I just drove 10 hours from San Francisco to San Diego after participating for 2-days in the IQPC Website Globalization conference. What a treat! The best part was that there were very few translation vendors. Most of the participants had valuable content and the conference was small enough that I was able to meet with almost all participants.
I was representing my company, Common Sense Advisory (www.commonsenseadvisory.com) and I must confess that I was a little disappointed that nobody quoted our research there. Fortunately, this was also the first event in which we had one of our salespeople present. I am sure that pretty soon there will be more people reading our reports on Web Globalization and Localization issues.
Today there was also a LISA (www.lisa.org) event in Boston. Unfortunately, I don't participate in LISA events anymore. I used to be LISA's fiercest supporter. I sold multimillion dollar contracts there, I met my wife there, and I sold my company there. I was even elected as a member of their executive committee. When all the members of the board resigned a few years ago, I stayed and supported the organization.
But the organization has lost its objectivity and in the words of its Managing Director, now it is a "pay for play" organization. If you sponsor one of their events, you get a speaking spot. This goes against the principles that my business partner, Don DePalma, and I have established for our business: vendor-independence and objectivity.
The best part of the story is that a friend called me to say that two speakers mentioned our research, more specifically a great report that Don wrote about Content Management Systems and Globalization called "Rage Against the Content Management Machine".
All in all, I am happy!
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