SteveKemper.com

Guns N' Roses album title raises questions

Why did Axl Rose give Guns N' Roses' first studio album in 17 years a title that he had to know would damage sales in China—where GN'R has a legion of loyal fans—if not preclude them altogether? A snap decision made poorly perhaps? No; he chose the title more than a decade ago. Perhaps he simply doesn't care much about the market? Not true either.

GN'R developed a major following in China in the late 1980s, when the young Mr. Rose was recording early hit songs like "Welcome to the Jungle." China was in the throes of its own rebellious era, and heavy metal was its protest music. GN'R's popularity soared in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. Learning the band's 1991 ballad "Don't Cry" was a rite of passage for a generation of Chinese guitarists.

And the affection has not gone unrequited. Mr. Rose in recent years has visited Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Xian... He now worries, though, that he won't be let back in.

The new album, Chinese Democracy, is unlikely to be released in China and the band's promoters in China have dropped plans for two shows there.

In reality, the lost ticket sales may be the only significant financial sacrifice. A press release from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) early this year asserts that more than 99 per cent of all music files distributed in the country are pirate and China’s total legitimate music market, at US$76 million, accounts for less than one per cent of global recorded music sales.

This was obviously a very deliberate decision by GN'R with some idea of the ramifications. Unfortunately, organizations make bad calls on product names, imagery, iconography, color and subject matter all the time that are not intentional and can prove much more costly. More often than not, they're probably not a big enough transgression to merit front-page coverage in the Wall Street Journal. In fact, some may be so subtle that they simply chip away a few percentage points of visitors to your website, dollars in sales or off-the-radar negative word of mouth. The only way to prevent this is to be sure everything you release is reviewed by someone who is not only an expert in the target-market language and culture, but preferably in the target industry, as well.

Stay tuned for more on this in future articles...

Guns N' Roses' New Album Is Up Against a Chinese Wall  |  Wall Street Journal

Home Depot launches Spanish language site

Watch for a lot more announcements like this one in coming months and years. Hispanics in the U.S. played a larger role than ever in both the pre-election dialogue, as well as the election itself. They will continue to play an ever greater role in the business sector, as well -- both as consumers and as business owners, professionals and a growing percentage of the work force.

A key component of my last company's business was multilingual U.S. ethnic marketing. We created not only localized versions of print material and websites, but completely custom versions, as well. Wells Fargo, Albertsons and Southwest Airlines are just some of the clients that have been doing U.S. ethnic marketing right for some time.

Launching a Spanish-language website is not a gamble for retailers like Home Depot. The numbers and survey data make it clear that the investment is a sound one:

The home-improvement retailer's Spanish site, which launches Monday, replicates its English language e-commerce site, with 12,000 products available to online shoppers.

Home Depot, like many other national retailers, views Hispanics as a lucrative growth opportunity. A study of English and Spanish-language consumers conducted last year by Forrester Research Inc. found that one-fourth of Hispanics must be served in Spanish if retailers want their business. More than half of Hispanics who shop online -- 7.1 million people, by Forrester's count -- prefer Spanish.

Home Depot's New Web Site Opens Door to Hispanics  |  Wall Street Journal

HomeDepot.com en Español

Speak Any Foreign Language--Instantly

Nearly every startup has a lofty mission statement and a plan to change the world. Google may have their detractors, but no one can deny that they're passionately striving to deliver on their mission statement:

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

First that seemed to mean organizing online information in their search index and making it universally accessible via their innovative algorithms. It quickly became apparent that Google takes their mission statement a little more seriously than that. Their offering expanded to include indexing online images and capturing satellite images and making them available online. Along the way they quietly added various specialty searches like U.S. government sites, scholarly papers, programming code. Blog search, book search and street search where you could have a street-level view of addresses -- and walk down the street, viewing the buildings and people unlucky enough to be there when the photo was taken -- as if you were there.

It became clear that Google wanted to get as much information online as possible and make it easily accessible via search. But that wasn't universal enough. When Google said universal, they meant it. And the only way to do that is to make it not only available to everyone, but intelligible for everyone. The only way to do that is to make all the information available in all languages.

Their first step in this direction came in the form of Google Translate -- to which they've added languages over time. Next came Translated Search, which let's you enter search terms in your language and have results displayed side by side in your language and the target language of your choice. I only discovered today that they've now added a dictionary that let's you look up the definitions of words in a number of languages, as well as look up foreign language translations of words between 12 different languages.

