Global Extensibility and Local Inclusion

全球可扩展性与本地包容性

2020-08-01 23:41 Lingua Greca

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There are two themes that matter a lot at most global technology companies lately: Scalability. The ability to not only grow, but to create a foundation that enables efficient future growth. Customer centricity. Staying focused on customers and obsessing over their problems. How should we talk about each of these, from a localization perspective? Let’s take a look. Scalable = Globally Extensible To help people understand what scalability means in the context of a global business, localization professionals often talk about “business globalization” or “process globalization.” The problem is that these terms seem a bit too niche for most people. These terms can also come off sounding pretty old school, especially for those of us working at SaaS companies. However, everyone working at a tech company understands the importance of building for scale. So, one alternate way of explaining “globalization” and why it matters for international growth is to talk about global extensibility instead. Let’s do a quick “before and after.” BEFORE L10N team: “That process hasn’t been globalized.” Stakeholder: (Tunes out, sounds boring and unimportant) AFTER L10N team: “That process isn’t globally extensible.” Stakeholder: “Hmmm. Tell me more.” (Tunes in, because extensibility seems important) L10N team: “It could limit our growth the way it’s set up today. Maybe with some tweaks we could make it extensible to more than just one country?” For people working in tech, the concept of extensibility is pretty positive. It’s another way I like to pitch internationalization too. After all, it implies “making it possible for something to extend” or get bigger. This applies to extending across borders too. At this point, once you have their attention, you can explain that to make a process extensible to more parts of the world, it may need to be updated to ensure that other parts of the world could benefit from it too. The problem is usually getting their attention in the first place, and helping them understand you’re not just talking about some academic exercise in globalization. You’re talking about actually building something in a globally extensible way, from the ground up, to support your international strategy. Another thing that’s nice about the term “extensible” is that it casts a person’s eye toward the future. If you ask someone to help you “globalize” something, it sounds overwhelming or unnecessarily complex. It can even make them feel guilty or embarrassed that they didn’t think about it earlier. That isn’t what you’re trying to accomplish, so perhaps get them to dream of a more scalable and global future instead of worrying about past actions they might think you’re viewing as mistakes. Customer-Centric = Locally Inclusive We’re fortunate to be living in a time during which inclusion is becoming more top-of-mind for companies, and is even starting to be embraced. More and more, people are understanding that it’s important to be considerate and aware of differences between people, instead of treating everyone the same. We can connect the dots here into digital marketing, specifically personalized marketing, including targeted advertising and social media marketing. Technology and content are evolving to map to the reality that people might have certain things in common, but can’t always be cleanly bucketed into huge “segments” and “cohorts.” Our ability to message and market to people in a way that maps to them better as