Global Ambitions: Revolution in Motion — The Preview

Episode 321 August 15, 2025 00:29:58
Global Ambitions: Revolution in Motion — The Preview
Localization Today
Global Ambitions: Revolution in Motion — The Preview

Aug 15 2025 | 00:29:58

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Hosted By

Eddie Arrieta

Show Notes

Gabriel Karandyšovský previews “Global Ambitions: Revolution in Motion,” a five-article sampler. He digs into making AI actually ship through better infrastructure, why incremental wins outlast hype, localization’s “plumber” reality, treating translation as a product feature, and the skills next-gen leaders need across product, UX, growth, and data.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Localization Today. This is the podcast where we slow down long enough to see the language services industry in motion. I'm Eddie Arrieta, CEO of Multilingual Media. Today we are unpacking a sneak peek of Global Ambitions Revolution Emotion, a five article preview for the upcoming September issue that explores how innovation, infrastructure, legacy systems and human ingenuity shape our field. The following is our conversation with Gabriel Karandovsky, editor of the Global Ambitions publication. Grab a cup of coffee. Let's spill the beans on what readers can look out for in the full Global Ambitions magazines coming in a few weeks. Welcome, Gabriel. [00:00:57] Speaker B: Thanks, Adi. Thank you for having me. It's always a blast. Let's get into. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Is always amazing to have you talking this year again. Global Ambitions 2025. We're very excited to learn more about it. I already know some details, so people should be excited about. Why don't we get started for those that are new to the industry, Every year there are new people in the industry. The industry grows. Tell us about Global Ambitions. What's Global Ambitions and why does it even exist? [00:01:29] Speaker B: Ooh, right. Well, Global Ambitions is a brand really unto itself, powered by Argos Multilingual. The Global Ambitions we're talking about today because there are multiple sort of elements to that brand and there's a podcast, a website and all of that fun stuff. But the Global Ambitions we're talking about today is a yearly publication by Argos, produced in cooperation with Multilingual and yeah, by the way, massive. Thanks, guys. You're awesome. And it's always cool working with you. So a publication that attempts to capture the state of the union, the state of the industry. Right. So we ask the tough questions because someone has to and try to bring meaningful answers that hopefully inspire readers or that people can act on. So, yeah, Small Ambitions, this year's edition of Global Ambitions and which is going to be the fourth year in a row that we're running. This is titled Revolution in Motion and the ambivalence of the title is purposeful. So for many, the insertion of AI and it's going to be three years soon has really revolutionized the way they do work and their lives. And just putting it mildly, for some, it has really turned their worlds upside down. Then again, there are also those who would simply just call it another step or the latest in line of technological innovations that continue to shape the work we do. So really an evolution. Neither side is wrong and both sides need their voices to be heard. And so that's why that was one of the guiding principles when imagining this year's publication that we want to surface all of those perspectives. And so in order to do so, another fun, extremely fun part of the publication process of creating it and then bringing it to life is bringing together various perspectives. So this year we have more people that contributed than last year. I think we have 29 people in all that is, you know, industry veterans, innovators, CEOs and company decision makers, subject matter matter experts. But above all, I would like to think of them as, as humans like you and I, Eddie, who who just want to do good, who have perspectives to share and really who are, who are also through their contributions, through their articles, showing us there is a way. And so today we're talking specifically about the sneak peek or preview of the full publication. And for this one, for the preview version we selected five pieces so five deep cuts from the full magazine that our small hope is to whet people's appetites and make them look forward to and want to read the read the full version. So yeah, that's the intro bit. And yeah, I believe you have questions for me, right? [00:04:48] Speaker A: I have many questions for you, Gabe. And the first one of course is about those various perspectives. So we'll get to all of those. We're going to be talking about today about the five articles on the preview. The preview should be live starting August 15th, 16th. [00:05:09] Speaker B: Indeed, we're aiming to in a couple of weeks it should go live maybe a little bit sooner, you know, keep an eye out for that. So yeah, it should be live soon. So people will be able to go to the Global Ambitions Landing page that we will have. We'll have a nice little campaign and everything that goes with it as these things go. And people will be able to to set up an alert for when the full publication comes out, but also grab the preview copy. So yeah, that's in 10 days or so. