RWS Moravians Reflect on LocWorldWide42

Thursday, July 20th, concluded the first ever fully online LocWorld experience. LocWorld is the leading conference for international business, translation, localization and global website management.

Like all attendees, we were excited about the speakers and the topics (all about the end-user this year), but we didn’t know what to expect of the new online format. We were curious about how virtual exhibitions and booths and online networking would all work.

In the end, the conference exceeded expectations. We collected the impressions of several RWS Moravians and share them here.

Dave Van Looy, Newcastle, UK

For me, it was a great opportunity to network with fellow loc professionals from all corners of the world. Obviously, online networking comes with challenges and limitations, but overall, it was an intensely productive and rewarding experience. Hats off to the LocWorld team for pulling it off under difficult circumstances.

I Ioved the presentation by Bruno Hermann titled “Mixed Globalization and Localization Measurement for Mixed Realities” in which he defined a framework model to apply mixed KPIs and metrics in content-centric and experience-centric ways, helping us go beyond conventional localization services and build localization business cases focused on customer experiences.

Judith Soloduk, Washington, DC, USA

Overall, it was a tremendous opportunity to meet with peers, gain insight into developing technologies and learn how clients are managing localization.

Remo, the virtual networking platform, had a very simple navigation and I enjoyed using it. I liked the ability to click on the person at the table to get a little background on them. Lunch and Happy Hour allowed for open dialog around the virtual tables, which was great. The platform successfully enabled lots of information sharing and open dialogues.

And the sessions were really interesting—especially the round tables and unconferences where we were able to exchange ideas as peers. It was a great way to develop relationships in a non-threatening environment.

Wendy Ting, Guanzhou, China

I had a very positive experience at LocWorld’s first virtual event. LocWorld made it possible for people to meet by hosting meet and greets, lunch and Happy Hour sessions on the Remo platform. Since this was a virtual event, there were more representatives from all over the world. Instead of being jetlagged, we all had time zone issues! Many people woke up early or stayed up late just to attend this online event.

The sessions themselves were very interesting. I was able to learn about what’s going on in the loc industry. At the same time, it was insightful to learn about the processes that buyers have created and the challenges they constantly face. I feel like I can apply my learnings in future conversations with prospects and clients.

Although everyone I met at the session agreed that we all would prefer the real-life LocWorld event, this was still a very successful virtual venue for localization professionals to gather and network.

Philippa Nicolle, Cambridge, UK

As a first-time attendee of LocWorld, I was intrigued to see how the virtual format would work, and in general, I really appreciated the networking opportunities (particularly the Remo platform). The sessions were very interesting with a great variety of topics and excellent speakers and panellists, and I enjoyed the opportunity to hear and participate in discussions on topics from enterprise translation buyer perspectives as well as from LSP and technology companies. Another highlight was to hear directly from the Translators without Borders team about their global COVID-19 response. People were extremely open and welcoming, and I can tell LocWorld is a very friendly community. I’m thrilled that recordings are available, and I’ll be catching up on some of the sessions I missed in the next few weeks!

Joy Chen, New Jersey, USA

Attending LocWorldWide gave me a fantastic opportunity to learn what’s happening at the forefront of the industry. I was highly impressed by the innovators in the Process Innovation session. The idea of conducting business intelligence analysis before post-editing in machine translation programs is very relevant to me since we are launching a machine translation program for one of our major clients with full force now.

The keynote speech from Larry Hochman was inspirational. There were great affirmation messages related to client services: he described that at the end of the day, the secret to a healthy and long-standing client relationship lies in knowing our clients, simplifying their lives and keeping our promises. I surely intend to share this key takeaway with my team.

Miklos Urban, Budapest, Hungary

Besides the superb technical solutions to adapt to the crazy situation and overcome the limitations of remote conferencing, the major takeaways I remember include:

• "Educate your client" is the mantra of the industry. But, if the client shows little interest in getting educated, let them learn the hard way!
• MT has a place in all industries. There is no longer an industry that is not a good fit for MT. Certain content may not be a good match, but with a well-designed content strategy, MT benefits are within reach.
• And an old but important reminder: having a localization strategy is not a ‘thing’. To succeed in localization, one needs an overarching content or even product strategy that involves localization as an integrated part, and also includes multilingual content strategy, internationalization strategy, etc. Localization must play an important role in the product development process. It should not be a separate process or, worst case, an afterthought of going global.

While no one knows what format future LocWorld events will take, we all now know that large online conferences can be effective and rewarding for attendees. Great job LocWorld organizers!