Technology is constantly evolving and the nature of humankind is to constantly look at how to do things better. Keeping up with those evolutions is the challenge of many - some embrace the change and some prefer the currrent way of doing things. Either works - it's just up to the individual's personal preferences. And that is what companies today are trying to get closer to - the preferences of the individual.

I have been looking into the future today and contemplating what it will look like. One article I read was pointing to 2020 and what the world will look like then but one, highlighting changes which are closer on the horizon is about 5 innovations that will change 2012. Many of the senses are being emulated by technology - something we would never have imagined 15 years ago.  

Eye control. This is about being able to control the way your computer works and what it does, using your eyes. Technology is also evolving to detect your feeling based on other facial movements (see an earlier blog on facial recognition technology). The next trend, gesture control is something we have seen used in areas such as gaming, but it is advancing to mean that you could open a file on your computer from 17 feet away or swipe through your music library at a distance. Touchscreen control, mainly now used on smartphones but not on laptops and mainstream computing will become more advanced. And speech recognition is advancing - as has been seen with iPhone's 'Siri' assistant. So this technology can be used to mean that you can talk to your computer just as easily as you use a mouse.

I remember when mobile phone handsets first came out and I saw people apparently talking to themselves. Just imagine, soon we'll be offices and streets full of people talking to themselves.... a sobering thought...But on a more serious note, emulating the senses brings marketers closer to their audience, as it is emotions that connect people with each other and with companies' brands. So many of these technology changes will in the future start to have a profound impact on the way companies are able to engage with their global customers.

SDL is very excited to announce that Mike Walsh, bestselling author of FUTURETAINMENT and a favorite keynote speaker at SDL’s Innovate 2012 conference, will be hosting a highly anticipated webinar on April 17^th, 2012! The webinar will highlight the importance of global customer engagement and give viewers an inside look at up and coming industry trends. In the session Mike will share his expertise on things like:

• The new markets, consumers and technology trends that will be essential for the global growth of your business

• Case studies of international companies who have successfully leveraged cultural forces for local market success

• The disruptive innovation models of your emerging market competitors

Anyone looking to learn global best practices in mobile applications and platforms, think beyond social media to the value of big data and gain insight on how the Web of tomorrow is going to be different than what we use today will get valuable, expert knowledge from Mike’s webinar.

Register today at: http://www.sdl.com/en/language-technology/news-and-events/sdl-events/nasa/2012/customer-engagement-webinar.asp

To get an insider's perspective on his presentation at Innovate see here.

To learn more about Mike Walsh: http://www.mike-walsh.com/

To see a clip of his presentation at Innovate 2012 click here.

Those who have signed up for Innovate 2012 can look forward to Greg Oxton’s highly anticipated innovation workshop on day 2 of the March 5th-6th event. Greg brings his knowledge from the Consortium for Service Innovation, a non-profit alliance of organizations focused on innovation for customer interaction.

During the interactive workshop, attendees will delve deeper into what innovation is and how one masters it. Innovation is accepted as being an important ingredient for a successful and sustainable business, and Greg will share great tips on how to create an innovative environment.

Greg specializes in customer service and organizational development so his session will cover key topics such as:

• Alignment; to a purpose and values
• Tolerance for discovery; a passion for learning
• Collaboration; facilitating interactions to improve relevance and reach
• Customer presence; integrating customers into the business
• Knowledge management; capturing, sharing and improving our collective knowledge

If you haven’t signed up for Innovate 2012 yet, it’s not too late to hear Greg, and dozens of other fantastic speakers, share their insight on customer engagement, content management and industry best practices. Don’t miss out on a fantastic opportunity!

Register today at: http://www.sdl.com/en/sites/innovate2012/

With so many conferences and expos happening each month, it is easy for even the largest events to get lost within the pages of one’s calendar. If you haven’t had a chance to register for Innovate 2012 in Santa Clara next week, there is still time! We have lined up an impressive selection of speakers that will be presenting on science innovation, customer engagement, and industry best practices.