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And those that are listening to this probably will be listening to it as this is going to be released. So you look out for the description in this recording or in social media and then we'll find a way so that you have access to this preview. And we are going to be talking about each of the articles in this preview so you can listen along and then listen to the the article and get there. The first question, Gabe, is on Innovation meets Infrastructure by Eric Vaught from Argos. So in Innovation Meets Infrastructure we see that decades old workflows, siloed systems and rigid procurement rules often derail AI initiatives. So what practical roadmap can localization Leaders follow, to audit, to modernize and integrate their technical and organizational infrastructure so that AI moves from these pilot projects to real scalable value. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Very, very good opening question and I like to give readers a glimpse to who Eric is and if you don't know him, he has been designing solutions for a living and his perspective is very, is very interesting and vital. Also, when you're trying to sort of imagine how AI can fit in workflows or in real life and real life localization processes, I think he hits the nail on the head in his article. It's not really about what AI can do and you can reasonably argue it can do a bunch of things competently, but it's more about what the system it's plugged into allows it to do. And Eric is making a very important case that many of today's systems have been built or are still built on infrastructure that is 15 years old or older. Which also brings up questions just how you can fit something as AI into them. So I would like to think in true solution architect fashion, Eric is making the case that if you really want to enact change, and that's before you think about, okay, you know, deploying AI for this and that is you need to map the whole end to end environment of a localization. So what is the nature of the transaction between whom? And that means between what kind of internal stakeholders, the localization teams and then the end users. How do these parts interconnect? What are the directions the data is flowing, the metrics being tracked and equally importantly, if not the most important bit, what are sort of the expectations associated with it? So both, both internally between the state, between the various stakeholders, but the expectations also coming from the outside in the form of regulations that govern how things are meant to be deployed and used, but also in terms of what, what the users think. And Eric is ending the article on a, on the, on a very open ended question which I, which I love and which I've been taught by a shared friend of ours, Eddie, and this may resonate is ask, ask the question why ask it at least five times. So Eric is recentering us on that, on that sort of strong, strong ideas ask why you want to deploy AI before you get to the brass tags. [00:09:11] Speaker A: So yeah, that's really interesting. Can't wait to get to it to read it. And we are going to go along with, with different articles that are in that preview. The second one is our origin story with Dan Milk Sarksy from Blackbird. So looking back at the origin story of localization this is where early API integrations, rudimentary orchestration, and machine translation kind of like quietly sowed the seeds for today's industry. What specific lessons can we draw about the power of incremental progress versus chasing only the shiny disruptions, like many are doing right now? How does this, or what can we learn from this incremental progress in driving sustainable innovation? [00:09:59] Speaker B: Before I answer that question, there's a little anecdote that goes with it. So when we were sort of talking to Dan and the folks at Blackberg, they were very keen on this contribution. So there was Dan and there was Matthijs, and there was Bruno. So the three main guys at Blackbird, at least from my perspective, main guys, they were like, yeah, this resonates. The theme of the magazine resonates so much. And they all, each and every one of them wanted to contribute a piece. So they had a little bit of fun with this and suggested that every one of them wrote a piece. And those pieces appear at different points in the magazine to sort of articulate past, present and future. They do it very well. The fun bit is that it seems like they're all fans of Marvel movies. So their articles have an undercurrent of Marvel to them, which I was at a loss. When I was looking at it and editing it, I was like, huh, does this make sense? But apparently it does. So I'm working with a friend copy editor who's into Marvel, and she's like, this is great. So, yeah, we had a little bit of fun with that. Or at least the guys from Blackbird had some fun with this. So, anyways, back to Dan's piece. It appears in the earlier portions of the magazine, and Dan is taking a look back, essentially in a short format, as many of these articles are at some of the recent, or not so far away, past the bars of our industry and tackling the keyword of progress. What does that mean? And I like his takeaway in this article, that it was really the unglamorous small steps the industry has been making over the last 15 years. As you were saying, rudimentary orchestration or