04/25/2005 - 04/26/2005

kwintessential launch multilingual website design service

Fact: Current growth in internet use is not in English speaking countries but in countries such as Russia, Hong Kong and Japan. Having and marketing a foreign language website is a “must�? for companies wishing to go global. Kwintessential, a leading provider of cross cultural communication services, is now offering multilingual website design and search engine marketing as part of its array of acclaimed services.

commonground - launch of new cross cultural marketing agency

commonground, a new cross-consumer marketing agency, has launched in the US, further pointing to a shift towards multi-cultural advertising and marketing campaigns.

mobile expats causing HR departments headaches

Carlos Ghosn is a Brazilian who, from next month, will be spending 40% of his time in Paris as the new boss of Renault, 35% in Tokyo where he will continue as the head of Nissan, and 25% elsewhere, most of it in America. Jean-Pierre Garnier is a Frenchman who heads a British drugs company (GlaxoSmithKline) but spends up to 70% of his working life outside Britain and France. Who is first in line for the tax on these executives' not inconsiderable incomes? And, er, have they got the necessary work permits?

These two bosses are the most visible examples of a growing army of mobile workers who are giving human resources (HR) departments a new sort of headache: how to track where they are and when, for tax and visa purposes.

language and culture needed for effective communication

Among the many barriers to healthcare is effective communication. One major hurdle both patients and providers face is overcoming differences in culture and language. No matter how clearly a provider may think he or she is speaking to a patient, if the words and concepts are too difficult to understand, or are not culturally appropriate, the heart of the message will not be understood.

To provide hands-on solutions to these issues, the Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA), a non-profit organization that provides a wide variety of educational and community healthcare services, hosts its fourth annual health literacy conference on May 5th and 6th at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, California.

sakhr software signs deal with IMC

Information Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) has entered into a strategic agreement with Sakhr Software USA, Inc. to help solve an urgent language problem for U.S. government agencies.

Government agencies must sift through and organize millions of documents in diverse formats to understand the nature of threats against the United States. In countering terrorism, the government has had to rely almost entirely on human translators to render Arabic language information into English before it could be analyzed and mined for critical data.

More recently, translation software has helped to speed up the process, but translation errors and inaccurate phraseology were inherent in software produced in the U.S. and other non-Arabic language nations. With this strategic agreement Sakhr Software USA and IMC are changing that. Their Arabic-to-English translation software, known as Sakhr, presents a unique advantage over other translation software because it was designed linguistically with the Arabic language at its core, allowing it to translate not only words but entire phrases with far greater accuracy than has been possible in the past.

uae internet use set to double by 2009

Internet penetration in the UAE is one of the highest in the region according to new report entitled, 'United Arab Emirates Internet & Datacomm Landscape Report 2005'.

Major findings concluded that internet accounts grew at a rate of 26% from 1999 to 2004. The number of total internet accounts reached nearly 414,000 by end of 2004 while the users stood at an estimated 1,034,000.'

Mr. Andrawes Snobar, the author of the report states that, 'The Arab Advisors Group projects the growth to continue from 2004 to 2009, yet at a lower CAGR of 15%. Much of the new growth will be dialup users upgrading to broadband services. We estimate the total Internet accounts to reach more than 800,000 and the users to reach around 3 million by end of 2009.

word of the day: prolix

prolix \pro-LIKS; PRO-liks\, adjective:
1. Extending to a great length; unnecessarily long; wordy.
2. Tending to speak or write at excessive length.

It was a cumbersome book, widely criticized for being prolix in style and maddeningly circular in argument. --Simon Winchester, "Word Imperfect," The Atlantic, May 2001

Montaigne is a little too prolix in his determination to tell us almost everything that happens as he fishes his way across the country, and he gives us a few too many accounts of the people he meets and of their repetitiously gloomy opinions. --Adam Hochschild, "Deep Wigglers of the Volga," New York Times, June 28, 1998

what is 'culture'?

new cross cultural quiz

A new quiz has been added to Kwintessential's quiz page testing you on your knowledge of gestures from across the globe.

So if you know what the 'thumbs up' means in Iran or a flick of the head in Turkey, put your knowledge to the test.

uk workers want training

Three quarters (77 per cent) of British workers expect to be trained as part of their job, according to a study by Manpower, the UK’s leading employment agency.

The survey also reveals the widespread appetite for skills development.

Saudi expat laws to change

Expatriates in Saudi Arabia, including 1.3 million Indians, can apply for the country’s citizenship under the new naturalisation law from May 23. Some articles of the existing naturalisation law were amended to meet job work requirements and realise the interests of the kingdom and its citizens and professionals like doctors and engineers would be given preference.

Chinese language college to open in Paris

China will establish its fifth Chinese language learning college in France this year to promote Chinese culture overseas.

The prestigious Wuhan University in central China's Hubei Province took the responsibility to jointly set up the college, which is named after the world-renown Chinese philosopher Confucius, with the Universite de Paris 7 Denis Diderot in France,said Peng Yuanjie, director of Wuhan University's international education college on Friday.

hindi search engine under development

After developing the world's first search engine for Tamil language websites, city-based Anna University-K B Chandrasekar (AUKBC) Foundation is now in the process of developing an Internet search engine for Hindi.

"We are at the second stage (alpha level) of the development of Hindi search engine," S Bhaskar, a research scientist at the language technologies division of the foundation, told PTI.

The language technologies division, which comprises of 16 research scientists, last year developed a search engine for Tamil websites, which can do both site specific and web searches.

Bhaskar said the Hindi search engine, perhaps a first of this sort, would be ready in the coming months. Now, only 'webduniya.com' possess a Hindi search engine.

msn video goes spanish

MSN today expanded its offerings for advertisers looking to court U.S. Hispanic audiences, launching a Spanish-language video site and a mini-site for this week's Billboard Latin Music Awards.

"Advertisers are looking at the Hispanic market as a huge opportunity that's largely untapped in the U.S. today," said Karen Redetzki, product manager for MSN Latino. "It's a fast-growing demographic online that's affluent, educated, and very loyal to brands."

Warner Bros. Pictures will be the exclusive sponsor of the Billboard site, and has also bought Spanish-language advertising on MSN Latino's entertainment channel to promote its upcoming horror film, House of Wax.

Double Click take over deal

Internet marketing company DoubleClick Inc. has announced that it agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC for roughly $1.1 billion.

word of the day: scintilla

scintilla \sin-TIL-uh\, noun:
A tiny or scarcely detectable amount; the slightest particle; a trace; a spark.

In victory, they must hold on to at least a scintilla of humility, lest they get too cocky -- and ripe for a takedown. --Bill Breen, "'We are literally trying to stop time,'" Fast Company, May 2000

"I bear her not one scintilla of ill will," he said. --Sarah Lyall, "That Harriman Book," New York Times, May 4, 1994