individuals is evolving along with our ability to capture data and make sense of the people we intend to reach through the ever-changing marketing mix. These means that creating an effective marketing strategy is getting harder too! Ironically, while personalized marketing is enabling companies to understand their customer needs with greater accuracy, local viewpoints are often left behind. It’s almost like, as an industry, we’ve overlooked a critical middle layer. Local voices seem to get lost in this highly personalized shuffle. How can localization professionals advocate for local customers, in the midst of all this? I think customer centricity is one strong point of entry we can use to advocate for local customers. There’s plenty of buy-in already. Everyone knows the customer experience matters. All most of us working in localization want to ask is, could we just slip a “local” in there too? The push to embrace customer-centric concepts in tech has been underway for quite some time. The notion of what it means to be customer-centric is also evolving. In its modern form, being customer-centric is much more than just thinking about the customer. It requires empathy, operating with an inclusive mindset, and adopting principles companywide to focus on solving for the customer. (Our team at HubSpot even created a Customer Code.) As such, the next time you’re tempted to throw out the term “localization” with stakeholders, consider swapping it for “local inclusion” instead. To most people, “localization” sounds robotic and dry. It sounds like a process, or a machine you just run things through. Unfortunately, that’s also precisely what localization isn’t. To be locally inclusive? That sounds way more thoughtful. More careful. More precise. And more like what localization actually is. Local inclusion can be a really powerful concept. Often, localization teams serve in the role of “advocates” for local voices to be heard. Very commonly, we’re the ones reminding global teams to talk to in-country leaders and counterparts. Imagine how your conversations might become more effective if you made some small changes here, if you try using “local inclusion” a bit more. BEFORE L10N team: “Let’s talk to the in-country teams before we localize this.” Stakeholder: (Tunes out, sounds boring and unimportant) AFTER L10N team: “To make sure we’re being locally inclusive, let’s talk to the in-country teams first.” Stakeholder: “Hmmm. Tell me more.” (Tunes in, because inclusivity sounds important) L10N team: “If we consult with people who are closer to the customer, directly in region, we can improve inclusion for our local customers.” It’s All about Language, Really Localization people love solving for local inclusion and global extensibility. It’s what we live for. We can communicate about this topic and how to solve such problems indefinitely. What we’re not always great about is getting the opportunity to do this work as early as it’s needed, and in as many places as it’s required. The only way we can get more seats at the table for localization, in my opinion, is to improve the way we communicate. If we can use simpler, clearer language, we can engender greater trust. Only when we do that, can we advocate for local needs, earlier, and more easily. A truly successful localization team within any tech company does not just transform content across languages, cultures, and systems. We actually learn to speak countless new languages, those of our stakeholders. Often, we hitch our international advocacy agenda to the company’s star priority of the moment. What’s