As marketers, we’ve seen an amazing increase in investment in video and multimedia experiences. Online advertising through video is projected to increase from 42.1% in 2011 to 54.7% in 2012. Mobile users, in particular account for half of all video traffic at 52% and this is expected to account for 70% of all traffic by 2016. YouTube alone streams 4 billion videos every day.

What is the draw? And why is important for brands and organizations to participate? Video has the unique ability to draw in viewers through its combination of words, voice, image, music and movement. It creates brand recognition, connection, emotion, experience…

So far, marketers seem to be approaching video with varied levels of creativity and expertise. But as it’s adopted as a standard tactic to reach customers, I think that the practical understanding we apply will only increase.

We need to look at the customer journey and find a best fit: how can we enhance what they’re doing or what they want to know at any given moment? Don’t get me wrong, video is a fantastic tactic, but I want to be clear about how I make my customers’ experience better by adding video.

I think that the recent discussions about Customer Engagement and Experience Management really point the way forward since they call for a genuinely integrated strategy that brings together all the different possible tactics.

KLM has managed to utilise videos to enhance their customers' experience enabling them to experience their journey before they board. You can find out more about their video solutions here.

How is your organization using video? Where do you find using video hard/easy/helpful/difficult?

Wir freuen uns, dass die Klingelnberg AG mit dem renommierten tekom Dokupreis 2011 während der tekom Jahrestagung ausgezeichnet wurde. Einen wichtigen Beitrag hierzu leisteten die SDL-Lösungen.

Pascal Kesselmark, Leiter der Technischen Dokumentation bei Klingelnberg: „Wir freuen uns sehr über diese Auszeichnung, da wir kontinuierlich an der Optimierung der Technischen Dokumentation arbeiten. Um dies zu erreichen, müssen wir nicht nur die richtigen Softwarelösungen und unser fachliches Know How einsetzen, sondern auch die Prozesse stetig optimieren. Die SDL-Lösungen unterstützen uns hierbei enorm, denn wir können damit die inhaltliche Qualität automatisiert sicherstellen. Was nützen klar definierte Schreibregeln, wenn man diese nicht einhält oder wieso akzeptiert man höhere Übersetzungskosten, weil gleiche Inhalte mehrmals in ähnlicher Form geschrieben werden? Und genau hier liegt die Stärke von SDL: Man kann sehr einfach Prüfregeln auf Wort- und Satzebene erstellen und so, ohne Mehrkosten, die Überprüfung der Inhalte seinen Qualitätsbedürfnissen anpassen. Bereits übersetzte Texte können wiederverwendet werden, so dass die Übersetzungskosten reduziert und eine sprachliche Durchgängigkeit in unterschiedlichen Dokumenten gewährleistet wird. Durch die Autorenunterstützung von SDL kann ich als Verantwortlicher für die Technische Dokumentation sicher sein, dass die Dokumente auch strukturell und formal in Ordnung sind und mich auf das Wesentliche konzentrieren – nämlich die Inhalte!“

I was really happy that Jack Molisani decided to host Lavacon this year in my adopted backyard, Austin TX. LavaCon, for those that don’t know, is a conference dedicated to digital content and this years theme was Developing Content for a Global Audience which is a perfect theme for the time we are in.

Vom 18. – 20. Oktober 2011 findet die tekom Jahrestagung in Wiesbaden statt, die SDLs starke Präsenz in den deutschsprachigen Märkten wiederspiegelt.

Sehen Sie die neuesten Lösungen für Textredaktion und Übersetzungstechnologie – abgestimmt auf die Bedürfnisse dieser Märkte – auf den SDL-Messeständen 430 & 437 in Halle 4: 

• Eine Vorschau auf die neue Serverlösung. Diese richtet sich besonders an kleine und mittelgroße Übersetzungsteams in mittelständischen Unternehmen sowie an Übersetzungsagenturen.
• SDL Global Authoring Management System. Die Lösung für Textredaktion und –optimierung berücksichtigt Ihre stilistischen Unternehmensvorgaben, Ihre Corporate Language sowie die deutschen linguistischen Regeln und trägt somit zur Reduzierung der Übersetzungskosten bei.  
• SDL Trados Studio 2011. Die marktführende Translation-Memory-Lösung bietet mit SDL BeGlobal eine sichere, integrierte Lösung für Maschinelle Übersetzung.
• SDL WorldServer 2011. Die Übersetzungsmanagement-Lösung – in deutscher Sprache verfügbar – bietet besonders Übersetzungsteams in globalen Unternehmen sowie großen Sprachdienstleistern die Möglichkeit, den Übersetzungsprozess optimal zu managen. 

Diese und weitere Lösungen präsentiert SDL in verschiedenen Workshops, Konferenzen, Tool- und Standpräsentationen sowie bei Panel-Diskussionen. Eine Übersicht alle SDL-Präsentationen finden Sie unter: http://www.sdl.com/en/language-technology/news-and-events/sdl-events/emea/2011q4/2011-10-18-tekom-annual-conference-2011.asp

SDL bietet mit seinem Produktportfolio Softwarelösungen für Unternehmen, Übersetzungsagenturen, Übersetzer und Textredakteure. Dabei werden alle Bedürfnisse der verschiedenen Zielgruppen abgedeckt; angefangen bei den Übersetzern und Textredakteuren bis hin zu kleinen, mittleren und großen Teams in Unternehmen und bei Sprachdienstleistern.

