Proverbs 10:1-3

1 The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.

Families are connected. Even when I was younger I could tell that my actions as a son had deep effects upon my parents. Now that I am a parent I see the hopes I have for my kids and how their good and bad decisions effect me.

Proverbs was written to young business men, used to help train them in how to be successful in the way God would want. Perhaps it is because I am in my thirties or even because I'm not earning my living through working at the church, regardless I am amazed at how many men live for the approval and acknowledgement of their father. This drive is at the core of most men. They either receive it and know they are okay or are continually driven frantic in the pursuit of it.


That is not the same for men and boys with their mom. Mom will say "he was a nice boy" even while he sits on death row, approval is not the issue. Deep sadness and sorrow is though. Men and fathers will mask or remove themselves from the heartache, mom's will never escape it.

To me both these pictures are found in the Gospel. In Jesus we have the full acceptance of the Father. So whether your dad is dead or alive, whether you have his approval or not, you can still know that you are fully accepted by your heavenly Father. Second he finds joymor delight in you. There are no step children with God, he chose you and you a his. You can completely blow in and his heart does not lose joy for you. He is on your side and with you.

2 Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death.

When I started in my first sales job there were many lessons. On important one was that the ends justified the means. When it was at the end of the month you forced through everything you could in order to get that larger check and keep your numbers up. At the end of the day everyone was looking at profit. God's accounting does not work that way. He wipes that line clean. Sadly it took years for me to see that my work and how I do it matters, not just what position I am in at the end of the quarter.

There is a death that comes along with seeking profit at all cost. We see this all the time in our economy with these business that go down this road. Most recently the real-estate collapse, where tons of folks who could affording mortagages we sold them, now many are jobless and have lost their home. There is allittle bit of death we all experience with these events. Can we create, support, and work within business models that deliver from death raher then create it. These can be profitable world changing business and ideas, I mean why wouldn't God want to make these service thrive! This is what his kingdom is about, Jesus did it through preaching and healing, and yet he said that after him we will do much greater things, what does that mean? I don't know but do not limit your I imagination when it comes to the kingdom of God.

3 The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.

These three verses have a connection to me. How righteousness effects the family, how righteousness plays out in work, and how God cares for the righteous. Though we are encouraged to not solely focus on profit, we can have peace that God is focus on our bottom line! He will not let you go hungry, so go for it. Let your hope and imagination run wild.

One of my favorite quotes is from Bill Gates who was asked how much money is enough, his response "one more dollar". You can judge for yourself whether Bill Gates is wicked, he's done more to effect the world for probably both good and bad then most people who live so I'm uncertain how to even judge. His statement though express a desire and drive that i find in my own heart. That craving that regardless of what I have a little more will satisfy. God can thwart that craving, his plan undermines these folks.

Dreams, one of my favorite recent stories is about the dream Karin, my wife, and I shared at the end of my first year of my current job. I had just gone through a major transition from full time vocational ministry into selling localization services. It had been a great year and we decided to let it ride in this direction, before that there was always a thought in the back of our minds I'd try to get a church job again. So we prayed and we dreamed. I made a list of all the clients I wanted to have within technology to sell localization to, I talked about being the top salesperson in the entire industry. Within one year every company I had named I was working with. I'm in a position that people work their entire career to secure, and God deserves all praise. Even as I share that story I am left wondering when was the last time I dreamed that way? What is the next exciting only attainable through the work of God hope that I have? The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry!

Naked Translations?

No this is not a new marketing scheme from Sinometrics. Since I have switched to Google Reader I have been checking out the recommendations they make for me to add in my news feed. Nice service Google!

Today they recommended Naked Translations Translation Blog. After checking it out is is really cool. For those who have interest in where words/common expressions come from this will definitely interest you. Enjoy.

Crowdsourcing, movement in translation

This is pretty amazing. I am thrilled for facebook and am very interested in how they will take ont his massive onset of content management. I am trying to find out more of the how, what and where of their process but overall the entire idea thrills me and I hope it goes well. This could really change the way that I do business and business like Sinometrics.

http://mashable.com/2007/12/27/facebook-translations/

No longer Dolla, Dolla Bills Yall

But in a melancholy turn, another noted altering the hook to a famous Wu-Tang Clan tune - to say "Euro, Euro bill, y'all" instead of "Dolla, dolla bill, y'all" - just wouldn't have the same ring to it.

http://www.examiner.com/ArticleEmail.cfm?articleID=1048235#

Those rappers effecting my industry:

http://globalwatchtower.com/2007/11/14/translation-pricing/

Automated Translation

You hope that your first translation won't be you last translation when it works out like this...

