http://bixaldev.bixaldigitalmedia.com/index.php/site/index/ en carla.briceno@gmail.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-03T00:46:28+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/partnership_to_ensure_high-quality_spanish-language_federal_communicat/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/partnership_to_ensure_high-quality_spanish-language_federal_communicat/#When:23:46:28Z We recently learned about the renewal of a collaborative agreement between the General Services Agency (GSA) and the The North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE per its Spanish language acronym). Under the renewed agreement, ANLE will serve as the academic amr, supporting GobiernoUSA’s initiatives to provide Spanish-language standards for use by federal agencies and the contractors that support them in this area, including standards development and government-wide glossaries. Laura Godfrey, who manages GobiernoUSA and is also a member of the ANLE, said on behalf of GSA that “the value of the relationship with ANLE is clear and can only grow as we work together on issues of common concern.  Our mutual goals are service to Spanish-speakers and respect for the norms of the Spanish of the United States.” This is excellent news for federal agencies, who will benefit from the guidance and standards to develop high-quality, consistent communications, and also to members of the Hispanic community with limited English skills who need access to important government information to become more effective citizens and residents. More details are available in this ANLE Press Release. Government, US Hispanic 2012-02-02T23:46:28+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/using_public_data_to_tell_compelling_stories/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/using_public_data_to_tell_compelling_stories/#When:18:55:19Z I recently had the opportunity to get together with Alex Barth of Development Seed and Mark Hugo Lopez of Pew Hispanic, two talented colleagues playing important roles in their respective ways. The focus of our conversation was on how to use public data to tell compelling stories through the lenses of data visualization tools, specifically maps and interactive graphs and charts.  Alex shared some examples of the innovative work that Development Seed is doing in this area, including the NPR’s interactive Census map, the Opportunity Index, and the World Bank’s Climate for Development map.  The Census map provides an astonishing level of interactivity and detail, allowing you to drill all the way down to the census tract level for detail on the tract’s race and ethnicity. He also shared info on Mapbox and Tilemill, the two key tools in Development Seed’s MapBox platform that allows anyone to make fast, beautiful, interactive web maps.  Check out their plans for further developing this platform in 2012. (insert link to blog Alex shared) Mark walked us through Pew Hispanic Center’s work in this area, which you can view and interact with on the interactive section of the Center’s website. The Pew Hispanic Center is a part of the Pew Research Center. Pew Hispanic is using both maps and interactive graphics to take large amounts of complex data about the current state of the Hispanic community in the United States and present it in an easy to understand way.  A good example is the Pew Hispanic’s Map on Latinos in the U.S. by Geography, which shows the growth of the Latino population by decade starting from 1980, represented in bubbles, as you move the timeline.  For each decade, you can also hover over the top ten counties and see more detailed data.  Another example of how Pew Hispanic is using interactive visualization tools is seen on the page for a report on Latino Youths. As you move through the interactive data, you can quickly grasp the key results of the exhaustive study and understand many of the key issues that Latino youth are facing.  My goal in getting Mark and Alex together was to have them share their work and see how they could inspire each other, and us here at Bixal, to continue looking for even more innovative ways to use technology and complex public data to tell important stories. Data Visualization, Mapping, Market Research, Technologies, US Hispanic 2012-01-14T18:55:19+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/social_media_in_latin_america_strong_and_growing/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/social_media_in_latin_america_strong_and_growing/#When:01:09:34Z A recently released Comscore report highlights how central social networking is to the Latin American online experience.   In June of 2011, 114.5 million people, representing 96% of the entire population in the region, visited a social networking site, and the audience grew 16 percent in the past year. In terms of time spent, