GALA’s first-ever conference focuses on big issues and the future of the language industry
The Globalization and Localization Association held its first-ever conference last month, September 14–16, at the JW Marriott in Cancún, Mexico. The conference, entitled GALA 2009: The language of business. The business of language, was filled with rich content and many opportunities for networking in the sun.
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, one of the most successful online enterprises ever, kicked off the festivities by summing up his success with two words: customer service. He also spoke of personal diplomacy and bottom-up democracy as critical elements of a successful business, and he urged attendees to partake in community service. International growth of Craigslist was also discussed, with Newmark explaining Craigslist’s slow global growth as deliberate, stating, “We only enter a new market when there is a clear desire for and interest in Craigslist in that market.”
After the keynote, attendees could choose from three tracks of workshops focused on different aspects of running a language and localization business: 1. sales and marketing; 2. production and technology; and 3. management and operations.
A few highlights included Aki Ito of TOIN, who shared his sales secrets by encouraging listeners to be as selective of their customers as their customers are in choosing them. Reinhard Schäler gave a passionate talk on the Rosetta Foundation, which is providing open source language tools and technology to help break the information barrier around the world. Other presentations included McElroy Translation's plans for harnessing crowdsourcing for better collaboration across the translation spectrum and another highlighting tools for using public relations and marketing effectively even on a shoestring budget.
The program also provided a number of panel discussions with speakers from such industry leaders as Adobe, Hewlett Packard, VMware and VeriSign. John Watkins of ENLASO moderated a discussion on quality issues, and Serge Gladkoff of Logrus led a panel on vendor management in which Silvia Campos of VeriSign exclaimed, “If my vendors grow, I grow . . . we are a team.”
One of the most interesting group sessions was a plenary on the state of the localization and language industry. Don DePalma of Common Sense Advisory led a lively discussion with industry and association leaders, including tekom’s Michael Fritz, GALA’s Hans Fenstermacher, the Localisation Research Centre’s Reinhard Schäler, the American Translators Association’s Jiri Stejskal, and the Localization Industry Standards Association’s Arle Lommel. The conclusion: The industry, as a whole, needs to lead as content and information reach the far corners of the world, and the associations within the industry need to work together. Lively discussions on this session and others, such as those on crowdsourcing and quality, ensued at the conference, over dinners in the evenings and in cyberspace with Twitter and LinkedIn reporting on the event and carrying discussions to professionals throughout the world.
Feedback since the conference has been overwhelmingly positive. A number of blog postings have reviewed the conference and can be found on the GALA News and Events page. The numerous exclamations after the show can be summed up best by JBI Studios’ Xavier Marchand, who said: “The conference was great. The real decision makers were there, and I made more contacts than at any of the shows I had been to before. Not to mention the perfect setting . . . if I could already sign up for next year, I would!”
Indeed, the Caribbean weather did not disappoint. Hot and dry days turned to warm and breezy evenings without a drop of rain. GALA 2009 participants attended several outdoor activities arranged by the conference, including a welcome reception in the resort gardens and a speed networking session by the pools. Informal and impromptu meetings were held at the poolside café, in the pool . . . and even while jumping waves in the warm sea.
GALA is in the planning stages for its next conference in 2010. Location and dates will be announced soon. More information can be found at the GALA conference website.