InAnyLanguage

The Politics of Language - Texas Style

According to Statemaster.com Texas currently ranks 2nd in the nation with the highest Hispanic population at a little over 8 million residents.  IAL Services decided to conduct a website analysis similar to what we did in 2008 for the top presidential contenders to see what, if any, efforts were being made by the Texas gubernatorial candidates to court Hispanic voters by localizing their sites with Spanish content.  The presidential analysis was picked up by RealClearPolitics and, as you might imagine, created a lot of buzz.  While I had to delete most of the comments because of "inappropriate feedback" (I didn't realize so many people would be irate for simply asking the question!), I still thought it would be interesting to do it again and, since I'm working on several big projects back here in my home state, I was curious to see what kind of information was available.  My curiosity isn't driven by any political agenda but simply because I'm in the language business and have had the opportunity to work on several national campaigns.

First, here's a rundown on what we were able to derive from each of the official campaign sites:

Rick Perry (R) (Incumbent)
Website:  www.rickperry.org
So far, this is the only official campaign site that we have been able to find an active Spanish link although it is subtly placed at the bottom of the page and simply reads "En Espanol".  This will take you to another page that contains 5 additional links with various information about campaign policies, involvement and participation.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R)
Website:  http://texans.forkay.com
We were unable to find a localized Spanish link but we were also limited in our search since the "Search The Site" link was inactive.  Her Senate web page, however, did have a prominent link located at the top of her page. At first we were unsure whether this was something that was included on all Senate profiles but when we went to her colleague's site(John Cornyn), no such link exists.

Debra Medina (R)
Website: www.medinafortexas.com
No active or visible link found.

Bill White (D)
Website: www.billwhitefortexas.com
No active or visible link found.

Farouk Shami (D)
Website: www.faroukforgovernor.com
No active or visible link found.

IAL Services has reached out to all candidates to clarify the information we have and asked them to explain their strategy as to why, or why not, a decision was made regarding a bilingual link.  As of this posting we have not received any response but will update accordingly if received.

A good friend and political strategist we know in Washington made one observation that may be worth noting.  He says that generally, during a primary election season, a candidate may be more concerned about upsetting his / her base - particularly in a state like Texas where immigration issues are wedge issues - and, as a result, fore-go anything that might be considered inflammatory.  He predicts, for those candidates who currently don't have a localized Spanish site and survive the primary, that will change. The numbers are simply too big to ignore.

We'll keep you posted!

IAL Services is looking for a part-time Language Coordinator

As we expand our subcontracting opportunity with the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice we are seeking an individual who can work from home managing language requests over the phone. You must have an updated desktop or laptop computer, high speed internet access and a dedicated landline phone (IAL will reimburse up to $25 per month for a Vonage landline).

Standard weekly hours are Saturday and Sunday, 6 a.m. - Noon (CST), Wednesday evenings, 5 p.m. - 10 p.m. (CST). Additional hours may be available during certain periods. Would prefer this candidate to be located in The Woodlands / Conroe / Montgomery area if possible to be able to train with other IAL Coordinators. Secondary location would be in Denver where we are headquartered.

Hourly Rate starts at $10.50 per hour.

IAL is also seeking a part-time individual to work the overnight shift as well, 10 p.m. - 6 a.m. Rate of pay is $12.00 per hour.

Due to the nature of our contract it is necessary to submit and pass an SF-85P background check with the Department of Homeland security. Applicant must have no felony record, good credit history and be able to document the previous seven years of work and residential history.

If you know someone who may be interested please have them email a confidential copy of their resume to dwatson(at)ialservices(dot)com.

Off The Water's Edge

We've been spending a lot of time down in Texas launching a new project as well as searching for space to open a second office.  Aside from the normal requirements that we look for, it's also imperative that all of our offices are located in SBA certified HUBZones.  We've been working on this for several months and have looked through the majority of the South Texas area.  After researching the SBA website we noticed that it appeared a large majority of Galveston Island was considered HUBZone certified (as noted in the green shaded area circled in red below).

After doing some research we thought it was worth taking a drive down while we were in town to check it out.  The weather was great considering it is only February, the drive was relatively painless and Galveston was in the midst of their Mardi Gras celebration.  The only problem we encountered upon reviewing the potential site was that the HUBZone qualified area shown above is approximately 100 yards off the coast line. 

We decided we have two options; keep looking or buy a boat.   

Little Words Count

Several months ago I received an email from Wayne Williamson, Canadian and European Account Manager, at National Enzyme Company (fascinating company that’s worth the time to review).  Wayne has been a client of IAL Services for several years and always brings us interesting projects.

