It is exciting to create this very first post to the Rubric blog not because it is our very first post to the blog, but because we have a very interesting topic: How community translation is being applied in different companies and organizations.

Our 8th Birds of a Feather breakfast held earlier this week in Santa Clara, was all about community. And while our panelists have all established strong community translation programs, how those programs have developed and are used differs greatly.

“The business driver for community translation is simply engagement with the community that exists,” said Janice Campbell, International Program Manager at Adobe, and one of distinguished panelists. “It is not just about setting up the technology to run translations to take the human element out of the process. It is actually about engaging.” She added that while there may be a slight cost savings by running translations through a community translation platform, the amount is minimal because, in the case of Adobe, most of the translations are in to languages that would not have been supported otherwise.

Sergio Pelino, Senior Localization Operations Manager at Google, and another panelist agreed that engagement with the community is critical but, in fact, cost savings are as well. Google is in the process of establishing a direct-to-freelancer community translation program that is quite different from that at Adobe. Adobe works with users of their products, many of whom are identified in user forums and groups around the world and most of whom are not professional translators. They are not paid for their translations and are generally ‘compensated’ through recognition and the fact that they contributed to overall improvement of the product they use. On the other hand, Google is establishing a community of vetted translators who will be paid for their services and who will interact directly with the Google team using a sophisticated technology platform.

Sergio explained that while cost was a driver, the most important reasons they developed the program were to increase overall quality of translations and to ensure speed of delivery. “We wanted to get closer to the process than we were with multi-lingual vendors running our localization.”

One year into the direct-to-freelancer program, which is currently operating for two languages, Pelino says they have already realized a cost savings. “But as we scale with more languages and more translations, the important question will be whether we can maintain quality and delivery speed, which are the most important criteria of success.”

Our third panelist, Naomi Baer, senior director, Global Partner Operations at Kiva.org, a not-for-profit organization with the mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty, developed a community translation program out of necessity. When the non-profit was quite small, it recognized the need to translate lending appeals in order to find lenders. “Initially when we were small, it probably would have been more cost effective to outsource a few translations rather than build the infrastructure for a community platform. But as we grew quickly in the last few years, it was clear we could not have scaled up without the community translation program in place.”

Naomi agreed with Janice on the importance of maintaining strong ties with the community: Communicating regularly with them, providing opportunities for recognition, training them as needed, and simply being part of their world. “One of the misconceptions about community is that bigger is better. We have actually reduced the actual numbers in our community and are not focusing more on engagement with that community. That is what makes it successful.”

So what does all of that mean for the future of multi-lingual vendors and the language services industry? After all, that is the business Rubric is in, so this is indeed a pressing question.

“I don’t see language service providers going away. We are never going to give up professional translators, but community is used for other purposes,” said Janice.

Yet the role MLVs play in the world of community translation is changing, and, in fact, there may be new opportunities to participate in the new age. As Sergio pointed out, it takes a lot of work to put the infrastructure in place for a community translation program, and no one understands the technology better than those at language service providers who have used it. The project management piece is also critical. It is clear that you cannot just let the technology loose to run the community. Those who best understand how project managers support community translation platforms will be best positioned to play a role.

And now for a different community: Our readers. Our blog is new, and we want to engage with you. We encourage you to not only read, but to comment on our postings. We will muse about everything from community translation to automated localization to Scotch Whisky. Your feedback and comments are appreciated and encouraged!