Internationalization is the little-known art of making translation easier. It means happier translators because the work will be more interesting and more efficient. It also means happier customers, because translation will be more cost-effective and time-to-market will be shorter. The result is a better relationship with your customer that will ultimately generate more business.

This workshop is designed to provide translators with a clear understanding of what internationalization is about: what the issues are, why it is important and how it is performed.

The workshop starts by describing the issues that are involved; issues that programmers should be concerned with (but often are not). It then describes the business implications and benefits of internationalization. It will show you how to explain to your customers what internationalization is and why it is necessary.

The remaining chapters describe, in non-technical terms, the actual tasks involved in internationalization. You will learn what programmers and managers actually must do during an internationalization project.

Internationalization is strategic; it allows you to add a new (and rare) service to your offering, thus expanding your image. It allows you to work more closely with your customer but, most importantly, it allows you to be involved earlier in the product development cycle (rather than as an afterthought once the product or Web site is finished). Internationalization helps you partner with your customer and streamline the translation process.

Who will benefit from this workshop and why?

Anyone with a general interest in the languages of the world and their impact on computers can benefit from this course. The course intentionally presents concepts with real-world terms and with visual diagrams; the material can be easily understood without a technical background.

About i18N workshops

At i18N Inc., we are committed to providing a high-quality learning experience. We design all of our workshops based on the following principles:

• visual & intuitive: tables, graphics, animation & video provide extreme clarity
• lots of content: rich, relevant content; our handouts can serve as reference
• abstract models: we consider the forest first, then the trees (then the bugs!)
• no sales pitch: our only sales pitch is the quality of our workshops

"Over the past ten years, LISA has provided numerous workshops on a variety of topics. Pierre has provided the highest quality Internationalization, and Web-Globalization workshops at our conferences and is the best rated workshop instructor we have" -- Michael Anobile, Director, LISA (www.lisa.org).

About Pierre Cadieux

Pierre Cadieux is the technology editor for the LISA newsletter and the president of i18N Inc. (www.i18n.ca), a firm specializing in internationalization training and consulting. He also teaches internationalization at University of Montreal. Pierre has over twenty years experience in the industry; his globalization experience covers embedded systems, shrink-wrap software and Web sites.

Formerly VP Technology at Alis Technologies Inc., he pioneered the transparent handling of Arabic and Hebrew languages and created the core bi-directional technology licensed by Microsoft. At Alis, he designed the internationalization strategy for all products, including the TANGO multilingual Web browser. He has sat on CSA and ISO committees on character sets and multilingual data coding.

As Director of Localization Technology at Bowne Global Solutions, he carried out research and analysis on multilingual Web sites and published the first generic model of Globalization Management Systems.

As a freelance consultant, Pierre is often sought after to consult and to train on these issues as well as traditional software internationalization. He can be reached at pcadieux@i18n.ca.