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Delta Safari International Facebook Page

2011-07-06T00:38:00.001Z

Have you visited the Delta Safari International Facebook Page lately? If not, what are you waiting for? Why not just go there and LIKE it :-)
http://www.facebook.com/DeltaSafariInternational

Investment case for Africa now stronger than ever, says Ecobank :The Cross-cultural Connector

2011-07-06T00:18:00.001Z

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Social media glossary

2011-06-19T20:21:00.001Z

Social media glossary

The Top 100 words & phrases in the social media dictionary

The social media landscape is fast changing and filled with strange terms to the uninitiated. Don’t feel intimidated! Here’s a quick guide to some of the terms you may encounter. Please add other terms in the Comments below and we’ll incorporate them and credit you.

api app astroturfing B Corp blog campaign cause marketing civic media cloud computing copyleft Creative Commons crowdsourcing CSR Digg digital inclusion digital story double bottom line Drupal ebooks embedding Facebook fair trade fair use feed flash mob Flickr geotagging Gov 2.0 GPL GPS hashtag hosting Internet newsroom lifecasting lifestreaming mashup metadata microblogging moblog MySpace net neutrality news reader NGO nptech open media open platform open source open video OpenID paid search marketing permalink personal media platform podcast podsafe public domain public media remix RSS RT screencast search engine marketing SEO short code smart phone SMS social bookmarking social capital social enterprise social entrepreneurship social media social media optimization social networking social news social return on investment social tools splogs streaming media sustainability tag cloud tags technology steward terms of service triple bottom line troll tweet tweetup Twitter Twitterverse UGC unconference videoblog virtual world Web 2.0 web analytics Web conferencing webcasting webinar wi-fi widget wiki Wikipedia word-of-mouth marketing WordPress YouTube

Social media glossary

API

What is an API?

An API (a techie term for application programming interface) allows users to get a data feed directly into their own sites, providing continually updated, streaming data — text, images, video — for display. For example, Flickr‘s API might allow you to display photos from the site on your blog. When sites like Twitter and Facebook “open up” their APIs, it means that developers can build applications that build new functionality on top of the underlying service. (See Wikipedia entry.)

app

What is an app?

Popularized in the general lexicon by the iPhone, an app is simply an application that performs a specific function on your computer or handheld device. Apps run the gamut from Web browsers and games to specialized programs like digital recorders, online chat or music players. (See Wikipedia entry.)

astroturfing

What is astroturfing?

Astroturfing is a fake grassroots campaign that seeks to create the impression of legitimate buzz or interest in a product, service or idea. Often this movement is motivated by a payment or gift to the writer of a post or comment or may be written under a pseudonym. (For more details, see Wikipedia.)

B Corp

What is a B corporation?

A B corporation is a designation for a socially responsible company that takes not just profits into account but also employees, communities and the environment. (For more details, see Wikipedia.)

blog

What is a blog?

A blog is an online journal that’s updated on a regular basis with entries that appear in reverse chronological order. Blogs can be about any subject. They typically contain comments by other readers, links to other sites and permalinks. (See Wikipedia entry.)

campaign

What is a campaign?

An online campaign is a set of coordinated marketing messages, delivered at intervals, with a specific goal, such as raising funds for a cause or candidate or increasing sales of a product.

cause marketing

What is cause marketing?

Cause marketing is a business relationship in which a for-profit and a nonprofit form a partnership that results in increased business for the for-profit and a financial return for the nonprofit.

civic media

What is civic media?

Civic media is any form of communication that strengthens the social bonds within a community or creates a strong sense of civic engagement among its residents.

cloud computing

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing (also called “the cloud”) refers to the growing phenomenon of users who can access their data from anywhere rather than being tied to a particular machine.

copyleft

What is copyleft?

A play on the word copyright, copyleft is the practice of using copyright law to remove restrictions on distributing copies and modified versions of a work for others and requiring that the same freedoms be preserved in modified versions. (See Wikipedia entry.)

Creative Commons

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization and licensing system that offers creators the ability to fine-tune their copyright, spelling out the ways in which others may use their works. See full entry on Socialbrite or on Wikipedia.

crowdsourcing

What is crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing refers to harnessing the skills and enthusiasm of those outside an organization who are prepared to volunteer their time contributing content or skills and solving problems. (See Wikipedia entry.)

CSR

What is CSR?

CSR is short for corporate social responsibility, a concept whereby businesses and organizations perform a social good or take responsibility for the impact of their activities. (See Wikipedia entry.)

Digg

What is Digg?

Digg is a popular social news site that lets people discover and share content from anywhere on the Web. Users submit links and stories and the community votes them up or down and comments on them. Users can “digg” stories they like or “bury” others they don’t. (Wikipedia offers a somewhat different definition.)

digital inclusion

What is digital inclusion?

Digital inclusion, or e-inclusion, is an effort to help people who are not online gain access with affordable hardware, software, tech support/information and broadband Internet service, so they can begin to use this technology to improve their lives. (Wikipedia offers a somewhat different definition.)

What is a digital story?

digital story

A digital story is a short personal nonfiction narrative that is composed on a computer, often for publishing online or publishing to a DVD. They are told from the narrator’s point of view and the subject is generally about something the maker experienced personally. Digital stories typically range from 2-5 minutes in length (though there are no strict rules) and can include music, art, photos, voiceover and video clips. They are also typically created by one person with little technical training, rather than by a team of professionals. (See Wikipedia entry.) You can see digital stories at these sites:
• Center for Digital Storytelling
• Creative Narrations

double bottom line

What is the double bottom line?

The double bottom line refers to a business’s attention to both conventional profit and loss as well as to the social good. An increasing number of companies and organizations now seek a second bottom line look to measure their performance. (Also see: the triple bottom line.)

Drupal

What is Drupal?

Drupal is a free, open-source platform and content management system written in php. It is often used as a “back end” system that powers community features on many different types of sites, ranging from personal blogs to large corporate and political sites. (See Wikipedia entry.)

ebooks

What is an ebook?

An ebook (or e-book) is an electronic version of a traditional printed book that can be downloaded from the Internet and read on your computer or handheld device. Something as simple as a PDF document can be considered an ebook — and anyone can create one. (See Wikipedia entry.)

embedding

What is embedding?

The act of adding code to a website so that a video or photo can be displayed while it’s being hosed at another site. Many users now watch embedded YouTube videos or see Flickr photos on blogs rather than on the original site.

Facebook

What is Facebook?

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world, with more than 200 million members. Members’ home page streams can now be seen in a wide range of applications and devices. (See Wikipedia entry.)

fair trade

What is fair trade?

Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries obtain better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers and adherence to social, labor and environmental standards. (See Wikipedia entry.)

fair use

What is fair use?

Fair use is a doctrine in U.S. law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without obtaining the permission of the copyright holder, such as use for scholarship or review. Fair use is delineated in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Code. (See Wikipedia entry.)

.

feed

What is a feed?

A Web feed or RSS feed is a format that provides users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a Web feed, enabling users to subscribe to a site’s latest content. By using a news reader to subscribe to a feed, you can read the latest posts or watch the newest videos on your computer or portable device on your own schedule. (See Wikipedia entry.)

flash mob

What is a flash mob?

A flash mob is a group of individuals who gather and disperse with little notice for a specific purpose through text messages, social media or viral emails. It’s now generally considered a somewhat dated term (already!). (See Wikipedia entry.)

What is Flickr?

Flickr

Founded by two entrepreneurs and purchased by Yahoo! in 2005, Flickr is the world’s premier photo sharing and hosting site. Its members have uploaded more than 3 billion photos. (See Wikipedia entry.)

geotagging

What is geotagging?

Geotagging is the process of adding location-based metadata to media such as photos, video or online maps. Geotagging can help users find a wide variety of businesses and services based on location. (See Wikipedia entry.)

Government 2.0

What is Government 2.0?

Government 2.0 is the term for attempts to apply the social networking and integration advantages of Web 2.0 to the practice of government.

GPL

What is GPL?

GPL is short for GNU General Public License, often used with the release of open source software. An example of a copyleft license, it requires derived works to be made available under the same license. (See Wikipedia entry.)

GPS

What is GPS?

GPS is shorthand for Global Positioning System, a global navigation satellite system. GPS-enabled devices — most commonly mobile handhelds or a car’s navigation system — enable precise pinpointing of the location of people, buildings and objects. (See Wikipedia entry.)

hashtag

What is a hashtag?

A hashtag (or hash tag) is a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. Similar to tags on Flickr, you add them in-line to your Twitter posts by prefixing a word with a hash symbol (or number sign). Twitter users often use a hashtag like #followfriday to aggregate, organize and discover relevant posts.

hosting

What is hosting?

A blog, video or podcast needs a hosting service before it can appear online. Companies sometimes host their blogs on their own servers, but a better choice for video or audio is to use a host such as YouTube, Viddler or Magnify.net for video and a host such as Libsyn for podcasts. (See Wikipedia for different kinds of hosting.)

Internet newsroom

What is an Internet newsroom?

An Internet newsroom (sometimes called Internet pressroom or online media center) is an area of a corporate website that communicates corporate messages and makes content available to the news media and the public. Rather than just feature little-read press releases, a true Internet newsroom incorporates features such as videos, podcasts, high-resolution image galleries, surveys, forums, blogs and other online marketing communications materials. See an example.

lifecasting

What is lifecasting?

Lifecasting is an around-the-clock broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media. Typically, lifecasting is transmitted over the Internet and can involve wearable technology. (See Wikipedia entry.)

lifestreaming

What is lifestreaming?

Lifestreaming is the practice of collecting an online user’s disjointed online presence in one central location or site. Lifestreaming services bring photos, videos, bookmarks, microblog posts and blog posts from a single user into one place using RSS. Friendfeed and Tumblr are examples of lifestreaming services.

mashup

What is a mashup?

Mashups (or mash-ups) have several meanings. A music mashup is a combination of two or more songs, generally the vocals of one song overlaid on top of the melody of another. A video mashup is the result of combining two or more pieces of video, such as news footage with original commentary. A Web mashup result when a programmer overlays information from a database or another source on top of an existing website, such as homes for sale taken from Craigslist plotted on a Google Map. (See Wikipedia entry.)

metadata

What is metadata?

Metadata refers to information — including titles, descriptions, tags and captions — that describes a media item such as a video, photo or blog post. Some kinds of metadata — for example, camera settings such as exposure, aperture, focal length and ISO speed — can be captured automatically from the device without needing a human to enter the data. (See Wikipedia entry.)

microblogging

What is microblogging?

Microblogging is the act of broadcasting short messages to other subscribers of a Web service. On Twitter, entries are limited to 140 characters, and applications like Plurk and Jaiku take a similar approach with sharing bite-size media. Probably a more apt term for this activity is “microsharing.” (See Wikipedia entry.)

moblog

What is a moblog?

A moblog is a blog published directly to the Web from a phone or other mobile device. Mobloggers may update their sites more frequently than other bloggers because they don’t need to be at their computers to post. (See Wikipedia entry.)

MySpace

What is MySpace?

An online social network similar to Facebook. MySpace caters to artists and bands, who enjoy the flexibility of creating an individual “look” for their page. As with Facebook, MySpace allows users to “friend” each other and create groups. (See Wikipedia entry.)

net neutrality

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the principle requiring Internet providers to act as common carriers and not discriminate among content or users — for example, by providing degraded service to rich-media sites, by throttling file-sharing services, by penalizing customers who watch or download a lot of videos or by blocking Internet applications and content from competitors. (See Wikipedia entry.)

What is a news reader?

news reader

A news reader (sometimes called a feed reader, RSS reader or news aggregator) gathers the news from multiple blogs or news sites via RSS feeds selected by the user, allowing her to access all her news from a single site or program. Popular examples include Google Reader, Netvibes and Bloglines (all accessed through a Web browser) and FeedDemon or NetNewsWire (applications that runs on one machine). For a directory of news readers, see NewsReaders.com. (See Wikipedia entry.)

NGO

What is an NGO?

NGO stands for nongovernmental organization, an entity apart from the business and government sectors. (See Wikipedia entry.)

nptech

What is nptech?

nptech is shorthand for nonprofit technology. nptech encompasses a wide range of technologies that support the goals of nonprofit, NGO, grassroots and other cause organizations.

open media

What is open media?

In its most common usage, open media refers to video, audio, text and other media that can be freely shared, often by using Creative Commons or GPL licenses. More narrowly, open media refers to content that is both shareable and created with a free format, such as Theora (video), Vorbis (audio, lossy), FLAC (audio, lossless), Speex (audio, voice), XSPF (playlists), SVG (vector image), PNG (raster image, lossless), OpenDocument (office), SMIL (media presentations) and others.

open platform

What is an open platform?

Open platform refers to a software system that permits any device or application to connect to and operate on its network. See platform.

open source

What is open source?

In its strict sense, open source refers to software code that is free to build upon. But open source has taken on a broader meaning — such as open source journalism and open source politics — to refer to the practice of collaboration and free sharing of media and information to advance the public good. Well-known open-source projects include the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server and the Firefox browser. (See Wikipedia entry.)

open video

What is open video?

Open video refers to the movement to promote free expression and innovation in online video. With the release of HTML5, publishers will be able to publish video that can be viewed directly in Web browsers rather than through a proprietary player.

OpenID

What is OpenID?

OpenID is a single sign-on system that allows Internet users to log on to many different sites using a single digital identity, eliminating the need for a different user name and password for each site. (See Wikipedia entry.)

paid search marketing

What is paid search marketing?

Paid search marketing is the placement of paid ads for a business or service on a search engine results page. An advertiser pays the search engine if the visitor clicks on the ad (pay-per-click or PPC).

permalink

What is a permalink?

A permalink is the direct link to a blog entry. A blog contains multiple posts, and if you cite an entry you’ll want to link directly to that post. (This page’s permalink is http://www.socialbrite.org/sharing-center/glossary.)

personal media

What is personal media?

Personal media — user-created material — refers to grassroots works such as video, audio and text. When the works are shared in a social space, the works are more commonly referred to as social media. See UGC.

platform

What is a platform?

A platform is the framework or content management system that runs software and presents content. WordPress, for example, is a service that serves as a platform for a community of blogs. In a larger context, the Internet is becoming a platform for applications and capabilities, using cloud computing. See open platform. (See Wikipedia entry.)

podcast

What is a podcast?

A podcast is a digital file (usually audio but sometimes video) made available for download to a portable device or personal computer for later playback. A podcast also refers to the show that comprises several episodes. A podcast uses a feed that lets you subscribe to it so that when a new audio clip is published online, it arrives on your digital doorstep right away. (See Wikipedia entry.)

podsafe

What is podsafe?

Podsafe is a term created in the podcasting community to refer to any work that allows the legal use of the work in podcasting, regardless of restrictions the same work might have in other realms, such as radio or television use. (See Wikipedia entry.)

public domain

What is the public domain?

A work enters the public domain when it is donated by its creator or when its copyright expires. A work in the public domain can be freely used in any way, including commercial uses. (See Wikipedia entry.)

public media

What is public media?

Public media refers to any form of media that increase civic engagement and enhance the public good. The term often brings to mind public broadcasting such as PBS and NPR, but many initiatives and organizations that receive no public funding fall within the scope of public media. (The Wikipedia entry is confused and, in our judgment, off the mark.)

remix

What is a remix?

A remix is any work that takes elements from two or more media files and mashes them together to create a new piece of media. Often, these are called mashups.

RSS

What is RSS?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) — sometimes called web feeds — is a Web standard for the delivery of content — blog entries, news stories, headlines, images, video — enabling readers to stay current with favorite publications or producers without having to browse from site to site. blogs and news content using a news reader. All blogs, podcasts and videoblogs contain an RSS feed, which lets users subscribe to content automatically and read or listen to the material on a computer or a portable device. Most people use an RSS reader, or news aggregator, to monitor updates. Socialbrite founder JD Lasica coined the term “news that comes to you” to refer to RSS. See more detailed article.

screencast

What is a screencast?

A screencast is a video that captures what takes place on a computer screen, usually accompanied by audio narration. A screencast is often created to explain how a website or piece of software works, but it can be any piece of explanatory video that strings together images or visual elements. (See Wikipedia entry.)

search engine marketing

What is search engine marketing?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a series of online tactics that, when combined with SEO, helps to attract customers, generate brand awareness and build trust. SEM (sometimes called search marketing) seeks to increase websites’ visibility chiefly through the purchase of pay-per-click ads and paid inclusion. (See Wikipedia entry.)

search engine optimization

What is search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of arranging your website to give it the best chance of appearing near the top of search engine rankings. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content, identifying high-traffic keywords and improving the site’s layout and design. (See Wikipedia entry.)

short code

What is a short code?

A short code is a mobile shortcut — a telephone number consisting of four to six digits that makes it easier for subscribers to vote, subscribe to a service, order ringtones and the like via SMS (eg., text HAITI to 90999 in order to contribute to the Red Cross’s relief efforts). See Wikipedia entry.

smart phone

What is a smart phone?

A smart phone (or “smartphone”) is a handheld device capable of advanced tasks beyond those of a standard mobile phone. Capabilities might include email, chat, taking photos or video or hundreds of other tasks. See Wikipedia entry.

SMS

What is SMS?

SMS stands for Short Message Service, a system that allows the exchange of short text-based messages between mobile devices. See Wikipedia entry.

social bookmarking

What is social bookmarking?