The rate at which Google continues to innovate and introduce new products to the market doesn't seem to be slowing. As someone who has spent almost my entire professional career working in multilingual environments and managing teams that span the globe, I find it incredibly exciting.

The Internet lets you connect with people around the world, but in practice you’re really limited to the people with whom you share a common language. What if you could e-mail anyone in their native tongue? What if you could even talk to them in their native language, your voice translated in real time into Vietnamese, Arabic or Swahili? “It’s possible,” Nikesh Arora, Google senior vice president for operations in the Europe, Middle East and Africa, told participants at the Monaco Media Forum.

During a presentation in which he examined some of the big Internet trends of the next decade, Arora demonstrated a new version of Google Talk that allows real-time conversations with somebody who speaks a foreign language. You type in English, and the sentence appears in French, German or whatever. The next step, which could come within the next decade, would be simultaneous voice translation.

Thanks to Google's efforts in this area, the Web is not only world wide -- it's increasingly world friendly.

Google Wants to Let You Speak Any Foreign Language--Instantly | Business Week

Cre8Camp Portland: Great people sharing great ideas

Twitter: #cre8camp, @cre8camp

I almost didn't go to Cre8Camp Portland yesterday. It was Saturday morning. I was feeling lazy. But I'm so glad I went.

I really wasn't sure what to expect. Most of the topics sounded interesting, but none particularly groundbreaking. I was reminded, though, that when a group of brilliant people gets together and engages in brainstorming and discussion, any topic can produce inspiration and fresh ideas. Every session exceeded my expectations.

Here are some of the things I jotted down in my notebook. I didn't have names, so won't be able to attribute things to who said them.

Session 1: Creative Rituals (getting the creative juices flowing)

- I talk to myself a lot to clear the fog and get things moving
- I paint my nails
- I do the dishes or something else I know I can succeed at; that puts me in a place to take on other things
- I like to bounce ideas off someone else; it helps to talk through ideas
- I clear and organize my workspace for a fresh start from my previous project
- Before gas prices shot up, I would go out for a long drive to think and get the creative juices flowing
- I use Julia Cameron's "three-pages a day" method (from her book The Artists Way)
- Visual journaling is helpful for visual creatives
- I recommend the book Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
- Someone asked for tips on how to come up with ideas quickly
-- don't allow yourself to be rushed or put on the spot for ideas
-- turn the pressure around and ask the client more questions; reclaim your space
-- the creative ideas won't resonate unless they come from the client
- Brainstorm keywords and work out from there; keywords are quick and easy to come up with and will get things flowing
- I always need time to percolate; I ask a lot of questions and write down what the client has to say
-- a lot of ideas come to me in the shower or in the middle of the night
-- a friend has a waterproof mark and wipe board in the shower
- It's helpful to tell the client how you think (I come up with my best ideas when I sleep on it, etc.)
- It's important to let the client know when I'm just throwing out ideas as they come to me, brainstorming; I come up with some really horrific ideas in the process, but some good ones, too
- Take your focus off the negative, off what you don't want because you can end up dwelling on and being blinded by that
- Don't ever work from a blank canvas; if your canvas is blank, ask more questions
- Get away from the computer; it's too constraining. I find it helps to sketch on paper
-- my sketches may be crappy, but I'm working toward something
-- the client is less likely to get overly invested in rough draft ideas if they're just sketched on paper rather than mocked up in Visio or something
- A number of people said they use Google Image Search or other image search services for visual stimulation and cues to get the creative juices flowing and get ideas
- Google Notebook, used with the Firefox add on, is a great tool for capturing bits of web pages and images from the Web
- It helps to recite back to the client exactly what they've asked for and what restrictions they've imposed; what they've ruled out

[More to come in follow on posts]

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Cre8CampPortland was held at souk

Test post from Windows Live Writer

I had to do it. It's just such a pretty interface and so full of promise.

[Update: 2008.11.14 @ 9:34 PM]

Okay, Windows Live Writer is one sweet little application. I took it for a test drive shortly after it first came out and uninstalled it almost immediately. But the rough edges have been smoothed and it's loaded with great features. And yet it's still very simple and intuitive.

I'm just getting started with it, but I think I've found my new favorite blog editing application.

Windows Live Writer Team Blog