two parts may undermine the whole process.

Preparations for a zero-downtime deployment of our latest version actually started immediately after the release of our previous version, Memsouce Cloud 5.3, over a month ago. From that point on, we had to make sure that every new feature, change or bug fix was going to be implemented in a backwards-compatible way at multiple levels – from the database, through internal service communication, all the way up to the user interface.

A few days before the deployment, long-running DB operations were initiated to update the tables and relations to the expectations of the new version. Finally, after all the preparations, it took us less than an hour to seamlessly bring you all the new and exciting features of Memsource Cloud 5.4.

And guess what? We plan to deploy our next major release with zero-downtime too. Keep your fingers crossed for us…

Memsource Cloud 5.5 has been released on Sunday, 10 April 2016, at 11:00 AM GMT with zero downtime. This release brings a number of improvements of which these two stand out: A) Custom data visualization and exploration using Kibana, a free data visualization workbench. B) Advanced API improvements, such as webhooks as well as opening up our API to linguist users (our API was previously limited to administrator and project manager users).

Kibana – Data Visualization Workbench

Users of the Memsource BIZ Ultimate edition will be able to visualize data from their accounts through Kibana, an open source data visualization workbench.

Kibana allows you to visualize and explore all data indexed by our analytics data warehouse. Each organization only has access to the subset of its own data. Currently, all project-related data have been indexed. There is an almost endless number of queries that can be visualized using Kibana.

Sample Visualizations

These are some of the queries that can be built and visualized using Kibana:

• Projects/jobs by the project manager
• Projects by the machine translation engine used
• Jobs by the linguist/vendor, including overdue jobs
• Jobs by file type
• Top language pairs, etc.

Project-level Data

As mentioned above, currently all of our project-related data have been indexed. This includes data, such as:

• Project
  • Project creation date, last modification, created by, last modified by, source language, target languages, project settings, client, domain, subdomain, business unit, project status, due date, etc.
• Jobs
  • Job creation date, last modification, created by, last modified by, source language, target language, assigned to linguist/vendor, due date, workflow step, file type, etc.
• Analyses
  • Total wordcount, net wordcount, translation memory matches, machine translation matches, etc.

Segment-level Data

We also plan to index all of our segment-level data (translation data) in the near future. This will make it possible for our customers to obtain unique insight into their translation productivity and visualize data, such as:

• Translation memory leverage by customer
• Translation productivity by MT engine
• Translation time vs. translation memory and/or machine translation leverage based. Kibana also gives you the details on each individual job/file in your account, including when it was created, who was the author, who  processed, and perhaps deleted it.

API

Memsource APIs have seen some major improvements in the current release.

Webhooks

• Webhooks (or callbacks) for monitoring status changes have been introduced. Previously, users needed to call GetJob in order to see if the reply contains any information about the status change. Now, as soon as a job status changes, we will send a call directly to the user’s integration.

API extended to Linguist Users

• APIs are now available to linguist users, in addition to all paid editions. Linguists can for example take advantage of the Memsource/XBench integration for extended quality assurance.

Miscellaneous

• Linguists can now be assigned based on project templates when creating projects from APIs.
• Multilingual MS Excel files can also be imported via APIs.
• It is now possible to delete clients, domains and subdomains (metadata) using APIs.

XLIFF 2.0

Memsource now has separate file import settings for XLIFF 1.2 and XLIFF 2.0. Both include the corresponding import and export attribute mapping.

Indexes in InDesign Files

It is now possible to translate indexes in InDesign files without any need for post-processing in Adobe InDesign.

New UI Languages

We have added three more languages in which the Memsource user interface can be viewed:

• French (translation by Semantix)
• Finnish (translation by Semantix)
• Dutch (translation by ProLinguo)

We would like to take this opportunity and thank all our localization partners for their continued support.

Machine Translation

TildeMT

• We have made improvements in the way users log in to the service from Memsource.