Social bookmarking is a method by which users locate, store, organize, share and manage bookmarks of Web pages without being tied to a particular machine. Users store lists of personally interesting Internet resources and usually make these lists publicly accessible. Delicious is the best-known social bookmark site. See Wikipedia entry.

social capital

What is social capital?

Social capital is a concept used in business, nonprofits and other arenas that refers to the good will and positive reputation that flows to a person through his or her relationships with others in social networks. See Wikipedia entry.

social enterprise

What is a social enterprise?

A social enterprise is a social mission driven organization that trades in goods or services for a social purpose. See Wikipedia entry.

social entrepreneurship

What is social entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurship is the practice of simultaneously pursuing both a financial and a social return on investment (the “double bottom line”). A social entrepreneur is someone who runs a social enterprise (sometimes called a social purpose business venture), pursuing both a financial and social return on investment. Often, social entrepreneurs offer system-changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems.

social media

What is social media?

Social media are works of user-created video, audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog, podcast, forum, wiki or video hosting site. More broadly, social media refers to any online technology that lets people publish, converse and share content online. (See Wikipedia entry.)

social media optimization

What is social media optimization?

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a set of practices for generating publicity through social media, online communities and social networks. The focus is on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO. (See Wikipedia entry.)

social networking

What is social networking?

Social networking is the act of socializing in an online community. A typical social network such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or Bebo allows you to create a profile, add friends, communicate with other members and add your own media. (See Wikipedia entry.)

social news

What is social news?

Sometimes called social sites, social news sites encourage users to submit and vote on news stories or other links, thus determining which links are showcased. Social news was pioneered by community sites like Slashdot, Metafilter, Fark and Kuro5hin.org. It became more popular with the advent of Digg and similar sites such as Reddit, Newsvine and NewsTrust.

social return on investment

What is a social return on investment?

A social return on investment (SROI) refers to the non-financial returns sought by a social entrepreneur. (See Wikipedia entry.)

social tools

What are social tools?

Social tools (sometimes called social software) are software and platforms that enable participatory culture — for example, blogs, podcasts, forums, wikis and shared videos and presentations. (See Wikipedia entry.)

splogs

What are splogs?

Splogs is short for spam blogs — blogs not providing their own or real content. Unscrupulous publishers use automated tools to create fake blogs full of links or scraped content from other sites in order to boost search engine results. See Wikipedia entry.)

streaming media

What is streaming media?

Unlike downloadable podcasts or video, streaming media refers to video or audio that can be watched or listened to online but not stored permanently. Streamed audio is often called Webcasting. Traditional media companies like to stream their programs so that they can’t be distributed freely onto file-sharing networks. (See Wikipedia entry.)

sustainability

What is sustainability?

In the nonprofit sector, sustainability is the ability is to fund the future of a nonprofit through a combination of earned income, charitable contributions and public sector subsidies. (See Wikipedia entry.)

tag cloud

What is a tag cloud?

A tag cloud is a visual representation of the popularity of the tags or descriptions that people are using on a blog or website. Popular tags are often shown in a large type and less popular tags in smaller type. (See Wikipedia entry.)

tags

What are tags?

Tags are keywords added to a blog post, photo or video to help users find related topics or media, either through browsing on the site or as a term to make your entry more relevant to search engines. (See hashtag and Wikipedia entry.)

technology steward

What is a technology steward?

A technology steward is someone who can facilitate community and network development. Nancy White offers the definition: “Technology stewards are people with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs, and enough experience with technology to take leadership in addressing those needs. Stewardship typically includes selecting and configuring technology, as well as supporting its use in the practice of the community.” (Source: Social media wiki.)

terms of service

What are terms of service?

Terms of service (TOS) are the legal basis upon which you agree to use a website, video hosting site or other place for creating or sharing content. Check before agreeing to concede the rights the site owners may claim over your content. (See Wikipedia entry.)

triple bottom line

What is the triple bottom line?

The triple bottom line (sometimes abbreviated as “TBL” or “3BL”) is rapidly gaining recognition as a framework for measuring business performance. It captures the values that some organizations embrace: people, planet, profit — that is, social, environmental and economic factors. (Also see the Wikipedia entry.)

What is a troll?

troll

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion. (See Wikipedia entry.)

tweet

What is a tweet?

A post on Twitter, a real-time social messaging system. While all agree on usage of tweet as a noun, people disagree on whether you “tweet” or “twitter” as a verb. RT stands for retweet: Users add RT in a tweet if they are reposting something from another person’s tweet.

tweetup

What is a tweetup?

An organized or impromptu gathering of people who use Twitter. Users often include a hashtag, such as #tweetup or #sftweetup, when publicizing a local tweetup.

Twitter

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a popular social network, unveiled to the public in July 2006, that lets members post updates of no more than 140 characters. People have begun using Twitter in interesting ways to point to news stories, to raise funds for charity, and other unexpected uses.

Twitterverse

What is the Twitterverse?

Akin to blogs and the blogosphere, the Twitterverse is simply the universe of people who use Twitter and the conversations taking place within that sphere.

UGC

What is UGC?

UGC stands for user-generated content, an industry term that refers to all forms of user-created materials such as blog posts, reviews, podcasts, videos, comments and more. (See personal media or see the Wikipedia entry.)

What is an unconference?

unconference

An unconference is collaborative learning event organized and created for its participants by its participants. BarCamp is an example of a well-known unconference. (See Wikipedia entry.)

What is a videoblog?

videoblog

A videoblog, or vlog, is simply a blog that contains video entries. Some people call it video podcasting, vodcasting or vlogging. (See Wikipedia entry.)

What is a virtual world?

virtual world

A virtual world is an online computer-simulated space like Second Life that mixex aspects of real life with fantasy elements. Typically, you can create a representation of yourself (an avatar) and socialize with other residents for free, though you can also buy currency (using real money) to purchase land and trade with other residents. Second Life is being used by some nonprofits and businesses to run discussions, virtual events and fundraising. (See Wikipedia entry.)

Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of the Web, which enables people with no specialized technical knowledge to create their own websites to self-publish, create and upload audio and video files, share photos and information and complete a variety of other tasks. In this new world, the Internet becomes a platform for self-expression, education and advocacy that “regular people” can use on their own without having to go to an expert to do it for them in contrast to the less interactive publishing sites of Web 1.0. Some of the best-known Web 2.0 websites include Wikipedia, MySpace, Digg, Flickr and YouTube. (For more, see Wikipedia, TechSoup’s What Is Web 2.0 Anyway? and publisher Tim O’Reilly’s essay, What is Web 2.0.)

web analytics

What is web analytics?

Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purpose of understanding who your visitors are and optimizing your website. (See Wikipedia entry.)

Web conferencing

What is Web conferencing?

Web conferencing is used to conduct live meetings or presentations over the Internet. In a web conference, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is connected to other participants via the Internet. This can be either a downloaded application on each of the attendees computers or a web-based application where the attendees will simply enter a URL (website address) to enter the conference. (See Wikipedia entry.)

webcasting

What is webcasting?

Webcasting refers to the ability to use the Web to deliver live or delayed versions of audio or video broadcasts. The chief distinctions between webcasting and traditional radio broadcasting include the following: Listeners can tune into webcasts from anywhere in the world, whereas radio broadcasting is generally local; webcasts may be “interactive” (for example, users may rewind the show) whereas radio broadcasting generally is not; listeners may receive textual or visual data (artist and song titles, ads, album artwork, etc.) during a webcast; if music is included, a “copy” is stored in the memory of the listener’s computer and thus webcasters are required to obtain a license from and make payments to a licensing agency such as BMI, ASCAP or SESAC. (See Wikipedia entry.)

webinar

What is a webinar?

Short for Web-based seminar, a webinar is a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the Web. In general, participants register in advance and access the presentation in real time over the Internet and listen to the presenter either through computer speakers or a telephone connection. Webinars are generally one-way and can involve chat or polls. There are a large number of companies that offer webinar services. (See Wikipedia entry.)

wi-fi

What is wi-fi?

Wi-fi (or wifi) stands for wireless fidelity, a simple system allowing enabled devices to connect to the Internet within short range of any access point without cables or adaptors. A more powerful wireless technology, WiMAX, is not yet deployed as widely as wi-fi. (See Wikipedia entry.)

widget

What is a widget?

A widget, sometimes called a gadget, badge or applet, is a small block of content, typically displayed in a small box, with a specific purpose, such as providing weather forecasts or news, that is constantly updating itself (typically via RSS). Widgets make it easy to add dynamic content to your site or blog. (See Wikipedia entry.)

wiki

What is a wiki?

A wiki is a collaborative website that can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. Small teams often find that they can accomplish a task easier by creating a collaborative online workspace using wiki software such as pbworks, Socialtext or mediawiki. (See Wikipedia entry or compare wiki services at WikiMatrix.)

Wikipedia

What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is a Web-based, multi-language, free-content encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers. Sponsored by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, it has editions in about 200 different languages. (See Wikipedia entry.)

word-of-mouth marketing

What is word-of-mouth marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing, sometimes called grassroots marketing or conversational marketing, is an umbrella term for dozens of techniques that can be used to engage and energize customers. By building relationships with influencers through WOM, marketers can get people to become so enthusiastic about a cause, product or service that they drive sales through conversations. (See Wikipedia entry.)

WordPress

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a popular open source blog publishing application. (See Wikipedia entry.)

YouTube

What is YouTube?

YouTube is the world’s most popular video hosting site, making up 10 percent of all bits that travel across the entire Internet. (See Wikipedia entry.)

via socialbrite.org

Extremely useful for everybody, both newbies and others!

Could your cell phone cause a plane crash?-14 June, 2011

2011-06-14T22:39:00.001Z

14 JUN Adjust font size:

Could your cell phone cause a plane crash?

If you’re like most occasional or even frequent fliers, you probably don’t take seriously those warnings about shutting off cell phones. But perhaps you should -- based on a new report.

"We found that the risk posed by these portable devices is higher than previously believed," said Bill Strauss, who conducted a study with other researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

No one is yet to blame any specific air crash on cell phones but some call the report by the International Transport Association “alarming” or a “wake up call.”

There’s been a proliferation of electronic devices on the market, with passengers becoming more inclined to ignore airline cell phone warnings. Even by accident, phones are often left on despite warnings.

Boeing engineer David Carson says interference occurs when signals hit highly sensitive electronic sensors hidden in the passenger area.

Older planes are particularly vulnerable to cell phone interference. Combine that with a growing number of electronic devices and there’s a possible “perfect storm” of future airplane crashes.

The Federal Communications Commission’s regulation banning cell-phone use on airplanes has been in place since 1991. Several recent studies show, however, that passengers are not taking the rule seriously.

The new study shows a whole range of in-flight incidents directly attributed to interference from a mobile signal.

The report was put together by the International Air Transport Association and apparently first put out by ABC News. It puts as many as 75 incidents reported by planes in recent years as the direct result of interference from an electronic device. Mobile phones were the No. 1 culprit.

The report covers the years 2003 to 2009 and is based on survey responses from 125 airlines that account for a quarter of the world's air traffic.

The shut-off cell phone announcements are often ignored by many frequent fliers, who are skeptical that so-called "personal electronic devices" pose any safety threat to airplanes. Some passengers openly rebel, like New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who cursed out one flight attendant who demanded he turn off his cell phone.

According to ABC, “Just one cell phone could cause serious issues.”

Previous studies have shown that there is no real evidence of accidents caused by cellphones but that using them in flight can be more dangerous than was understood before.

"We can't say categorically that these devices cause interference," said IATA spokesman Chris Goater. "But there are enough anecdotal reports from pilots to raise the question."

While the ABC feature wasn't able to present proof that the incidents were without any doubt the result of mobile interference, Boeing spokesperson Dave Carson nonetheless claims that all it takes is a mobile signal “in the right place and at the right time” to potentially lead to disaster” -- the perfect storm.

“There are frightening statistics revealed in the report, which logged 26 of the incidents affected the flight controls, including the autopilot, and landing gear,” said The Christian Post.

That study also revealed cell phones and other portable electronic devices, like laptops and game-playing devices, can pose dangers to the normal operation of critical electronics on airplanes.

Finding that direct link between airline navigation systems and mobile phones may take a while, researchers said

Incidents cited in the study include the navigational equipment of a Boeing 737 in the US failed after takeoff, only to reactivate after a passenger was told to turn off a sat-nav.

David Carson, an engineer with Boeing, stressed that problems do not occur in every case.
'And that's good,' he said.

Phone interference was also cited as a possible factor in a 2003 crash in New Zealand in which eight people died after the plane flew into the ground short of the runway.

The pilot had been calling home.

By David Wilkening

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Lodging & Dining « Delta Safari International

2011-06-09T16:47:00.001Z

In Senegal, Lodge and Dine with Delta Safari International

We book faster, and this makes you save time

We guarantee availability

Our huge hotel portfolio: instead of you calling hotels for bookings and reservations, we can instantly tell you which one is available, compare prices, all this in a human, not overly technological way

Rooms, Senior Suites, Junior Suites, Bungalows, Traditional Lodging (Huts), Moorish Tents, Apartments, Vacation Rentals

The Average Daily Rate for Hotels is $150 in Hawaii, $ 161 in the Dominican Republic, $235 in the Bahamas, $184 in Cancun. And I’m not telling you about New York, London, Paris. But do you know the Average Daily Rate for Hotels in Saint-Louis, Senegal? A mere… $50! Incredible, yet true

Culinary Tourism: Traditional dishes, Awesome dining experience – get a taste of Senegalese culture through its cuisine

Book you Hotel reservation with Delta Safari International, it’s much cheaper, because of the special relationships we’ve been able to build with local suppliers!

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This is the new website for Saint-Louis Senegal-based "Delta Safari International" Tour Operator.

Delta Safari International

2011-04-23T20:07:00.001Z

'Delta Safari International' is my new Tour Operator business Facebook Page. Please go there and 'Like' it if (and only IF) you are interested in Travel and Tourism. Thanks a lot ;-)

Delta Safari International

‎"Let's Know Each Other to Better Know Ourselves!"

Thanks a lot.

Have a great Easter

Amadou M. Sall

It's time travel writers stopped stereotyping Africa

2011-01-23T20:47:00.001Z

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“Your Guideline for Successful First Time Cross Cultural Negotiations in Any Culture” (From 4u-2) :The Cross-cultural Connector

2011-01-12T23:26:00.001Z

Do you have an international sales negotiation coming up? Are you nervous about how it will go?

Most people don’t give much thought to the actual cross cultural communication process prior to their first real cross cultural negotiation. They get obsessed with secondary details.

Cross Cultural Negotiation Skills

Imagine you are in a long line of people waiting for a taxi at the busy Paris airport. With people swarming everywhere. The noise of the street traffic competing with the noise from the airplanes in the background.

And then you hear such a large commotion, right up at the front of your taxi line. You think it is yet another bomb scare and crane your neck to get a closer look with your bags in your hands ready to move. But out of the confusion you hear laughter.

What happened?

It was only someone who began to try bargaining the price of his ride before he got inside the taxi…with a Parisian taxi driver. The tension breaks as a ripple of laughter mixed with annoyance runs down the taxi line.

It is an old story. But it does highlight cultural differences in negotiation very well.

Different Cultures Have Different Negotiation Practices

Negotiation practices differ from country to country. Some cultures expect clients to negotiate over things that would be totally unacceptable in other countries. Some cultures get upset or angry by things that are totally acceptable in other cultures.

Different cultures simply have different approaches when it comes to negotiation.
This can be intimidating when you travel to a new country to negotiate for business.
And even more so if it is your first time.

It is important to know what is culturally expected of you when it comes to negotiation.

If you are just starting out in developing your international markets, it is wise to do some homework and identify the standard expected negotiating habits in the country you are travelling to.

No matter how much research you do prior to your first cross cultural negotiation communication road blocks can easily come up. This is even more likely if your negotiation is taking place in a foreign environment to what you are used to.

So it is even more important to develop skills to ride through communication hurdles.

A Beginners Guideline

Prior to your first cross cultural negotiation give some thought on how you will keep on track.

Here is a guideline to help beginners.

If you find yourself on your own in a country where negotiation practices are different to your own, there is a strategy to follow.

Prior To Your Negotiations

Do your research on what will be expected of you. Define your schedule, and what you are expected to wear and bring. If you are a woman, be sure to verify standard practices beforehand.

Are there any standard culturally specific negotiating practices? Remember to ask for advice prior to cross-cultural negotiations.

If you feel you will be in a different environment than you are used to you have two options to consider:

Hire local representation. Some large multi-national companies hire local company representatives to facilitate all business procedures in certain countries in the Middle East and the Far East.

Arrange for a local third party to accompany you. Look for someone who can tell you if you are making any cultural blunders. This will give you a certain peace of mind.

Prior research helps, but even so, it is not always easy. You will also need to keep your own behavior and attitudes turned towards your negotiation.

This is where the following 8 points are important.

Best Practices During Your First Cross Cultural Negotiation

Ask and find out what is expected of you.

Explain that you are looking forward to the business opportunities open to both of you.

Explain that this is your first trip and you have not done business in their country before.

State your good will and that you do not mean to do anything awkward.

Ask to be told or shown what to do.

Apologize if you do or say something that seems to be out of place.

Continue to show your desire to proceed in the negotiations.

Continue to say that your look forward to doing business with them and learning more about their culture.

Keep this guideline in mind during your negotiations.

Remain constantly aware of your environment so you can implement any of these points if needed.

