By Scott Abel | STC Senior Member
In the digital age, change happens quickly. This column features interviews with the movers and shakers—the folks behind new ideas, standards, methods, products, and amazing technologies that are changing the way we live and interact in our modern world. Got questions, suggestions, or feedback? Email them to scottabel@mac.com.
Dr. Nitish Singh is Associate Professor of International Business at the Boeing Institute of International Business at Saint Louis University. He serves as co-organizer for the Brand2Global Conference for Global Marketers and is the Program Leader for Certification in Global Digital Marketing and Localization. 
Dr. Singh holds a PhD in marketing and international business from Saint Louis University; an MA from the University of South Wales, UK; and an MBA from Pune University in India. His educational efforts and programs have been supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Qatar Foundation, Adobe, AT&T, Nestle, Purina, and other organizations. He has published more than 50 academic papers and 3 books.
In this edition of Meet the Change Agents, Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, interviews Sr. Singh about culturally relevant content and its impact on trust, why transcreation isn’t limited to multilingual content, and how understanding national and cultural identity can improve our ability to communicate across cultures.
Scott Abel: Thanks for agreeing to speak with us today, Nitish. For our readers who may be unfamiliar with you and your work, tell us a little about yourself and what you do for a living.
Nitish Singh: For the past 15 years or so, my professional life has been geared toward researching, teaching, and consulting in the area of global e-commerce and localization. I’ve published several books on these subjects, including: Localization Strategies for Global e-Business (Cambridge University Press) and The Culturally Customized Website (Routledge). I’m a tenured professor at The Boeing Institute of International Business of St. Louis University.
I am also actively engaged with the global marketing community and together with my mentor—Ulrich Henes—I co-organize a global marketing conference called Brand2Global (www.brand2global.com). My most recent adventure has been putting together a broad collaboration of industry and academic experts in the global digital media space to help launch a new dual-certification course in Global Digital Marketing and Localization.
Finally, my passion in life is being mindful of all the joys and sorrows this interesting life journey brings.
SA: In our fast-changing, global, mobile, socially connected world, the skills technical communication professionals relied on in the past are often insufficient to help us tackle the challenges we face today. This is especially true when companies attempt to reach new consumers abroad. In your research, how do boundaries (political, cultural, geographical, religious, or otherwise) affect our ability to communicate to others around the globe?
NS: Cultural theorist Edward Hall has emphasized that all communication happens through the medium of culture. For example, a cursory look at global websites may reveal they all pretty much utilize the same general structure and layout. In fact, many companies just take their local site and translate it to connect with foreign markets. But if you take a closer look at successful global websites, you will find they are populated with socio-cultural values and markers.
Over the past 15 years, I have researched websites from more than 15 countries and found that websites mirror local cultural values. The same is true for advertising and almost any marketing communications. For example, check out how different Japanese websites and communications are in terms of colors, values, icons and imagery compared to U.S. websites. In my book, The Culturally Customized Website, I provide specific examples of how websites from different countries differ culturally, not just linguistically.
The challenge for the technical communication professionals is to both learn technical communication skills and also have broad cultural knowledge of how culture is perceived at a subliminal level, at a behavioral level, and at a symbolic level. The tech comm professionals of tomorrow need interdisciplinary skills that combine the fields of technical communication, cross-cultural communications, digital marketing, and international business—with a heavy dose of empathy-orientation (which is crucial for just about any person to truly connect with another human being).
SA: There’s a lot of jargon associated with the work you do. Can you help our readers understand the difference between translation and localization?
NS: Localization is the process of adapting products and services (e.g., websites, manuals, and software applications) to the linguistic, cultural, technical, functional, and other locale-specific requirements of the target market. Whereas translation is just the linguistic aspect of localization. The goal of translation is to achieve meaning equivalence by ensuring idiomatic, vocabulary, and conceptual equivalence.
SA: In your online lectures, you provide some excellent guidance on localization strategy. One of the most interesting topics you address is the question of whether to standardize or to localize content. Can you explain the difference to our readers and help them understand which one might be the better choice (assuming there is a better choice)?
NS: A simple and safe answer is that whenever we are trying to connect with other locales, it is important to understand their expectations and present the content accordingly. On one hand, globalization and technology has led to the homogenization of some aspects of global culture; but on the other hand, we see strong forces of creolization demanding marketers pay attention to local norms and needs. Perhaps, one way to handle the standardization versus localization issue is to see to what extent the end user utilizes the products and services for self-expression. The higher the degree of self-expression associated with a product, the more localization the product will need—especially cultural customization. For example, products like food, cosmetics, and clothing are very much culturally determined. While we may think people buy Levis denim jeans for the Americana image, jeans are sold in local markets and should meet the needs of local body and figure types.
SA: Choosing the right strategic approach is dependent on a variety of factors, the most important of which seems to be creating engaging content that resonates with your target audience. Effective communication relies on many techniques, most of which writers learn in school. But one important factor you discuss often is the importance of creating content that your audience can trust. How big a role does trust play when communicating cross-culturally?
NS: Let me answer this question from the aspect of online trust. Past research has shown that online trust is one of the major determinants of successful conduction of e-commerce. People do business with those that they like, know, and trust. Without trust, e-commerce cannot reach its full potential. In fact, many past studies have shown that online trust tends to reduce the perceived online risk for consumers, which leads to a more favorable attitude toward the site and encourages online activity.