New Languages

We have started supporting the following languages:

• English – Hong Kong
• English – Indonesia
• English – Malaysia
• Buryat

Nordeus is a Serbian game developer behind Top Eleven, a football management game which has more than 140 million registered and 10 million active monthly players. It’s one of the most popular sports games in the world, and it is primarily played on mobile devices. Jasmin Jelača, localization engineer, is responsible for continuous localization of Top Eleven into 30 languages. We spoke with Jasmin to learn how he manages the stream of hundreds small translation jobs.

The principle of mobile first means that the app is designed primarily from the point of view of a player with a mobile phone. Mobile devices have small screens, and the space for text is limited. Developer often play around with Call-to-Action buttons and descriptions to get better user experience. A localization team has to respond by quickly localizing small changes in an emphatic way.  Managing localization in mobile first environment is all about automating small tasks and keeping a flexible infrastructure.

Here is how Nordeus does it:

1) Users download localization anew when the launch the game on their phones. 

The Top Eleven Team at Nordeus came up with a solution to pull localization from the server every time a user logs in.  Localization is no longer embedded in the game itself, but it is stored on the Nordeus’ servers. Users download it each time it changes. One language locale is about 70,000 words in size, and this is something that users can easily download with 3G or WiFi. In technical terms, when player launches Top Eleven, the app searches for the newest locales through the Settings file and gathers those from the server. The game pulls language data to the user’s device.

Language files are constantly updated and pushed to the user’s phone

2) Translation jobs are created in Memsource via API.

On the backend, every time something changes in the main resource file, a script detects changes and opens translation requests in Memsource via API. Using a project template the localization team can spawn and assign translation jobs automatically in all 30 languages.

A multilingual LSP handles all translations and runs quality control. Once the localization into all languages and the testing processes are complete, the script rebuilds the localization, pushes it to the game server and adds +1 to the version. The next time when a user signs into the game, the login procedure will get the latest updates.

3) Text de-duplication.

Nordeus uses only one master resource file in English. 

The localization team developed a simple debug tool that shows all the keys in the game and allows the search for duplicates. With this tool, the localization engineers replace the duplicate keys with just one centralized key that was linked to from different screens. For example, there were three buttons to <Select all> players: for an exercise, to intensify training and for the match. In the code the button text was stored as three separate strings, although it was the same. With the debug tool it is now a single string, which spawns only one translation job.

Show keys tool for string de-duplication

4) Localization runs a dedicated testing server

This way the locteam gained autonomy from the developers, and greatly improved the speed for localization engineering. Currently the server allows them to:

• test new locales internally.
• create game builds for l10n purposes.
• run regression testing.

Server dashboard in the test build, where Nordeus localization team sets up testing.

5) Testing and optimization geared towards iPhone 5-6 and top Android models.

With over 2000 different mobile devices on the market, it is impossible to cover everything. Nordeus localization team focuses on top Apple and Android models that more than 70% of the player base uses.

6) Context is sent to translators in the CAT-tool, and is conveyed in briefings.

Because texts are short, but translations need to produce a powerful effect, Nordeus provides detailed written descriptions to the translators and holds kick-off meetings with the LSP when developing a feature, or especially when the translation and the testing start. For example, one title for a training session said “Use your head”. The football game doesn’t mean “think” here, but literally it implies hitting the ball with a head. 

7) Quality checks via a LQA service and in-game feedback buttons.

Nordeus employs a secondary agency to run occasional quality checks on the translations. They use the LISA QA model to evaluate and provide feedback, which helps rate the main vendor and develop a relationship with them. Another instrument are drawable notifications that appear in the game when users log in and navigate to certain screens in the game.

Jasmin is the Localization Project Manager at Nordeus, the developer company behind the popular sports game Top Eleven. With 4 years experience in enterprise localization, Jasmin manages a team in Belgrade and Dublin and is responsible for vendor communications and technology. He loves playing video games and spends long nights watching NBA matches.

The full version of this article first appeared in the Multilingual magazine. Issue June, 2016

>>> Download the article here <<<

The first instalment of Memsource Certified Trainer (MCT) is over, and 78 trainers have successfully graduated from the learning and certification program.

