| Monica Merel |
Hey, Stefan. So, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. How’s your day been? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Hey, Monica. How’s it going? Happy to be here. |
| Monica Merel |
It’s going really good. I’m excited to talk to you about localization. A little bit about me. I’m actually newer to the localization industry. I started last year in February, so right at the precipice of the pandemic, and before that, I worked in multicultural marketing, so I actually had never even heard of localization before. And what’s interesting is I used to go to conferences regularly about multicultural marketing for the US markets, no one ever mentioned localization ever. There was never a big show about it, no breakout rooms, nothing. So, when I came to work at formerly SDL, now RWS, I was so surprised on like, what is localization? How does this even work? So, I’m really excited to talk to you today and explore that more. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
It’s very interesting. So, my background is actually, since the outset, connected to languages. I was born in Antwerp, Belgium, grew up speaking Dutch at home, and then during my teenage years, I moved to the French part of Switzerland. And in Switzerland, although I lived in the French part of Switzerland, I went to school in the German part of Switzerland, and English at an American school, so those are the four languages that I speak, and well, it was no coincidence that I ended up in the translation industry, so to speak. So, that’s my connection and how it got started for me. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
So, I’ve been in the localization industry for over 20 years, and your story about getting blank stares or not really connecting what localization is is oddly familiar to my experience because although I speak a lot of languages, I’m eerily familiar with the reaction that you described, so to speak, where people don’t really understand what localization is. |
| Monica Merel |
Yeah. It’s really interesting, because it seems like… for example, RWS, where I work is a really large company, and there’s tons of people that work in localization, but it seems really niche, it’s very insulated. So, I’d love to learn more about the history of localization, your thoughts on it since you’ve been in the industry for so long, and the changes too. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. So, the term localization, actually, is a term that was coined in the mid 1990s to describe the process of taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to a target locale. But that’s a mouthful, that’s something that probably makes a lot of sense to somebody who’s in the industry, but I know that when I explain to or when I get asked, “What do you do for a living?” And I tell people, “I work in the localization industry,” I get the blank stares and the term is not very well understood, and it carries some contradictions with it, so to speak. So, for insiders, it’s something that’s easy, for outsiders, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Probably the easiest bridge that I can make when I talk to people that are not familiar with the term is to bring up the term translation, because that’s where it starts. It’s connected to translation. |
| Monica Merel |
So, if you had to use one sentence to describe localization, do you think you have one off the top of your head? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
It’s the process to make it so we can sell a product internationally, and it is connected to translating the content, making it so that you can pitch the product abroad, that you can sell it in different locals in the appropriate way. |
| Monica Merel |
So, you briefly touched on translation. So, when I was working in the multicultural marketing space, I oversaw the Spanish market in the US, so I oversaw content creation for the Spanish markets and I’d never heard of localization before. So, I’m curious the relationships you see between translation, localization, but also localization and globalization. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. So, there’s a couple of things here. There’s an interesting paradox with international marketing and globalization and localization that I have recently come to realize is an disconnect between insider people like us and people that work in international marketing and international business. The word globalization in itself is a term that, for most business people, is used to describe how trade and technology have made the world a much more connected and interdependent place. It speaks to the unification of the world as an economic and cultural space, and it’s a word that’s used to describe the growing interdependence of the world’s economy. So, people that work in international marketing typically don’t associate globalization with what we think is the natural thing to get to globalization, which is to localize our products, to make it so that you can sell an item in Brazil, or in Japan, or in France in the appropriate way by addressing a specific locale and a specific set of people in the way that they should be addressed. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
So, it’s very interesting because that seemed to be paradoxical to people that are not from the industry and it warrants some further explanation when we have conversations with them. Usually, when I explain to them what’s involved in localization and it’s the translation plus side, so to speak, where you’re not just transferring words from one language into another language but you’re also adapting messages because maybe in France, we don’t get the baseball analogy because baseball is not that popular, so we should be talking about soccer instead of baseball, those types of adjustments make it so that you can sell better abroad. And that’s really the game of localization beyond just doing the translation. |
| Monica Merel |