API integrations, those early days, all of that positioned us over the last 15 years to be able to tackle the coming of AI. And I would think in an intelligent and meaningful way that that makes a difference for the companies using it. But perhaps more specifically to your question, what you were saying, you were asking about, okay, what the power of incremental progress. I think the message here that appears in Dan's perspective, and again, that's My subjective read, of course readers will find their meaning in it, but I think for me it's really about the lesson is that you cannot fast track progress, that companies and localization teams need to put in the hard work, the long hours on things that arguably not many outside of the localization department even care about to be able to move the needle today now that people want, or the C level suite once AI deployed yesterday. So it's really about the sum of all the little incremental steps that you need to do in order to position yourself for success today. And yeah, so really that's what's it about for me. [00:13:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't wait to also get some meaning as you're mentioning on these different reads. And I hope also the readers appreciate the level of craft that's within it. Sometimes you can kind of escape your mind when you see all this amazing content being constructed that Gen AI can not definitely do. It's impossible. [00:13:32] Speaker B: We've stayed away from Genai for this magazine and it's clear from the number. [00:13:38] Speaker A: Of collaborators you have, you know, 29, that's an incredible amount of collaborators. So congratulations on that. And the next, the next article, I really love the title. It makes me feel like I really want to read it. Which is, which is really great title. Is the Progress to Disappear or why Everyone Still Needs a Plumber? I already thought it was a great name. When it says the Progress to Disappear, I'm like, that's great. And then it's like, or why Everyone Still Needs a Plumber. I'm like, amazing title, amazing title. This is written by John Ritzdorf from procore Technologies. And on this specific article, and as localization aspires to become transparent, what concrete steps can the industry take to cultivate the next generation of so called plumbers, ensuring that skilled professionals remain indispensable for diagnosing and fixing the inevitable cracks in global communication pipelines, which is what's happening and will continue to happen for many years. [00:14:41] Speaker B: I wish I had the answer, the straight answer, but maybe that's also a function of talking to John about this and brainstorming with him and just listening to him, as passionate as he is about these topics. And I think in answering this question, and since we have a little bit of time here, I just want to give readers a glimpse into who John is. We've worked together in a previous company, but John has been teaching for the past 20 years and he's very excited about this. He's very keen on transmitting his knowledge and that sort of drives his passion for what he does. And it was a very fun collaboration with John. Indeed. And hopefully that comes across in the piece and the title. As you said, we had some fun with this. Yeah. I want to pause for a second on the notion of plumbers. Right. Because for readers listening to this or viewers listening to this and then you'll know when you read it. John explains what he means by that, but he calls the localization professionalism, perhaps unglamorously and with not necessarily any ill intent. We need to clarify that. Like it's not about demeaning what we do but, but he calls us the plumbers of global business. And the way he was explaining that to me and I thought this is. Yeah, we have to build the article around that. Is that no matter how much AI a company throws at solving a challenge, challenge of going global and translating and such, something somewhere will inevitably break and they called a plumber to fix it. The localization department. So that's where John's parable of, of plumber comes from. Now back to your question in a circular way. The concrete steps that the industry can take. And my suspicion is that even John wouldn't be able to say like these are the concrete things. But throughout working with him and in the article itself, he sort of points to two different things. One is education and the importance of language based education. And it's been, you know, language, language departments and I'm not in the US so I cannot really speak about what's happening over there, but it's not language departments. Language programs are not having an easy time. John's point though, something that sort of, he feels strongly about and that appears in the article is that it's important for localization related education to appear in other education program. So when stuff like Global Business or UX and, and an important element there is to build those bridges with other disciplines, with other universities, programs and such that do not necessarily talk about translation but have translation localization matters embedded as part of their, their, their global or their curriculum. The, the point being that that translation is perhaps not attracting as many eyeballs as we would like. And then there's a real problem of who comes next. Like will there be future