Background
Our line of business is Multilingual Communications Management,
which is the process of managing integrated multilingual
communications. The way we see it, in order to achieve the true
integration of corporate communications in a global context you need to
solve the problem of one message, many voices.
Every document, textual artifact or piece of information produced by an
organisation reflect, at least in part, the beliefs, values and
knowledge held by that organisation. In organisational writing the end
result is more than the sum of the individual parts of the process:
writing, revising, editing and approving.
When a company publishes a press release, strategy magazine or annual
report, it is not an individual speaking, but the organisation itself.
This fact poses an enormous challenge for all people involved in the
process, whether inside or outside of the source organisation.
When textual production or translation processes, or part of them, take
place outside the source organisation, the problem of knowledge sharing
arises. In some cases these problems can be solved by project briefing,
a thorough use of reference material and proper documentation, or
on-site learning sessions. But far too often all or some of these means
are not used, due to lack-of time, ignorance or poor co-ordination of
activities. Problems frequently manifest themselves in human
interfaces: the wrong people communicate, or rather, the interface
between the organisations is not broad enough for communication to
function properly.
Organisational boundaries amplify these problems because textual
production processes lack centralised co-ordination. Critical parts of
the process, such as planning, initial briefing, and feedback on
original and translated texts, remain unintegrated and are therefore
invisible to many people involved in the process. Managing what you
cannot see is indeed difficult, if not impossible. This is why we
believe there is a need to integrate all phases in the textual
production process, regardless of where the organisational boundaries
are drawn.
The solution, Multilingual Communications Management, comprehends a
systematic methodology and a set of knowledge management tools
especially designed for this purpose. The concept is the result
of 7 years of experience of working with knowledge intensive
processes in the field of Multilingual Corporate Communications.
|
|
|
|
|
Scope