We encourage translation buyers that start out with Memsource and wish to learn it in the native language and on-site to seek out trainers with this Google maps-based search tool: http://blog.memsource.com/trainers

We are now updating it with trainer profiles, languages and contact information.

While Memsource in-house team continues to provide nearly 24-hour free support over email, trainers bring in many languages, translation competences, and opportunities for in-person events on locations all around the world. For example, MCTs that already signed up for our network can deliver training in English, Danish, German, Russian, Italian, Slovak, Greek, Korean, Polish, Lithuanian, Japanese, Czech, Serbian, Dutch, Latvian, Spanish, Catalan, Hungarian, French and Chinese. The list is growing.

The training program consisted of 5 webinars and sets of homework, and a difficult final test.  Out of more than 240 applicants to MCT, only 77 stayed to the end of the program and passed the test.

We plan to run a second instalment of training, testing and certification in autumn. Please contact Vaclav Balacek to sign up: vb@memsource.com

Full list of Memsource Certified Trainers

Localization World is traditionally one of the most influential localization conferences in the world. This year’s European instalment of the event saw more than 600 attendees and thousands of discussions. Here is a brief overview of the key trends our team has spotted at the trade show.

Trend 1: Continuous Delivery, 24/7 Localization, Ultra-Short Turnarounds

This year buyers are calling for 24/7 localisation. They require vendors to deliver translation in multiple languages, within minutes or hours from receiving the request, and at any time of the day or night.

• Michaela Bartelt from Electronic Arts spoke of a SLA for 24/7 localization with Capita T&I in the UK. Her co-speaker Antonio Tejada from Capita T&I presented a custom-built solution that checks which of the 136 linguists supporting this project are awake and can be given the assignment. EA and Capita introduced not only a minimum rate, but also a maximum size for urgent tasks – about 640 words. Michaela believes this model of cooperation between a large buyer and an LSP is going to become the mainstay in the industry.

• Sue Bishop from Microsoft’s GlobalART group presented a 55-million word translation project for packaging of Non-Windows and Non-Office products. She required her vendors to be able to deliver continuously.
• Continuous delivery was the main topic of the keynote panel discussion between localization people from Adobe, IBM, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Sage Software, and GetYourGuide.

Happening now in Dublin. @IBM @Adobe #LocWorld31 pic.twitter.com/c6yf9PwVGn

— Swiss Solutions (@swisssolutions) June 10, 2016

The need for 24/7 is driven by Agile development and by very short software development cycles, experts explained. Several years ago developers launched new products every 18 months or so, and localization teams had more relaxed deadlines. Today 18 months seem like Stone Age, as Dave Ruane from Xplanation put it. Developers launch new features on a daily basis, and each release needs to be supported in every language the product is available in.

Yet another driver for continuous delivery is the need to respond to the news instantly. Anne-Cecile Tomlinson from GetYourGuide said that her team had to localize warning banners within 15 minutes after the Louvre museum was closed because of Paris inundation in early June.

When the flood hit Paris, GetYourGuide localization team had 15 minutes to localize the warning banner on the website. #Locworld31

— Memsource (@memsource) June 10, 2016

For the production team, continuous delivery is a compromise on quality and speed. It requires bravery on the part of the content owner and an ability to correct the translation inside the product, if the rush translation already published needs it.

“Continuous Delivery is about letting go of your fears…not being shy of an Open Kitchen” @Adobe #lw31agile #LocWorld31

— Xplanation (@XplanationLS) June 10, 2016

Discussion revolved back to the familiar localization dilemma: what is “good enough” in terms of quality? Chiara Pacella from Facebook shared the famous slogan used by her company: done is better than perfect. Today speed and coverage are more important than “perfect” translation quality.