Use each point appropriately when needed.

Do not go overboard. Overly stating your enthusiasm or apologizing incessantly can be destructive to your negotiations in some cultures.

Use this guideline as a gentle reminder to stay tuned to where the other party is at. If you feel in any way that you need to refer to one of the points above, do so, and continue your negotiation.

Cross cultural communication is a process where you adjust your communication a little and learn to meet another culture in the area where you both feel comfortable. It is about knowing when to ask discretely for feedback to make sure you are all on the same path. (Read the Whole Story)

Very best wishes for the New Year 2011, and beyond

Amadou M. Sall

Some brand names don’t translate well (From “Deseret News”) :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-11-13T01:01:00.001Z

Many global companies, like Coca-Cola, Nike, Google, Intel and Microsoft, choose to use the same brand name in multiple countries.

This is not possible for every brand, but it can often be an advantage. Think of the degree to which a single brand name simplifies marketing and increases return on advertising investment. By comparison, how much more would one of these companies need to spend to achieve the same results with a different localized brand name in every market?

Proctor and Gamble likely understood the benefits of a single global brand nearly 70 years ago when it considered launching a new soap named “Dreck” in the United States. According to the book New Products Management by Charles Crawford, shortly before the company introduced the soap to U.S. consumers, it discovered “Dreck” sounded like German and Yiddish words for dirt, garbage, body waste and a four-letter expletive that can not be published here. Fortunately, because Proctor and Gamble did its homework, it had time to change the detergent name to “Dreft” and has since sold it successfully in the U.S. and many other countries.

Some products may never have the chance to go completely global because companies have already been branded with names that have embarrassing meanings abroad. For example, an Iranian company named Paxan Corp. currently produces a line of soaps and detergents under the name “Barf.” This word has a positive and clean meaning of “snow” in Iran, but what English speaker would ever choose to use a cleaning product with this brand? Likewise, if the Japanese sports drink “Pocari Sweat” were exported to the United States, how many English speakers would choose to drink “Sweat”?

In Japan, automakers have marketed the Nissan Moco and the Mazda Laputa. Unfortunately, these product brand names would never export well to Spanish-speaking countries where “moco” means booger and “laputa” sounds like a slang word for prostitute. (Read the Whole Story)

Tell us about your experience!

Amadou M. Sall

The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-10-30T23:49:00.001Z

“We must promote multilingualism in our schools” (Rep. Judy Chu) – The Hill’s Congress Blog :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-09-24T19:12:00.001Z

Yesterday, President Obama gave his second annual back-to-school address. In a speech to students at Julia R. Masterman School in Philadelphia, he urged them to take responsibility, work hard and dream big.

The words that really stood out to me, however, came at the end of his remarks when he said, “I want you to take away the notion that life is precious, and part of what makes it so wonderful is its diversity, that all of us are different.” I couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately, the current system too often limits our students’ exposure to other cultures and languages. If we’re to fully embrace life’s wonderful diversity, this must change.

About a year ago, the President set a goal for our country to reclaim the highest college graduation rate in the world. It’s a worthy goal and one I strongly support, but it’s not enough. We don’t just need college graduates. We need college graduates ready to compete on the world’s stage.

Years ago, my mother immigrated to America at the age of 19, right before our country prohibited travel to China. For the next 25 years, she had virtually no contact with her family. But what isolated her even more was her inability to use English. Until she went to an adult education program to learn her second language, she never fully integrated into American society.

Today, the lack of a second language doesn’t just isolate people. It makes them less competitive. There’s a Spanish proverb that says, “The person who speaks two languages is worth two.” And that’s why neglecting foreign language instruction prevents students from realizing their full worth.

Lacking international knowledge and experience, many of today’s young Americans aren’t prepared for the increasingly global economy of tomorrow. This shortcoming limits our ability to address future international challenges. It restrains our relationships with other nations and could someday threaten our national security.

Moreover, studies show that learning a second language improves cognitive flexibility. Because dual language learners naturally consider multiple meanings for words, they’re better able to manage complex situations. And that’s a skill our next generation of supervisors and executives can all use.

That’s why legislation that creates a multilingual society is so important. These programs don’t just promote a second language; they advance the American workforce. Unfortunately, current instruction in our country lags behind our global competitors’. In Asia and Europe, the question is not whether you speak another language – it’s how many. (Read the Whole Story)

Fascinating story, and so true. Regarding international business, it is a well-known fact that (in foreign countries) “even those who can speak English always prefer to be sold in their own languages”. Your experience and opinion?

A.M. Sall

The Global Office: How to run your business anywhere around the world – Part I (GlobalVision International) :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-09-10T00:39:00.001Z

I just got back from a 2.5 months overseas trip where I visited 5 countries in 2 continents. Since office chores never stop or can be put on hold for too long, I had to turn my office into a global office to keep the wheels churning while on the road!

Here are the first 5 out of 10 useful tips that you can use to help you deal with extended sojourns outside of the comfort of your home office.

1. Your constant companion and friend in you global office is your portable computer. Since you will be on the move, you need it to be light but powerful. If you are not already using a portable for your daily computer use, purchase one early, set it up immediately, and then get rid of your desktop. Make the portable your primary computer and use it for at least one full month before your scheduled departure. This will ensure that you have all the apps you need, with you when you travel. Your home office can be setup with the external drives, large screen, external full keyboard and mouse and all other handy appliances if you are used to having them. But when you travel, you want the maximum power with the minimum weight to get by with.

2. Once you’ve taken care of the portable, get a global phone. Technology today enables us to make and receive calls pretty much in any commercial country around the globe. Check your carrier and make sure that the same number and phone will work internationally, if not, get a global phone. While traveling, keep in mind that mobile phones are not as secure as land lines and can be very costly while roaming. You can pay upward of $2/min even on calls that you do not take. Inform your key clients and workers of your travel plans and ask them only to call in emergencies. Also, remind them of the difference in time zones.

P.S. Don’t be afraid to use the off switch on your phone when rest is warranted!

3. For free international calls to the USA, bring a Vonage, Ooma or Magic Jack with you. I have used both Vonage and Ooma and the Ooma Telo stopped working after a few days. Ooma’s support was very slow! Vonage worked non-stop my entire stay. You can even forward your home office calls to it.

4. Email is of paramount importance and the centerpiece of the global office. The issue is not to have an email account, but to have A. a reliable internet connection everywhere you go, and B. to train everyone that you deal with to communicate with you by email and not by phone. Email is very cost-friendly and convenient and will allow you to be in control of your own time.

5. Most of us nowadays use online banking. When you travel internationally, you may need more than the basic features. You will need to be able to perform account reviews and transfers, pay checks online, and monitor your credit card transactions. But you may also need to make payments to overseas vendors, so look into online wire transfers options– they can now be handled online in all commercial currencies.

Depositing checks still requires someone checking your snail mail and looking out for them. Checks can however be scanned to the bank for electronic deposit. (Read the Whole Story)

Very interesting: You can run your business from anywhere in the world (Also remember Part II!), and please come back here to give us your opinions and experiences

Amadou M. Sall

Global Watchtower™ » Blog Archive » XIHA Creates a Social Network that Reflects Today’s Multilingual Reality

2010-08-24T15:46:00.001Z

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10 Steps to Website Globalization (Search Engine Journal) :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-08-18T16:04:00.001Z

There are now approximately 1.8 billion users throughout the world. They are located in many countries and speak multiple languages. Many of them could be potential customers. But how do you reach them? Not only do you have to speak their language, you have to ensure your website appears where they are searching.

Website globalization can be achieved through market research, translation, localization and optimization. Following this 10 step process will help you rapidly increase site traffic from international search results.

1. Analyze your target market

Market analysis should begin by understanding the answers to the following questions: What geographic markets are you targeting? Who is your target customer? What languages do they speak? What market opportunities exist for which your company has a product or solution?

Identifying and understanding the characteristics and needs of your market segments will help you define the keywords and content you will use to connect, engage and interact with your target audience.

2. Research keywords

For each identified customer segment, you can build a list of relevant keywords using these Google’s keyword research tools:

Google Adwords Keyword Tool: use the advanced options to research keywords by country and language. Enter a seed keyword term and Google will provide many more suggestions as well as monthly search volumes.

Google Insights for Search: use this tool to research trends in keyword search demand over time in each of your target countries.

Google Translator: if you don’t speak the languages, and don’t have the budget for translation services, you could start by translating your English language keywords using Google Translator. Be very careful though as automated translation services are far from accurate.

3. Select the site structure

There are three ways to structure a multilingual site: 1) purchase country-specific domains and set up separate websites, 2) use subdomains for each country, or 3) use subdirectories for each country. If your international marketing is country-specific, then your site should be structured first by location and then by language. If you plan to market to all speakers of a particular language irrespective of location, then you may only need to incorporate language translations into your site architecture. Google’s Webmaster Tools team provides some great advice in this article: How to Start a Multilingual Site.

4. Choose the content

The content you publish for your international audience should be directed by the results of your market analysis and keyword research. Much of the content will be similar to the content you provide for your English-language visitors. However, a few new content pages will most likely be required based upon specific market needs.

5. Translate the content

Professional translation services are expensive but if you are serious about marketing to an international audience, they are a necessity. If you don’t have the budget for a professional service, you can save money by using translation software. But if you do, have a native speaker edit the results to ensure the right message is being communicated. (Read the Whole Story)

What is your experience of website globalization?

Amadou M. Sall

Are You Really Bold Enough to Succeed as a Freelancer? | FreelanceFolder

2010-07-26T12:40:00.001Z

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How long should it take to learn a language? - The Linguist - language learning should be fun

2010-07-22T16:38:00.001Z

via thelinguist.blogs.com

“How to Start a Multilingual Site” (Google Webmaster Central Blog) :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-07-21T00:41:00.001Z

Have you ever thought of creating one or several sites in different languages? Let’s say you want to start a travel site about backpacking in Europe, and you want to offer your content to English, German, and Spanish speakers. You’ll want to keep in mind factors like site structure, geographic as well as language targeting, and content organization.

Site structure
The first thing you’ll want to consider is if it makes sense for you to buy country-specific top-level domains (TLD) for all the countries you plan to serve. So your domains might be ilovebackpacking.co.uk, ichlieberucksackreisen.de, and irdemochilero.es.es. This option is beneficial if you want to target the countries that each TLD is associated with, a method known as geo targeting. Note that this is different from language targeting, which we will get into a little more later. Let’s say your German content is specifically for users from Germany and not as relevant for German-speaking users in Austria or Switzerland. In this case, you’d want to register a domain on the .de TLD. German users will identify your site as a local one they are more likely to trust. On the other hand, it can be pretty expensive to buy domains on the country-specific TLDs, and it’s more of a pain to update and maintain multiple domains. So if your time and resources are limited, consider buying one non-country-specific domain, which hosts all the different versions of your website. In this case, we recommend either of these two options:

Put the content of every language in a different subdomain. For our example, you would have en.example.com, de.example.com, and es.example.com.

Put the content of every language in a different subdirectory. This is easier to handle when updating and maintaining your site. For our example, you would have example.com/en/, example.com/de/, and example.com/es/.

(Read the Whole Story)

To be read carefully, and digested! You can also lean a lot from the Comments following the post on “Google Webmaster Central Blog”). Also remember to come back here and comment

Amadou M. Sall

10 Sites That Will Teach You How To Draw Well

2010-07-17T19:35:00.001Z

via makeuseof.com

Happy July 4 :-) :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-07-04T02:32:00.001Z

Happy July 4 :-)

Building a Global Brand on the Cheap :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-07-02T19:49:00.001Z

If asked to name a few of the world’s top brands, you might include names such as Coca Cola, Disney, Microsoft, Intel, or perhaps Mercedes Benz, Toyota, and BMW. These companies have been around for many years (35 in Microsoft’s case and 122 in Coca Cola’s) and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars establishing global brand recognition.

The Newcomer

Interestingly though, sitting at number 7 on Interbrand’s 2009 list of best global brands is Google, a mere baby at 12 years of age. Google’s rise has been fast and the Google brand has been built with little marketing in comparison to its peers.

What can we learn from Google’s meteoric rise? Google has shown us that global brands can be built quickly and cheaply using the power and efficiency of the Internet. Knowledge of Google’s service spread quickly mainly through word of mouth and is now used by hundreds of millions of people all over the globe on a daily basis.

Attempting to emulate Google’s success is a rather lofty goal. However, piggybacking Google’s position as the world’s number 1 search engine can be a very effective strategy for building global brand awareness.

Piggybacking Google

According to Internet World Stats and ComScore, 1.8 billion global internet users conduct an average of over 130 billion searches every month. Google is the world’s dominant search engine with approximately 70% market share. This equates to the potential of reaching up to 1.2 billion people and a total of 80 billion touch points per month. Numbers to make even the most successful marketers drool.

How can you use this to your company’s advantage? The answer lies in the ability to position your website for visibility in Google’s search engine results. Google ranks result according to relevancy, i.e. your site must provide information relevant to the keyword terms used and also be considered one of the most important results for that keyword term.

Are you relevant?

For international search results, language and location also factor into ranking. An English-language website will never rank well for a Spanish-language keyword search. Similarly, an English-language site designed for a US audience will be unlikely to feature prominently in the search engine results in the United Kingdom or Australia. In these cases, Google just won’t consider your site relevant.

Where does one start?

Many marketers turn first to content translation. This is a critical step but should not be the first. Before translating content, you should first understand your international audience. Where are they located? What are their needs? What are they searching for? What keyword terms are they using to acquire information?

Proper research, discovery and planning will identify the content you need to publish online in order to be considered relevant by search engines, and useful in the eyes of your target audience. Only once this stage has been completed does it make sense to bring in the translation experts. You wouldn’t roll out a major marketing campaign targeting a new market without first conducting in-depth research, so why would you skip this stage in your online marketing? (Read the Whole Story)

What do you say?

Have a great weekend!

Amadou M. Sall

FITA June 24 Issue is Out! :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-06-24T18:05:00.001Z

The latest issue of FITA Newsletter is out! And this is what they say about themselves:

“Dear International Traders,

For 9 years this newsletter has been bringing you descriptions of useful websites for international trade.

We are now expanding our activities and from now on will offer not only useful websites, but also 3 new services:

• Useful service providers to help you sort out your overseas operations, taken from: GlobalTrade.net , our new, soon-to-be-released “Knowledge Resource” and database of qualified service providers for international trade.
• Jobs from FITA’s Career Headquarters
• Events offered by our partner the U.S. Commercial Service and other related agencies.

This week in Really Useful Sites we will:
• Learn about doing business in Morocco
• Get up-to-the-minute news about trade and finance events and issues worldwide on the website of Trade Finance Magazine
• Find economic data about all EU countries on Eurostat
• Be informed about worldwide Trade Barriers
• Get extra help from Global Sources to import successfully from China and India”

Click to Read the Whole Issue

Learn and enjoy. Please remember “The Cross-cultural Connector” is your own community. So, give us your feedback and let’s talk about it!

Amadou M. Sall

Consumers in Brazil, Mexico Use Internet Differently :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-06-24T03:59:00.001Z

A digital divide still persists in Latin America, where 56% of metropolitan Brazilians and Mexicans are online. Understanding their differences in behavior and level of engagement is critical for marketers seeking an effective media allocation mix for Latin America.

Here are some highlights from a new Forrester Latin American Technographics survey of more than 6,000 urban consumers in the 12 largest metropolitan regions in Brazil and 10 in Mexico:

Broadband adoption is emerging but at different rates. While 45% of Brazilians — 50 million metropolitan adults — connect to the internet via broadband, Mexicans are adopting at a much slower rate of only 28%, or 16 million metropolitan consumers.

Similar to what we’ve seen in other countries, the low adoption numbers are not influenced by consumers using at-home dial-up instead of broadband. Rather, these consumers do not have home computer access in the first place.

Degree of online engagement is not similar — Brazilians are more active and social. Although online Brazilians and Mexicans are on par with the fundamentals like emailing, online Brazilians demonstrate higher levels of online engagement overall. The biggest difference is in social media. Brazilians are fanatical about social media: 63% of them regularly use social networking sites, adding up to 40 million metropolitan consumers. This is in stark contrast to Mexico, where only 22% of online metropolitan Mexicans — 7 million people — use social networking sites.

Many offline consumers find the internet mysterious. In markets where the internet is relatively new, such as Brazil and Mexico, many consumers are still trying to understand what it will add to their lives. This is reflected in the fact that 66% of offline Mexicans and 44% of offline Brazilians say they aren’t online because they just don’t know enough about the internet. Furthermore, about one-third of offline consumers in both countries say that they will never go online.

I’ve traveled extensively to Latin America over the last month, and one of the things most striking about technology adoption in the region is the ubiquity of cellphones: 75% of all metro consumers in the two countries own a mobile phone. (Read the Whole Story)

Your experience?

Amadou M. Sall

Gapminder World Map (2010) :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-06-23T16:34:00.001Z

The case for investing in Africa :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-06-10T17:27:00.001Z

The 21st Century Giant may not be who you think :-)

Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary and thesaurus

2010-06-08T16:26:00.001Z

via visuwords.com

Fabulous and fascinating!

Calculate the Electricity Cost of Running a Computer

2010-05-28T23:40:00.001Z

via labnol.org

MarketingProfs | The Promises and Pitfalls of Translating Marketing Content

2010-05-27T22:44:00.001Z

via imakenews.com

Translation & Localization Glossaries: Guide & Downloads | The International Business Edge!™ | Globalization Group, Inc.

