About this project

When I was in my second year at MIIS, I spent a good amount of time creating one-pagers for startups who haven’t thought about localization with the hope of convincing them the benefits of setting up a localization program. The researching process was very time consuming, as the information on different aspects of localization is all over the places. This experience gave me an opportunity to look at localization from an outsider’s point of view, which made me realize that we as localization professionals can contribute to localization evangelization across various industries through building a centralized knowledge hub for anyone who wants to learn the basics of localization.

Hence, I teamed up with Megan Ling and In Young Kim and started working on a localization guide for startups. The ultimate goal of this guide is to provide a high-level overview of the essential elements in localization. We want to equip decision makers in startups with knowledge they need to evaluate whether they need a localization program and help them engage in conversation with language service providers.

Project Roadmap

We kicked off the project by identifying the FAQs regarding internationalization and localization. Next, we put those questions into the following categories:

  • Localization in a Nutshell: This section covers topics such as a brief overview to the current landscape in the localization industry, the important players in localization, and the common workflows in localization. This section will also include the definition of terminology such as L10N, I18N, G11N, T9N.
  • Tools and Infrastructure: This section covers the tools and infrastructure that are important to the success of a localization program. Such tools and infrastructure include CAT, TMS, MT, etc.
  • Investing in Localization: This section aims to provide the readers with an idea of how much it costs to set up a localization program. The section can be further broken down into sub-sections such as investment in infrastructure, investment in staffs, and the cost of purchasing language services.
  • Quality Management: This section will provide people with the knowledge they need to manage translation quality proactively. To be more specific, people will learn more about setting up the matric for quality evaluation, how to set up LQA program, how to run root-cause analysis on long-term quality issues, and how to strategize quality improvement plan with language suppliers.
  • Vendor Management: This section introduces various types of localization models (i.e. in-house model and outsource model), the tips and tricks of running RFP in search of language service providers, how to run QBRs with the vendors, and how to implement improvement plan with the vendors.
  • Localization Evangelization: This section covers localization evangelization within various groups of key stakeholders, such as product documentation team, product development team, marketing team, and executive management.
Topic menu on our website

Our progress

Our team has built the content structure and set up a website to host the content. So far, we’ve drafted, reviewed, and published three articles in tools and infrastructure. The first draft for the article on localization evangelization is also completed.

Published article: TMS

Future plan

The bulk of this project will be researching online, pulling useful tips and tricks from webinars and workshops, and consolidating the knowledge in a structural way. On top of that, our team believes that it would be a great idea to interview localization veterans who have experience setting up a localization program at startups. This will allow us to gain more insight into the common pain points and struggles of program managers and how they manage those challenges. Perhaps we can even collaborate with the podcast team who is also interviewing localization professionals to create various types of content for people who want to learn more about localization!