So then, if you’re a translator, someone working in translations and you’ve never heard of localization before, why would you think that is? Do you think it’s an industry issue or do you think it’s more like there’s opportunity to learn more? Just curious. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. The term localization itself is a term that’s really not known by anybody outside of our industry. I’m always surprised that we have not done a very good job at either propagating that term or making it a household item, so to speak. I don’t think that there’s a lot of people that follow when you just drop it as such. That’s why when I came across this language operations article lately that I thought maybe we need to rethink the term altogether and we need to come up with something that makes more sense for the people that are in marketing or product development and something that makes it easier for them to see the usefulness and the connection what it is that they do on a daily basis. |
| Monica Merel |
So, the language operations. Is that a different term to localization? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. So, I read this article by Joao Graca in Forbes Magazine not too long ago in which he explained how what we should do is get away from the term localization and maybe switch it to LangOps. And it was all about how we can officially operationalize cross-functional multidisciplinary teams, so to speak, and really make the languages a central aspect rather than the siloed approach that we’ve had traditionally. And I think that’s one of the difficulties that localization people deal with in the trenches, so to speak, is that they don’t really belong to a particular group, they’re bouncing around between product development, marketing, other sections, of companies. So, this approach was actually turning that on its head and making it so that we would get away from the siloed approach that is the traditional one |
| Monica Merel |
You’ve been in the industry for years now. So, has it always been this siloed? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah, I think so. Actually in the beginning, in the early days, I don’t think localization was even an internal functionality to many companies at all, it would be something that outside vendors would take care of and it would come up when people needed things to be translated. So, I should say it’s a more recent development, maybe the last 10, 15 years, where we’ve seen the larger corporations actually bringing in the localization people within the organization as such, but still, we’re dealing with very siloed activities by and large. And the organizations in which localization plays a central role, that gets a say around the table from the get go, those organizations are far and in between. |
| Monica Merel |
It’s really interesting because in localization, to me, the stakeholders, now that I’m in the industry, seem to be like marketing managers, production, the procurement, the IT, there’s lot of different stakeholders, but they work in a lot of different parts of the organization. There are people who touch in localization but they don’t all work together on the same team. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. |
| Monica Merel |
So, where else in the org do they talk about language operations as an opportunity for localization? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. So, I think that is the opportunity right there is to, instead of bouncing the localization ball around in between the different departments, this article actually was making the argument for giving localization people a seat around the table from the get go and essentially make it a continuous development in which localization is thought of from the beginning. And the language operations are not a product or a result of English being transferred in a bunch of other languages and being used to breach other cultures, but actually to think about the language as an integral part of the operation from the get go so that when you’re writing the copy, you are writing it with internationalization in mind, if that makes any sense. So, you are writing, whatever language you’re writing your base copy, and you’re keeping in mind that that copy is going to be used across the globe in many cultures and that you’re shying away from certain things up front because you know they’re going to be more productive down the line, if that makes any sense. |
| Monica Merel |
It really does, because when you talk about the… it sounds almost like a top down, it’s like it needs to come from the C-suites down to the other stakeholders on the teams that do localization versus just separate siloed, in a perfect world. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
If we thought as language being an important part of the operation from the get go, then it wouldn’t be just as a function of marketing or as a functioning of product or any of these things, it would be really at the core of the organization and the language we would develop would get developed in a much more effective way. I think that’s the base mass of the idea and I thought it was a really interesting concept. I do a lot of posting on social media, LinkedIn in particular, and I made a clip around this particular topic and put this up for debate on LinkedIn, and there was a lot of strong reactions from people pro and con, important people in the industry that strongly disagreed or strongly agreed or at least felt that there should be a change. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
I think that there’s a lot of underlying thought percolating about this but because we’ve all gotten the blank stares, frankly, when we try to explain what we do, and I think it’s symptomatic of the position of our industry within organizations that if we have difficulty explaining what we do at the outset, then it’s not that difficult to imagine that we don’t really have a lot of pull power within the organizations because a lot of times we’re an afterthought. And so the re-assessing of the term for me has a lot to do with that. How can we raise visibility within organizations and we can make things more effective? |
| Monica Merel |
Well, yeah, I think you’re hitting the nail on the head. At the end of the day, it costs money too to localize things, so we’re a part of the business that spends money. And I don’t think every business probably needs a language operations department because not every business has the goal of expanding internationally, but if you do, it does make sense to… especially since you’re spending money, that you have someone on the higher level trickling it down to make sure it’s seamlessly going to market in the localization space, it’s really interesting. |
| Monica Merel |
