The Guide to Translation and Localization: Integrating Content Management Systems

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The Guide to Translation and Localization: Integrating Content Management Systems

By Lingo Systems,
Portland, OR, U.S.A.

info [at] lingosys . com
www.lingosys.com

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[ Table of Contents ]

Chapter 16: Integrating Content Management Systems

Overview

Many experts believe that "the next big thing" in the localization and technical communication world is CMS (content management systems) - and the buzz is growing louder. CMS have actually been around for a while, but for many companies, they were simply not affordable. The best known products have tended to be large enterprise systems that cost several hundred thousand dollars. Fortunately, as is often the case with new technologies, the newest generation of CMS tools has more functionality and is significantly more affordable.

The other reality of next generation technologies is that users find new ways to leverage them as the tools evolve. In the localization business, many companies have discovered that CMS not only reduce the cost of authoring and publishing their English content, but that even larger savings are available when they translate into other languages. The biggest savings, however, result from integrating CMS with both your own business systems and your localization vendor's systems to produce a fully automated localization workflow.

How does CMS reduce localization costs?

So just how does CMS reduce localization costs? If you consider a traditional localization process from start to finish, the answer becomes apparent. Your localization vendor does a lot more than simply convert your source language content into a target language. Because they are also responsible for ensuring that the target language content has the same look and feel as the original English source document or web page, they are an integral part of your publishing process as well. In fact, although many people do not realize it, localization often requires the use of language-specific publishing templates, fonts, character sets, and may even require selective publication of content for individual regional markets.

With CMS, your localization vendor will no longer need to perform desktop publishing on your target language deliverables. Instead, this function is performed within the CMS itself. Your vendor will also have less file preparation and localization engineering to perform since the format tags that dictate how your text will appear on paper or on screen are no longer comingled with the text itself. There may even be savings from shorter timelines since content can be localized before it is published into a final document.

Shahin Hendrickson

Project Manager

I've always loved language. My father taught himself Spanish when I was a child and I followed in his linguistic footsteps by studying Japanese for six years. Speaking, hearing, and reading another language gives the same sensation as mastering a musical instrument. Working at Lingo Systems affords me exposure to that kind of stimulation and makes work here a joy.

The biggest savings, however, result from reusing translated content. This topic is discussed in detail in Chapter 15, but suffice it to say the best illustration may be to liken it to a translation memory on steroids. At Lingo Systems, we have a customer that recently implemented CMS and now publishes their online Help from their print docs. Because they only pay to translate the content once, they now get their help translated for FREE!

Is CMS worth the trouble?

In the context of localization, there are several business conditions that indicate it might be time to look at adopting a CMS. Of course, there are also many non-language reasons as well, but that is a different discussion.

- Frequency of translations: Is it likely that you will translate your source content?

- Quantity of content produced: Does your writing group create and maintain tens, hundreds, or thousands of pages of documentation?

- Frequency of updates: Once content is translated, is it subject to change on a frequent basis, or does it remain stable?

- Number of target languages: Do you consistently translate into more than one target language? Do you choose to translate some content in some languages and not others?

Published outputs desired: Do you publish the same content in multiple formats (e.g., a spec sheet for print, web, and specification summaries)?

If you answered yes to any one of these questions, it may be worth your time to investigate whether a CMS is right for your company. When making this evaluation, you will also need to determine whether a general CMS strategy or specific CMS tool is appropriate for your business. Some of the factors to consider include:

- The structure of the writing teams,

- The content creation, editing and approval process

- The publication process, and

- How to migrate your existing English and localized content from its current format into a CMS (importing legacy content and setting up publishing templates can be a major undertaking).

As with most business decisions, however, perhaps the most important factor is one of economics. Implementing a CMS can significantly reduce your localization costs. One Lingo Systems client is now able to translate three times the amount of content for each dollar spent on localization. If you plan to manage a significant amount of content in multiple languages, the resulting return on investment (ROI) of a CMS may make the decision a "no-brainer."