The first morning will open up with Mike Walsh, bestselling author of FUTURETAINMENT, presenting on the latest technologies, global trends, and case studies regarding customer relationships. The rest of day one is packed with great customer presentations and panel sessions. Another “can’t miss” session comes at the end of the day with an executive advisory panel discussing insight into global customer engagement. Executives from SDL, Dell, HP, Intel and Microsoft will be offering their expertise on strategies and tools to implement in 2012 to build lasting relationships with customers.

If you are looking for an interactive experience, be sure to check out the Ask the Experts session on March 6th. SDL’s Technology experts will be available for 1-on-1 meetings with attendees to answer questions on technical product information, discuss best practices and offer product demos. This is a unique opportunity not to be missed!

The Innovate conference is less than one week away! Don’t miss your chance to hear incredibly talented speakers, network with industry professionals and learn what SDL has planned for a fantastic 2012.

Register today at: http://www.sdl.com/en/sites/innovate2012/

Have you noticed that the way people work has changed over the past decade? As organizations adopt a more dynamic, real time nature of business, the way individuals and teams work together is changing as well. Of course, it’s the internet that has primarily driven this change - making collaboration, sharing and communication easier.

According to Gartner, “By 2015, 40 percent or more of enterprise work will be ‘non-routine,’ up from 25 percent in 2010. [People] will work with others with whom they have few links.  Teams will include people outside the control of the enterprise.”  To address this trend, teams need solutions that enable collaboration regardless of location.

Today, SDL is launching SDL Studio GroupShare - A collaboration solution for small to medium sized translation teams who have out-grown purely desktop solutions and are looking for a better way to centrally manage translation memories, terminology and translation projects.

We are very excited here at SDL, as we look back over the last 20 years and celebrate the success of SDL. It really has been a great success story that started with a couple of people in a living room here in Maidenhead, UK and has now grown to over 2400 employees in 60 offices across 35 countries! You can visit our history page on the website for more information on the growth of SDL. 

We had a look at some interesting statistics from 1992 and we will show you more of those throughout the year. One that I found interesting was that AT&T released a video phone in 1992 for $1,499! And you look at the world today – over 5 billion smartphones are used globally!

This week I'm hosting a guest post from our Jeremy Harpham, Senior Product Marketing Manager at SDL.  Jeremy is on site all week, so if you're in tekom drop by and say hello... he'll be there.

This week the tekom Annual Conference takes place in Wiesbaden, Germany. The strong presence SDL has in German speaking markets is reflected at this key industry event from 18 – 20 October 2011. Come and visit the SDL stands (430 & 437 in Hall 4) to see the latest content optimization and translation technology with the arrival of key new products to address the needs of the German speaking market.

By Keith Laska, Senior VP, SDL Language Technologies

Ignorance is bliss. At least that’s what I thought when I started researching the millions of definitions and variants of Cloud Computing while listening to one of my favorite classics from The Doors. By distilling all of the available information I was able to clear my head for a minute, sit back, meditate and jot down the reasons why cloud computing has become so confusing….

1. Cloud Computing is anything and everything “online.” There, I said it. Technically, one can open up a browser, connect to their web-based email, open up an application on their iPhone, join a webinar, buy a product on Amazon.com, and all of this fits under the literal description of “cloud.” Why? Because the core definition of Cloud Computing is anything, sitting somewhere, online.

2. Confusion with Cloud comes from mixing “back-end” and “front-end” capabilities. People tend to get most confused when words like “SaaS, IaaS, and scalable multi-tenancy” get mixed together with “ease of use, browser-based and pay as you go.” I tend to categorize these separately to make it as simple as possible to understand without risking loss of IQ points. For me, Cloud “back-end” is techie stuff that “front-end” users should never have to worry about. Cloud back-end can be hosted remotely in a public, private, hybrid, compute cloud or any combination of those. It can rely on an architecture that allows the number of users to scale profitably without concern of outage or stalling. It allows companies to “pay as they grow” and scale server and storage capacity as and when they need it. But for the user – all of this techie stuff should be virtually seamless and hidden. Think of Google Search Engine – there is a heck of a lot of technical capability built behind that application – servers, storage, scalability to allow billions of hits per day. But as a user, all you see is that simple search bar.

