SteveKemper.com

Download the new Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack

In the course of doing some research for a client just now, I found some very welcome news. On March 6, Microsoft released a Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. It allows you to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the (far superior in my experience) file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

I've been using Microsoft Office 2007 Pro since I bought it last summer and I could never go back. I'm not going to write a full review here as there are plenty of those out there, but besides the vast usability improvements, the file sizes are typically at least fifty percent smaller than previous versions. That adds up to a lot of disk space saved and also makes files much easier to transfer and e-mail. I point that out because that's a gain that can be had by using this free compatibility pack.

I use Excel a great deal and some of the improvements there are huge. Typically I'd prefer to send you to a 3rd party review, but Microsoft actually sums up the key improvements accurately here:

Microsoft Excel 2007 Top 10 Benefits

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack

Chrysler looks overseas for growth

Chrysler is the latest U.S. company in the news announcing plans to focus on international markets for profit and growth. As the question mark after the word recession has transformed into a bright red exclamation point over the past few weeks, more and more companies are waking up to the opportunities available overseas and the need to shift more focus there. Chrysler Chief Executive Bob Nardelli summed up the situation:

"We sold a record 238,000 vehicles in international markets in 2007 and we're off to a good start in 2008," Nardelli said. "Our year-to-date international sales are up 10% through February, as we reported our 33rd consecutive month of sales growth outside of North America. By 2012, we plan to increase our international sales to more than 400,000 units..."

Chrysler's U.S. sales were down 13 percent in January and February. Of course, shifts like this don't happen overnight—and especially not in the auto industry. Chrysler has been moving in this direction for some time, but not as boldly as some of its rivals.

Chrysler relied on the U.S. market for almost 90 percent of its overall sales of cars and light trucks in 2007, a higher percentage than its Detroit-based rivals GM and Ford Motor Co, which have been able to count on gains in emerging markets to offset losses at home.

Nardelli said Chrysler was taking steps to bolster its presence in fast-growing auto markets like Brazil, Russia, China and India.

All of this will no doubt come as welcome news to Chrysler's employees and suppliers. Nardelli was brought in by Cerberus Capital Management in August after they purchased Chrysler from Daimler AG and has spent the bulk of his time and efforts so far on cost-cutting measures in the U.S. According to the MarketWatch article, he is now trying to accelerate the auto maker's international focus by funneling both money and personnel to that part of the business.

Links:
Chrysler targets overseas growth; plan on track - Reuters
Chrysler CEO focusing on international sales to improve business - MarketWatch

Today: China overtakes U.S. in Web users

Despite having its YouTube site blocked in China over the past few days, Google is bullish on its opportunities there and sees China as a key to weathering the current U.S. recession.

Google Inc.'s position as the most popular Internet search site and sales from fast-growing Asian markets such as China will help the company weather any U.S. recession, Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said.

"One of the very good sources for Google is the very rapid growth in Asia,"' Schmidt said today at a briefing in Beijing. Historically, people tend to shift their money to the most "highly measured"' advertiser when there are "economic difficulties," he said.

And Google isn't alone in looking abroad for growth opportunities. Warren Buffett's strategy over the past few years to "buy foreign" is already paying off, as manifested when he overtook Bill Gates this year as the richest person in the world.

Buffett has been devoting more of Berkshire to non-U.S. companies and investments, reasoning that Americans' love for buying from abroad has led to higher trade deficits and a falling dollar.

"At Berkshire, we will attempt to further increase our stream of direct and indirect foreign earnings," Buffett said in his annual letter to Berkshire shareholders.

Google already generates about half its sales outside the U.S. and it seems that trend is likely to continue. Tucked quietly away in the Bloomberg article is a startling revelation from Google:

Free SMS messages - translated

I'm seeing more and more offerings of technologically mediated international communication bridging language barriers around the world. The latest is a service from Talking Technologies, a division of Nettel Holdings, Inc. The service is free during the current trial period.

I took it for a spin, sending myself an SMS message that the service was to translate into Spanish. I only know enough Spanish to get myself into trouble, but what came through seemed fairly good for machine translation. Next, I sent myself an SMS-to-E-mail message and asked the service to translate it from English to Japanese. Let's hope that the translation engine is improved dramatically before they try to start charging for the service. The translation was pretty dismal.

The press release says the service provides translation in 30 languages, but there are only 13 available now (see the screen shot).

The services offered include:

• Cell to cell text and audio
• Cell to fax
• Cell to land line phone text and audio
• Cell to Email text and audio
• Cell to Instant Messenger (Yahoo or Hotmail)

Link:
Talking Technologies Launched a Unique SMS and Language Translation Technology Designed for Major Cell Phone Industry World Wide.

Free download: Presenation from SearchFest 2008

It was great to meet those of you who were able to make it to SearchFest 2008 yesterday here in Portland. It was a fantastic conference. I speak at and attend a lot of conferences and it's always a pleasant surprise when one goes as smoothly as this one did. It ran on time, the food and beverages were great, the rooms weren't too hot or too cold, all the audio and video equipment worked... An event like this is no accident. Kudos to the SEMpdx folks, the volunteers and the Oregon Zoo catering crew.

I took it as a good sign when I flipped open one of the free magazines being given away, Website Magazine, and found that the first article was entitled Geo Targeting Countries For SEO. It offered a solid, albeit brief introduction to international search engine optimization and covered some of what I had in my presentation. It's great to see this kind of visibility for international SEO. It's definitely a sign of things to come.

All the SearchFest 2008 speakers were first rate. You should be able to download all their presentations as they're uploaded to the site over the next few days. You can download mine from the event website, or grab it here:

International Search Visibility: Go Where the Growth Is (PDF - 726KB)

Please bear in mind that it was only a 30-minute session—including Q&A time. So it's a very high-level view of things. It would take a half-day seminar to do the topic justice. Please ping me if you'd like more information on anything I talked about. Or anything related that I didn't talk about!

I'm thinking about doing an online seminar with an expanded version of this presentation, so stay tuned here or let me know to contact you when I do that.

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Kemper Consulting International, LLC
Your trusted partner for international success online
http://www.kemperconsulting.com/

Come say hi at SearchFest 2008 this Monday

If you're going to be in Portland this coming Monday, March 10—or if you can make it to Portland—please consider attending SearchFest 2008. It's the premier area event for search marketing professionals and those looking to learn how to optimized their sites. [Click the logo to learn more and register]

SEMpdx brings you SearchFest 2008, a full-day search engine marketing conference featuring multiple learning sessions and expert panels to help you leverage search engine marketing (SEM) in your organization. Whether you are an SEM professional, work in an advertising agency or part of an in-house marketing department, SearchFest 2008 will connect you with the leading thinkers and practitioners in SEM today.

I'm doing a session on how to gain maximum visibility in the major international search engines: China, Japan, Germany and so forth. It's a short session so I won't be able to go into a great deal of detail, but we'll have a Q&A session at the end and I'll be sticking around to discuss and answer questions after.

Hope to see you there!

Link:
SearchFest 2008