difficult about it is that these windows of opportunity come up when we least expect them. As a result, we can sometimes feel like the character Amy Adams played in Arrival, using the most creative and scientific areas of our brain in order to decipher and communicate what other teams really mean. But what we often don’t realize is, the non-localization person is the one who often feels like the Amy Adams character, on the other side. Except… they’re not skilled in decoding languages. That’s our vocation, not theirs. It wouldn’t be fair to ask them to interpret our world, at least, not until we know enough of their language to teach them ours. So, we have to listen, learn, and find more points of overlap and common ground where we can add value in business growth and strategy conversations. It often starts with language, which I guess is pretty fortunate for us, since we know a thing or two about that.
最近,有两个主题对大多数全球科技公司至关重要: 可扩展性。 这种能力不仅能够增长,而且能够为未来的有效增长奠定基础。 以客户为中心。 专注于客户,专注于他们的问题。 从本地化的角度来看,我们应该如何谈论每一个问题? 一起来看看吧。 可伸缩=在全球范围内可扩展 为了帮助人们理解可扩展性在全球业务的上下文中的含义,本地化专业人员经常谈论“业务全球化”或“流程全球化”。 对大多数人来说这些术语听起来很老套,尤其是对我们这些在SaaS公司工作的人而言。 然而,在科技公司工作的每个人都明白建筑规模的重要性。 因此,解释“全球化”及其对国际增长的重要性的另一种方式是谈论全球可扩展性。 让我们来做一个快速的“前后”。 在此之前 L10N团队:“这个过程还没有全球化。” 利益相关者:(停,听起来无聊且无关紧要) 在此之后 L10N团队:“这个过程不是全求可扩展的。” 利益相关者:“嗯。 告诉我更多。“(请继续,因为可扩展性似乎很重要) L10N团队:“它可能会限制我们今天的发展。 也许只要稍加调整,我们就可以将其扩展到不止一个国家?“ 对于从事技术工作的人来说,可扩展性的概念是非常积极的。 这也是我喜欢宣传国际化的另一种方式。 毕竟,它意味着“使某物有可能扩展”或变得更大。 这也适用于跨界扩张。 在这一点上,一旦你赢得他们的注意,你就可以解释,为了使一个流程可扩展到世界上更多的地方,它可能需要更新,以确保世界上其他地方也能从中受益。 问题通常是首先引起他们的注意,并帮助他们理解你所谈论的不仅仅是全球化中的学术活动。你实际上是在以一种全球可扩展的方式建立一些东西,从头开始,以支持你的国际战略。 “可扩展性”这个词的另一个好处是它让人看到了未来。 如果你让某人帮你“全球化”某件事,这听起来令人难以招架或不必要的复杂。 这甚至会让他们感到内疚或尴尬,因为他们没有早点考虑这件事。 这并不是你想要实现的目标,所以也许可以让他们梦想一个更可扩展,更全球化的未来,而不是担心过去的行为,他们可能会认为你是错误的。 以客户为中心=本地包容性 我们很幸运地生活在这样一个时代,包容越来越成为公司的首要目标,甚至开始被接受。 越来越多的人认识到,要体谅他人,意识到人与人之间的差异,而不是一视同仁,这是很重要的。 我们可以把这里的点连接起来,变成数字营销,具体来说就是个性化营销,包括定向广告和社交媒体营销。 技术和内容正在不断发展,以映射出这样一个现实:人们可能有某些共同之处,但不可能总是被清晰地划分为巨大的“部分”和“群组”。随着我们获取数据的能力和通过不断变化的营销组合了解我们想要接触的人群的能力的不断发展,我们向人们传递信息和进行市场营销的能力也在不断发展。 这意味着创建一个有效的营销策略也变得越来越难! 更具讽刺的是,当个性化营销正在使公司更准确地了解他们的客户需求时,本地观点往往被抛在后面。 就像是,作为一个行业,我们忽略了一个关键的中间层。 本地的声音似乎迷失在这种高度个性化的混乱中。 在此情况下,本地化专业人员如何为本地客户进行宣传呢? 我认为以客户为中心是我们可以用来为本地客户进行宣传的一个强有力的切入点。 很多人支持这一观点。 每个人都知道客户体验很重要。 我们大多数在本地化方面工作的人都想问的是,我们能不能把一个“本地”也塞进去? 在科技领域,采用以客户为中心的理念已经有一段时间了。 以客户为中心的概念也在不断发展。 在它的现代形式中,以客户为中心远远不仅仅是为客户着想。 它需要同理心,以包容的心态经营,并在全公司范围内保持原则,专注于为客户解决问题。 (我们在HubSpot的团队甚至创建了一个客户代码。) 因此,下一次当您想与涉众一起抛出术语“本地化”时,请考虑将其替换为“本地包容性”。 对大多数人来说,“本地化”听起来很机械,很枯燥。 这听起来像是一个过程,或者是一台机器,你只是在运行。 不幸的是,这也正是本地化所不具备的。 本地包容性? 这听起来更值得思考。 更需要细心。 更需要精确。 更像是本地化到底是什么。 本地包容可以是一个真正强大的概念。 通常,本地化团队扮演着“倡导者”的角色,让人们听到当地的声音。 通常情况下,我们会提醒全球团队与国内的领导者和同行交谈。 想象一下,如果你在这里做了一些小的改变,如果你尝试更多地使用“本地包容”,你的对话会变得更有效。 在此之前 L10N团队:“在本地化之前,让我们和国内团队谈谈。” 利益相关者:(停,听起来无聊又无关紧要) 在此之后 L10N团队:“为了确保我们在当地的包容性,让我们先和国内团队谈谈。” 利益相关者:“嗯。 告诉我更多。“(继续,因为包容性听起来很重要) L10N团队:“如果我们直接在区域内与更接近客户的人协商,我们就可以提高本地客户的包容性。” 这都是语言的问题,真的 本地化人们喜欢解决本地包容性和全球可扩展性的问题。 这是我们活着的目的。 我们可以就这个话题和如何解决这样的问题进行无限的讨论。 我们不太擅长的事情是,在需要的时候尽早获得机会,在需要的地方进行这项工作。 在我看来,我们能够在本地化方面获得更多席位的唯一途径是改进我们的沟通方式。 如果我们能用更简单,更清楚的语言,我们就能产生更大的信任。 只有这样做,我们才能更早,更容易地为当地的需要进行宣传。 在任何一家科技公司中,一个真正成功的本地化团队不仅仅是跨语言、文化和系统转换内容。 我们实际上学习说无数的新语言,那些与我们利益相关的语言。 通常,我们会将国际宣传议程与公司当前的明星优先事项挂钩。 困难的是,这些机会之窗在我们最不经意的时候出现了。 因此,我们有时会觉得自己就像艾米·亚当斯在《抵达》中扮演的角色一样,利用大脑中最具创造性和科学性的区域来破译和交流其他团队真正的意思。 但我们往往没有意识到的是,非本地化的人往往会觉得自己像艾米·亚当斯的角色。 除了…他们不擅长解码语言。 那是我们的天职,不是他们的。要求他们解释我们的世界是不公平的,至少在我们掌握足够多的他们的语言来教他们我们的语言之前。 因此,我们必须倾听,学习,并找到更多的交叉点和共同点,以便在业务增长和战略对话中增加价值。 它通常是从语言开始的,我想这对我们来说是相当幸运的,因为我们对语言略知一二。

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

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