This article indicates the clear direction IT development is headed.

A noneconomic factor that underscores the globalization of the Silicon Valley is spoken language diversity. From 2002-2005, language diversity increased 7 percent in the area. While English-only is still dominant (52 percent), Chinese, Hindi, Korean, and Japanese had stronger growth rates than in the U.S. in general, and California in particular. Chinese is spoken in 7 percent of the homes, Vietnamese in 4 percent, and Hindi (and other Indian languages) in 3 percent.

While some companies are still debating the merits of corporate blogging, Dell has extended its existing English-language corporate blog into Chinese.

A quick survey of what multilingual corporate blogs are out there indicates that this is still very much an uncharted territory.

Finland is attempting to make its location and economic climate an attractive place for outsourced, low-cost manufacturing. However, the future for Finland lies in developing an "innovation economy," rather than a manufacturing-based one.

 This sort of change is taking place in most Western countries.

Where is the future of creativity headed? This article has something interesting to say about it.

Joe Qiu, a car designer for General Motors, has an uncanny knack for divining Chinese tastes and whims, what it is they'll buy. Two years ago, he was part of a team that radically overhauled the Buick LaCrosse for the Chinese market. The redesign was pitch perfect, so well targeted that the Chinese LaCrosse is on track to sell nearly 110,000 units in its second year in production. Qiu doesn't own a car or have a driver's license.

An interesting discussion is taking place at China Law Blog about Statistical Machine Translation. I think that it is interesting that Dan Harris uses statistical machine translation when a quick response is needed for communication at a legal practice. I would hope that he provides a caveat that they are getting machine-translated correspondence. As a commenter Benjamin says:

"Just yesterday, a client sent me a Russian language condo sales agreement he needed turned around really quickly. To speed things up, he provided me with a computer translation of it. The translation was completely incoherent. My client's first question was whether the deposit was refundable or not. Here is the translation of that provision: 'In the case of refuse Buyer from a transaction in the indicated term, advance to the last does not return.' Find me a lawyer who would give legal advice based on that!

I gave it to our Russian paralegal and she instantly said it was nonrefundable."

Just in time for St. Paddy's Day, Common Sense Advisory reports on the addition of Irish as an official EU language.

The addition of Irish will require 29 posts for translation, revision and publication, as well as 450 freelance interpreter-days per year. The annual cost to the EU is estimated at €3.5m.

Let me first state that I am far from an expert on China, having been there only twice, although the last time for a period of six weeks. Most of my time was spent in the province of Shandong, about 200 miles south of Beijing as a university professor.

Living outside of the well-known and/or oft-visited cities of Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou brings one into contact with what I think is a more typical picture of China – one where foreigners are still something of a novelty, English is not widely understood, and the creature comforts of home can be hard to come by.

Jinan, a city of some 6 million people, is the capital of Shandong and a major nexus of transport for travel between Shanghai and Beijing, yet few tourists stop, despite some pleasant attractions. The city is known for its springs which give rise to an urban lake and boundless parks ripe for strolling and people watching. Like most of China, it is changing fast.

Landmark buildings dot the skyline, KFC and McDonald’s abound, and there’s even a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Big-name hotels cluster around the main square and, in the nicer areas of the city, tree-lined streets are filled with trendy shops and cafes.

Beneath the veneer of modernity, however, is a very traditional, oddly quiet community where neighbors sit outside in the evenings to chat, play checkers, and just while the hours away. Streets can overflow with sidewalk vendors in places, narrowing the traffic to a sliver thronged with bicycles, pedestrians, trucks, busses, and all manner of humanity and transport.

It’s a strange feeling being in China. It’s not quite modern but then again, in fits and starts, it is pioneering new technology that I’d never seen before. My apartment, for example, is a generous flat with a collection of mod-cons like color tv, a/c, and high-speed internet and might have seemed a world away from the reality of Jinan, but its location, cramped among a large cluster of high-rise buildings separated by narrow cement alleys, served as a reminder of the sheer number of people who live in China and the demands they place on limited real estate.

