WorldWare, Think Latin America and ELIA

Sitting in my hotel room in Berlin after a week of training and meetings with my sales team, I am working on my calendar for the next couple of months. Even though I am not a consultant anymore, many of my former clients and friends ask me which events they should go to, since there are so many happening in March and April.

Even though there are many good events, I chose the following three, for the following reasons:

WorldWare Conference - March 16-18, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA

This is a more technical event, with a great roster of speakers and participants (the usual suspects like IBM, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Cisco, and several more). The location is great (same venue as the last Localization World) and there are several sessions focusing on the ROI of Software Internationalization, some intended for those with moderate to advanced knowledge about the field (P2, P3, P6) and one workshop intended for management and executives new to the idea (W7).

I am particularly interested in session A4 on International Domain Names/SEO by ICANN. I also like that the keynote by Cliff Miller (An Entrepreneur in a Shrinking World), which gives the perspective of a small company, is followed by Bill Sullivan from IBM, giving the perspective of the very large company (From ROI to DNA).

Check out the program. And remember: A trip to Silicon Valley is never wasted.

Think Latin America - April 7-9, 2010 in Búzios, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

It is obvious that I wouldn't miss an opportunity to go back to my home country, especially for an event at a fantastic venue like this. The program is designed to show what major brands like Coca-Cola, MGM Networks, VMware, Xerox, VeriSign, Nokia and others have been doing to conquer this market, where people are not only happy and beautiful, but increasingly rich and influential. As the program says: 21 countries, 2 languages, 1,000 ideas!

I am particularly interested in the sessions on Logistics (From a Niche Market to a Multi-Billion Dollar Business: Logistics Lessons to Localization Stakeholders) by Wagner Covos, of CEVA Logistics, and on Local Consumer Marketing (How to Leverage the Power and Influence of An Emerging Social Class with Increased Purchasing Power) by Marco Simões, from Coca-Cola.


ELIA Networking Days - April 15-17 in Istanbul, Turkey

I am so excited to go to Turkey. First because I have never been there, and second because ELIA (of which I am the vice-president) has put an awesome and very practical program together for these Networking Days. Even though every session is great, starting with the keynote by the Google Translate guys, I want to highlight three things:

• The Tools Track, which I am moderating, which will include presentations by the users - not the salespeople - of eight tools: Across, MemoQ, GlobalSight, WebWordSystem, Plunet, Worxs, XTRF, and Project Open;
• The Situational Leadership Workshop: How to manage and lead different individuals with different levels of skills, attitudes and motivation. The presenter, Ezster Avar, is extremely good (I participated in two of her workshops in Vienna) and this methodology is a great way to manage people.
• The session Taxation in Europe, by the Milengo CFO Tamara Nadeje, should give European companies ideas on how to save taxes.

In fact, now that I reviewed the program, I would recommend that you send at least three participants, because there are so many excellent sessions that happen at the same time. If you are an ELIA member or want to become one, contact John Terninko at ELIA and find out about deals for sending multiple delegates.

All in all, there is going to be a lot of cool stuff happening these couple of months. I am sure American Airlines will be happy that I will be flying all over for a change.