One of @facebook values shows how to rethink quality when speed matters #LocWorld31 @DaveRuaneSpain pic.twitter.com/zKGun5RB5O

— Veronique Ozkaya (@vozkaya) June 10, 2016

If a localization team is prepared to move fast, the only way to do so is to automate. To be fast, the team has to eliminate email, and provide an integration between their content system and the translation management system. Lisa McCabe from IBM explained that she relies on APIs and SDKs to deliver translations. Email is no longer an option.

"Reduction of manual file moving is absolutely key" @LisaMcCabe_IBM. Couldn't agree more!!! #LocWorld31

— Kirsty Waller (@kwaller01) June 10, 2016

Trend 2: Fusion of Localization and Marketing

Multilingual landing pages, search engine optimization and content are a growing trend in digital marketing.

Marketing people find themselves interacting with #l10n teams more, or even becoming localization buyers themselves. On the other side of the line, localization people see marketing KPIs applied to their work. Marketing instruments and metrics such as A/B testing and conversion rates are making their way to localization.

• Bookmate’s localization manager Marina Ilyinykh used A/B testing to understand which version of localized interface of her application converted more visitors into users.

• Electronic Arts used metrics to measure in-game engagement of players, and compared locale performance to find out and fix weaker parts in localization.

Michaela of @EA : because games are online today. localization can track how players interact with translated content. #Future #LocWorld31

— Memsource (@memsource) June 10, 2016

In many cases marketing and localization worked together when selecting new languages to localize into. Bookmate went to Kazakhstan and Indonesia where competition from Amazon was not strong at all. Online design tool Canva chose languages to translate their interface into from SEO perspective entirely.

@Canva decided to use a country based approach for Spanish for #SEO reasons #LocWorld31 #canva pic.twitter.com/3svWRxFEXi

— Renato Beninatto (@renatobeninatto) June 10, 2016

Richard Brooks from K International unrolled a huge and entertaining presentation on the “Whys” and “Hows” of Multilingual SEO. Rich’s slide decks are always some of the top in the industry, and we definitely recommend looking at this one.

I'm up next at #LocWorld31 with The Need for Multilingual SEO.
Slidedeck is here >https://t.co/HmCcwiwK0m#SEO #L10n #T9n #Marketing

— Richard Brooks (@RichardMBrooks) June 9, 2016

Trend 3: Saying “No” to Customers, Value-Based Segmentation

Paul O’Dea, CEO and cofounder of  Select Strategies opened the topic of turning down customers during his keynote. “Now is the best time to be a growth transformer”, – he reasoned, and if some customers keep you back, just “fire” them.  If they don’t share the company’s vision and values, they shouldn’t hold a stake in its future. “Fire a customer today”. – Paul went as far as suggesting.

Clarity of direction is crucial even if business changes at the speed of light #LocWorld31 @paulodea pic.twitter.com/2bYd3RXBE0

— Veronique Ozkaya (@vozkaya) June 9, 2016

Paul’s arguments were echoed throughout the conference. Sue Bishop from Microsoft mentioned that she approved translation providers only when they demonstrated the readiness to turn down tasks they can’t complete.

Microsoft and Spark! selected translation vendors by checking if they know how say "No".

Say No to a customer today. #Locworld31

— Memsource (@memsource) June 10, 2016

Rebecca Ray, senior analyst and director at Common Sense Advisory in her session “Inside a Buyer’s Mind” suggested having quarterly reviews with customers and having a scorecard for them, just like buyers have scorecards for vendors. These scorecards could be a basis for a decision to stop working with the customer.

"start rating your customers" by Rebecca Ray @CSA_Research. they rate us anyhow!!! @delsur_ar @TinA_l10n #LocWorld31

— Virginia Minhondo (@viluminhondo) June 10, 2016

The conclusion is certain: vendors need to adapt to buyers, and they can’t adapt to every group. In a global economy companies get to choose the important types of client, and can cut off those that don’t matter.

PS: Twitter is getting BIG at Localization World. The hashtag #Locworld31 collected almost 700 original tweets in the course of 3 days, and together with retweets they were delivered to 3.5 million timelines, and seen almost 900 thousand times.