Our Production Specialist Deanna Linehan is playing at SXSW this week with her band Velvet Brick:

Velvet Brick is playing 2 free shows at SXSW, and doing a live broadcast on Public Access -

3/15 THURSDAY – Texas Rock Fest – 11 pm

The WAVE Nightclub – 6th Street

3/16 FRIDAY – RedGorilla Music Fest – 1 am

DARWIN'S Pub – 6th Street & Trinity

3/17 SATURDAY – EXSE Live Broadcast – 9 pm

Airing on CABLE CHANNEL 16

Our long-time Japanese translator Allen Hunter, bassist with the Eeels, is playing with his new band this week at SXSW:

He says: Please tell whomever may be interested that my band is playing tonight at Room 710 on Red River at 8pm or so, then at Mother Egan's at 10.

The next web browser to vie for market share comes out of China.

Maxthon is actually the only Chinese Internet Software company with a global presence. With its success in China and the brilliant features in Maxthon 2.0, Maxthon is ready for the worldwide market. Netanel said they are growing very fast globally, especially in the US. Also a lot of new users are young, which is a good trend for Maxthon.

In 2007, Maxthon will be working actively with local communities in the US and Europe. It will start organizing Maxthon meetups and developer conferences, to officially show the power of Maxthon and promote its presence in the global market.

Our Project Manager Rainy Day is attending most of the business and technology panels this week at SXSW. We will have an article on what she learned in an upcoming issue of our monthly e-newsletter, but we thought you might like to catch some of the takeaways she's jotted down so far at SXSW.

Designers' Workflow

It is good to overestimate how long a project will take, thereby including a bult-in contingency plan.

People tend to underestimate how long a project will take, because they want it to get done quickly.

You get better work from people who understand both design & development, especially CSS.

How to Create a Kickass in-House Design Team

Our measure of success is whether our users understand our product and what we’re trying to communicate. It is important to keep the internal clients happy—if they don’t like the product then we have nowhere to hide.

Key takeaways:

• How successful are the products.
• Element of follow through is important.
• Infrastructure is key. Have processes in place.
• Build the relationship with the vendor and be clear up front. Try to constrain it to work at hand. .
• Don’t ever stop being innovative or stop trying.
• Look for passion. Skills of relationship management.

Dan Rather Keynote

Asking the tough questions and the follow-ups is not as common nowadays. American journalism needs a spine transplant. You can get so close that you become part of the problem. Powerful people will use journalists to the full extent possible, right up to when the journalist says “that’s too far.” The second that a source begins to believe that a reporter is in bed with the establishment, that’s too far. And, the second that the reporter begins to feel like he or she is part of the establishment, and has to play nice, that’s too far.

Convergence Culture: Henry Jenkins

Web 2.0: Social community that works together to solve conceptual problems, remixes content.

Participatory culture is central to the world we live in today.

Step 1: expansion

Step 2: speed up

We’re now talking and watching in real time and that leads to a world of collective intelligence.

Power comes from collective energies of complex communities, demanding a richer world of content across multiple media platforms.

Intellectual property issues are at odds to an expanding participatory culture.

The line between participatory culture and participatory democracy is blurring.

Wikipedia—The most powerful thing about Wikipedia is the process by which knowledge is produced and evolves.

Bust 2.0? The Next 10 Years

Interesting potential parallel overlaps appear to be going on. Are we headed to another bust? Unlike the earlier bust period of 1999-2000, we have more people online, more advertising dollars. It is a fundamentally different time, it is much cheaper to start a business online, but we are headed for some kind of shakeout. Right now we are witnessing a sort of rebirth and flowering of innovation, with a much tighter feedback loop, an unprecendented feedback loop, at that. What’s amazing about the infrastructure shift is services are much easier to provide.

What does the boom/bust mean to established businesses? Example: Discovery Channel tries to meet the demand of its customers. In Web 2.0, customer support is very important. Do viral marketing. Start with email and move up to widgets.

Molly Steensen on Outsourcing-India/China/Russia: you’ll find an extraordinarily intelligent, creative group of people. They offer different approaches to things we’re doing and have educational models like labs and incubators.

Remember, this is a global community. It is important to get a team that works well together and that can be really hard especially on a global scale. Communication is hard even regardless of language or time barriers.