This particular project was relatively small in nature; translation of marketing materials (brochures, banners) for a trade show in Russia.  Some of our colleagues at other organizations poke fun at us for still taking on small projects such as this but our theory, from the beginning, was to latch on to any company that trusted us enough and grow with them.  I think our strategy has worked since business has doubled every year since 2005.  I’m not so confident my counterparts can say that, or may even be around, after a brutal 2009.

Ironically, small projects such as this still make my palms sweat.  I’m sure it has the same effect on Wayne and his marketing team as well.  Translation of marketing materials, particularly ones that are brand-centric or technical in nature, can make or break a trade show or even a company (not to mention the translation vendor!).  In the language business we might refer to this as “localization” or “In-Country” marketing but, regardless, “local” businessmen and women can sniff out a fraud if your materials aren’t dead on accurate.  Aside from losing credibility in the marketplace, companies also risk wasting thousands of dollars on resources and materials that don’t get the message across.

Vince has spent the majority of the last five years vetting the best linguists in the business.  It’s time consuming and expensive on the front end but ends up paying dividends as the business grows.

Most companies prefer not to take on the “small” projects or, if they do, circumvent the full proof and editing process.  Even “small” documents, and particularly those that are going to be read by thousands or millions of people, require an initial translator to conduct the draft, a proof reader to produce a mark up and then an account manager to “negotiate” the final draft.  Finally, after the product is delivered back to the client, we strongly encourage them to let us review, free of charge, the final “print copy” before publishing.  Many times text gets omitted during the creative process and can destroy the message completely.  You can do the math and figure out why many language companies aren’t interested in pursuing this type of low margin business.

We finished the project, submitted it to Wayne and subsequently reviewed the final print draft.  As with most companies, you generally don’t get feedback IF the project is good.  You get plenty if it’s bad.

I received an email from Wayne again last week regarding some additional legal translation work.  I responded and, out of curiosity, felt compelled to ask him about the trade show and the work we had done.  He responded:

Actually thank you for reminding me, the trade show went very well, in fact much better than anticipated which is always good. We had a number of comments from visitors, other exhibitors, and our in booth translator about our literature. They were all very impressed by the standard of translation, the words used and the grammar in the documents. All commented that our documents had been translated to a high standard. It was great to hear, as in the past with previous companies some of the international material I have used has been picked apart by locals. If you ever require a testimony please do not hesitate to contact me, this show was a shining star as why I contact you first.

Very best regards

Wayne

I printed it out, pinned it on my office wall and wrote “Reminder for 2010: Little Words Count!”

2009 World Winter Games

It's been almost five months since the completion of the World Winter Games in Idaho and almost a year since we first began working on the project but I constantly find myself going back and watching the assorted videos and slide shows from the event.  What began as just another language "project" actually ended up having a tremendous impact on how I view people with intellectual disabilities, the nature of sports and competition and even how I view business. 

IAL Services was selected as the language services vendor for the event and it proved challenging in many different ways; tight deadlines on the translation of documents, editorial changes, logistical aspects for interpretation of the daily briefings, etc. Nothing that was uniquely different from what we do on a daily basis except that it was rolled into one event that involved over 100 countries and thousands of participants. 

At first I was absorbed simply by the mechanics of it and didn't give much consideration to the human, or humanitarian, aspect of these games but on the first day when we actually went "live" I remember sitting here at my desk, close to tears, as I listened to the ceremonies begin.  What I first envisioned as simply a sporting event took on something more of a revival and I couldn't wait until the next day to do it all over again.  While I admire any athlete who displays talent in a specific sport, I can't express the tremendous respect I have for these individuals who battle physical and intellectual challenges as part of their daily routine.  I wasn't alone.  Each member of our language team expressed similar emotions throughout the week's events.  Thanks to Sunniva and the entire Special Olympics organization for allowing us to be part of something much more important. 

A tiny Bit of History...Perhaps?

It's difficult to believe that it's been four months since I've posted anything new to the IAL blog.  Perhaps that's a clue that things have been busy here at headquarters.  Busy but exciting.

If you are a regular reader of InAnyLanguage then you might recall in January I posted a piece called The Politics of Language which summarized a comprehensive study IAL Services conducted on each of the presidential candidate's web sites and how they either were or were not targeting the Hispanic constituency.  The post was the single largest traffic driver of anything I've posted and was even picked up by RealClearPolitics, a political web venture between CNN and TIME Magazine.