2010-05-24T01:57:00.001Z

via globalization-group.com

Cross Cultural Communication in Afghanistan

2010-05-21T01:39:00.001Z

via about-afghanistan.com

Tips for language translators - interview with A.M. Sall (part 1)

2010-05-21T01:02:00.001Z

via translators-biz-secret.com

Joy Mo is a ChineseEnglish freelance translator/court interpreter based in Canada. She also has a great website. She interviews me on her website and you can read the interview here: http://www.translators-biz-secret.com/language-translators.html

Microcosmosis :-)

2010-05-19T19:01:00.001Z

via us1.campaign-archive.com

The Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-05-19T01:09:00.001Z

The report highlights the key role of ICT as an enabler of a more economically, environmentally and socially sustainable world

Sweden tops the rankings of The Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010, released today for the ninth consecutive year by the World Economic Forum. Sweden is followed by Singapore and Denmark, which was in the number one position for the last three years. Switzerland (4), the United States (5) and the other Nordic countries together with the Canada, Hong Kong and the Netherlands complete the top 10.

With an extensive coverage of 133 economies worldwide, the report remains the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative international assessment of the impact of ICT on the development process and the competitiveness of nations. (Read the Whole Story)

A real Goldmine! How do you like it?

Amadou M. Sall

Seth's Blog: The circles (no more strangers)

2010-05-18T15:37:00.001Z

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Translation Prices (what Goes Into Calculating Translation Rates)

2010-05-15T15:52:00.001Z

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A very good article about translation prices - once you get over the horrible formatting!

101 Essential Freelancing Resources | FreelanceSwitch

2010-05-15T13:18:00.001Z

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GILT: Globalization, Internationalization, Localization, Translation

2010-04-30T20:28:00.001Z

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The Future Of Finance Shifts From West To East (and South!) :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-04-30T17:31:00.001Z

Emerging markets are now driving the global recovery, and new emerging markets – the CIVETS! – will soon be joining the BRICs!

The CIVETS? What’s that? Click to Find out, and then come back here to tell us what you think

Amadou M. Sall

The Two Vital Attributes of Quality Content | Copyblogger

2010-04-30T16:24:00.001Z

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” ~William Morris, poet and designer

Imagine the household you would have if you got rid of every item that was neither useful or beautiful.

Gone would be the plastic doodad with no known purpose, the ugly frame your great-aunt gave you, the Special Free Offer™ you never opened, the collection of someday-useful peanut butter jars . . .

Every room would be so much more pleasant to be in, and every tool so much easier to find.

What if you applied the same rule to the content you wrote? Every email, sales letter, blog post, and comment you wrote would have to be useful or beautiful. Or both.

Does that sound a little . . . scary?

Most copywriters are fine with this, in principle. (Remember the first law of content marketing? Every piece of cookie content should reward the audience for reading: by solving a problem they have, or by entertaining them. Sounds pretty similar, doesn’t it?)

The main problem people have with this advice is they don’t trust their own judgment. They’re unsure if what they’re writing is useful or beautiful.

And of course, some people are certain their writing would make James Joyce weep and Dale Carnegie gnash his teeth, while their readers are wondering what this pretentious and useless fluff piece is all about.

Are you unsure? Never fear! Here are some guidelines to help.

How do I know if my content is useful?

1. Write content that suits your audience

Your content must match your audience’s level of understanding. Experts won’t consider entry-level content useful and beginners won’t get much use out of advanced discussions.

Your audience must have the required resources — time, energy, money, potato chips — to use the content. Telling new parents about a relaxation technique that requires eight hours a night of uninterrupted sleep? Not useful.

Your content must relate to something your audience cares about. I’ll never find content on how to dress in corporate style useful, because I don’t care about dressing in that way.

2. Write specific content

Generalisations aren’t useful.

Vague:

Scooters need oil on a regular basis.

Specific and useful:

Refill your scooter’s oil tank to the indicator line with two-stroke motorcycle oil every third time you refill the petrol tank.

3. Write actionable content

Useful content creates action.

If your readers don’t do something as a result of reading your content (change their mind, buy something, tear up their desk calendar, dance a boogaloo, write a better headline, pick a fight, talk to their children, set a goal, start a collaborative experience), then the content wasn’t useful.

Your content must encourage, advise, mentor, support, bully, or dare your audience into acting.

And you must, must, must include a call to action in every piece of content you write.

How do I know if my content is beautiful?

This is the point where people get uncomfortable. Don’t worry! You don’t have to produce sonnets to write beautifully.

Experiences that provide pleasure or meaning are beautiful.

Johnny B. Truant writes posts that are beautiful, although he’ll likely laugh in your face and pour jam down your pants if you say so. They’re beautiful because they’re funny and vigorous and meaningful.

If you’re not Johnny, here are some tips. (If you are Johnny, hi Johnny!)

1. Write meaningful content

If you write your content with emotion, it’s more meaningful.

Ever read a “Thank you for subscribing” email with sincere gratitude in it? (I read one that was so beautiful I saved it. Really.) If your feelings don’t match the anticipated emotion it’s even more effective: an angry product review, an excited tax letter, a sympathetic auto-responder . . .

Be vulnerable. Instead of writing about the mistakes some people have made, write about the mistakes you made. And what they meant to you.

Write about the bigger implications. Fixing a dripping tap is ordinary. Learning to perform house maintenance as a sign of your new independence is meaningful.

Real benefits are meaningful. Creating more wealth, more connection, more options, and more purpose are some of our most meaningful activities.

2. Write pleasurable content

Write to inspire emotion in your readers: make them smile. Make them cry. Make them wistful. And make sure they know they’re not alone in feeling that way.

If you know your audience well, you can write mass communication that feels personal, where every reader thinks you’re psychic because you’re writing Just For Them. Everyone enjoys the pleasure of feeling understood.

Use the tools in your linguistic toolbox to make the writing entertaining: play with alliteration, hyperbole, rhythm, flights of fancy, metaphor, perspective, storytelling . . . whatever feels natural and unforced to you.

It’s hard to beat the pleasure of seeing your name in print. Praise your readers in public, hold them up as an example, thank them, or mention them as an inspiration . . . and do it by name.

Do you want to take it even further?

Think of a piece of content that’s critical to your success, like your sales letter.

What if you applied the same rules to every paragraph of that content? What if you judged every word?

If you wrote your sales letter and removed every word that wasn’t useful or beautiful:

You couldn’t use weasel words like “actually” or “amazingly” or “absolutely.”

You’d have to use evocative, beautiful words and images.

The writing would be muscular, short and punchy (Like Hemingway would write it).

You’d become a thoughtful student of copywriting, so you knew how to make each word as useful as possible to create the result you want.

It would kick ass!

Do you think you could improve the usefulness and beauty of your content? Tell us how you plan to do it in the comments!

About the Author: Catherine is wicked passionate about helping people to start and grow an awesome website: she’s even published a manifesto about it. When she’s not adding five-minute missions to BeAwesomeOnline.com, she can invariably be found on Twitter.
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Translation and Software Localization Blog: Quartz or Mechanical?

2010-04-25T14:47:00.001Z

The first quartz watch was introduced in 1969 promising more accurate and less costly ways to produce watches. Shortly after, the higher frequency crystal used in quartz technology allowed for a few seconds per month inaccuracy versus the few seconds per day of the best mechanical watches. Electronic parts were also much cheaper to produce than finely-tuned, hand crafted mechanical parts.
By the 80s, quartz watches overtook the watch-making industry prompting many experts to predict the end of the hand-made mechanical watch.
Similarly, in the 1950s and 60s, work began on developing computerized machine translation engines. Initial results looked promising prompting many to predict the near end of human translators. After all, if a 5 year old kid can speak multiple languages and interpret them, sophisticated computers can sure do the same.
Half a century later, with phenomenal advances in computing technologies, software and mathematical algorithms, the best machine translation engines still cannot surpass human translation accuracy. They don’t even come close! Yet many pundits continue to predicting the demise of the translator and the translation industry!
Yes machine translation technology has advanced and yes some solutions produce the gist of the meaning via rudimentary and often laughable translations. But what most forget is that often consumers are not just interested in getting the meaning. We are interested in the overall experience!
To prove my point, take an online book in a foreign language in a subject that you care much about and run it by the best machine translation engine and let me know if you do take the time to read and enjoy it. My guess is that you will put it down after only reading the first few pages. Style, elegance, harmony, character, personality, spirit, soul, vitality and passion will continue to matter as long as human beings do the reading! Do you think a machine will ever be able to capture or depict that like humans can?
Despite the huge success of the quartz watch and its hands-down more precise performance, today most Swiss hand-made mechanical watch makers still flourish. I own three mechanical watches and only one quartz watch. I wear my mechanical watches everywhere except when I am engaged in sports activities−and that is mainly to protect them!

via blog.globalvis.com

Four Search Engines For Marketers

2010-04-19T19:41:00.001Z

Monica O'Brien

You’ve heard of search engine optimization on sites like Google, Bing, and now even Twitter; the question is, what’s next? Marketers in the digital age need data and content, and there are lots of innovative tools coming out to organize the vast amount of stuff that’s out there. Here are four search engines that will be making huge waves in search by 2012:

OneRiot – The Real-Time Search Engine

The Pitch: “OneRiot crawls the links people share on Twitter, Digg and other social sharing services, then indexes the content on those pages in seconds. The end result is a search experience that allows users to find the freshest, most socially-relevant content from across the realtime web.”

Why you should pay attention: OneRiot gets roughly half a million visits per month, according to data provided by Compete and Quantcast. That doesn’t seem like much, but it doesn’t count the traffic from Yahoo real-time search (which OneRiot built) and mobile real-time traffic through a service called Taptu. The company also recently launched an ad network that provides ads based on the trending topics of the moment.

How marketers can use OneRiot:

Track keywords in real-time – One of my clients has two natural soda brands, so I use the term “natural soda” to stay up-to-date on news and trends in the industry and across the web.

Find influencers – OneRiot shows you who tweeted the story first, indicating who the influencers for your keyword phrase are.

Find publications to pitch – OneRiot shows you which publication published the popular story – you can use that information to create a list of publications you want to target.

Follow your industry – Use keyword searches to keep track of breaking news about or from your competitors that you may need to respond to.

Find information your fans/followers would appreciate – Use keywords to see what articles are popular and relate to your brands, then tweet them from the brand’s account.

Create content people like – OneRiot is the ultimate source on how to write popular articles in your niche – you can learn a lot by studying the articles that are coming to the top and emulate the style and formatting.

Check out OneRiot at http://oneriot.com

Wolfram|Alpha – The Computational Search Engine

The Pitch: “Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything.”

Wolfram’s Alpha version allows users to compute their search engine results, rather than find links that will give them the information. For example, you can use Wolfram to find the phase of the moon from the day you were born in just seconds.

Why you should pay attention: Wolfram gets about half a million visits to their website each month, similar to OneRiot. Their iPhone app is priced at $50 $1.99 (formerly $50 because it can replace your graphing calculator, and then some). The computational aspect of Wolfram is powerful, and the visual organization of data is a great tool for any marketer.

How marketers can use Wolfram:

Integrate visual data into your company blog, website, or presentations – Infographics are a great way to demonstrate a point, and Wolfram is capable of creating very pretty ones.

Conduct market research and make comparisons – You can compute lots of information about various companies and products in seconds – for example, type in “Big Mac vs. Whopper.” You might be surprised how much data there is.

Build separate website properties that are useful to your consumers – There is opportunity to partner with Wolfram to create a niche-based search engine for your company, or even a widget that can be embedded into your site. An application is if a company like Enterprise wanted to incorporate a widget that let users calculate the distance between two cities with one-click.

Create an internal knowledge base of data – Wolfram’s corporate services include setting up an internal search engine that can store and compute company data. You could capture accounting data, marketing data, line production data, and more with this service.

Analyze corporate information for faster, data-driven decision-making – If you had accounting, marketing, or line production data at your fingertips as an analyst, imagine how much faster and more in-depth you could do your job.

Check out Wolfram|Alpha at http://wolframalpha.com/

Book of Odds – The Research-Driven Content Provider

Pitch: “It is a destination where people come to learn about the things that worry or excite them, to read engaging and thoughtful articles, and to participate in a community of users that share their interests and ambitions. It contains hundreds of thousands of Odds Statements, from the odds of being the only one to survive a plane crash, to the odds of having a heart attack, to the odds of having ever eaten cold pizza for breakfast.”

Why you should pay attention: Book of Odds is a search engine three years in the making that helps people learn more about the odds of every day life. It’s not getting much traffic now, but I think the potential as both a research and credibility tool as well as a marketing too is quite strong.

How marketers can use Book of Odds:

Brainstorm ideas for your company blog – Book of Odds takes you places you don’t expect to go. I hang out here sometimes when I’m stuck on ideas for my blog or when I just want to learn something completely new.

Integrate visual data into your company blog, website, or presentations – Like Wolfram|Alpha, Book of Odds is a great place to find data-driven visuals.

Find funs facts to incorporate into research and reports – For example, “The odds that an adult is a baseball fan is 1 in 2.22″ has to be useful somewhere in your career, right?

Suggest odds about your company or brand – Can you imagine if this tool had been around during the Harry Potter craze, when everyone was trying to figure out the odds on various characters dying? You can come up with tons of ways to tie your brand to odds, and Book of Odds has a tool to submit the information directly to it’s search engine.

Check out Book of Odds at http://bookofodds.com/

Evri – The Contextual, Widgetized Search Engine

Pitch: “Evri’s automated content delivery capabilities will help you drive up user engagement, increase page views, and decrease costs. Our platform is designed to help you solve tough problems.”

Why you should pay attention: Evri gets roughly half a million visits per month and has partnerships with major news sites like the Washington Post. Evri also recently acquired the web semantics talent of search engine start-up Twine, which helps you “join groups based on what youíre searching for and connect with people who are searching for the same things.”

How marketers can use Evri:

Get a visual mock-up of all the latest news on one keyword – Evri is a bit like a newspaper that only talks about one subject – the keyword you give it. It incorporates videos, pictures, headlines, blog posts, twitter updates, and more into a mash-up that quickly gives you a snapshot of the subject you’re searching about.

Get data on keywords over a 30-day period – for larger search terms like “Tiger Woods,” Evri let’s you browse through the keyword trend history for the past month.

Put contextual results on your blog or website – Evri offers corporate and partner services to bring more functionality to your website and provide users more content value.

Integrate widgets with your social media accounts – Evri’s selection of widgets can be plugged in anywhere that accepts HTML and JavaScript.

Check out Evri at http://evri.com

Have you heard of any other good search engines out there? As marketers, what other search engine tools do you want to see in the future?

Monica O’Brien is the author of Social Pollination: Escape the Hype of Social Media and Join the Companies Winning At It. She also serves as the Director of Digital at Fizz, a word of mouth marketing agency. You can also read Monica’s blog, Social Pollination.

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What is Wolfram Alpha? (chris.pirillo.com)

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Tagged as: alternate search engines, book of odds, evri, Monica O'Brien, one riot, oneriot, Search engine marketing, search engines, search engines for marketers, wolfram alpha

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Why Worry Keeps You Poor (And How To Fix It)

2010-04-17T01:58:00.001Z

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T&I Business: Translation World Records

2010-04-17T01:37:00.001Z

Considering how the world's history of translation is tied so closely to the world's religious history, it should come as no surprise that several of the world records for translation are tied to religion. Here are a few:
Language world records in translation

Most language translations for one book: the Bible holds this record. According to United Bible Societies, as of December 31, 2007, the entire Bible had been translated into at least 438 languages, and at least some portion of the Bible had been translated into at least 2,454 languages.
Most translated author: this depends on how you define the record. Based on various criteria, there are several "most translated authors." See the full explanation here: World's Most Translated Author
Most translated movie: the JESUS Film Project has made a film based on the Gospel of Luke into the most translated film in history. As of May 2009. the official site claims the film has been translated into more than 1,050 languages.
Most translated magazine (with simship): The Watchtower is published by the Jehovah's Witnesses in 174 languages and "all these editions are translated and printed for simultaneous release."
Most languages simultaneously interpreted for a single event: As of October 2008, the World General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is simultaneously interpreted** into 94 languages twice each year.
**Interestingly enough, most of the conference is "simultaneously synchronized" in 94 different languages as most of the speakers have submitted their talks/sermons for written translation by professional and semi-professional translators (or the interpreters themselves) prior to the conference. This prior translation means that many of the "interpreters" can read most of the talks in synchronized timing with the speakers. That said, translation is not complete for all 94 languages before the conference begins, and much is still said "on the fly" during the conference, which must then be simultaneously interpreted by volunteer linguists for attendees and the live worldwide broadcast.
Most translated website: Wikipedia.org is in 200+ languages (verification needed)
Most translated corporate website: Google.com with 124 languages and counting(including a few artificial languages like Esperanto, Klingon, Elmer Fudd, and "Bork, bork, bork!") as of May 2009

Financial world records in translation
Largest translation contract: $4.6 billion contract for 5 years to provide translation and interpretation services to the US Army. ($4.6 billion maximum value and $3.5 billion current awarded value in 2008)
Largest translation company: Global Linguist Solutions, a joint venture between DynCorp International (NYSE: DCP) and McNeil Technologies , currently holds the world's largest translation contract, formerly held by L-3 Communications (NYSE:LLL) (Titan), and therefore has annual revenue in excess of $500 million, estimated at $691 million in 2008.
Largest localization company: Lionbridge at $461 million in 2008
Largest phone interpretation company: Language Line Services at $212 million in 2008
See additional financial information on public translation companies here.
Are you aware of any additional world records in the field of translation and interpretation? Or should an of the information above be corrected? If so, please comment, and then subscribe above via email or RSS so that you are notified when the list is updated again.
Last updated May 29, 2009

via tandibusiness.blogspot.com

Going Global: Is an Online Strategy Enough? | International business strategy | global

2010-04-14T16:56:00.001Z

Has recession in your home market hit the bottom line?