SDL OpenExchange rundet das Portfolio ab. Diese Plattform ermöglicht Entwicklern, Applikationen zu erstellen und der SDL-Community kostenlos bzw. günstig anzubieten. Nutzer können dank dieser Anwendungen die Leistung ihrer Übersetzungssoftware weiter steigern, sei es durch die Unterstützung bestimmter Prozessschritte oder weiterer Dateiformate.

SDL OpenExchange sehen Sie live auf unseren Messeständen. Alternativ finden Sie weitere Informationen  unter  http://www.sdl.com/en/language-technology/sdl-openexchange/. Hier haben Entwickler auch die Möglichkeit, bei unserem Wettbewerb mitzumachen und einen Teil des Gesamtpreises von 10.000€ zu gewinnen. 

Wir freuen uns auf Ihren Besuch!

By Keith Laska, Senior VP, SDL Language Technologies

Before taking Microsoft’s new “Cloud” release Office 365 for a test drive, I was excited that the software behemoth had decided to take a strong swing at the online-only, viciously free-to-cheap office productivity applications such as Google Apps and Zoho. To date, these guys have done a wonderful job of creating a ubiquitous environment of office productivity, which in my view has far surpassed the cost associated with upgrading on a somewhat regular basis. Once I passed the “user ID and login” test, I was in and ready to get silly with Microsoft Office 365 – forging my destiny in the Cloud. 

Once Microsoft works out a couple of the kinks in their 1.0 cloud strategy, they will have achieved excellence on par with Google and others, with one catch: they have an enormous, desktop and server ecosystem to slowly transition to the cloud. Some see this as a dependency and a risk. Not me. When it comes to the cloud, I’m a realist. Individuals and small to medium businesses will always be the first to fully adopt new technologies – including cloud – because the immediate cost and accessibility benefits outweigh the excessive infrastructure costs and legacy offline file storage that come along with a requirement for increased security and privacy. So it’s safe to say, in my opinion, that the first to adopt Office 365, and therefore create a lot of new, online-only content, are SMBs and SMEs, with larger businesses and enterprises steadily advancing into the cloud over time.

This is where it starts to get interesting for the language industry.

Apart from cost and compatibility, one of the biggest reasons companies use cloud technologies is that it’s just simply easier to use. For the initial small business and individual user of Office 365, in an increasing world of instant-gratification, submitting themselves to the traditional localization process (offline files, source content review, analysis, preparation, workflow process creation, resourcing, localized content review,  DTP, final layout review, post-mortem meetings) may feel like watching a snail crawl backwards. The individual cloud users of the future (in a forecasted $240bn market  by 2025), will require simplicity of work types, new business models for localization, and most certainly tolerance for “acceptable” levels of quality based on content being translated. While we can’t always predict the future, one thing we do know is that the maturity model for traditional localization processes may soon be subject to a number of stress-tests.

What do you think? Post a reply in Elevation Center!  

Post by Mark Tapling, CEO, SDL Language Technologies

Eight months ago, I was given the opportunity to lead the Language Technologies Division at SDL, and I have felt fortunate to be in this role at a time when there is so much opportunity for the localization industry. Today, it is easier than ever to connect with people all over the globe, but accelerating the way the world communicates requires great language skills. Language is it is at the center of global business, and with the ease of communication across new channels, language matters to a much wider community within a company. While English may have emerged as the common lingua franca, the introduction, engagement, and evaluation cycles that lead to an English based transaction, are all done in local languages.

With this new release, RightNow customers are enabled to leverage the power of SDL BeGlobal within RightNow Answers. As with previous releases of SDL GlobalConnect for RightNow Answers, RightNow customers are enabled to send answers for automated translation from within the RightNow Answers interface. 

With SDL GlobalConnect for RightNow Answers 3.0 and the integration with the SDL BeGlobal platform, RightNow customers receive additional benefits:

• Brand consistency controls
• Trusted quality
• Security & privacy
• Reporting and Analytics
• Elimination of manual tasks
• Positioned for growth

“SDL GlobalConnect for RightNow Answers has been well received in the market because it streamlines the translation process for business users and encourages better communication across languages,”  said Swamy Viswanathan, senior vice president of products and marketing for the Language Technologies Division at SDL.

Read more >>

Frequently we read about the successes or failures of ad campaigns or how a company tried to convey an idea in their advertising but the reaction from the public garnered a much different response than what was intended.

Going “global” has been a theme for companies in recent years with the rise of internet users to over 2 billion people online. Companies are pressed to think outside the box and market outside their comfort zone of local customers. This is no easy task and at BizReport, Kristina Knight interviewed Claude Walton, Director of Product Marketing at SDL Language Weaver, to discuss the key things to consider before going global.

In this interview, Knight gets the 411 on international market trends and what are the key recommendations to engage with a multinational, multilingual audience.

Read more on Why Online Translation will be Important in 2011,  click here or visit: http://www.bizreport.com/2010/12/why-online-translation-will-be-important-in-2011.html

They are all leading brands that operate on a global scale and are at the front of their game in engaging with their customers through different channels and languages.

Today we have announced the release of a series of videos that explain the strategy adopted by these companies. Watch the Global Information Management overview video and any of the case study videos from the above companies, so you too can be at the forefront in engaging with your customers across the many different channels in which you have to communicate.