Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: I think all companies, all software companies at the moment, they work very closely with customers, getting feedback and developing features also based on what the customers want. But if you are experimenting with your own content in your own environment, you know, that gives you freedom to really stretch it and really test something and really find something valuable.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to Localization Today. My name is Eddie Arrieta. I'm the CEO of Multilingual magazine. And today we have the pleasure of talking with Francesca Sorrentino.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: She.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: She is right now the localization director at frase. Before that, she was the localization community manager. And Francesca, I have to say I was looking at all of your experiences and off the mic, we were saying, or pre recording, we were saying how interesting it was to have your localization experience shared with the community. So thank you so much for doing this and welcome to Localization Today.
And apologize, Francesca, my rolling of the Rs, I don't know what's your preferred. What's your preferred rolling of the R's.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: So your R's were perfectly rolled.
I like. You know, I'm from Italy. Your pronunciation was perfect. I also live in Spain, so it's all about the Rs.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Oh, fantastic. So as I was saying, our conversation with Francesca Sorrentino.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited about this conversation.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Great, great. And why don't you tell us more about those experiences? It was really interesting, especially considering what you're doing right now at Frase. So actually we should start there, right? What it is that you do at fr. How did that all get started? And at some point, how did you get there?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: I guess exactly. Well, so at Frase, I'm the localization director, and it's a very interesting role because I manage the localization of a localization platform, which is something that I don't think many companies are doing consistently. And the company decided, Fraser decided to put a conscious effort into it and structuring the localization program.
And yes, so we are in charge of localizing the platform, localizing the other assets that are related to the platform, such the website, the support site. And as you were saying, I started that phrase I started three years ago and I started as a community manager, a localization community manager, which I'm still doing, by the way. That's part of my responsibilities and it's something that we still do within the marketing team. Localization is also part of the marketing team. And I joined Frase. I was hired for this community. They were looking for someone who would be able to helped launch the community that was just being created. They were looking for a subject matter expert in localization and also someone who had experience with events and communities. And I was just coming from such an experience.
You said you were looking at my profile and the previous jobs that I had in the past. I started as a translator and then I moved on into project management and program management. I was both on the client side in a few video game companies in Germany and then I was on the service provider side in LSPs. And after a few years of that experience, I went freelance and I started collaborating with lockworld.
I was managing the game global conference.
And that happened around the time around Covid, which meant all events were suddenly they were going online and we were having, as I'm sure everyone remembers, we were having lots of webinars, lots of different kinds of gatherings online. And I had gathered quite a bit of experience in that. So when FRASE wanted to launch their community, they said we should ask Francesca and I decided to join them. And after, I think after one year, when they decided they wanted to restructure their localization program, I was already there and they asked me to take care of that. So was very lucky I was the right person in the right place. And it was a great step for me, for my development and my career because as I say, I had touched different sides of the localization industry, different roles, and I was totally ready to be in technology.
And I also, I've been.
I was very focused on video games in the past and at the beginning of my career and I was slowly growing, not out of it, but I also wanted to explore other verticals and other types of either other types of localization.
And with localization technology being in FRASE and being exposed to what FRASE does, it gives me like a very broad overview of on what is out there and what kind of challenges other types of localization have.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Would you say you are approaching the role now phrase from a specialist or generalist approach? It seems like you came from a specializing and then broadened the scope and even as a generalist feel very, very niche, right?
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I think it's a bit. It's a bit of both because I think I'm a specialist because I, you know, I come from production, like pure production, where you work close to the product and you have to deliver and you have very strict deadlines and you have to be efficient and you're very aware of relationships and you're very aware of working with vendors.
And I'M also fully like into business and I like, you know, having a broader overview and understanding localization as a holistic process in software development, understanding localization from a business perspective. So I think in my role I do a bit of both.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: And that's really great because then you come with this perspective and you just said that you really wanted to get into technology. So how has that been? How exciting has that been to be in localization technology from this approach that you have?
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah, so to me it's been super exciting because it's been something that I've always been interested in.
I think when I started as a translator and when I was at Electronic Arts, their localization program is really, really well developed and full fledged and they do a lot of things. And I remember being very interested in terminology at first and also being very interested in how does the translation management tool work.
So that's always been there for me. And I think technology is somehow, it's kind of the basics of localization. If you think of localization as localizing digital products or localizing software, it's very dependent on technology for many, many reasons. And for me, one of the basics of localization is efficiency and accomplishing and delivering something with the lowest amount of manual effort. And I think that's what makes me particularly excited about being in technology. Aside from the fact that given how the industry is evolving and given the growing importance of technology in our industry, I think it's better to get to know it closer, understand really how it can help us and how it can be leveraged. And I think it's the best place for me to be at the moment and the best company to work for.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Right? Really good. Really good to hear. And I guess you are at the very edge of the technology conversation when it comes to localization. And as you were saying, some companies don't do this, which is probably the wrong strategic decision. Opinions. Right. For some it might not make sense because managing is something else, but how does it make sense for phrase and tell us a little bit about that feeling of being at the very edge of the responsibility of where some of these technologies should go because you are consuming it and you have like direct feedback, right?
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Correct. Yeah, I think so. In terms of making the decision and how important it is strategically, I think, you know, the main reason is that you want to understand the challenges of your customers and what opportunities there are. And there is no better way of doing it than using the technology yourself. And also stretching that a bit in a real life scenario, it's True that. I mean, I think all companies, all software companies at the moment, they work very closely with customers getting feedback and developing features also based on what the customers want. But if you are experimenting with your own content in your own environment, you know, that gives you freedom to really stretch it and really test something and really find something valuable.
And I think I totally agree with this sort, with this kind of strategy and with this decision because I find it's really honest and it's really bold in a way, because you are a localization technology company or you are a localization company and you choose not to just talk about localization or just sell localization. You do localization.
And I think it, you know, it brings you on a different level in the conversation, especially given the fact that this is an initiative that has been supported from the start. It has been supported by the executives in the company. So we, you know, we're sort of training ourselves to talk about localization on the executive level, which is something that I don't think localization was necessarily doing in the past, or it wasn't really the main way of localization to talk about themselves.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Very interesting. And it's from the perspective that you've seen it, there is a story behind this. Can you tell us a little bit about that story? How did it come about to start doing it, if possible? How was it done before? Right. And what were the things? I assume something was done and then some things dramatically changed. And those changes probably brought in many challenges.
Tell us a little bit about that process.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So before this change and this new way of approaching the localization program, the way it was done, as in many companies, similar companies, you have localization was part of product. So someone, one of the product managers would take care of the product localization.
And there was marketing localization that was taken care of by the marketing team.
And it was something that, let's say, as it often happens, it was something that you would do on the side because there was no appointed localization manager.
And when, you know, Frase was restructured and the new CEO joined Georg, this is the story as I like to tell it. And as it was told to me, he said, where is our localization manager?
And we didn't have any.
So he said we should have one.
And that's how it happened. And I think it's what was also smart was that instead of having a localization project manager or a localization manager, that would be, let's say, would have been the right choice in a way, given the type of content that we were handling, or given the amount of content especially that we were handling, we decided to have a localization director, so someone more senior that would be able to, as I was saying, having those conversations on an executive level and really driving localization as a strategic initiative in the company and not just as something that someone has to do because it's part of software development or because we want to make, we want to get some revenue from Japan.
And so that was the, you know, that was the background and that was how it happened. And obviously, as with every change, there were, there were some challenges. And the, I think the main challenge was that we had to look into all the legacy processes and all the legacy tools that were used and try to get those teams on board with new processes.
And in our particular case, there was another challenge that was, you know, back then we had two companies that were coming together. It was mensource and Fraser that were coming together. So different teams, different processes, in some cases different tools that they were also using to do localization. So there was also a bit of negotiation that needed to be done in order to unify these processes.
And at the same time, the, you know, the company was growing our product base or our product was, was growing with, with more capabilities. So from my perspective, from our localization perspective, there was all this work that needed to be done on the legacy and at the same time, all the new technology that was coming in and that I really, really wanted to implement and take advantage of as soon as possible.
So it's been, it's been a quite busy couple of years, I imagine.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: I imagine. And a very interesting story. Will have to interview your CEO and ask him whether this myth that we talk about, legend, it's true or not.
And of course there were some then, as you said, you know, different teams, different cultures, maybe similar in some things, but you have workflows and you had things to do. How did you prioritize that? What was your strategy?