Never fear, salvation is at hand.

All you need to do is translate your web site into the appropriate language to tap into those lucrative foreign markets.

In the ‘flat world’ of the internet, if you build a local presence overseas, they will come.

Worried about telephone enquiries in a foreign language? Just get your local call centre to manage those for you. Email enquiries? Google Translate can take care of those.

Just sit back and watch your profits grow. It’s that simple.

Or is it?

Don’t Forget your Offline Strategy

Lucas Jons (CC) www.flickr.com

The internet appears to have lowered barriers to entry into foreign markets. But has it really meant easier access to overseas customers once the ‘inconveniences’ of language and culture have been overcome by the marketeer?

The OECD Survey (2009) “Top Barriers and Drivers to SME Internationalisation” outlines some of the reasons why your international website might not make you a multi-millionaire overnight. Especially if you haven’t thought in detail about the offline bits of your international marketing mix before taking the online leap.

SMEs in advanced economies faced the following challenges when going global, according to the OECD survey:

Shortage of working capital to finance exports

Problems identifying foreign business opportunities

Limited information to analyse/locate markets

Inability to contact overseas customers

Obtaining reliable foreign representation

Lack of managerial time to deal with internationalisation

Lack of staff training for or experience of internationalisation

Difficulty in matching international competitors prices

Lack of home government assistance/incentives

Excessive transport costs

Failure to develop new products for foreign markets

Unfamiliar exporting procedures/paperwork

Failure to meet export quality standards or specifications

Despite the advent of international eCommerce, small business is still facing the same diseconomies of scale and high transaction costs that it has always endured. We can’t all be Amazon.

But how can nimble SMEs and microenterprises overcome these offline challenges to their online business plans?

Seven ‘Offline’ Tips for Online Success

It may seem obvious but you need to consider how your international marketing mix addresses each of these offline challenges before you design that shiny new overseas web presence. You’d be surprised how many firms fail to do this.

by Amasc (CC) www.flickr.com

Like the firm who spent thousands of euros on a web site, trade shows and print to promote a complex B2B product in Japan but had no Japanese speaking engineers to convert the leads.

Of course, localising your web presence is an important, final step in any international business strategy. But it is surprising how many firms rush into an online strategy without thinking through a detailed marketing mix.

This can have unintended, expensive and unpleasant consequences –not least of which is ballooning web development costs as your website gets reworked when these unaddressed challenges emerge after the site launch.

Remember, you will need to think about how you will:

build a ‘world ready’ business organisation

research a clearly quantifiable, profitable and reachable target market

source adequate finance

identify cost effective distribution channels

recruit a reliable in-country representative

devise a local pricing strategy

develop relevant products or services that meet local quality standards and local needs.

And you should probably do this before you telephone your web developer.

Now that shouldn’t be too hard now, should it?

via bloggertone.com

Multilingual SEO: Things to Remember | Search Engine Journal

2010-04-13T16:31:00.001Z

Multilingual SEO: Things to Remember

Google has recently done a series on the usability of multilingual websites and it got me thinking about multilingual SEO. How do you, in fact, optimize the same website for keywords in multiple languages?

But let’s start with the core basics. In simple terms, a multilingual website is a website that has content in more than one language. And such website has a lot of on-page stuff that is often done wrong. Let’s take a look at some common issues:

1) Language recognition

Once Google’s crawler lands on your multilingual website, it starts with determining the main language on every page. Google can recognize a page as being in more than one language but you can avoid crawler confusion by doing the following:

Stick to only one language per page

Avoid side-by-side translations

Use the same language for all elements of the page: headers, sidebars, menus, etc.

Some web editors create code-level attributes automatically but these attributes are not very reliable, so keep in mind that Google ignores all code-level information (from “lang” attributes to DTD (Document Type Definitions) during language recognition.

2) URL structure

A typical pet peeve of SEO but even more so with multilingual websites. To make the most of your URLs, consider language-specific extensions. Language-specific extensions are often used on multilingual websites to help users (and crawlers) identify the sections of the website they are on and the language the page is in. For example:

http://www.website.ca/en/content.html

http://www.en.website.ca/content.html

http://www.website.ca/fr/content.html

http://www.fr.website.ca/content.html

This is a great way to organize URLs on a multilingual website because not only does it help the user, but it also makes it easier for the crawler to analyze the indexing of your content. But what if you want to create URLs with characters other than English? Here’s how to do it right:

Use UTF-8 encoding for non-English characters

Make sure your UTF-8 encoded URLs are properly escaped when linked from within your content

i.e. if a URL contains an é, which is a non-English character: http://www.website.ca/fr/contént.html

here’s how it will look properly escaped: http://www.website.ca/fr/cont%C3%A9nt.html

But if you have to escape the URLs manually, use an encoder such as one from Meyer Web or look for others

It is important to note that Google directly extracts character encodings from HTTP headers, HTML page headers, and content. There isn’t much you need to do about character encoding, other than watching out for conflicting information – for example, between content and headers. While Google can recognize different character encodings, use UTF-8 on your website whenever possible.

3) Crawling and Indexing

Another common area of focus for SEO. On multilingual websites, follow these recommendations to get more pages crawled:

Avoid redirects based on user’s perceived language: they could, in fact, prevent both users and SEs from looking at more pages on your site.

Keep the content for each language on separate URLs

Don’t use cookies to show translated page versions

Cross-link page by page

Last but not least, please remember that Google does not recommend automatic translations.

By getting the on-page basics right, you will set a great base for your multilingual SEO in the future and, unlike so many others, you will not have to beg (in multiple languages) SE crawlers to come and index your content.

via searchenginejournal.com

Cross-cultural Communication Strategy – the 4 Building Blocks :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-04-13T16:17:00.001Z

Your Ultimate Cross-cultural Communication Objective: Achieve Global KLT (“Know – Like – Trust” on the Global Scene)

As a cross-cultural marketer you communicate to create and enhance Global KLT. You communicate about product or service benefits and features. You communicate to influence and persuade. You communicate to foster and develop connections and relationships across borders and cultures – both before, during, and after sales: Marketing, PR, Social Media, Sales, CRM…

Communication is all-pervasive, because “Commerce is Communication”

The 4 indispensable elements for a successful cross-cultural communication strategy:

I. The Global Mindset

II. Global Knowledge

III. Global Skills 1: Cross-cultural skills

IV. Global Skills 2: Business Skills

I. The Global Mindset

“We would define a global mindset as one that combines an openness to and awareness of diversity across cultures and markets with a propensity and ability to synthesize across this diversity.”

Adopt a “world-is-my-market” strategy. Let the Global Mindset inform everything you do and add strategic power and depth.

Upgrade your firm from reactive (ad-hoc international activity based on client inquiries, management interest, and inquiries from potential overseas partners) to proactive (strategic, consciously planned business development, quite the opposite of a “hit-and-run” going-global type of activity.)

II. Global Knowledge

Know the world, the Global Marketplace, your place of action, because you are a Global Player and the Whole Wide World is your Playground. Your judgment, thoughts and actions are all soundly based on “objective knowledge”. You know what’s going on in the World…

Fields covered:

Globalization
Global Trade/International Trade
Free Trade/Open Trade and Protectionism
Legal Environment/Regulatory Issues
Transparency/Corruption
Intellectual Property
Politics
Foreign Government Incentives
Economics
Finance
Investment
Currencies
Migration
Tourism/Business Travel
Expatriation/Relocation
Transportation and Logistics
Natural Resources
Outsourcing/Offshoring
Current Affairs
Development/Aid
Geography/Continents/Countries
Genetics
Demography
History
Global Issues (e.g. Climate Change, Global Warming, etc.)
Energy
Technology
The Global Elite
Big Picture Thinking

III. Global Skills 1: Cross-cultural Skills

Ability to understand, work with, and influence people from other cultures. Know your own culture as well as other cultures. Cultivate the ability to spot and make use of both similarities and differences between cultures.

Fields covered:

Culture
Cultural Intelligence (CQ)
Cultural Competency (G. Hofstede/F. Trompenaars/Michael Bond/Milton Bennett/P. Rosinski, etc.)
Cultural Awareness
Empathy
Cross-cultural Negotiation
Cross-cultural Deal making
Multiculturalism/Interculturalism
Diversity
Multilingual Content
Global Content Management
GILT (Globalization/Internationalization/Localization/Translation)
Language Technology
Language Learning
Anthropology
Sociology
Psychology

IV. Global Skills 2: Business Skills

Hone your skills and ability to Select your market, to Choose your market entry strategy, to Research your market (Market Intelligence), to Define and Implement strategies: Cross-cultural Marketing, PR, Social media, International Business…

Fields covered:

Going Global
Strategy, Management
Market Research
Market Entry
EMC, ETC
Local Representative
Export/Import
Cross-cultural Marketing
Communication
Social Media
PR, Publicity
Old Media
Blogging
Advertising
CRM/Customer Relations/Customer Retention
Internet Marketing
eCommerce
Website Localization
International SEO
Cross-cultural Email
Multilingual Search

These 4 elements are the basis of our activity on The Cross-cultural Connector blog, Facebook Page and Facebook Profile, Linkedin Group and Linkedin Profile, Twitter, Google Buzz and on many other venues online.

We also use these elements to build our products and services:

Cultural Awareness Training

Coaching and Consulting

Books and ebooks

Workshops

Webinars

Podcasts and Video

Public Speaking

Translation/localization, Transcreation

Now you possess the Mindset, Knowledge, and Skills to achieve your ultimate goal of Global KLT. Once you have reached this goal, you can say: “the sky’s the limit”, and nothing will ever stop you because, whether domestically or internationally, people will always follow this eternal law of business: “People prefer to deal with and buy from people they know, like, and trust” (Note the repetition of the word “people”, because ultimately, Communication is a “people thing”)

You have more than enough material here to define and implement your own highly successful cross-cultural communication strategy or, if you are not the do-it-yourself type, just get in touch with us: we are here to help.

Now a couple of questions before we go: Is there anything you’d like us to add here? What are your biggest cross-cultural communication challenges? What can you tell us about your going global experience?

Please give us your feedback on all this.

Amadou M. Sall

The Global/Local Web Site - Computerworld

2010-04-11T18:24:00.001Z

“Factors Affecting Cross-Cultural Communication” :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-04-11T01:55:00.001Z

7 Truths About Social Media Marketing » Techipedia | Tamar Weinberg

2010-04-09T17:45:00.001Z

Even though social media isn’t new to many of us, the world is waking up to this new shiny toy. Thanks to books like The New Community Rules, written by yours truly, Engage, Social Media 101, and others, social media marketing is, for the time being, going to still be on people’s minds as they discover this bright and sunny marketing opportunity.

But despite the vastness of opportunities that social media affords, it’s just one channel in a series of many. We should still tackle some realities about social media marketing before you get too excited about its potential.

Social Media is Not a Silver Bullet

Social media is currently all the rage because it’s new. But let’s be honest here. It’s really not that new. In fact, I’ve been offering social media services for 4 years now, well before most even knew about the potential of social media or believed in the promise of the technologies. In other words, if you’re diving in right now, you’re out of luck — you’re a late adopter. Do you know what that means? Without creativity in your marketing plan, its will be a lot harder to make a splash.

Once you fire up your social media strategy, it doesn’t travel as fast as that silver bullet either. Social media is a lengthy, tedious process. Most of social media relates to relationship building, which is a time-consuming process. Have you ever become someone’s best friend in a week? A month? Three? Trust is earned and building trust takes time. If you’re going to participate in social media marketing, you better be prepared to wait. Brands that are already established naturally have it a lot easier; they already have a following. If you’re a new face in the crowd, people will be especially skeptical of who you are and why you are here. Those ten B2B leads you get after the first few months are ten leads you would not have gotten otherwise. If you keep at it, that number will double and triple, but you must keep at it.

Social Media is More than Just Twitter and Facebook

Hopefully, if you’re participating in social media marketing, you’re using more than just the tools everyone else is using. Sure, most social media marketing plans often start with the obvious contenders, such as Facebook and Twitter, mostly because the audiences there are so vast and diversified that you’re bound to find people interested in your product offerings. (Of course, you’ll still need to look once you’re there, do outreach, and perform whatever else it takes to build a loyal following.) However, you need to articulate to your client or marketing teams that social media is not just about participating on Twitter and Facebook. Some additional tasks might include niche social site promotion, blogger outreach, photo sharing, generating leads through business and consumer networks, contests, viral video, phone meetings that follow online correspondence, face to face meetings resulting from online networking, attending events and conferences, backchannel communications, and more.

If your client approaches you and says that he’s disappointed that the marketing initiatives only include Facebook and Twitter, it’s time to set up and manage expectations — and prove that you’re doing much more than just what’s viewable to the public — before it’s too late. The online world is vast and it is often your responsibility to cover as much ground as you can to be effective in your marketing efforts.

Numbers Aren’t Everything

Over-zealous clients or enthusiasts might feel the need to absolutely reach out to the “influencers” who have eleventy billion Twitter followers. The truth is that those numbers don’t often mean anything.

It’s more important to look at the holistic view of the individual or entity on Twitter and across other social channels. If someone has over 20,000 Twitter followers, how many people are they following?

If there’s a near 1:1 (even distribution of 20000 friends and 20000 followers) ratio of friends to followers, chances are that this person is reciprocating every single friend request. It might even mean that the person might have gone out to find more followers.

If there’s a 2:1 ratio (20000 friends, 10000 followers), that might be something to worry about; why isn’t it even? Are your potential followers not interested in your tweets?

On the other hand, a 1:2 ratio (20000 friends, 40000 followers) could also raise red flags. I’ve seen countless “experts” and “celebrities” reciprocate every single incoming friend request only to later purge everyone. The numbers, consequently, get artificially inflated, and these guys look like rockstars.

Research these potential influencers to get a handle on their credibility. Look at their status updates on Twitter (are they substantive and value-added or are they only coming from Twitterfeed?). Check if they have a home base. Don’t just take the public facing Twitter numbers at face value. See if the individuals behind the account are engaging their followers.

Keep in mind that having lots of followers doesn’t always mean anything. The more important thing is to connect with the right people who could potentially help spread your message to more of the right people.

Social Media is Social

This is quite obvious, but hear me out. Social media is more than just broadcasting. It’s about connecting and networking. Every so often, a potential client comes to me and asks me to promote a blog post or article, mostly because they don’t have an audience for the blog post to spread on its own. For blogs, the answer is simple: your blog should be treated as more than just a platform to self-promote. Blogs must be marketed in order to be successful. It doesn’t end after you hit “publish.” You need to network with like minded individuals and build relationships with people in the blogosphere so that you ultimately get inbound links, comments, and visibility. Sure, you can just pay someone to promote an article here and there, but at the end of the day, people are not regularly reading your content. In other words, you as the blog’s writer (or blog representative) need to go out and build bridges with people in relevant fields. If you write for an animal shelter, start talking with pet owners and local businesses to help each other. If you write for a sports blog, you have hundreds of similar sports blogs to choose from. There’s no shortage of opportunity to connect with the right people.

If there’s one recurring theme that I feature here on Techipedia, it’s the fact that social media marketing relates to dealings with other individuals. That would not be possible without building relationships. Each outreach attempt should focus on strengthening and building bonds, not on overly promoting yourself. Come bearing gifts, focus on being altruistic, and then your marketing message may be heard more loudly than if you don’t. In fact, in the latter scenario, it’s possible that your marketing message may not help at all or even hurt you.

Social Media is Continuous

Let’s say you meet a guy at a dinner party — we’ll call him Mike. Mike’s daughter is selling hot dogs to raise money for her school class. The immediate day after you meet Mike, he starts calling you and emailing you with requests to help his daughter out. (You don’t tell him you’re a vegetarian.) After the window is closed for the fundraising effort, Mike disappears and you never hear from him again.

This story parallels one of the main issues facing social media. Social media is a continuous effort, not something that is only campaign-based. Campaign-based social media marketing only works when it complements continuous social media marketing. In other words, don’t show up in the social space only when you need a hand. A few months ago, I worked on a campaign for a rather large company who did some video promotion to get individuals to spread the word. Many of the bloggers and influential Twitter users, however, wanted to promote the client’s Twitter account, because there’s a simple expectation that companies, at this day and age, should have a social media presence. The problem was that the client had none. The video was all they had.

Commercials and one-off viral promotions are great, and you should use them regularly if you want to boost the creativity of your presence online and offline. However, make sure that you have a real corresponding presence online, be it for simple outreach or for regular customer support. And at the very least, claim your identity on the applicable (and at the minimum, popular) social media communities before someone else does whose presence — under your name — could be detrimental to your marketing efforts.

And get your account started and active immediately. You don’t want to create an account to use only when it’s too late. Be proactive, not reactive.