URL: Babelfish Sparks Minor Diplomatic Row

Worlds Connecting: The Montecarlo Semantic

This is a really cool video produced by Microsoft's Channel 8. Again I track a little with the guy, but it gets past me pretty quickly.

http://channel8.msdn.com/Posts/Montecarlo-semantics-an-interesting-approach-to-natural-languages/

Check out how he is able to deduce truth. Weight and quantity. The importance or weight of what is true is huge in the discussion, who sets that, is there a bias. Second how often do you find it? Is it any wonder that Christianity falls out of favor with many because of it's lack of quanity in the current Western World, we are the part of the world where the faith is in decline. (that was a leap from language and math, but hopefully you'll ask if it was too much).

The idea of asking questions and having them answered through techonology is really exiting to me. Also the potential this has when it comes to language is great.

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10/3 Update: Had a great conversation with a friend about this post today at lunch. Too much to go into detail on. One edit I need to make to my original comments is that according to the video the Montecarlo Semantic randomly assigns values to the particular statement, therefore they are not rated by a subject person, but rather the patterns emerge from random values with enough data.

This one is pretty cool!

http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/index.php/digital_tokyo/articles/photocopier_translates_japanese_to_english_at_touch_of_button/

Japanese to English at the touch of a button.

Social Objects, Marketing, and Translation

This is an issue I am having to deal with now and often it feels like I am about to jump off a cliff when I really get a handle of a part of this theory. I am not really sure how to apply it as a sales monkey, but with vision there seems to be plenty of application in our industry. Check out Hugh's video on the link below.

http://www.nevillehobson.com/2007/09/22/business-blogging-survey-videos-on-youtube/

For us it is words (noun) and I'm not so sure about the verb, measure up? The distinction everyone in our industry tries to make is that of quality? But is there any real difference. If there is can we back it up financially or relationally? Send us any document to translated and if you can find better quality you get it for free, that seems like it could be costly but isn't it worth it. Doesn't that make Sinometrics as a company strive to accomplish something in a tangible way that other people are not? I cannot be sure if a guarantee is a social object though. So I am still thinking.

Word of the Day: Behold

Translation I guess is where both my career worlds meet. Check out this entry:

“Behold” in Mark
Chris Hamer-Hodges muses about the word behold in the Bible:
When the New Testament writers use the word “behold!” they do so to get our attention. They do so because what follows is of special significance and importance. The word “behold” itself in the English is not ideal, because it is not widely used today and so can make a passage seem dated or religious, and that certainly is not the intention. But it is hard to think of a better alternative, especially considering the literal translation is the imperative for look….
There is no single English word that fits. One phrase I thought of was, “Mark my words!” In a language that originally lacked punctuation, it could also be seen as a literary device similar to the exclamation mark or bold italics.
He goes on to give an example from Mark of how the writer uses behold to focus the reader’s attention to certain elements in the text.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 1:34 pm at http://www.esv.org/blog/2007/09/behold.mark

Technology Assisting Translation of Ancient Languages

This is interesting for me on two levels. First I am very familar with the tools that are available to scholars for Greek and Hebrew since I used the through seminary. Now there is new technology that will assist with other ancient langugages.

UAT Instructor Creates Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic Translator

The second side is how language translation is effected by technology. I am very interested in what market disruption through technology would look like for the localization industry. It hasn't quite clicked for me yet.

Company Names and translation

A good laugh here, but really does it make any difference if hulu's market is not swahili?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/29/hulu-translates-to-cease-and-desist-in-swahili-oh-the-irony/

Some insight into why WPC was good for Sinometrics

Donald A. DePalma writes a piece outlining some of the problems that we have in the localization industry with our trade shows in Common Sense Advisory. Too many, none distinguishing themselves, and same ol' speakers. I'll be interested in what positive suggestions they add to the conversation.

For me I'm in sales so I'm looking to learn, but my main priority is to find the next lead. So my hope is that we find a way in the industry to improve our story and find more people who want to hear it. We are getting geared up for Localization World, my first so I have some excitement, but honestly we would not be there if it were not in our home town of Seattle, WA.

Machine Translation not quite there

In my mind I think it should be. But once again I ran across another hopeful group that is closing up shop because we still have so far to go before we can get accurate translations. BabbleMail closed it up today.

Transparency for Service Providers

Just came across an interesting article directed at companies like Sinometrics. 6 things your localization agency doesn't want you to know. It seems that Cat's company has been able to find great translators directly that have satisfied their need. This is the case for many companies, and who can blame them. As much as I would like to sell them my services, they have to do what is best for their bottom line.

So it leads me to questions like, "What is the proper place of service companies?" Often I must deal with companies who are in Cat's position or at least exploring the option. What I find is that they want to concentrate on the core strengths of their business rather than spending energy finding people to handle localization projects for them. Why is it that many people use dry cleaners? Some prefer the way a dry cleaned shirt looks. For them it is an issue of quality. Others would rather spend their time on something else rather than ironing clothes. Now there are many companies that exist for this reason. When was the last time you changed the oil on you car? You might even know how, but you probably chose not to.