I'm not sure if the IAL study had anything to do with the work we received afterwords but I must say what followed proved to be an exciting Spring.

We have had the privilege over the past several months to work with the Hillary Clinton campaign as it relates to Hispanic radio advertising.  Our work was coordinated through one of her advertising agencies here in the U.S.  It had nothing to do with IAL's political leanings or philosophies but rather our ability to put together a rapid response team of qualified translators who collaborated on content that needed to be placed in media markets where election Primaries were upcoming.  It was as close as I've ever had the opportunity in being involved in a political campaign and, I must confess, the pace at which they move is, at the very least, impressive.

Over the past several years we've had the opportunity to work with hundreds of companies who are crafting a message for consumer product launches, IPO's, shareholder statements and press releases.  These are all extremely important ventures but when you know that your message may or may not influence what many people consider to be the most powerful position in the world it certainly gives you pause to think.

Unlike traditional advertising, political messages are many times crafted at the last minute based on internal polling, global events or headline news.  They change on a dime and require immediate attention every time.  When you compound the issue that the original message has been written in English and now needs to be translated into Spanish for potential voters in Los Angeles or San Juan, the enormity of it hits you.

The pace and the pressure, many times, can become a drag on your day but when you're working with professional agencies like we had and have a network of equally professional linguists it's nothing but pure adrenalin and excitement.  Something I would welcome every day.  My sincere appreciation to everyone who assisted us with these projects.  The constant last minute changes, the clarification of phrasing, the explanations and suggestions of better ways to get the message across, - all many times with less than four hours to complete - demonstrated how fortunate we are to have the team that we've assembled.  They are all true professionals.

I've received a lot of emails over the last several days - some kind, some not - reminding me that the candidate we worked so hard on was not successful.  As a vendor I regret that but it's never been our position to choose sides, only to provide an essential service in bridging a language gap.  At the same time, I do remind them that our client overwhelmingly won the Hispanic vote.  Was that a result of all our hard work?  Probably not but it's fun to think we may have been a tiny part of history.  Perhaps.

IAL Services Ranks In Elite Top 20

It's easy for any company, regardless of validity, to say it ranks high in overall customer satisfaction.  It's quite another to have that claim independently verified.  IAL Services, a Denver based comprehensive language services company, recently had to put this claim to the test and have our past performance independently analyzed by Open Ratings, a Dun & Bradstreet company.  The purpose for this evaluation is to qualify as a GSA (General Services Administration) vendor who can sell directly to the federal government.  The evaluation includes such criteria as price, response time, communication and relationship / integrity issues.  The evaluations are conducted anonymously to prohibit undue influence by the organization being evaluated.  The surveys included both government and private sector companies who have utilized IAL's services for document translation, simultaneous and consecutive interpretation, web conferencing and multilingual desktop publishing.  These organizations have a range in annual revenue from less than $1 million to several billion dollars.  Regardless of the size, one thing was consistent - IAL received a score of 97 out of 100 from all of them.

"It's nerve wracking", says Vince Ciccolini, "You 'think' you're doing a good job but when you are witnessing triple digit increases annually you also worry that you lose sight of the bigger objective of why you got into the business in the first place.  That objective has always been to create a high touch environment for our clients and linguists while providing them best price services that exceed industry standards.  It sounds lofty but I think everyone within the IAL organization believes it."

According to Open Ratings, IAL Services score ranks in the upper 20% of all companies - large and small - that have been evaluated.  If you know anything about the volume of GSA companies bidding for federal work, that's a significant number and a great accomplishment for an organization that didn't exist even five years ago.

"My primary concern has always been to exceed the expectations of both our clients and linguists first.  I've always believed that profitability would follow." says Ciccolini, "Perhaps that's not the way they would teach it at Wharton but the model has worked well.  We saw this upward trajectory starting in the middle of last year and made some organizational changes we believed were necessary to ensure our service levels didn't drop.  Since that time we've continued to see growth in our core sectors but, as a result, have been able to expand to other areas including federal.  Our objective is not to be the biggest, although that's not a bad thing, but to continue to have a benchmark in outstanding service and delivery and I think we've achieved that but we'll continue to earn it on a daily basis.  All in all, I'm very grateful to our clients for placing their trust in our service.  What more can I say?"

Congratulations Vince! 

The Politics of Language

I'm a political junkie.  I watch the primary election returns with as much fervor as I watch the NFL playoff games.  This year I find it even more intriguing than past years.  I suppose that's partly because Denver is hosting the Democratic National Convention in August as well as the fact that a new chapter in American political history may be written by nominating either the first female or first African-American of a national party.  History aside, I find the sport of politics has as much hard hitting action as that of any football matchup. 

This past weekend was particularly interesting simply because it was the first set of primaries where both the African-American and Hispanic communities played a key role.  I suspect that the South Carolina Democratic primary, next week, will also hinge on the same.  There's no question that both of these voting blocs can yield a lot of influence in key states.  For example, in Denver County the Hispanic community has now become the majority according to the Census Bureau.  While I'm not an expert in political strategies I would think that candidates of both parties would see this as a crucial audience to woo.

Since the announcement early last year that Denver would play host to the DNC, IAL Services has aggressively sought opportunities, from both parties, to assist in bridging the language gap by providing document translation and / or interpreter services to all candidates.  While we have never spoken directly with any candidate, we have had the opportunity to speak with some of their campaign staff.  It's interesting to hear how they address the issues surrounding non-English communication.  I wouldn't dare bring up names or specifics regarding any party or candidate but I can say that the two parties have polar strategies (and ideas) about the issue of courting, specifically, the Hispanic community.  Perhaps the easiest way to get an idea of those strategies is by looking at some of the websites of the major candidates:

Democrats:

Hillary Clinton - On the main page there is a link (Pagina Bilingue) to her Spanish site which is fairly extensive and updated regularly.  The main page is a collection of blog entries posted from America con Hillary.  Extensive information on the candidate and the issues.

Barack Obama - Another attractive site with extensive links and information about the candidate in Spanish.  One of the more impressive additions is "Barack TV en Espanol" which provides extensive video clips that are all subtitled in Spanish. 

John Edwards -  The Senator does have a Spanish website but it is a little more difficult to locate on the main page (bottom right).  The link takes you to a single page document that outlines several of his positions as it relates to the Hispanic community.  All other links and banners on the page are only in English.

Republicans:

Mitt Romney -  Very impressive site that is all in Spanish.  We were a little surprised that in the last couple of days they removed a welcome video that was done by his son, Craig, who seems to be extremely fluent in Spanish.  No word from the campaign as to their decision to remove it.  Perhaps it is still there but we were not able to find it as of this posting.  The additional links on the page (also in Spanish) define his positions on various key issues.

John McCain -  No Spanish site.  We found this interesting particularly because of the independent attraction that he seems to have and the fact that he seemed to appear more sympathetic than some of his counterparts on the immigration issue.  One may wonder if this is intentional as he tries to attract more of the Republican base.

Rudy Giuliani - Again, no Spanish site.  Interesting since he is launching his first formidable fight in Florida where there is a large Hispanic population. 

Mike Huckabee - No Spanish site.

I'm not sure if you can derive anything out of this other than there are some candidates that are aggressively trying to woo the Hispanic vote while others either don't see the value or, perhaps, are afraid of scaring their base.

One interesting note that happened late last year during my discussion with one of the candidate's staff members may shed some light on why a candidate chooses not to target the Hispanic community.  During the course of my conversation he mentioned an incident that occurred in Florida regarding a car salesman who decided to run ads in Spanish on a local television station.  While the commercial translated into an increase in car sales there was a lot of anger by some in the community.  He simply told me that their campaign couldn't afford such a response in a critical state as Florida.  I'll leave it for you to decide which candidate that might have been but, to understand his point better, we were able to locate a CNN clip that demonstrates his concerns.  Click here to view. 

In an event where every vote counts, it's fascinating to think of the strategies that must go on behind the scenes when determining who your "market" is.

 

Denver's Global Focus

For anyone who either lives in Denver or has visited I don't need to tell you the reasons why so many of us have chosen to call it home.  For me, however, those reasons just multiplied from both a professional and personal perspective.

I'm proud to let you know that one of our city's biggest advocates, Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, has selected IAL Services to globalize their website into multiple languages; Spanish, German, French, Italian and Japanese.  Obviously, from a professional point of view, I'm always thrilled when a company recognizes the talent we bring to the table but more importantly I think it's incredibly insightful that a city like Denver recognizes the need to reach a global audience.  During a brief conversation with Richard Grant, DMCVB Communications Director, he mentioned that the catalyst for such an effort stemmed from many things including the city's hosting of the 2008 Democratic National Convention as well as an anticipated influx of more European tourists with new direct routes from DIA to Munich starting next week.

I'm looking forward to starting this project with them and am honored to be on the progressive side of their efforts to share the great things of Denver with the rest of the world.

Welcome DMCVB.