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Yeah, so as I was saying before, I come from pure production and my priority is always efficiency and delivery and trying to be mindful of resources and mindful of time, which doesn't mean like cheap labor or impossible deadlines or anything like that, but really making the most especially of technology. And as I like to say, I'm the luckiest localization manager in the world because I have access, I have free access to the most recent and cutting edge technology and I get the chance to even test it in advance and implement it in advance. So I was looking for a balance between continuing Delivering localization because that's what the localization department is for. And also testing the new, the new features and the new capabilities and trying to implement those without stopping the machine, without slowing us down, without breaking anything that, that was already working.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: And of course I have, I have a question about the mechanics of feed and how it helps out. Right. Because I feel you are the feedback those offering localization services kind of like should here. Right? You should have it there. But I do have a question about how has phrases technology help you do your localization work?
And then I'll have a follow up question after that.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Okay, Hub. Phrase technology helps me do my work. Okay.
So the phrase platform now has different parts and so we come from the, let's say the translation management system which is non free cms.
We have, we can call it a content management system, a string management system which is strings that we use for our product localization because it connects very nicely with, you know, with product repositories.
And I think what excites me the most about phrase technology is the newest AI capabilities and everything that is connected to automated workflows and machine translation. So one of the very first projects that I had to work on or I had the privilege to work on was we localized our entire help center.
So it's a separate support website with documentation articles that had never been localized before. And we decided to leverage machine translation and automation and hyper automation on that and create a workflow without human intervention.
It's a test and it's, you know, depending on how you look at it, it can be risky. But that's our, let's say that's our lab where we, where we try, where we try new things and we stack all this, all this technology.
And to me I was, I don't know when you, when you work either on the client side or you work in an lsp, you have a limited number or a limited tool set. You know, there's a number of tools and number of applications that you use. You don't have access to everything. But here I feel I have access to everything and I'm having a lot of fun.
Fun as in nerd localization fun with custom AI where we train our engines and we create our dataset, we train our engines and we do cleanups of transition memories. So we do asset curation language AI where you create profiles.
So different profiles for different use cases so you can use different machine translation engines depending on, depending on the language, depending on the domain, depending on the project Portal is something that we are using more and more and that it's something that we really believe in in terms of elevating localization and also extending somehow the contact between localization and other parts of the business. Because so portal is a tool for non localization teams to get access to machine translation engines in a very simple interface. So they can, for example, they can translate their own internal documents, they can do tests, they can do small translations without involving localization. So that's really, it's a really efficient way of working. And also for me, it's a good way for non localization teams to understand what localization means, even if you present it very easy for them in a very simple portal where they can put in words or documents and get them translated. But I think it makes them team think about the effort. And my favorite one is Orchestrator, which is a.
And my product teams will have to forgive me if I use the wrong terms or the terms that they don't want to use. But it's a workflow builder. So through Orchestrator you're able to connect both FRASE platform and different parts of the FRASE platforms and also third party tools. And for me that's where that's so powerful and that's something that has almost unlimited potential because you can basically, you can create a workflow or you can think of a business workflow for anything that you're actually dealing with in localization.
And I'm really excited about it.
And I think also some of the other connectors that, that we use are very powerful and our life would be a lot harder without them. I recently had a conversation with our site manager. She's part of the marketing team and she recently joined the company. So we're talking and we're trying to understand how to collaborate. I'm training her on some localization processes that we have in place or that we need to restructure somehow and redefine together. So we were looking at how to localize the website and how to use the WordPress connector and she was amazed by how easy it makes to localize a website as opposed to maybe working on WordPress alone. It means that you have to do maybe a lot more manual work and a lot more copy paste. So it's.
Yeah, as I say, I feel very lucky because I have access to all this, to all these different tools and all these different capabilities.
You're mute.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: I am muted. Yes. And I was saying that it's great to hear and of course some of the options that companies have are within.
So if you are a localized Manager, how do you start?
How did you get started? Right, which is like you came in kind of like as, as a user of a phrase. So how do you, how do you get there? How did you get started or how would you get started?
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Now, I'm not sure I understand the question. This part we can cut, maybe we can repeat the question. Is this a question phrase?
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Okay, as a solution, so what do they do? Do they have a subscription? Do they have an app that they log in? How do you do it? Because I assume you have some sort of access. Well, you have back end access, but it might be similar in how people experienced. Right. I'm trying to paint the picture of the localization managers of other companies that might consider Frasers a solution for them. Right. You are advocating for the solution. You're a great evangelist of the solution. So they might be asking themselves right now. It's like, okay, okay, it sounds like it's got everything. I just want to test it. Maybe like, is there a trial? Is there something? If you don't know, it's okay, but we can cut it out.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm not directly involved with how, you know, the platform is sold to customers, but what I can say as a user is that it's.