Manual Writing vs. Structured CMS

Moving to a CMS requires significant changes to your writing and publication process, as well as elemental differences in how you will manage content in the future. Unlike traditional writing, with a CMS, the writing and managing of content is independent of the publishing process. This means that in many cases the content being written will be used in more than one place, and possibly published in more than one type of media.

The key to meeting this challenge is structured writing. Instead of producing a sequential document that starts at the beginning and moves from one chapter to the next, writers produce independent "chunks" of content that are then stored in a relational database for subsequent use.

An analogy is the evolution of automotive manufacturing. Before Henry Ford, each car was essentially hand built from individual parts. Workers started with a bare chassis, and put together the car part by part until it was finished and driven away. As manufacturing techniques evolved, assembly shifted from individual parts to major assemblies that are manufactured all over the world. Today, most cars, even the traditionally hand-built models, are assembled from dozens of pre-manufactured major assemblies that are resourced from all over the world. Most significantly, the major assemblies are often used in more than one model, and even brand, of car.

Structured writing is a similar concept. Contributors all produce content that is akin to an automotive major assembly. At the time of publication, the appropriate content is assembled into a final product that is then pushed through a template in order to be presented in a certain way.

Factors to consider when selecting a CMS

When implementing a CMS, there are many contributors, constituents and downstream consumers who will likely see the nature of their responsibilities change. In our experience, some of the parties who you may want to involve when evaluating a CMS are:

- Technical writers and other content contributors,

- Localization manager or coordinator,

- Webmaster,

- Marketing managers,

- Internal IT Service and Network Engineers, and

- Localization Vendor.

ROI is a popular means to measure the potential success of just about any technology application. In terms of CMS & localization, we suggest you define ROI over a 6, 12, or 18 month horizon, and evaluate payoff in dollars and production time. If you have a consistent basis for comparison, calculating the ROI of the acquisition cost against your localization cost is a simple matter. It is even easier if you have your prospective localization vendor do the calculations for you.

Heather Zea

Junior Accountant

I enjoy working at Lingo Systems with my old friends and making many new ones. They have been very welcoming. Being involved with so many different languages and cultures is a very exciting experience.

The CMS tool vendors may also be able to generate a ROI calculation, but we believe it is best to have a custom calculation developed based on your particular business situation.

Depending on the tool you choose, it may be advisable to run a pilot project as well. If you take this route, begin with a round of translation or translation in the workflow. You will also want to get an idea of just how much you can leverage your existing translation memories (TMs) against the new content format. You may lose some leveraging between your traditional file formats and the CMS content as a result of conversion issues.

Driven largely by the need to manage enormous volumes of constantly changing web content, commercially available CMS tools have sprouted up everywhere. Be careful - these tools were not all created equal. If you are certain that you only want to manage your web content, there is a vast number of CMS tools to pick from. If you need to manage both web and print deliverables, however, the choice of tools and methodologies narrows significantly; and even more so if you require an out-of-the-box solution.

CMS tools significantly affect localization workflows. As such, you will want to be very deliberate about how you manage what content is routed for translation and when. For example, once you have translated one block of English content into six target languages, the means by which you maintain a relationship between these equivalent chunks becomes essential. Also, if content is planned for publication in multiple places, how you manage updates and maintenance in each location is equally essential. If you think that managing your English content in a CMS structure is a feat, the reality of managing that content plus six localized versions will really get your attention. Fortunately, some CMS tools make this process much simpler than others, and a few make it downright easy.

Summary

CMS based publication and localization has progressed from the early-adopter, trail-blazing period of development, to a mainstream publication activity. If your organization meets the conditions we describe above, a CMS may be the right move.

CMS-driven time-to-market improvements, writing productivity, and DRAMATIC savings in localization cost are all well documented and very real. Also significant are the gains in consistency in the look and feel of your content and branding.

It is difficult to overstate the promise of content management systems; these tools are changing the very nature of the writing, publishing, and localization business in the same way that translation memory tools did a decade ago.

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