In the global context, engendering online trust is even more important for domestic e-commerce, since the commonly associated sources of trust, such as prior knowledge of the merchant, familiarity with the business, and social and legal structures, are missing. Your international clients may not know your brand or may see you as a foreign company without in-country support. They may even have consumer ethnocentric feelings. However, many e-businesses have not achieved enough familiarity to generate trust. Even big multinationals are sometimes seen with skepticism when marketing in foreign markets. For example, Coca-Cola and Pepsi got a tarnished image in India when traces of pesticides were found in their cola; this violated Indian consumers’ trust. As a result, Coke acted immediately with “safety guaranteed” stickers, newspaper ads, public tours of Coca-Cola plants in an attempt at regaining lost trust.
SA: I have on my desk a copy of The Little Book of Transcreation by Humphrey, Somers, Bradley, and Gilpin. It’s one of my go-to sources for addressing challenges when attempting to translate creative content. Can you help our readers understand what transcreation is and why they might need to employ the approach?
NS: Transcreation is all about taking our blinders off, or what we call the “self-reference criteria,” to truly and empathetically understand the target audience in order to create effective translations that can really hit the sweet spot. But I see transcreation as just one aspect of localization. An example of how this may work: The “Indianization” of Spiderman is a good example of how global brands can be imbued with local meaning and marketed and integrated in the local psyche. In the Indian adaptation, Pavitr Prabhakar (a phonetic distortion of Peter Parker) roams the streets of Bombay (Mumbai) instead of Manhattan. Indian culture is very eclectic in terms of the numerous forms of gods that are worshipped and Spiderman is even being integrated with Indian myths and religion. During one religious celebration there were reports and blog posts of Indians celebrating and worshiping “Spiderman-Ganesh,” in which Spiderman is infused into Lord Ganesh, the Indian god of good luck and prosperity.
SA: Cross-cultural communication often gets lumped in with translation or multilingual communication. But, cross-cultural communication challenges aren’t limited to multilingual communication situations. Cross-cultural content customization challenges can exist in our own cultures, amongst people who speak the same language as we do. Can you point to an example and explore how transcreation could have a positive impact?
NS: Take for example, the U.S. Hispanic culture, which is a major sub-culture in America that has its own unique cultural aspects. In fact, past studies have shown that Hispanics selectively adapt and create a positive relationship with the majority American culture, while being strongly rooted in their unique ethnic identity. Online, many Hispanics prefer Spanish content—or both Spanish and English content.
In a previous research study I conducted in 2008, a Hispanic focus group participant stated: “You really need to show me that you understand our culture because if you have a website in Spanish but at the same time Hispanics see that it does not say or it does not have knowledge of our culture, then we will reject such a site.” With the growing Hispanic market, I would say several U.S. marketers have been transcreating content for Hispanic culture, and this has helped those companies to strike a chord with Hispanic consumers.
SA: Marketers and technical communicators are starting to find ways to work together, but they seldom use the same approaches. Take, for example, personas. Marketers tend to arrange people into persona groups based on commonly shared characteristics. Theoretically, this is supposed to improve their ability to target people in these groups with the right content. But, when you add culture, language, and other factors to the mix, it becomes clear that this may not be the best approach. Can you talk to us about Geert Hofstede’s Six Dimensions of National Culture and why leveraging them might prove a useful strategy for technical communicators?
NS: I think the most important thing for marketers, technical writers, and other communicators, is to deeply understand prospective customers. First, run a survey to determine where your target prospects fall on the continuum of global and national/cultural identity. I have devised a tool that allows companies to identify the global and national identities of their prospects. Once you understand these dimensions, you can effectively optimize your localization and marketing budgets. If the majority of your prospects are extremely global minded, then there may not be much need to employ a heavily localized strategy.
On the other hand, if your prospects are really high on national identity then it may become imperative to pay special attention to a higher degree of localization. Once this is determined, you can deal with how to leverage cultural dimensions of Hofstede or someone else.
My approach is to look at a culture holistically. Most of Hofstede’s dimensions only touch on behavioral aspects of culture, but there are also perceptual and symbolic aspects of culture that cannot be ignored … this can be a long discussion, so I better stop now.
SA: Learning about localization can be challenging for working professionals. Can you recommend any resources to help our readers get started?
NS: The Localization Institute (www.localizationinstitute.com) is great for professional development—both for the project management certifications and the new Global Digital Marketing and Localization certificate program that I developed. They also host roundtables and workshops for localization project managers.
Conferences to network and learn new technologies and skills include Localization World (www.locworld.com) held in North America, Europe, and Asia ever year, and Brand2Global (www.brand2global.com).
Multilingual Magazine (www.multilingual.com) has great vendor assistance resources as well as excellent articles covering relevant topics and trends.
Association-wise, check out the Globalization and Localization Association (www.gala-global.org) and the folks at Common Sense Advisory (www.commonsenseadvisory.com) are other good resources.
And lastly, shameless self-plug here for my books: Localization Strategies for Global e-Business and The Culturally Customized Website.
SA: Thanks for sharing your knowledge with our readers. I really appreciate your time and value your expertise.
NS: Thanks, Scott. I enjoyed participating and look forward to reading the interview.