Social Media is Not Free

When you were a kid, you probably wondered why road infrastructure projects cost in the billions or that nature preservation programs cost millions. Heck, the real question you probably had was “why does everything cost so much money? What are people paying for when the supplies seem very cheap?” The answer, quite simply, comes down to the real cost of labor. Equipment and supplies might be relatively affordable, but at the end of the day, you’re paying for time and possessed expertise. That expertise often comes in the form of someone else’s profession, and as such, nobody will want to do the work for free.

Yes, Twitter and Facebook and Digg and other niche sites cost nothing to join, making social media a relatively free marketing option. There are no barriers for entry and everyone can participate. There’s one catch: you end up spending time on these networks, and that’s where the money starts adding up. After all, time is money.

Social media marketing seems affordable compared to other marketing, especially television, print, and even pay-per-click marketing or CPM-based advertising, but the biggest fallacy as it relates to social media marketing is believing that it’s something that you can do quickly and affordably. Yes, it’s cheap. It’s not cheap in your time investment.

Social Media is Often Permanent

Everything you do and say online can be used against you. Those mistakes you make when blogging could harm your reputation because search engines do not easily forget, and negative messages can be spread like wildfire thanks to the potential of the Internet. If you reveal trade secrets or confidential information, you might be out of a job today and tomorrow when a future human resources representative finds out about your past infidelities.

As representatives of companies, your personal brand should align at least professionally with your company brand. That’s to say that if you use a public forum to insult, attack, or demean others on your personal time, you may find that impacting your company by association. If you blog or post comments, you should make sure it adheres to your company’s social media policy. Companies do not want to be associated with individuals who can singlehandedly take down the company because they easily forget that there are ramifications to their actions online. Don’t lose sight of this and remember that everything you say or do can potentially be used against you. Think before you post, act professionally throughout your interactions, and you’ll be just fine.

The Golden Truths

Social media marketing requires dedicated, devoted individuals who can aggressively seek opportunities in highly populated communities. It’s not something that you should outsource to a recently-hired intern as there are risks when there is no policy compliance, but more importantly, when there is no synergy between the individual and the company s/he represents. Should you proceed either in-house or by outsourcing, you need to respect that social media marketing is a process, requiring a substantial investment of time, and thus, money. Continuing your social media involvement beyond simple campaign spurts is critical, if not highly recommended. And keep your eye off the pure numbers; look instead at practical measurement.

It comes down to social media being something of a chore. Truth be told, it is. However, if you get truly invested in the process, you can find some substantial gains — but you need to be ready and able to overcome the misconceptions and understand a little more about what social media truly is before you start reaping the successes of your labor.

Photos by Shutterstock.
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Tagged as: facebook, followers, Marketing, networking, smm, social, social media, social media marketing, twitter

via techipedia.com

Culture :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-04-06T23:13:00.001Z

Culture and the Individual

Two Definitions of Culture

Much has been said and written about culture. Consider the following:

According to Harris and Moran (1987), “culture gives people a sense

of who they are,

of belonging,

of how they should behave,

and of what they should be doing.

It provides

a learned,

shared,

and interrelated

set of

symbols,

codes,

and values

that

direct

and justify

human behavior.”

So we can easily see: identity, community, morals and ethics, social responsibility, security, directions, way of life, and many other things…

For Hofstede culture is “the software of the mind” and he defines three levels of “mental programs”:

1. “The universal level of mental programming which is shared by all, or almost all, mankind. This is the biological ‘operating system’ of the human body, but it includes a range of expressive behaviors such as laughing and weeping and associative and aggressive behaviors which are found in higher animals.”

2. “The collective level of mental programming is shared with some but not with all other people; it is common to people belonging to a certain group or category. . . . The whole area of subjective human culture. . . belongs to this level.”

3. “The individual level of human programming is the truly unique part—no two people are programmed exactly alike, even if they are identical twins raised together.”

The Multi-layered Individual

As human beings we are all multi-layered, highly individualized creatures. Whatever we say to each other must first go through these layers, which in fact act as a filter. How it is understood depends on this “filter”

But the beautiful thing here is that this programming can be changed at the individual (or even collective) level. The individual has thoughts, feelings, emotions, aspirations to happiness, willpower, the possibility to choose, i.e. to be influenced. And that is where you come in, as a marketer and/or communicator. That is also the reason why you must seriously study culture and cultures, both your own (“Man, Know Thyself!”, said Socrates), and the culture of whoever you want to communicate with.

Reach Out!

Once you reach out to the individual, across cultural constructs, it becomes possible, indeed easy, to talk to each other, relate to each other, work together, exchange ideas and feelings, share knowledge and skills, build relationships, strike friendships across borders and cultures, sell to each other and buy from each other…

Mastering any part (a few words in the langage, pacing, etiquette…) of the foreign culture can draw yo closer to the individual. Let’s face it: The locals will not expect you to be as fluent as they are in their own culture. They know you are a foreigner, even though you are a human being, just as they are.

So, just be genuine and authentic, sincerely and empathically show readiness to learn. Start from what we all have in common, because “we connect based on our commonalities and we enrich each other based on our differences”

Reach out for the individual, observe, pace, ask the right questions and above all, listen and empathize.

Your thoughts?

Amadou M. Sall

Tim Berry: In Business and Speaking, Silence Can Be Golden

2010-04-02T20:37:00.001Z

Do you recognize the Simon & Garfunkel song, The Sounds of Silence? It's a sad song about loss. But silence is also golden. It's a powerful tool in business and life. Learn to use it.

The best speech I ever heard in person was delivered in Mexico in 1973 by Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist president who was assassinated a few months later. He spoke more like a poet than president, particularly as he delivered a speech about economic change, at the University of Guadalajara. He used voice cadence and change beautifully. His speakers voice grew softer and emotional as he talking about the harsh underground life of the copper miners. Then he paused, using the silence. Then he turned up the volume and emotional resolve as he insisted on how things had to change. It was brilliant. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. And the silence was part of it.

I learned the power of silence in negotiation back in the 1990s when I spent a week of every month in Tokyo. I was going to do business planning seminars for Apple in Japan and the Apple managers involved had the sense to get me some special tutoring from Dianne Saphiere, an expert in crossing cultures between the U.S. and Japan.

Dianne said that the Japanese culture appreciates and respects silence as part of a conversation. Westerners, on the other hand, hate and fear silence. We call it awkward. It drives us crazy.

Silence can be as simple as a matter of respect. The person who understands and uses silence might be indicating that you've made an important point, so he or she respects that by waiting to respond. You, however, have to avoid fearing silence and forcing a response. Wait for the silence.

Dianne said that sometimes a Japanese person will win concessions from an American simply by not fearing silence. For example, the American breaks what seems like an awkward pause by lowering the price, thinking that the silence is disapproval. The Japanese person, however, was simply respecting the importance of the offer.

Since then I've often seen how silence can work as a tool. As you talk with somebody, and particularly in negotiations, use this to your favor. Take your time.

(Image: Wikipedia)

Follow Tim Berry on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Timberry

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“How to Connect Globally With Social Media” :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-04-02T18:26:00.001Z

An awesome post from Cindy King’s blog (Cindy is my “Cross-cultural Marketing Hero”)

****

Do you know how to use social media to target a global audience? After all, social media provides a low-cost solution to engage your prospects, customers and partners located in different regions of the world.

As Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motor Company, says, “U.S. brands looking to leverage social networks internationally know that while their messages need to stay consistent regardless of the region, the language, cultural reference points, platform and tactics, all need to be tailored for each market.”

He continues, “Whether it is customer service, IT, HR or product development, there are a number of uses for social media. And when you add to that all of our constituents—customers, employees, shareholders, dealers, retirees—it becomes a very complex assignment.”

Here’s a look at a few of the difficulties and how you can overcome them…

The Information Available

In the past, statistics on social media were difficult to come by and they were not always relevant. But there are more Internet statistics available today even for social media. McCann’s Wave 4 Power to the People report is one resource available to gain insights into how to use social media internationally.

The trouble with an international social media strategy, as Erik Qualman of Search Engine Watch points out, one size does not fit all. Having more relevant statistics does not get you very far. You still need to learn how to adapt what you do on social media to effectively connect with people in other countries. And before you can do this, you need to know a bit more about what social media is like over there.

Social Media in Different Regions of the World

A good place to start is to look for general insights into the social media environment in the places you would like to reach.

The Nielsen report Global Faces and Networked Places clearly explains why localization has won the day in many countries and says, “Succeeding in China takes more than producing a translated version; it requires investment in a local infrastructure and a mentality of running a Chinese social network that understands the domestic nuances of social network behaviour rather than simply rolling out a generic social network in Chinese.”

Here are more insights from two social media players well-known in their own countries:

Have a look at this interview of Laurel Papworth in which she gives an analysis on what’s happening in social media in Australia and Southeast Asia.

Fred Cavazza says, “The main differences in France’s social media are based on the local offering and local players: Dailymotion, Skyblog, Viadeo, Dofus, BlogSpirit, CanalBlog, OverBlog… and there are 3 distinct groups in France around culinary, political and IT gadget blogs.”
(Read the Whole Story)

Your thoughts?

Amadou

“International Markets: Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks and Dogs” :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-04-01T17:30:00.001Z

In the 70s, the Boston Consulting Group developed the product life cycle matrix to help companies analyze their product portfolios for the purpose of strategic planning and effective resource allocation.

They divided products into 4 groups:

1. Low relative market share and low market growth rate: They called it a “dog” and recommended phasing out these products.

2. Low relative market share and high growth rate: They called these products a “question mark” and recommended investing in some.

3. High relative market share and high growth rate: They called this category a “star” and recommended heavily investing in them.

4. High relative market share and low growth rate: They called it a “cash cow” and recommended maintenance only, milking the product till it turns to a “dog” then phasing it out.

BCG emphasized the need for companies to have a product portfolio that contains products in all of the question mark, star and cash cow quadrants.

Fast-forward to the globalization era. Your geographical market portfolio should match your product life cycle matrix portfolio!

The same techniques and principles can be applied when appraising your international markets and how they rank within these four quadrants. Based on that, you can decide on the amount of resources to apply to product localization. (Read the Whole Story)

Your thoughts?

Amadou

Top Languages by GDP | Globalization Group, Inc. | The Global Edge!™

2010-03-31T18:43:00.001Z

via globalization-group.com

How to Get an Influencer's Attention » Techipedia | Tamar Weinberg

2010-03-30T18:10:00.001Z

via techipedia.com

10 Global Mindset Links :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-03-30T17:26:00.001Z

In this blog, we’ll be talking a lot about The Global Mindset, because it is the pre requisite, the sine qua non if you want to successfully define and implement your cross-cultural communication strategy

Meanwhile, we’d like to share with you these links to great websites and articles on the topic.

Thunderbird

Canadian Journal of Administrative Science

American Executive: Global Mindset

Cultivating a Global Mindset 1

Cultivating a Global Mindset 2

Develop Global Mindset

Michael Hick’s Global Business Initiatives

Passion, Strategic Vision, and Global Mindset

Profiting from a global mind-set – exporting

Corporations Need a Global Mindset to Succeed in Today’s Multipolar Business World

Your Comments?

Amadou M. Sall

“The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Small Business Owners” :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-03-30T16:22:00.001Z

Have you ever wondered why some very smart people don’t do so well in business? And how other people with moderate intelligence succeed beyond their wildest dreams?

A lot of success has nothing to do with standard intelligence but rather with what’s called Emotional Intelligence (EI). Emotional intelligence, according to Merriam Webster, “describes the ability, capacity, skill or, in the case of the trait, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one’s self, of others, and of groups.”

Or put in layman’s terms, emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand and work with your own emotions and the emotions of others. It’s intuition, compassion, empathy and the ability to analyze these emotions successfully that can make or break a small business owner’s success.

For example, negotiation often takes the ability to listen, to understand where a person is coming from, to put yourself in their shoes so to speak, and then to come up with a creative solution that results in a win/win for both parties. This can’t be accomplished with book knowledge alone – it requires emotional intelligence. (Read the whole story)

Emotional Intelligence is one of the abilities, capacities, and skills that are absolutely necessary for successful communication, including of course cross-cultural communication. One might even say it’s more important in the case of cross-cultural communication, because it can really help you deal with language and other cultural “barriers”

Your experience?

Amadou M. Sall

Seth's Blog: Maybe you need new friends

2010-03-30T15:44:00.001Z

Real world friends are hard to find and hard to change.
But virtual friends?
If your online friends aren't egging you on...
If your online friends don't spread the word about the work you're doing...
If your online friends aren't respectfully challenging your deeply held beliefs...
If your online friends don't demand the best from you...
Then perhaps you need new online friends.

Save to del.icio.us (5 saves, tagged: sethgodin) • Digg This! • Email this • Subscribe to this feed • Share on Facebook

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Facebook Page link is OK now, at last :-)

2010-03-29T22:10:00.001Z

Have you seen my Facebook Page? The link is OK now! Click to fan :-) http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Cross-cultural-Connector/103545409678191

Cultural Competence

2010-03-29T21:36:00.001Z

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“Rebound in World Trade Is Seen” :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-03-27T17:37:00.001Z

Led by economic growth in China and India, world trade is projected to expand by 9.5 percent this year after shrinking by 12.2 percent last year in the sharpest contraction since World War II, the World Trade Organization said on Friday.

“We see the light at the end of the tunnel, and trade promises to be an important part of the recovery,” the organization’s director-general, Pascal Lamy, said. “But we must avoid derailing any economic revival through protectionism.”

Export declines last year were even greater in the United States (13.9 percent), the European Union (14.8 percent) and Japan (24.9 percent) than in the rest of the world. Shipments from China fell 10.5 percent.

The W.T.O. confirmed that China overtook Germany as the world’s top exporter of merchandise in 2009, accounting for almost 10 percent of global exports. China is second on the import side, with an 8 percent share of world imports compared to 13 percent for the United States.

The exports from developed countries are expected to rise by 7.5 percent this year, outpaced by an 11 percent increase projected for the rest of the world.

The W.T.O., which is trying to catalyze political support for the long-stalled Doha round of global trade negotiations, said its members had avoided imposing trade barriers in response to the crisis, but expressed concern that persistent unemployment “may intensify protectionist pressures.” (Read the Whole Story)

As a Global Player and cross-cultural marketer and communicator, you’re bound to find this article interesting! Now, tell us what you think, in the Comments section.

Amadou M. Sall

“Rebound in World Trade Is Seen” :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-03-27T17:22:00.001Z

Led by economic growth in China and India, world trade is projected to expand by 9.5 percent this year after shrinking by 12.2 percent last year in the sharpest contraction since World War II, the World Trade Organization said on Friday.

“We see the light at the end of the tunnel, and trade promises to be an important part of the recovery,” the organization’s director-general, Pascal Lamy, said. “But we must avoid derailing any economic revival through protectionism.”

Export declines last year were even greater in the United States (13.9 percent), the European Union (14.8 percent) and Japan (24.9 percent) than in the rest of the world. Shipments from China fell 10.5 percent.

The W.T.O. confirmed that China overtook Germany as the world’s top exporter of merchandise in 2009, accounting for almost 10 percent of global exports. China is second on the import side, with an 8 percent share of world imports compared to 13 percent for the United States.

The exports from developed countries are expected to rise by 7.5 percent this year, outpaced by an 11 percent increase projected for the rest of the world.

The W.T.O., which is trying to catalyze political support for the long-stalled Doha round of global trade negotiations, said its members had avoided imposing trade barriers in response to the crisis, but expressed concern that persistent unemployment “may intensify protectionist pressures.” (Read the Whole Story)

As a Global Player and cross-cultural marketer and communicator, you’re bound to find this article interesting! Now, tell us what you think, in the Comments section.

Amadou M. Sall

Facebook Page Tribulations :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-03-26T19:12:00.001Z

If you are one of my 2132 Facebook friends, or 4503 Twitter followers, or 2616 Linkedin contacts; if you read one or more of my other blogs (Posterous, Personal Development, Translator Power), then you must have heard of my Facebook Page problem. This is what happened: I have created a Facebook Page but I am totally unable to promote it, simply because the link to my page does not take you to the page. My Facebook friends tell me it takes them to… their own Facebook profile. The strange thing is that the link DOES take me to the page, and the consequence is that there is only one “fan” on my page, and that “fan” is… me!

Here are the links which should all take you to my Facebook Page, but which apparently do not. Many of my friends have clicked them, but “nothing doing”!

FBP1
FBP2
FBP3 (This is the link you have on The Cross-cultural Connector blog)

I have written to Facebook but there’s been no answer so far. What do you advise me to do?