So, you mentioned that you posted on social media and that people were going back and forth. What were the most interesting takes and which one did you agree with and which one did you disagree with? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
I think there’s a lot of hesitation to switch from localization to something else, because although people outside of our industry are not really familiar with the term, people within the industry have grown accustomed to, so I think that there’s an initial reaction from a number of people that just want to stay with things the way they are, don’t really see the need to bring a change to the terminology. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
I think there was a lot of hesitation on whether LangOps encapsulated what we do in a proper way or in a better way. If we’re going to replace the term localization, is that a term that is going to better describe? For me at the outset, it’s much about what makes it easier to communicate what we do to an outsider, because explaining it to an insider is really not where the biggest problem is. I would love to find a term that makes it easier to explain to somebody who has no idea about what we’re doing, what it is that we are busy with. So, from that perspective, I’m not sure LangOps is the right term, somebody might come up with a better term. It’s one idea that got me thinking. The thing that I like about it, and I think certain people responded to as well is that it combined the two more known words, language and operations, so it would seem a little bit easier for people to understand from that perspective, I think. |
| Monica Merel |
Well, language is always changing, right? We know that from a localization translation standpoint. It makes sense to me, language operations, because we all are dealing with language. I think the only challenge with language operations is the cultural aspect, because localization does include culture as well, and does language encapsulate that cultural nuance? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. Maybe it doesn’t, and so that’s probably what’s a little contradictory there in the sense that you’re not bringing culture into the picture at all. But localization as a term is the opposite, I think. It doesn’t speak about language at all and it doesn’t speak about anything operational, so maybe we need to find a third term that includes the localization or the cultural aspect better. Maybe that’s a good exercise for people to think about. I would love to or I’m open for suggestions. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to come and talk to you about it. |
| Monica Merel |
I know when I first heard of localization, it sounded like… typically, in the US, when there’s multicultural departments, like marketing strategy departments, you have a local department, so someone who works in local markets. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. The term localization to an outsider has nothing to do with language. That’s the problem. |
| Monica Merel |
Yeah. And I can see it as like you create local content. Maybe the word needs to be like language localization or translation localization. I think it’s a really interesting idea. So, you’re more on the, “I’m not sure if this is the right one”? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
I don’t want to cause a big ripple. I’m not sure that I’m on one side or the other. The reason this was of interest to me and I think the reason it resonated so much with people online when I put this up for debate is because people deal with this issue regularly where they’re trying to explain to somebody what it is that they do and it doesn’t really land that easily, so to speak, and localization is problematic in that sense. |
| Monica Merel |
So, even if we don’t change the name of what localization is, what do you think are some opportunities to improve localization internally, for example, like getting buy-in from C-suites, or how do you recommend working cross-functionally across teams? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. I think the main problem I see is that we’re still siloed into specific departments and we’re working as a function of those departments, we’re not really at the bird’s eye level, so to speak, where we’re underneath certain functions like marketing or product development. And a lot of times the communications are inefficient that way because what we’re doing in marketing is really not observed in product development, and so there’s a lot of opportunity for things to be missed and for wires to get crossed, so to speak, because we are not communicating outside of the silos. And so there’s the real of opportunity with the change in this term comes along a change in mentality I think that is one that we should be aiming for to get away from getting stuck into siloed activities. |
| Monica Merel |
So, in a business, when you’re selling localization, let’s say a business hasn’t started localizing yet and they’re interested in it but they don’t know how, who does that normally come from in the organization? Does it come from the top, the bottom because they see the need? What do you think? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
I think it really depends on the organization. There’s typically two scenarios. Either an audience within the United States that doesn’t speak English needs to be addressed and the need for localization arrives from that perspective or the organization is at a point in its growth cycle where they’re considering moving abroad and they’re going to be selling their product, for us here in the United States, outside of United States, if you were in Europe or in Asia, it would be outside of those regions. But coming from an American perspective, that would be the two scenarios; selling to a foreign language speaking audience within the United States or selling abroad to an audience that doesn’t speak English for that reason. |
| Monica Merel |