What I really like about Cat's post is that she is confronting some of the myths of the industry. There are bad ways to use TM's of clients to manipulate them into continuing to do business with you even though you are not providing excellent results. That should be exposed. Now Sinometrics handles the TM's differently, they are owned by our clients so they can use them as they please. There are other fees involved with working with agencies because they carry overhead. Very few translators are hiring a salesteam to go out there and scurry up business. Our agency is able to work in agile programming enviroments, we are not as flexible as working direct, but pretty close.

My impression of the industry is there is a lot to learn and my hope is that the more Sinometrics is able to listen to criticism like Cat's the better we will be able to evolve as a company.

Facebook on the mind

As if I wasn't already obsessed socially with Facebook. Today I read in a blog post at Damn that's some tasty data that they are looking to localize the service. I sent out a few emails, but if anyone has a person who I could talk to at Facebook or any suggestions let me know. Cell-206.407.6067

Going out on top?

I love when athlete's leave at the top of their game (and then don't come back). Why is it when someone in business does it, I get suspicious? Hope it is unfounded as the CFO for LionBridge resigned just after the company announce some very good Q2 results.

Check out the article http://www.lionbridge.com/lionbridge/en-US/company/news/lionbridge-announces-the-resignation-of-CFO.htm

Further thoughts on my bogging

This post is inspired because I went back and reviewed this new blog that I created and noticed a few things.

http://thewebtheologian.blogspot.com/2007/07/ms-wpc-experience.html#comments

First I am a total dork and was very excited that Steve Clayton: Geek in Disguise commented on that first entry. Now the bad news I have yet to upload the picture he is commenting on, but as they say "the check is in the mail". My wife and I were reviewing the pictures on our camera yesterday, and guilt washed over me. Thankfully Steve has been gracious so far, and hasn't banished me from Friends of the Blue Monster Group on Facebook. I am sure my time is limited. Steve's comment excites me because he is one who seems to get that which I am still trying to get. From my seat he is a A lister. The down side I feel on blogging, which has been communicated over and over again is the 'A listers' and everyone else. Now the fact that someone I respect and enjoy commented on my blog says something about the accessability of the tool. I have yet to recieve a phone call or email from an author I read and respect, Fredrick Buechner has yet to give me a call...though I haven't left him any VM or emails. Perhaps that is part of it, the conversation is less intimidating or/and invested. I read, I learn, speak up when it makes sense to, and we all go on with our lives. Pealing it all back is what I mean by Steve gets what I am trying to learn.

Second, the content of my blog is not tight. Consistantly I am able to blog on the Psalms. That is a discipline for me, and not discipline in a bad way but something that I enjoy probably more than others. Then content ranges from bloggers I like, to sermon illustrations, to news, to my industry. Welcome to my life, I am spread out, just as I think most people are. I am a salesman who worked as a pastor with a focus on community development who orginally wanted to be a child psychologist. And then of course there is the whole rockstar thing, but we all want to be rockstars.

Lastly, I have gotten more blogging with blogger.com and Windows Live Writer in then I could with iWeb. And now the process of updating the iWeb site is becomming very cumbersome. This has to be easy and fast. The catch with the Mac offering is that I could research the problem and correct it, maybe. But instead it is just easier to use something that works. Now what I would love is to be able to import all my old blog entries into this blog site. Again don't have the time right now to look in that.

David vs. Golaith

Lionbridge- 2006 revenue $419.0 Million
SDL Intl- 2006 revenue $174.5 Million
Transperfect- 2006 revenue $112.8 Million

Sinometrics- 2006 revenue $2.5 Million

These are three of the companies I regularly go up against in bids. Now there are countless companies smaller than us in the industry as well, every city has a mom and pop shop that does translation services, either inhouse or they offer the service. Talk about competition.

The Top Twenty in our industry are ranked yearly in the Common Sense Advisory. I might have already linked to it, but incase I forgot. My personal goal is to do everything I can to get us onto that list, is that ambitious?

Here's the link http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/members/res_cgi.php/070502_Q_Top_20.php

localization

Localization the wrong way

Teen finds out the wrong way to not mess with copyrighted material. I'm just impressed that the article uses the term localization. Maybe we are getting somewhere?

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL0808150920070808?sp=true

Here is an interesting view on it I'm creating a link to the post...

Localization Resources

Those who are in my industry take great pride in the work before them. There is a commitment to publish and submit articles and continue to think about the development of language and how it relates to technology. I find it very interesting. Almost as much as the Art and technology classes I took in my undergraduate studies.

I am always reading and searching for articles and different resources related to my work. Today I came across one that is about ten years old, and it is helpful to give me some perspective on where we have already come, and how the landscape has shifted.

http://www.accurapid.com/journal/softloc.htm#FurtherReading

A few of the themes I find still true today are the rapid advancement of technology in the field of localization. Also the idea that the service we offer saves companies money rather than having entire departments dedicated to the work. Overall the summary of this translator is pretty good and shows a understanding of the large task ahead of him in the field, what we are dealing with no is some seriously significant differences in who the major players are in the industry, and the advancement of software and hardware in every area of the process.