Amadou M. Sall

The Cultural Iceberg - An Analogy

2010-03-26T16:48:00.001Z

via languageandculture.com

Martin Jacques: The global hierarchy of race | World news | The Guardian

2010-03-25T16:00:00.001Z

I always found race difficult to understand. It was never intuitive. And the reason was simple. Like every other white person, I had never experienced it myself: the meaning of colour was something I had to learn. The turning point was falling in love with my wife, an Indian-Malaysian, and her coming to live in England. Then, over time, I came to see my own country in a completely different way, through her eyes, her background. Colour is something white people never have to think about because for them it is never a handicap, never a source of prejudice or discrimination, but rather the opposite, a source of privilege. However liberal and enlightened I tried to be, I still had a white outlook on the world. My wife was the beginning of my education.
But it was not until we went to live in Hong Kong that my view of the world, and the place that race occupies within it, was to be utterly transformed. Rather than seeing race through the prism of my own society, I learned to see it globally. When we left these shores, it felt as if we were moving closer to my wife's world: this was east Asia and she was Malaysian. And she, unlike me, had the benefit of speaking Cantonese. So my expectation was that she would feel more comfortable in this environment than I would. I was wrong. As a white, I found myself treated with respect and deference; my wife, notwithstanding her knowledge of the language and her intimacy with Chinese culture, was the object of an in-your-face racism.
In our 14 months in Hong Kong, I learned some brutal lessons about racism. First, it is not the preserve of whites. Every race displays racial prejudice, is capable of racism, carries assumptions about its own virtue and superiority. Each racism, furthermore, is subtly different, reflecting the specificity of its own culture and history.
Second, there is a global racial hierarchy that helps to shape the power and the prejudices of each race. At the top of this hierarchy are whites. The reasons are deep-rooted and profound. White societies have been the global top dogs for half a millennium, ever since Chinese civilisation went into decline. With global hegemony, first with Europe and then the US, whites have long commanded respect, as well as arousing fear and resentment, among other races. Being white confers a privilege, a special kind of deference, throughout the world, be it Kingston, Hong Kong, Delhi, Lagos - or even, despite the way it is portrayed in Britain, Harare. Whites are the only race that never suffers any kind of systemic racism anywhere in the world. And the impact of white racism has been far more profound and baneful than any other: it remains the only racism with global reach.
Being top of the pile means that whites are peculiarly and uniquely insensitive to race and racism, and the power relations this involves. We are invariably the beneficiaries, never the victims. Even when well-meaning, we remain strangely ignorant. The clout enjoyed by whites does not reside simply in an abstraction - western societies - but in the skin of each and every one of us. Whether we like it or not, in every corner of the planet we enjoy an extraordinary personal power bestowed by our colour. It is something we are largely oblivious of, and consequently take for granted, irrespective of whether we are liberal or reactionary, backpackers, tourists or expatriate businessmen.
The existence of a de facto global racial hierarchy helps to shape the nature of racial prejudice exhibited by other races. Whites are universally respected, even when that respect is combined with strong resentment. A race generally defers to those above it in the hierarchy and is contemptuous of those below it. The Chinese - like the Japanese - widely consider themselves to be number two in the pecking order and look down upon all other races as inferior. Their respect for whites is also grudging - many Chinese believe that western hegemony is, in effect, held on no more than prolonged leasehold. Those below the Chinese and the Japanese in the hierarchy are invariably people of colour (both Chinese and Japanese often like to see themselves as white, or nearly white). At the bottom of the pile, virtually everywhere it would seem, are those of African descent, the only exception in certain cases being the indigenous peoples.
This highlights the centrality of colour to the global hierarchy. Other factors serve to define and reinforce a race's position in the hierarchy - levels of development, civilisational values, history, religion, physical characteristics and dress - but the most insistent and widespread is colour. The reason is that colour is instantly recognisable, it defines difference at the glance of an eye. It also happens to have another effect. It makes the global hierarchy seem like the natural order of things: you are born with your colour, it is something nobody can do anything about, it is neither cultural nor social but physical in origin. In the era of globalisation, with mass migration and globalised cultural industries, colour has become the universal calling card of difference. In interwar Europe, the dominant forms of racism were anti-semitism and racialised nationalisms, today it is colour: at a football match, it is blacks not Jews that get jeered, even in eastern Europe.
Liberals like to think that racism is a product of ignorance, of a lack of contact, and that as human mobility increases, so racism will decline. This might be described as the Benetton view of the world. And it does contain a modicum of truth. Intermixing can foster greater understanding, but not necessarily, as Burnley, Sri Lanka and Israel, in their very different ways, all testify.
Hong Kong, compared with China, is an open society, and has long been so, yet it has had little or no effect in mollifying Chinese prejudice towards people of darker skin. It is not that racism is immovable and intractable, but that its roots are deep, its prejudices as old as humanity itself. The origins of Chinese racism lie in the Middle Kingdom: the belief that the Chinese are superior to other races - with the exception of whites - is centuries, if not thousands of years, old. The disparaging attitude among American whites towards blacks has its roots in slavery. Wishing it wasn't true, denying it is true, will never change the reality. We can only understand - and tackle racism - if we are honest about it. And when it comes to race - more than any other issue - honesty is in desperately short supply.
Race remains the great taboo. Take the case of Hong Kong. A conspiracy of silence surrounded race. As the British departed in 1997, amid much self-congratulation, they breathed not a word about racism. Yet the latter was integral to colonial rule, its leitmotif: colonialism, after all, is institutionalised racism at its crudest and most base. The majority of Chinese, the object of it, meanwhile, harboured an equally racist mentality towards people of darker skin. Masters of their own home, they too are in denial of their own racism. But that, in varying degrees, is true of racism not only in Hong Kong but in every country in the world. You may remember that, after the riots in Burnley in the summer of 2001, Tony Blair declared that they were not a true reflection of the state of race relations in Britain: of course, they were, even if the picture is less discouraging in other aspects.
Racism everywhere remains largely invisible and hugely under-estimated, the issue that barely speaks its name. How can the Economist produce a 15,000-word survey on migration, as it did last year, and hardly mention the word racism? Why does virtually no one talk about the racism suffered by the Williams sisters on the tennis circuit even though the evidence is legion? Why are the deeply racist western attitudes towards Arabs barely mentioned in the context of the occupation of Iraq, carefully hidden behind talk of religion and civilisational values?
The dominant race in a society, whether white or otherwise, rarely admits to its own racism. Denial is near universal. The reasons are manifold. It has a huge vested interest in its own privilege. It will often be oblivious to its own prejudices. It will regard its racist attitudes as nothing more than common sense, having the force and justification of nature. Only when challenged by those on the receiving end is racism outed, and attitudes begin to change. The reason why British society is less nakedly racist than it used to be is that whites have been forced by people of colour to question age-old racist assumptions. Nations are never honest about themselves: they are all in varying degrees of denial.
This is clearly fundamental to understanding the way in which racism is underplayed as a national and global issue. But there is another reason, which is a specifically white problem. Because whites remain the overwhelmingly dominant global race, perched in splendid isolation on top of the pile even though they only represent 17% of the world's population, they are overwhelmingly responsible for setting the global agenda, for determining what is discussed and what is not. And the fact that whites have no experience of racism, except as perpetrators, means that racism is constantly underplayed by western institutions - by governments, by the media, by corporations. Moreover, because whites have reigned globally supreme for half a millennium, they, more than any other race, have left their mark on the rest of humanity: they have a vested interest in denying the extent and baneful effects of racism.
It was only two years ago, you may remember, that the first-ever United Nations conference on racism was held - against the fierce resistance of the US (and that in the Clinton era). Nothing more eloquently testifies to the unwillingness of western governments to engage in a global dialogue about the problem of racism.
If racism is now more widely recognised than it used to be, the situation is likely to be transformed over the next few decades. As migration increases, as the regime of denial is challenged, as subordinate races find the will and confidence to challenge the dominant race, as understanding of racism develops, as we become more aware of other racisms like that of the Han Chinese, then the global prominence of racism is surely set to increase dramatically.
It is rare to hear a political leader speaking the discourse of colour. Robert Mugabe is one, but he is tainted and discredited. The Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamed, is articulate on the subject of white privilege and the global hierarchy. The most striking example by a huge margin, though, is Nelson Mandela. When it comes to colour, his sacrifice is beyond compare and his authority unimpeachable. And his message is always universal - not confined to the interests of one race. It is he who has suggested that western support for Israel has something to do with race. It is he who has hinted that it is no accident that the authority of the UN is under threat at a time when its secretary general is black. And yet his voice is almost alone in a world where race oozes from every pore of humanity. In a world where racism is becoming increasingly important, we will need more such leaders. And invariably they will be people of colour: on this subject whites lack moral authority. I could only understand the racism suffered by my wife through her words and experience. I never felt it myself. The difference is utterly fundamental.
· Martin Jacques is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. The death of his wife, Harinder Veriah, in 2000 in a Hong Kong hospital triggered an outcry which culminated in this summer's announcement by the Hong Kong government that it would introduce anti-racist legislation for the first time
martinjacques1@aol.com

via guardian.co.uk

How to clean your keyboard on Shine

2010-03-25T14:55:00.001Z

It’s important to remember to show your keyboard some love every now and then both for the sake of good hygiene and to ensure it functions properly. Those keys take quite a beating everyday, and all the little crevices are excellent at trapping things like dust and hair, and if you ever eat near your computer, it’s easy to wind up with sticky surfaces and crumbs buried between the cracks. Ew, right? Here, step-by-step instructions to get your keyboard in tip top shape.
Shut down your PC, and unplug the mouse, discs or CDs, USB drives or anything else that’s protruding from your machine. Carefully, turn the keyboard (or your entire laptop, as the case may be) upside down and give it a gentle shake to release any dusty build-up that might be lurking between the keys.

Use a can of compressed air (available at just about any electronics store) to blow off residual debris around and under all the nooks and crannies. Alternatively, the hose of a vacuum cleaner works too.

Put a couple drops of isopropyl alcohol on a Q-tip and run it around the edges of your keys to get them squeaky clean. The cotton swab should be only slightly damp—not wet—dripping liquid into your keyboard is (obviously) a bad thing!

Lastly, give the whole thing a once over with a dry, lint-free cloth, and let it air dry for a few minutes before using it (never turn on your machine until you’re positive the keys are completely dry). And between in-depth cleanings, one of my favorite tricks is to use the sticky part of a Post-It note to run between rows of keys to pick up dust.

via shine.yahoo.com

From Local To Global Small Business: 5 Best Practices That Make It Happen | The Small Business United Blog

2010-03-25T14:39:00.001Z

From Local To Global Small Business: 5 Best Practices That Make It Happen

by Laurel Delaney - October 22, 2009

Looking ahead ten years, it is easy for me to see that nearly every single person on the planet will have a global small business that hopefully will become BIG someday. This evolution will be similar to the shift from black and white television to color. If you had tried to watch black and white television for the rest of your life — which some consumers attempted to do because they didn’t have the money to buy a color set or hated change — that set someday would die. At some point, to repair it would have cost far more than a brand new color TV. So whether they liked it or not, consumers had to move with the masses and upgrade to the new color technology. They soon discovered it was the coolest invention ever and the best investment that money could buy! That’s how I envision the radical shift from small business to global small business.

Here are five reasons why it’s happening.

1. Innovation. It’s cool and ageless, as we can see by the widespread use of social-media and networking sites; innovation is only going to keep growing and getting better. It’s a way to thrive in an increasingly complex and connected world. We have to accept this, master the disruptive breakthroughs as fast as possible and stay ahead of it as best we can by making optimum use of its capabilities for growing our small businesses into global powerhouses.

Just like entrepreneurship is not for the weak at heart, innovation isn’t either, for it requires risk, a tolerance for failure and the ability to make a move on every brilliant idea that flies across your desk. Small businesses that are poised to come out of the downturn on top will be those that learn how to use innovation to drive growth (both revenue and profits) and productivity.

2. Technology. Inasmuch as we need innovation to keep technology interesting, we also need technology for the sake of constant change and affordability. It has never been easier to test new ideas for pennies and at lightening speed. For instance, look at the astronomical growth in blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn. Mobile gadgets too will continue to get smaller and more powerful, bolstering the case that going global will be a prerequisite for long-term success.

Whether you are on a beach or in your PJs, your work will get done worldwide provided accessibility is your middle name. And cloud computing, the next new growth environment, will play a major role for SMBs in application delivery. Someday, not too far off in the future, customers anywhere in the world with a mobile device will be able to text you their next big container order, and all you will have to do is hit four keystrokes (ASPD): Acknowledge, Ship, Payment and Delivery. That’s it. All of it will be pre-programmed as a typical online process for an international sales transaction. Go buy those PJs!

3. Global entrepreneurship. Because our current economic environment is so awful, the only thing you can count on in life is yourself, so everyone will not only think about whether they have the skill set for entrepreneurship but will seriously jump into it as a new way of life. Combine that mindset with the use of innovation and technology, and a heavy dose of determination to change the world, and you’ve got the ingredients for a global entrepreneurial revolution — a force not to be reckoned with.

4. Sustainability practices. Wikipedia’s definition of sustainability applies not only to our environment but also to every small business owner reading this entry: “In a broad sense, it is the capacity to endure.” Who knows this better than “us”? We will see more and more small business owners increasingly committing themselves to sustainability strategies because they extend the efficiency and value of products and services. Take, for example, The Wall Street Journal article “Sustainable Success”, which claims, “ … the companies most engaged in social and environmental sustainability are also the most profitable.” Improving social and environmental conditions is fast becoming the soul of a local or global small business enterprise.

5. Green initiatives. Sustainability initiatives usually spur green initiatives, and green initiatives are most certainly on the rise. Being environmentally conscious is not only good for our well-being, it’s even better for our planet. We’ll see more green initiatives put into play in the years to come, and consumers will begin to expect it. A good example is just this week I attended a local seminar where the keynote speaker highlighted the results of simply placing a recycling symbol on her company’s website: The small business owner grew her business from one year to the next by more than 25 percent! Together we can slowly create a better world for our companies, communities and the people we care about.

If we can send a man or a woman into space simply to experience the magic of it, we’ll absolutely be able to do business with anyone, anywhere in the world.

Follow these five best practices, reach for the stars, and watch your business take off.

Rating: 4.0/5 (1 vote cast)
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Global business expert Laurel Delaney is the founder of GlobeTrade.com (a Global TradeSource, Ltd. company). She also is the creator of “Borderbuster,” an e-newsletter, and The Global Small Business Blog (http://borderbuster.blogspot.com), all highly regarded for their global small business coverage. You can reach Delaney at ldelaney@globetrade.com or Twitter @LaurelDelaney

Comments (14)

Joerg Weisner says:

October 23, 2009 at 7:51 am

A great post Laurel.
I would like to translate it to German and publish it on my Job&Joy Blog.
Do you agree?

Best wishes from Germany

Joerg

Sam Maropis says:

October 25, 2009 at 8:46 pm

I remember one of the businesses I owned a few years ago, I heard of new technology for my business, and I bought the cheapest model, it was still bleeding edge stuff for our business, but I kept watch of what was new in my business, and because I was a early adopter I was able to get orders that others could not do.

Then I got my largest account from this new technology, and the account was in England, and I was in Ohio. So thinking about international sales has helped me a lot in the past, I would recommended it to every business.

Thanks
Sam
ChartingDreams.com

Laurel Delaney, Chicago, IL says:

October 27, 2009 at 9:49 am

Hi Joerg,

Thank you for commenting. We are delighted you are interested in translating our “From Local to Global Small Business” entry to German.

We merely ask that you reference our post and provide the originally published URL for your readers. And definitely come back here and let us know when it is featured!

Look forward to it,
Laurel

Laurel Delaney, Chicago, IL says:

October 27, 2009 at 9:50 am

Sam ~

What great experience sharing! Thank you so much. Keep it coming and definitely keep going after global opportunities. If you can’t find them, CREATE them!

All the best,
Laurel

Amadou M. Sall says:

November 5, 2009 at 12:13 pm

Awesome post, Laurel, as usual. I’m sharing it with my Facebook friends (http://www.facebook.com/amsall/)!

Robert says:

February 11, 2010 at 1:17 am

Small business

Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.

The Center for Media Research has released a study by Vertical Response that shows just where many of these ‘Main Street’ players are going with their online dollars. The big winners: e-mail and social media. With only 3.8% of small business folks NOT planning on using e-mail marketing and with social media carrying the perception of being free (which they so rudely discover it is far from free) this should make some in the banner and search crowd a little wary.

http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Robert says:

February 13, 2010 at 2:54 am

Small business

2) The Center for Media Research has released a study by Vertical Response that shows just where many of these ‘Main Street’ players are going with their online dollars. The big winners: e-mail and social media. With only 3.8% of small business folks NOT planning on using e-mail marketing and with social media carrying the perception of being free (which they so rudely discover it is far from free) this should make some in the banner and search crowd a little wary……….

http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Robert says:

February 16, 2010 at 3:13 am

Small business

1) Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well……..

http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Robert says:

February 16, 2010 at 11:54 pm

Small business
3) According to the study, the most important tool for small businesses to succeed in 2010 is search engine marketing, while email marketing, public relations and social media cited as crucial for success.
23.8% of all small businesses reported that search engine marketing was the tool most needed for their business to succeed in 2010….
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Robert says:

February 18, 2010 at 12:09 am

Small business
4) Small Business owners are largely forgotten. Thats why I only focus on them. I have experience several members of my family file bankruptcy due to small business failures. I also I suffered through 2 destroyed businesses due to failure however, in my failings I have learned some of the secrets to success. (Who can say they know it all?)
What I like about small business owners is that they are not afraid to take huge risks and lay it all on the line. But, I agree they do need a lot of help with their marketing. I think having them go the social media and email route is not only the least expensive but its also the most effective. Thanks for the stats!
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Robert says:

February 19, 2010 at 10:36 pm

Small business
5) With Facebook and Twitter being among the leaders of the Social networks, marketing as a small business is being transformed..
Respondents according to the Vertical Response survey appear to need some differentiation with the use of SE marketing and Social media Marketing.

http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

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NewsFactor Business | Foreign Exports: Small Business in a Big World

2010-03-24T23:18:00.001Z

Foreign Exports: Small Business in a Big World
By John Tozzi

March 24, 2010 7:04AM

The Obama Administration wants to double U.S. foreign exports in five years by enlisting the help of small business, with new federal efforts to encourage global trade. But first, entrepreneurs must overcome concerns about getting paid. For small businesses to succeed with foreign exports, online marketing and e-commerce are essential.