3. Cloud computing explained. I then created a cheat-sheet that helped me understand the various types of cloud:

• Private Cloud. This can be information stored on your own personal PC, or corporate information held on corporate servers walled off from public access. This is basically information hosted privately, whether you are an individual or corporation.
• Public Cloud. This is information stored in a public environment, outside of your firewall. Your data could be in a server in Northern Alaska or in Southern New Zealand, but you don’t care. Because it’s secure and the most important thing for you is not where it’s held but that it’s instantly accessible and backed up. All the better for you, as you don’t have to worry about storage disks, your house burning down, or the company premises getting broken into.
• Hybrid Cloud. I liken this to the folks who will eventually swim in the lake, but are dipping their toes in to check the water temperature on a regular basis. A good example for a consumer is someone who uploads photos to Flikr for everyone to access (public cloud) however keeps backups of tax returns on a hard disk connected to their home computer (private cloud). For a company, this could mean hosting your customer data with Salesforce.com (public cloud) but hosting the data residing in your SAP implementation down the hall from your office (private cloud).
• Confidential Cloud. This is an environment where customers would like to access applications in the Cloud but would like to outsource the hosting and management to a third-party provider. In this instance, the outsourced provider manages the application, the servers and security. It’s neat for companies because they don’t have the hassle of managing all of this stuff in-house. However, it’s not as cost-efficient as a Public Cloud where you share resources, storage and bandwidth with a wider audience to reduce overall costs.

4. There is a big difference between “traditional cloud” and “future cloud.” This was the pièce de résistance that helped me understand – and effectively segment – the various definitions of Cloud Computing. For me, 90% of the technology we are using today is “traditional cloud.” In other words, our everyday lives sit in this cloud. From accessing Google Search, to our web-based email, this “traditional cloud” has been around for some time. Future or Public Cloud needs a number of trend convergences to really take hold. 

• First convergence: We must enter the World of Web 3.0 – where you no longer concern yourself with on-demand, ubiquitous online internet connectivity, it’s just there as, and when, you need it. At home, in the car, underground, in an airplane. Anywhere. This is the semantic web, where every piece of information online is categorized and accessible immediately (even your own personal profile and levels of expertise – think LinkedIn or Facebook). This may even be a world where you pay for information online. (How much would you pay to search through Google - $1 a day?)  Remember, nothing is free.  You currently pay indirectly for internet search because your information is sold to the highest advertising bidder. 
• Second convergence: The work you do online comes to you based on your skills and levels of expertise. Not so difficult to imagine. You get an interview for a job because you theoretically have skills that match the job requirement. Except in the Future Cloud, you no longer have to go to get that work – it comes to you based on your online profile. Simple, easy, efficient.
• Third convergence: There are a number of obstacles in the way of Public Cloud being adopted by the masses, which has led to a “hybrid” approach to Cloud adoption (some company information in a Public Cloud, some information in a private cloud). In order for Public Cloud to fully succeed, answers to security provisioning, storage management, data movement and bandwidth limitations need to be accounted for and solved.

In any case, clouds are all around us and multiplying quickly. Everyone’s getting on the hype-wagon and joining will probably just be a matter of time…

For more information, check out the presentation “Demisting the Cloud” – now live in Elevation Center, SDL’s virtual briefing center for cloud computing: http://events.unisfair.com/rt/sdl~cloud

Today, SDL has launched Elevation Center - the Localization Industry’s First Briefing Center for Cloud Computing.  Globalization and Localization professionals are invited to participate in an industry-wide conversation to drive innovation and advances in the cloud for our industry.

Elevation Center will expand over the next several months and will include a series of presentations, educational seminars, live chat sessions, forums, product demonstrations and podcasts - all delivered through innovative cloud platforms.  Localization professionals can meet peers, network with others in the center, learn about cloud computing, participate in conversations on topics of interest to the industry and explore ways to work together.

Join today to be part of this industry-wide conversation. Sign up to gain access to 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.