generations picking this job up? So education would be one thing sort of reviewing where and how you can get involved. And that's, that's something that from my vantage point also, and I see it in John's work is he's very involved in mentoring young up and coming students at Ms. So the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, if I hope I got that right. So, yeah, education on one side, then the other. The other point John is making is that our industry is perhaps not doing the best it can in order to invite and include new talent in the conference circuit. Are there enough new faces that are appearing, people from non localization circles? You know, it's debatable and it needs to be acknowledged that organizers are doing a good job on balance of always bringing in new people, new topics. So that's good. But yeah, the question John is asking is, are we doing enough in that sense, are we, you know, conferences, travel, that's all expensive and especially the younger generations are, you know, there's an argument to be made about them being left out. And I. And just to kind of give this a little bit of broader perspective within the magazine itself, within the full magazine that we are trying to address, or the question of who comes next. So that was one of those tough questions I alluded to at the beginning. What can, you know, what are we doing to attract a new generation of talent? So yeah, find out in the full magazine. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. Because it's incredible to get an opportunity to think about the, that fact future of work, the future of those that are gonna, that are gonna be growing their careers within the industry and those of us that are in some cases observing and on other cases doing product. So it's very, very interesting to gain those perspectives. And the next article is from someone that's very well known within our audience for many different reasons, of course, as a writer, but also as a guest in our different podcasts. And she's written an article called why Localization is Now a Product Problem by the one and only Veronica Ilak, who is an AI product strategist. And around this topic, Gabe, how can localization evolve from a back office service into a core product discipline? Trading translation as a feature that builds user trust, drives conversion and prevents a churn rather than an afterthought bolted on at the very end of the processes. [00:20:39] Speaker B: I like how it's 20, 25 and you're asking me this question, Eddie, right? Like is the more things change, the more they stay the same. I feel like we were asking this question for the past 20 years, 15 years, I don't know, I haven't been around that long, but it feels like, you know, like we're still grasping at an answer for that question. But what's really interesting in Veronica's take on it, and she's coming from a product background and she's really highlighting the sort of irony of that situation and that our industry has become so good at sort of articulating why it exists. But we have all the arguments, but we're unable to make them stick. And now with AI, it's becoming even harder in many ways. In one of the elements she raises or talks about in the article is, and you've heard about this, surely, or the audience has heard about this, is the idea of translation as a feature now enabled and facilitated through AI solutions. She's saying that when users encounter an app that doesn't speak their language, they don't see it as a translation problem, they see it as a company that doesn't care about them. Inevitably it becomes a product problem. And the people then tasked with finding the solution are the product teams, not necessarily the translation team. And another nugget of irony here is that decision makers on the product side, they just don't know our industry exists. And again, this will vary from company to company. But you could make the case still that in many, you know, many situations ours is an invisible industry. And when ours is an invisible industry, it's the product teams that are solving localization. I had a, and this is anecdotal, but it kind of rejoins the idea here. Last month I had a conversation with someone on the client side and I they were saying that it's not a language problem, translation is an engineering problem. So a product problem. So yeah, the answer to your question what can we do? I think the answer is what we've been doing the last 15 years. Just go out there, reframe the conversation. Instead of talking about translation coverage, talk about user trust and access. Those are big keywords. Now with, with the emergence of Genai, instead of discussing translation quality in isolation connected to elements that speak to other departments such as conversion rates and user retention, instead of process improvements, workflows focus on product outcomes. Those are some of the lessons that Veronica is imparting on us in her article. [00:23:36] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing that perspective. There is definitely going to be a lot to talk about that in the future as the roles evolve. And what better way to end our conversation today? Gabriel to then talk about the article who comes the Future should Look different by Michael Levod from Canva. So you've talked a little bit about this already, but the next generation of localization