Global Experts Who Drive Language Standards to Convene at Summit in Berlin

Article Details

Global Watchtower

Common Sense Advisory Blogs

Posted by Donald A. DePalma on November 1, 2005 in the following blogs: Technology, Translation and Localization
Pages \| \|

This Summit is long overdue for its singular focus on language technology, quality, and process standards. The goal of this non-commercial summit is to bring together disparate standards-setting organizations, experts, practitioners, concerned associations, industry, and government to establish a common thread or direction for localization-related standards. Our research has shown that several organizations have undertaken standardization efforts, but they seldom talk to each other or know what their counterparts are doing. The introductory part of this two-day event will include detailed presentations about standards developed by a variety of international bodies. The summit will be successful if it gives different organizations a forum to discuss their offerings, eliminate duplicate efforts, and avoid contradictory postulates.

How is that different from other language-related gatherings? Most language-focused or globalization conference organizers (you know who we mean) have broadened their agendas to include whatever they think will draw delegates. What has gone missing is a focus on the standards that enable global application development and the global content life cycle. And there are plenty of those to contend with, some of them overlapping. Even the standards-focused Unicode conference has broadened its remit, gently adding the broader topic of internationalization to its traditional deep discussion of character sets.

Another huge difference is the strict non-commercial aspect of this event. There will be no sponsors, no exhibits, no conference bags, no selling of any kind, and no suits (both literally and figuratively). The focus will be squarely on the importance of standards and the need to unify them worldwide.

Finally, the Berlin summit has been endorsed by a wide and growing array of organizations, including GALA, MITRE, and OASIS, plus academic institutions such as California State University, Kent State University, the Localisation Resource Centre (Ireland), and GeNESS (Brazil). While we would prefer to spend that week in Malaga or Curañao, we'll slosh through the KuDamm alongside Berliners preparing for Christmas. Find out how you can support the open discussion of language industry standards at the Language Standards for Global Business Summit in December.

Full disclosure: Don DePalma is the chairperson of this conference, but has no financial interest.

Categories