Monthly Watercooler Chat is May 14
(The SIG holds informal phone chats almost every month. By popular demand at the STC Summit 2013, we will now publicise them here on the blog and not just on our internal discussion list.)
Don’t forget our monthly SIG chat is tomorrow, May 14th, at 17:00-18:00 CET (GMT +0100) / 11.00am-12.00pm EST.
For most of us, our work involves communicating with text. Yet there’s a growing demand from users for information using images or sound. This month’s chat is on how we are dealing with such a demand, particularly if we’re working for a global market that requires multiple languages.
This is a joint chat with the International SIG members. We can share our ideas and knowledge.
The topic for this month’s discussion is:
Textless Communication: Graphics, Video, Audio
Some questions to perhaps consider in our discussion: What type of textless communication are we doing and for what type of products? What are users asking for? What are the challenges we face to produce graphics, video and audio content (eg, skills, tools, time, budgets,…)? What are the cost issues? What challenges do we face when localising graphics, video and audio content? How are you dealing with the localisation issues?
If you have any examples of work you’ve done in this area that you would like to discuss, send an example to me to display online during our chat.
A few links on the topic worth looking at are:
- Augmented reality used in BMW car maintenance
- HBR blog: The power of visualization’s “Aha!” moments
- Multilingual magazine article (6-2012), “Tips on audio localization: synthetic vs. real voices” (Subscription may be required. I have a PDF of this article. If you would like to receive a copy by email, contact me with your email address.)
- Multilingual magazine article (11-2007), “Audio localization for language service providers” (Subscription may be required. I have a PDF of this article. If you would like to receive a copy by email, contact me with your email address.)
Our Watercooler Chat is informal. No speaker, no PowerPoints, no audio recording. It’s moderated. No prior registration is required. It’s free. Bring your experience, ideas and questions to share and discuss with fellow communicators located around the world.
The call-in details are the same for every Watercooler Chat and are sent out in a separate email to discussion list members. Telephone numbers for around the world are provided as well as a webinar link for VoIP.



