Sophie Hurst's Blog

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.

At our Innovate conference at the beginning of March, we heard from an excellent and I really mean excellent speaker! Mike Walsh. He covers digital trends and how they will affect the future. A host of things were covered such as how global trends impact the technology that we see used in different parts of the world; how a generation is growing up and do not know a world without the Web - how this affects our future buyers' attention spans, focus - how they'd build your website even.

So we thought we'd do a webinar with him, so that more people than those at our event can gain from this immensely valuable business and futuristic insight.

Based on Mike Walsh's bestselling book, FUTURETAINMENT, this webinar is a fast paced tour of the latest technologies, global trends and case studies that will forever change the way you engage with your global customers.

In this session Mike shares:

• Trends in new markets, consumers and technology 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

• Thinking beyond social media to the value of big data, compelling content and next generation behavioral analytics

• ....and more!

This is a free webinar so don’t miss this opportunity: Sign up now!

As you may have seen on Bloomberg yesterday morning, when Mark Lancaster, Executive Chairman, SDL appeared in an interview with Bloomberg Television's Mark Burton, SDL’s preliminary results revealed that we have achieved record revenues and profit performance in 2011.

We commented in our full-year results that revenues have grown by 13% while profits before tax rose 17% to £33.8m. We also announced a final dividend of 5.8p per ordinary share which is a 5.5% rise on the previous year's maiden dividend. Following the announcement, SDL was one of the top performers on the FTSE 250, closing the market at 690.5p.

Facial recognition technology until recently has been used in areas such as security systems and identification. Yesterday, I saw an example of its use in advertising and personalisation. Fascinating, as there is an example of an advert in London which recognises whether you are male or female and gives you information accordingly. Unilever's Cornetto brand has the first 'Smile Machine' where it measures whether you are smiling and gives you an ice cream if you do..

Is this the way our websites and mobile phones will go in the future, that marketing will be able to tailor so closely based not on information or cookies, but on the actual recognition of features in a face and what it tells the system about them? Will it be able to detect nationality? Age? Whether they respond well to the advert? There are of course all sorts of ethical questions that arise in light of such big brother targeting that will no doubt be part of a debate at some point, but for now, we can ponder what impact it might have for the customer experience and providing relevant information to the relevant person, in their language and when they want it.

I read an interesting article at the weekend and thought I'd post a blog around it as it may be of interest to some of you. Facebook, YouTube and even texting will save some of the world's endangered languages according to experts.

It is believed that of the 7000 languages spoken on the earth today, over half will have died out by the end of this century. But despair not - for digital technology is due to help save some of them. "North American tribes use social media to re-engage their young, for example. Tuvan, an indigenous tongue spoken by nomadic peoples in Siberia and Mongolia, even has an iPhone app to teach the pronunciation of words to new students."

I particularly like these comments by K David Harrison, an associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College and a National Geographic Fellow: "Small languages are using social media, YouTube, text messaging and various technologies to expand their voice and expand their presence. It's what I like to call the flipside of globalisation. We hear a lot about how globalisation exerts negative pressures on small cultures to assimilate. But a positive effect of globalisation is that you can have a language that is spoken by only five or 50 people in one remote location, and now through digital technology that language can achieve a global voice and a global audience."

The wonders of digital technology - and we often think of 'globalisation' as being more relevant for those with a big voice. But the power of the internet, social media and the modern digital era is that they provide a global voice to the minorities. Whether that is minority languages, cultures, businesses, charities, political groups or any other minorities.

According to network firm Cisco, this year mobile devices will outnumber humans. A BBC article on this comments, "By 2016 it predicts that there will be 10 billion mobile connected devices around the world." But the data needed for these devices is increasing."The rise in data consumption is likely to cause more problems for mobile operators already struggling to cope with demand." And of course video on these devices in an increasing requirement too which impacts data requirements.

The way our customers engage with us is constantly changing and these statistics highlight this - that companies need to be constantly evolving their strategies to keep up with the changing information needs of their customers. People want information now. They want it to be relevant and they want it personalised and on the device of their choice. Increasingly that is a mobile device, but it is really that the way customers want information is key. They choose - where they want information, on which device, when and in which language. Is your organisation ready for that?

These are the types of topics we will be discussing at our annual conference - Innovate 2012 in Santa Clara, CA, where leaders in these areas will talk about their experiences and best practices in engaging with global customers. Engaging times in an era of engagement requires mastery of global customer engagement.

The big news in the technology space, apart from SDL's acquisition of Alterian this week, is that Facebook is set to IPO. It is a private company and reports suggest it is valued at between $75bn (£48bn) and $100bn. As a private company, it does not have to publish its accounts, but reports in January suggested the firm made a net profit of $355m on revenues of $1.2bn in the first nine months of 2010. A pretty amazing story, when you think that it has only really been in the last few years that the use of social media has grown extensively.

We have gone through an evolution in terms of how companies engage with their customers through social media and the information and data behind social media and online marketing is becoming a very important asset for companies. It helps them understand, analyse,track and predict customer opinions and gauge best ways to respond, engage and modify strategies in line with this important information. Any organisation that operates on a global scale also needs to analyse what customers are saying around the world and in different languages and respond in the relevant language.

Any marketing team also has to understand the success of their campaigns and gauge how to best target customers. We in marketing need to understand the success of any marketing campain that is done and if we don't, we can't improve, tweak and personalise along the way. We will be talking more about this in the coming months, but today's acquisition of Alterian shows how importantly we rate this information and analysis for driving global business and brand equity. Find out more and watch a video.

How has your company evolved in terms of its use of social and campaign management and analytics?

In the year of our 20^th Birthday, SDL has announced the acquisition of Alterian, a leader in campaign management and social media analytics. Why is this such great news? For many reasons, but one being that it will enhance our solutions that help global businesses engage with their customers in the
language, media and moment they choose.

For those of you not familiar with Alteiran, they provide:

• Campaign management and analytics
• Email marketing
• Web content management
• Social media monitoring and intelligence

This excellent strategic fit blends the marketing analytics, campaign management and social
media capabilities from the Alterian product suite with that of SDL’s leading global Web and Structured Content Management, eCommerce and Language Management capabilities. This combination will provide an integrated platform for companies to significantly enhance the global customer experience. Find out more and you can watch a video of SDL executives commenting on the benefits of the acquisition to customers, partners and employees of the two companies.

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!

In the globalised world in which we operate, where what happens in Greece affects citizens here in the UK and a tsunami in Japan impacts sales in the US, exports are seen as a way of aiding recovery. An article in the news today highlights the discussion.

Companies need to be able to take products globally and do so from a multi-channel perspective in this day and age. It is no longer the case that we can think in our own islands or countries. As economies at home falter, economies elsewhere in the globe are growing and capturing those markets is key to success as a business. SDL helps companies with their sales and marketing in global markets - helping them set up multilingual, brand consistent websites that are also prepared for mobile and that speak to local markets, ensuring operational efficicencies for creating user and technical support information and overall helping companies engage with their global customers. You can find out by listening to some of our customers say it themselves - HP, Informatica and LG to name a few.