Jim DeLaHunt, world-ready

I’m going to be a panelist at the Internet Marketing Conference Vancouver 2008, which runs from September 11-12, 2008. The panel is called “Writing for the Web“. It is full of experts on writing — and then there’s me. I’ll be approaching from the topic crosswise, talking about international and multilingual issues. In other words, how your writing is affected if it will be translated, or is part of a multinational project.

The panelists are an interesting bunch. I’m looking forward to meeting them. They are:

• Crawford Kilian, author of “Writing for the Web 3.0“. My spouse sweated bullets to write two books, and they shared content. Crof has written 30.
• Elizabeth Southall, Powerhouse Copy. Just reading her website makes my jaw drop. The lady knows her copy.
  
• Tom McNamara, McNamara Communications. Writing for the web since 1995, which is about as long as we’ve had the web.
• Monique Trottier, Boxcar Marketing, which is a Vancouver-based internet marketing company.
• Moderator: Michael Straker, VKI Studios, which is an Internet marketing and website usability firm.
• Jim DeLaHunt, Jim DeLaHunt & Associates. That would be me.

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There is a Joomla! Day in Vancouver this Saturday. I’ll be giving a brief presentation, on jdlh.com as an example of a multilingual Joomla! website, with human-friendly URLs.

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Last week was Northern Voice 2008 (Feb 22-23), a blogger’s conference here in Vancouver. It was held in UBC’s beautiful Forest Sciences Centre, in and around a pleasant sunny atrium lined with gorgeous wood panelling.

I convened a session on multilingual blogs and websites. I was interested in the issues that arise when we try to do all that cool blog or website activity in a second and third language. The first language is no problem; modern tools can handle almost any single language.

A great group of about 15 people joined in. We put our discussion notes on a page on the Northern Voice wiki (http://wiki.northernvoice.ca/Multilingual+blogs), so check that out to see what we discussed.

I walked in with a categorisation of the issues that arise as a website goes multilingual. This held up well in the discussion. Maybe you’ll find it helpful too.

• Examples: who’s doing it in multiple languages, and how well?
• Value: who needs multiple languages and what for?
• Structure: how to link content in one language to another?
• Content: is content in various languages the same or different? How/why different?
• Tools: how to make your blogging system or service or CMS handle the text and connect to your translators?
• Translation: how to get the content from one language to the other?
• Process: how to make all the parts move together and on time?

I’m really interested in multilingual websites as a way to structure thought about world-ready technology, and as a focus for my consulting practice. Expect to hear more about it.

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