leaders now they should redefine or how should they redefine their skill sets moving way beyond tool specific expertise to embracing marketing, product growth, UX research, data storytelling to really drive genuine user centric end to end experiences which should be the Money shot is where we do it perfectly right. That's the money shot, I guess. [00:24:33] Speaker B: Indeed. It's so fascinating. And in general, you know, talking to the Kanala team, they just think differently. And what's really intriguing is their approach. And within the article Michael lifts the lid a little bit about what they've been doing the past few months in sort of. Okay, going through a little bit of a revamp of what they do. I won't spoil it too much, but yeah, it's really interesting. And they. I think that the theme underneath it is they're looking at it from a non localization standpoint. And yes, when I was sort of talking to Michael and we were trying to kind of elaborate what is there to talk about, the question who comes next? Resonated very strongly with him. I alluded to it. That's one of the bigger ones that especially in the latter portions of the magazine we're trying to give a glimpse of. Okay, talking about the different who's or trying to defame define the who portion of that question. I think in Canva's case it's a lot of the who is a lot of non traditional in the sense of non localization related expertise that is coming to play a prominent role in that end to end user experience. And in some ways this is a trend that perhaps others have also picked up on, but I certainly have is many companies we see a blending of disciplines occurring with AI. Now every, everyone can do translation, but also everyone can create content, right? And so we're seeing a blending of these disciplines such as translation and content production and then user research or ux. So it certainly seems that in some ways companies such as Canva is headed that way. And that's the larger question is it's probably also where the industry is headed. The perspective is and I think the message that that Michael is delivering is how, how you can, how a company can unshackle themselves from that traditional setup of language related, translation related quality related discussions and instead start by considering the end user experience. And again, that's very product oriented thinking I would think and then work backwards to determine what kind of processes you need, what kind of partnerships you need. And he's mentioning in his article keywords such as fluency, delight, conversion rather than error scores or MQM scores. So yeah, a very interesting road of the future can be what other disciplines, what other skill sets will we pick up. And I feel like at this point in time that is being decided and tested on by companies such as Canva, but certainly others as well, who are not afraid to go beyond the boundaries of traditional localization systems. So if you, Eddie, if you know about more companies such as them, let me know. I want to talk to them. [00:27:36] Speaker A: That's great. We're definitely seeing what I call myself the divergence that try to do things a little. They don't try. It's just part of their innovation structures, type of part of their philosophy. And that's why they move forward, because they toast, decide preconceived notions and, you know, the, the paradigms are there to be broken, not to be like, overly romanticized, I guess. So I, I, we, we definitely see it. We'll, we'll be sending you some names if we see them around. Gabriel, you've been very generous with your time. Thank you so much for, for giving a sneak peek of the preview. [00:28:15] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. [00:28:17] Speaker A: To those of us who are going. [00:28:18] Speaker B: To read it before we so happy reading. I think, you know, enjoy it was, we enjoyed the experience. Our team at Argos is excited about this coming out soon. We can't wait to get it in the hands of all the people that subscribe and read multilingual as well. Thank you for making that happen, Eddie. And team, you're a big part of, you know, getting these thoughts out there and we appreciate you as well. So, yeah, no, until next time, happy reading. [00:28:47] Speaker A: All right. And yes, we love being part of the entire process and being able to promote it is a huge privilege. And that's our roadmap through the sneak peek of articles, of course, of Global Revolution in Motion. Thank you for joining me, Eddie Arrieta and Gabrielle Kramdoski. This is Localization Today. If you found these questions thought provoking, stay tuned for the full publication in September. If you are a subscriber of multilingual, we'll send it to you. If you do not have a subscription, you want it, you tell us. We'll send it to you. We'll find a way to get it to you wherever you are in the world. That is the biggest challenge we're going to have. Anyone who wants it, just let us know. We'll send it to you. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and follow us on your favorite podcast platform and social media channels for more conversations that put language, technology, and policy in motion. Until next time, keep questioning, keep innovating, and keep localizing. Goodbye, Gabriel. [00:29:53] Speaker B: Thanks, Eddie.

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