So you have a subscription and once you are, once you have this subscription, you have access to the whole platform. So you have access to the different modules, let's say, and the different capabilities I was talking about.
It's in the same, let's say in the same UI in the same screen and you can switch very easily from one part of the platform to the other. So for example, in, let's say, in a typical localization journey, if you have your content, you have your content created in figma, there is a figma plugin that connects FIGMA to strings. You have your keys created in strings and then you translate them in tms with the translation memories that you have there and the customized engines that you have created with custom AI and that you're using through language AI. Maybe you have set up a few automated workflows through Orchestrator so no one has to manually create projects anywhere or manually assign them to linguists or manually run machine translation because it's all automated and all triggered and you can, you have access to data about the localization work that you do. You have access to costs, turnaround times, efficiencies through the phrase data and phrase analytics dashboards. And it's all there. And to me that's, that's really powerful and it makes the Localization manager life a lot easier because you just switch from one thing to the next and everything is very easy to reach.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Excellent. Thank you so much for that. Yeah, that really helps get a picture of kind of like what the things that are possible. And inevitably, as a localization manager, you've experienced those challenges and then now you have some amazing dreams. You are localizing, I assume, into many different locales.
What's your strategy looking like? What can we expect in the future?
[00:31:41] Speaker A: This part we can cut the paws. We can cut. I want to make sure I have my notes.
So my dream, I'm very excited about automated workflows. I'm very excited about leveraging machine trans. Let's say AI translation, because right now it's a lot more than the machine translation.
Leveraging that and having linguists work on, you know, on the brand, really, and work on the messaging, work on what is going to help Phrase achieve its purpose and not maybe just, you know, having them totally removed from all this and just looking at words that they have to. That they have to translate. So this part I'm like super excited about.
And I'm excited about, you know, evangelizing our company about localization because it's true that we are a localization service provider, but as technology providers. Sorry, but it doesn't necessarily mean that in all departments, everyone is super aware of localization, because I don't know if you're in the legal department, if you are in the engineering department, you're not necessarily coming from a translation university, and you're not necessarily experiencing in localization. So it needs a bit of evangelizing. And I think also Portal is a good way for them to get closer and for them to understand Phrase.
Yeah. Without maybe having to deal with the whole setup, without being super experienced in localization.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Excellent. And I really want to dig a little bit deeper into some of your experience and what you're doing at Phrase. And also looking into the future on something you mentioned that kind of like, relates to how linguists are going to fit in the future of localization. And it's driving a huge conversation on multilingual. I should tell you around the topic of culturalization and how now that we have more capabilities and better tools, we are able to dig deeper into kind of like the essence of what we expect localization to be. Can you speak to us a little bit about that and what your thoughts are?
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So I think you already described it pretty accurately. And also what I was mentioning before, the role of the linguists is evolving.
Definitely. As I have a larger tool set as a localization manager that I can draw from different technologies that I can leverage. It's the same for them.
And I think maybe several linguists, they need specific training about the new technologies that for example, in my case with my linguists, I try to provide because I think it's my duty, not only because I own the platform, but I don't know if I expect something from them.
They have to be very clear on what I expect and that needs some training.
And it's, to me, it's, their role is obviously it's about culturalization because they're going to be the ultimate experts on the country they come from, the markets they come from and they are the connection between that culture and that market and the brand. So I really rely on them to be able to convey our message and the importance of, you know, what the, what the platform can do, what, you know, this new feature that we're launching can do. And it's not something that can be easily replaced. I don't expect for GPT to be able to do that the way I need to and in the, you know, with the same level of reliability that I expect.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: And so in terms of the evolution, you are also thinking that this is going to take the route of the quality assurers in some parts probably just complete creation just because of the detachment that something might cause.
And I guess that needs to be balanced out with the cost. Right. Like the cost benefits, much higher value activity than translation. It's more sophisticated. We're talking about an evolution of the craft. So how do you see that, that part of the conversation?
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, in very, very practical terms, what I'm doing and what I'm going to be doing in the next few months and the next few years, the localization budget that I have, I'm sort of, it's going to be used for different things than translating words and paying a rate for a word that has been translated or that has been, that has been post edited. So it's, yeah, we're evolving the role of the linguist. We're evolving the level of cooperation and the level of, the level of, of partnership.
The way I like to describe it is I, if I could do it myself, I wouldn't be working with a vendor, which means I really need you because I can't do this myself.
And I really need your language expertise, really need your local expertise in order to achieve a goal. And I want to provide everything that you need to make your job comfortable.
