#95 Launching the Most Comprehensive Open-Source Globalization Strategy Playbook

Natalia Levitina and Karen Combe, Members of the GILT Leaders’ Forum,  talk about GILT’s Globalization Strategy Playbook, arguably the industry’s most comprehensive, open-source guide to globalization, internalization, and localization yet.

The co-authors recall the various stages of their career in the localization industry and their journey to becoming part of the GILT Leaders Forum. They reflect on their experience writing the 30,000+-word, six-chapter playbook with 10 co-authors from the localization buy-side, and how they drew on key learnings from their professional backgrounds.

The duo discuss the role of primary and secondary stakeholders, from end-users and management chains to procurement and vendors. They advise what language tech tools buyers should choose and prioritize when it comes to the translation management system (TMS), translation productivity (CAT), and machine translation stack.

Natalia and Karen round off with the playbook’s potential for people in the language industry to learn from and build on top of, given that it is open source and on GitHub.

First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with Meta’s (formerly Facebook) CTO Mike Schroepfer tweeting about machine translation as their team won in 10 out of 14 language pairs at the WMT 2021.

Esther talks about French investment firm Amethis acquiring a minority stake in UAE-headquartered Tarjama. Meanwhile, Airbnb announced it had launched Translation Engine, which allows users to automatically read translations of reviews and descriptions.

Florian then touches on the implications of a formal opinion issued by the American Bar Association, entitled Language Access in the Client-Lawyer Relationship.