Related Topics

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Small Business and Foreign Exports

Other business owners might sour on exporting after what happened to David Old. His company, a 15-employee wood flooring producer in Las Vegas, N.M., had completed a $130,000 order for a new theater floor for a customer
in Seoul, South Korea, in 2008. The buyer paid a deposit up front, passed a credit check, and made the first two payments on time. But the final payment of $40,000, due after the financial crisis began that fall, never arrived.
Despite the loss, Old is counting on foreign sales to expand his business from $1.25 million in revenue this year to $20 million in three years, based on a process he's developing to make high-quality block flooring out of low-grade wood. A 54-year-old Marine veteran who speaks six languages and had a previous business trading aircraft internationally, Old says customers from around the world find him online, and vice versa.
His company, Old Wood LLC, represents both the challenges and the potential that exporting presents small businesses. President Barack Obama set a goal to double American exports in the next five years in his National Export Initiative launched Mar. 11. For that to happen, he's pushing for more companies like Old's to expand into new markets abroad.
Companies with fewer than 500 employees make up half of private nonfarm GDP but only 30 percent of exported goods, according to data
from the Census and the Small Business Administration. Large companies dominate exports. The top 500 U.S. exporters accounted for 60 percent of the value of all exported goods in 2007, according to the latest data available from the Census. Total U.S. exports, including goods and services, topped $1.5 trillion in 2009.
Federal 'Hand-Holding'
Skeptics argue that federal efforts will have little effect because exports depend on foreign growth and the value of the dollar. But others say many small businesses that succeed in the U.S. just need some education and assistance to start selling abroad. "There are like-minded customers out there for almost any product category," says Tomas Hult, director of the International Business Center at Michigan State University. "If there's some hand-holding in that initial part of the process, we're going to see some results."
The biggest hurdle stopping most companies from doing business abroad is fear, says Fred Hochberg, chairman of the Export-Import Bank, a government agency that helps U.S. companies finance international trade through loan guarantees, credit insurance, and other support. "If you're a small business in New York and you're selling to Chicago, you know what the laws are, you know where the banks are, you know if you don't get paid you can sue," he says. "When you're selling overseas, those things aren't as clear." (continued...)

1 | 2 | 3 | Next Page >

© 2010 Business Week Online under contract with YellowBrix. All rights reserved.

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The Secret of Social Media Success on the Global Scene :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-03-23T15:31:00.001Z

Social Media Goes Global

Social Media is now everywhere on the global scene and, as Ford’s Scott Monty puts it in Social Media Goes Global “… major brands now have little choice but to meet their target consumer where they increasingly live online — social media.”

Of course a company’s brand message should not vary from market to market and it is supposed to be the same message on a global level. But, “you can’t simply translate the same conversation and send it around the world”, says Bob Pearson, VP of communities and conversations at Dell.

Adapt, Adapt, Adapt!

You must literally “get inside” your target market’s culture and language, adapt to their user behavior and business practices, and use their preferred platforms. Bear in mind that those social interaction platforms are not necessarily those you are used to in the U.S., for example in Brazil, ORKUT is more popular than Facebook, Bebo and Ecademy are powerful in the UK, Skyrock and Viadeo in France, VZGruppe in Germany, MxIT has 5.2 million users in South Africa. Hi5 is still leading in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Portugal, Mongolia, Romania, while V Kontakte is the most popular in Russia and many former Soviet Republics, Hyves in Netherlands, Mixi in Japan, Zing in Vietnam. Friendster still rules in Philippines and Malaysia, though it seems to be slowly but surely losing ground to Facebook. Maktoob is the most important Arab community/portal. And have you ever heard of Indian start-ups such as Ibibo and BigAdda? For more on this, see Vincos’s World Map of Social Network

China

What about China? Writes Wei Wang in ReadWriteWeb’s Don’t Assume China Mimics US-Style Social Media: “Simply flinging an American product into the Chinese market won’t succeed, because every social media category has a Chinese equivalent that is tuned to the particular needs of the mainland Chinese market.”

China’s leading social network is Qzone (376,000,000 registered accounts). With 1,452,000 registered accounts, Facebook fails to rank among the top 15 social networks in China while MySpace can boast only 6 million users (much more than Facebook though, another difference from the U.S). As for Twitter, it does not even appear among the Top 20 Chinese Social Networks ‘Virtually’ Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace: A Market Analysis!

And BBS, yes the good old Bulletin Board System, is still very much alive and extremely popular in China, with Tianya the #1 BBS (almost 30 million users!)

Wei Wang’s conclusion, (mine too : “This all means that Internet companies from the US looking to crack the mainland Chinese market need to do their homework and tailor their products accordingly.”

Social Media Rising All Over The World

And of course this also works for all other markets on the global scene.

Also check out The Next Billion – The Rise of Social Network Sites in Developing Countries. It was written in June 2009, but it still gives you an idea of what’s happening on the African and Asian social media scenes. Things move very fast in the online world, so the figures are probably much higher now, 9 months later…

Note the growing importance of the mobile phone “there is a much higher mobile saturation in terms of consumer content in Europe and Asia” (Scott Monty). Also see Christian Kreutz’s “Culture of social networks in Africa on the example of trade ”

A New Type of Market Research

Now you can meet your market on social media, wherever it is located in the world, or almost. But this requires a new type of market research, because Facebook and Twitter are not as “global” as you might think. However the social media experience you may have acquired will come in handy, and all you have to do is adapt it to your new markets and audiences. For this you will need empathy, flexibility, adaptability, cultural awareness and cross-cultural competency, and also probably the services of a good translation/localization company.

Amadou M. Sall

What do you say? Tell us about your Social Media experience on the Global Scene!

Communication Between Cultures

2010-03-22T19:01:00.001Z

via youtube.com

My Brand-new Facebook Page!

2010-03-21T01:04:00.001Z

Join the conversation on: Cross-cultural Communication and Marketing, Social Media, Cultural Competency, The Global Mindset, Global Skills, Globalization... at my brandnew Facebook Page

Welcome and Thanks a lot

Amadou M. Sall

A Tale of Tolerance, Understanding, and Translation « Laws and Languages

2010-03-20T21:22:00.001Z

via lawsandlanguages.com

“Protectionism — The Dog That Didn’t Bark” :The Cross-cultural Connector

2010-03-19T19:25:00.001Z

Check out “The Globalist”’s latest perspective on Free Trade (Open Trade) and the WTO.

“What explains the great reluctance around the world to embark on protectionism during the current global economic crisis? Edward Alden examines the role of the WTO, the strengthening role of emerging market economies, global sourcing — and the lowering of national affiliations among big corporations.” (Read more on “The Globalist”)

Enjoy!

Amadou M. Sall

Feeling Irish today? (Being Peter Kim)

2010-03-17T17:35:00.001Z

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More Evidence SMBs Need A Web Presence | Small Business Trends

2010-03-17T17:08:00.001Z

Still not sold on why your small business needs to establish a Web presence? Well, I have some numbers that may finally change your mind. According to the “User View Wave VII” from BIA/Kelsey and ConStat, 90 percent of Internet users search online for nearby businesses, with 97 percent looking toward online media. That’s right. Nearly all of your customers are going online to find out what’s right around the corner. It may sound like fuzzy logic, but it’s a sign of the times. It’s also a sign that without a Web presence, your SMB may find itself invisible.

But isn’t that a lot of work? How can a SMB owner create the needed presence without draining time and resources? I’ll show you.

Claim Your Web site

Your Web site is step one in building and maintaining a presence on the Web. Even if you plan to be really active in social media you need to start here. Your Web site is the place on the Web that you own and can control. You can’t control what happens to all those other sites. Set the groundwork for your online identity by becoming the master of your own domain before someone needs to call a Twittervention.

Once you have it, use your Web site to share your company story and information, target your neighborhood by providing localized content, give answers to common questions, establish your own authority, and to help you grow an on-site community. Your small business Web site should tell the story of who you are and why someone should trust doing business with you. If you need help, here’s a bit more on why your SMB needs a Web site and some tips for creating one. And don’t forget, once you have your site, you’ll need to claim your local business listings Everywhere. These listings are super important in helping the search engines figure out who you are and where you’re relevant to.

Start a Blog

Once your site is up, get blogging. Blogging provides SMB owner with two really great benefits. First, it allows you to talk to, engage and interact with your community the way you can’t do from your site. By giving your audience a voice and talking to them about the issues related to your business, you establish yourself as a thought leader and give them a reason to keep coming back. You make your business the ‘go-to’ place for a particular topic and you help them to become invested in your brand. The more engaged you can make them, the better.

Your blog also allows you to go after long-term keywords to help your site earn rankings for terms you’re not targeting with your main site. Often you’ll find terms that are too niche to warrant a silo on your site, however, by simply writing a few keyword-rich posts on the subject, you may still be able to get your domain to show up.

Invest in Social Media

Creating a plan for how you’ll navigate social media is becoming increasingly important as more customers enter the fold and as the search engines put more weight on social signals. LAST MONTH, Google put Social Search into its search results and changed the way we look at online relationships. You don’t have to be everywhere in social media, but you should pick two or three sites to focus on and create a strong presence on each. If you’re not sure which sites are the best matches for your customers, do a bit of research. That may entail asking them, looking at your site logs to see where people are coming from, checking out niche sites, performing searches for [industry + social network], etc. Don’t just assume that your audience is on the most popular social networks. They may not be.

Once you figure out where you need to be, learn the social media ropes and find ways to integrate your social efforts into your site. Social media doesn’t have to be a crippling time investment. The experts say just 60 minutes a day should be enough to keep the competitors away. And frankly, you could probably do it in less.

Pay Attention to Reviews

Review sites have changed the way that customers discover businesses in their areas. Searchers go to Yelp find a good Mexican restaurant in their area and to do their homework on the place the new dentist they were thinking about using. They look at CNET reviews before they purchase a new television or laptop. They read reviews about potential chiropractors on Google Local. Searchers are seeking out these destinations more often for trusted first-hand experiences and the engines are giving them more weight in the search results, as well. That means you need to manage reviews better so that you know WHERE people are leaving them and WHAT they’re saying about you. By managing your reviews you not only help create a good site-wide conversation about your business, but you earn double the points when users find them in the search results.

The days where you needn’t worry about your online presence are over. Regardless of how big or small you are, customers are going online to do their research, which means you need to be there. The four simple steps above can take your site from invisible to search engine favorite.

About the Author
Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an Internet marketing company that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services. She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.

Connect with Lisa Barone:

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via smallbiztrends.com

Go online if you really want to meet your customers and/or prospects...

Top 10 Tips | WebTranslation | Acclaro

2010-03-13T15:21:00.001Z

Top 10 Tips for Website Translation-->

Top 10 Tips for Website Translation

Take your website across cultures with these actionable tips

Preparing a website — including programming, copy, flash and video — for a new language market is no small feat. But with the right planning, approach and execution, your website will reach across borders and motivate your target audience to interact with your brand. Here are our top-10 tips for avoiding common online localization pitfalls:

Align your site and global business strategy. Is your site supporting local offices in each market, or is your international presence online only? Look at your business infrastructure to ensure it can support the multilingual site objectives — and vice-versa. Items to consider include local legal requirements, local marketing, local customer support (email, call center), payment processing, sales fulfillment systems and more.

Strategize your multilingual navigation. An important but often overlooked aspect of successful web localization include helping people find your site, such as geo-targeting, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), user settings and clear user navigation methods (e.g. pull down menu or splash screen with languages).

Use a Content Management System (CMS). Maintaining site content becomes more complex as you add languages. If you have a large and frequently changing site, use a global-ready CMS to manage the content. Important features include:
a. Ability to easily export and re-import content in a localization-friendly format such as XML
b. Filtering and workflows for new/updated content
c. Support for all targeted languages

Stick to standards and Unicode. Adhering to generally accepted coding standards (for scripting and middleware, as well as HTML) is part of best practices in general, but also benefits localization in particular. Use Unicode for any applications handling content and encode files containing localizable text (e.g. HTML and XML) as UTF-8. Make sure to include your charset declaration in the file.

Get ready for text expansion and contraction. Keep in mind that localized text will generally be longer than English, although many Asian languages require less space than English. Check your design and code to ensure that different text lengths are supported. A common issue-prone area is the horizontal navigation bar, which needs to be able to accommodate varied text lengths.

Get your graphics and Flash ready. Graphics and Flash can play an important part in your website. Be aware, however, that complex graphics and Flash elements in particular can slow down the localization process if not set up for localization at the outset. Examples include externalizing text that will need translation in Flash or graphics and anticipating culturally appropriate imagery in advance.

Consider global, regional and local site content. Determine what content is global and can be translated for all countries (e.g. corporate messaging and product descriptions) and what content is specific to particular regions or markets (e.g. local press and legal). Design the site and workflows to accommodate these content types.

Plan for updates and maintenance. How frequently do you plan to update your site? Maintaining daily updates across languages will require a highly automated process between your CMS and your provider. If the updates are less frequent (monthly or quarterly) you may not need to invest as much in automation.

Build a matching source site. If you are planning to localize only part of your website, it is best to build out that new partial website first before you hand off files for localization. This will enable a review and sign-off on the localization content by your local offices, as well as ensure that the partial website is functioning correctly. It also creates a matching source site to test the localized sites against during linguistic QA.

Consider multilingual search. Don’t expect that just translating the site will bring a rush of international customers. You need to optimize for search. This includes all the same elements of your domestic search campaigns including creating local domains, using relevant keywords for the URLs, metadata and content, link building etc.

A successfully localized website can drive your business into new language markets. Partnering with an experienced localization partner will save both time and costs in the long run — and ensure that your project launches on time. Visit our website translation services today or explore our portfolio to see how we can help you with your web localization needs. Then, contact us or request a quote for more information.

Tips to a successful global online presence. We get it.

via acclaro.com

How To Write Relentlessly Focused – and Still Say Everything You Want To | Write to Done

2010-03-05T13:28:00.001Z

by US Army Africa

A guest post by Bamboo Forest of Pun Intended

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was a method ensuring every article you wrote was concise, relentlessly focused and said everything you wanted it to?

There is.

I recommend using a thesis statement and outline for many posts that you pen.

Jesse Hines has written,

“A thesis statement is generally one or two sentences in which you clearly lay out your focus, idea or argument.”

While in an academic setting a thesis statement is included in your actual paper, I’m referring to something you write just for yourself. Write a thesis statement before you begin your post and it will set the tone for the rest of your article. It will encourage you to stay consistently aligned with what you’re trying to get across, making your article stronger and better.

After the thesis statement has been made, you’re now ready for the outline.

Have you ever gone to the grocery store without a grocery list? I don’t know about you, but I have. And the outcome often results in forgetting important items that you really wanted to purchase. It’s a real bummer, isn’t it?

This can happen with your writing, too. If you write a post without first gathering exactly what you want to include, you’re bound to forget a few important points that would have made your article better. Let’s not do that.

Prior to writing an outline, I recommend you first look over any notes you have pertaining to the post you’re about to write.

Then, simply break it down. I take a real relaxed approach to writing an outline and I recommend you do as well. Remember, we’re not submitting this outline to a stuffy teacher. We’re simply preparing ourselves to write the best post of our life.

I break my outline down using capital letters, A;B;C; etc. After each letter I include an important point that I don’t want to forget while writing my article. The outline ensures that everything I wanted to get into my article, does. It also keeps the order and flow of my post logical.

Another benefit of using an outline is it encourages†very tight writing.

Jesse Hines has written,

“Once I’ve developed a solid outline, writing the article is, in a sense, simply filling in the blanks.”

When you know from the beginning exactly what your article is going to encompass, you fill those blanks in with ultra focus. You say only what you need to say to get the specific points across.

Of course, as you’re writing your post and referring back to your outline — you’re not beholden to it. You can change the order as you see fit.

Also, youíll most likely include more information in your post than your outline lays out. This will happen organically from the main points you wanted to ensure got included in your post.

Using a thesis statement and outline in your writing is like laying down a strong foundation before building a house. Your architecture will end up stronger, and more beautiful.

P.S. — This is my outline for this guest post:

A. Wouldn’t it be great…
B. What’s a thesis statement?
C. It helps you stay focused and not drift all over the place
D. An outline works like a grocery list
E. What’s an outline?
F. Conducive to being concise, because now you’re essentially filling in the blanks.
G. Conclusion: The preparation stages are like laying down a strong foundation to a house.

Bamboo Forest writes for†Pun Intended, a blog that will make you laugh and feel inspired. To ensure you don’t miss all the goodies,†subscribe†here.

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What Social Network Should You Use to Grow Your Business? | pamorama

2010-02-24T23:48:00.001Z

via pamorama.net

What Word Do You Own?

2010-02-23T18:28:00.001Z

When you're thinking about fast-food, what brand do you think of when you hear the word "fast"? (McDonald's) When you think about cell phone providers, who do you think of when you hear the word "network"? (Verizon) When you think about television stations, who do you think of when you hear "s

via jackieadkins.com

Happy Chinese New Year :-)

2010-02-14T17:23:00.001Z

Happy Chinese New Year to All my Friends from China or who are of Chinese Culture :-)

Amadou M. Sall

Why Brands are Becoming Media

2010-02-12T15:53:00.001Z

via mashable.com