I think it's a new way of collaborating.
It's more complex, it's more evolved. There is more responsibility on both sides. Stakes are higher, and I think there's a lot more debt is expected from them because we are empowering them to do something that is very valuable as opposed to maybe as it used to be, just blindly translating words without context or pushing down on rates because translation is supposed to be cheaper now than we have so many tools.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And now that some tools are even faster and better than some amateur translators, then you kind of like, take away a big chunk of the talent that it's struggling to evolve. But then the talent that evolve then finds itself in a really privileged position, because when we talk about culturalization, then the new applications start happening that before were kind of like, only limited to local consultancy companies that perhaps were charging high premiums because they had to go learn some activities that are not core to them. So it's very exciting to hear that technology can allow you to do that sort of thing. And you talked a little bit about that budget. I don't want to get into numbers or anything like that. But, you know, what would be really helpful is to understand the composition of your functions. Like, okay, you know, we have people in technology. We have linguists, we have designers. Like, what do you have to make your localization succeed? What are those? Like, I'm thinking now about painting. Like, what are the instruments that you use to kind of, like, do your craft?
[00:41:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So our internal localization team is very small, Extremely small. It's just me.
And I continue to, let's say, put myself through this challenge because I really believe that for our specific case, I don't want to just throw people at something, you know, at problems in order to solve them. I really. What I'm. What I'm doing is I am really leveraging technology, and I'm really trying to find efficiencies because, you know, I have access to this very good localization technology.
That also means that I'm very well connected to the other functions that we have in the company. So I work very closely with the rest of the marketing team, which I think it's kind of new for localization because I think historically, it's always a bit challenging to work with marketing because we're very far apart. In my case, we are part of the same function. So it's very easy for me to get access to them. It's very easy for me to understand where the content comes from, what the purpose of the content is, and they trust me with localization and with making decisions about localization and making decisions about localization processes to use. And we have a similar relationship with the product team as well, and the engineering team. So they're connected, but they're not the same. Right. Because the product, as we see it, they design the products and they think of the features and how it should work. But then when it comes to localization, engineering is very heavily involved and it's important to be aligned. It's important to find processes that work for both sides, that are going to benefit both sides. And I think this is something that.
This has also been tricky historically in localization, and I think it needs a lot of conscious efforts. So you really have to sit with your engineering teams, you have to talk to them, you have to understand that you have to negotiate with them in order to design a process that works. And I also, I work closely with the support team as well because they own the support site, the help center. And it's important for me also in that case, it's important to understand how the content is created, how the content is designed, what the journey is or the content from creation to publishing, in order to understand where localization can fit and how it's going to contribute to.
Yeah, to the ultimate goal, which is users need to have access to documentation in a way that is efficient, in a way that is going to help the users and it's going to help the business.
And then from a language point of view, I work with two external vendors at the moment. One of them is taking care of the APEC languages, which are Japanese, Chinese and Korean. And another vendor in Europe that is taking care of the rest of the languages, which are French, Spanish, German, Italian, Brazilian, Portuguese, Czech and Russian.
And I have a very close relationship with them. I am very open about the, you know, the challenges that I'm having, the importance of the content, the expectations, and I constantly ask for their input as well, and their feedback about, about the processes, about the. For example, if we're, if we're using machine translation and we have to pick engines, it's something that we decide together. It's not something that I want to impose on them because it wouldn't be.
It's not in my interest. It's not in their interest either. And I like to have this sort of, yeah, open, not open collaboration, but like very close partnership. And I, I think of my external vendors as my team.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Thank you. And that, that, that is definitely your team. And it's really good to see kind of like the evolution of the conversation as we are coming to an end of our conversation. Is there anything you. You'd like to mention? Any final words, anything that perhaps you wanted to share that we couldn't talk about today?
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So I. I would like to say that, I mean, again, I'm very grateful for this opportunity of having this chat with you. Very grateful for the opportunity of talking about our localization program and what we do at Frase. And we can hope to. I mean, I hope we can inspire other companies to do the same, and I hope we can inspire our customers to also approach localization in a different way and to make it strategic for their business.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Excellent. Thank you so much for being here with us today. And this was our conversation with Francesca Sorrentino, localization director at frase, and we talked about the localization program at Frase. Francesca, thank you so much for joining us.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: Thank you, Adi, for having me. And thank you. Multilingual.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: Excellent. My name is Eddie Arrieta. I'm the CEO of Multilingual magazine, and this was Localization today. Until next time, goodbye.
