The Hidden Costs of Cross-Cultural Documentation
Marie-Louise Flacke, Paris, France

For businesses, localization is essential to increasing overseas revenue. Going beyond translation and providing an effective localization for each target country is the key to successful global marketing. Project managers neglecting cultural, legal, and geographical aspects of a target country might damage the company’s image and definitely increase localization costs. Including local experts in the localization team and setting up a direct connection between management and country specialists is a good way to reach a cost-effective localization.

Marie-Louise Flacke is a graduate of the American University of Paris (Technical Writing Program). Since 1993, she has been involved in international documentation and her experience in technical communication includes IT, telecoms, network security and aeronautics. She is also proficient in localisation QA, providing content and testing usability of e-documentation. She is Vice President of INTECOM and a member of the French society for Technical Communication (CRT) and of Tekom, Germany. In 2003, she was appointed Judge to the European Technical Documentation Competition. In 2005, she ran several workshops in technical writing at the University of Brest, France (Master's Degree in Technical Writing/Translation).