So, I want to go back to… because you’ve mentioned just the global or selling globally. Go back to globalization and localization, and really, the relationship between the two, because I do think you do begin to localize because you want to reach a more global market. So, I would like for you to expand a bit on that, the relationship, differences. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. I think that for businesses in the United States, they sometimes forget that it’s only roughly 5% of the world’s population that communicate in English. And so there’s a huge opportunity to sell and to sell your product in different languages just going off of that premise, so to speak. So, when you’re talking about globalization, that’s a realization that business owners really should take into effect. It’s largely misunderstood how language is really a growth driver and not a growth blocker, so to speak. We facilitate business to people. People around the world essentially tell us that they won’t buy unless they can buy in their own language, so there’s real opportunity for us to facilitate that. |
| Monica Merel |
And what do you think the psychology is of that or the reason why people really like in-language content, to be spoken to in their own language? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Yeah. I think that’s maybe something for a psychologist to comment about, but I think speaking for myself, I think that if people connect with you, it’s a lot easier to buy from them. So, with language, language is such a personal thing. It very odd. I did a piece not too long ago about how the personality that I carry in different languages… I speak four languages… my personality changes a little bit, and I’m probably more assertive in English than I am in Dutch, my native tongue. Of course, I moved away as a teenager from Belgium so I haven’t really spoken Dutch the way I did as a teenager in a long, long time, and so my personality is a little bit different. I think selling in different languages speaks to that particular phenomenon, is that when you’re selling in English, you’re probably not having completely the same approach as you would have if you’re doing it in Dutch, or in French, or in Japanese for that matter. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
And we’ve come a long way, from a scientific point of view, with analysis as the… I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the Hofstede cultural dimensions, but Professor Hofstede is a Dutch scientist who did a lot of research into the differences in personalities of people depending on the regions of the world they live in. And so he qualified that in a number of different psychological traits that make you more prone to be one way or another, so to speak. And so by evaluating the differences in psychological makeup, you will be better to approach people a certain way. It might be a lot more direct in the United States than it might be in Japan. For example, things like criticism are a lot easier and direct in the United States than they might be in Asian cultures, things of that nature are important when it comes to marketing your product internationally. |
| Monica Merel |
I think that goes back to the full circle of language operations versus localization, it’s that cultural nuance. You can change something into the language but does that mean it’s going to resonate with that customer? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Exactly. So, there’s a lot of layers to pay attention to and to take into account. |
| Monica Merel |
Yeah. Language, like you were talking about, it really does connect us. To me, it’s like food, it’s like when you eat food that is like home. I speak Spanish, so whenever I hear someone speaking Spanish, I feel an instant connection to them. I can only imagine how customers feel too when they’re spoken to in their language like that. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
It’s a funny experiment, but one of my posts on LinkedIn too was a cultural post that essentially said, “In a picture, show us the food that you would eat that means home.” And for me, it was a picture of a little bucket of French fries with mayonnaise. The Belgium invented French fries, unlike the misinformation that is rife here were in the United States, they’re really Belgian fries. They became French fries because the American GIs that got introduced to them were probably in Ardennes in the region that borders France, and they speak French there too, so I can easily see how that would’ve made the transfer to French fries. It’s probably one of my most popular posts on LinkedIn ever. I learned foods from all over the world when I put that post out, people reacted really positively to that. |
| Monica Merel |
If a listener is right now in localization and they want to get buy-in from the executives to spend more, I guess what would you say to them? |
| Stefan Huyghe |
I would say to keep in mind that, really, only roughly 5% of the world population speak English, and that is a lot of low hanging fruit left out on the table if we’re just going to market ourselves in English. It should be an easy decision to go after the rest of the world population as well. |
| Monica Merel |
Yeah. Just show an executive, to me, it’s like show them the size of the prize, the 5% you’re talking about. It’s like 95% does not speak English, and if they have a product or a service that other customers want, why not localize? |
| Monica Merel |
I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time. I feel like I know so much more about localization, the differences, I liked talking about what is language operations and if we agree or disagree with it or not, or neutral to it. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
And I would love to hear from anybody who’s either within or outside the industry, if they have ideas on how we could help advocate for what we do and make our message more effective. I’d love to hear about that in the comments of our audience. |
| Monica Merel |
Me too. I want to know because I’m new to the industry and I just think it’s mostly attending events maybe, just spreading the word, they need a good marketing campaign to push the messaging. There’s so much opportunity, or maybe it’s just meant to be niche. I mean, IT is pretty niche. I don’t know the ins and outs of IT but at least I know what it is, the high level. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
I’d like to think we’re bigger than IT. |
| Monica Merel |
Oh, 100%. Well, thank you so much, Stefan. I appreciate it. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
You’re welcome. Thanks, Monica. |
| Monica Merel |
I look forward to keeping in touch with you and maybe in two years, we’ll reconnect and see if Language Ops has taken off, and turns out we started that trend. So, have a great day. |
| Stefan Huyghe |
Thank you very much. Thanks for giving me the time. |
| Monica Merel |
Yeah. Bye. |
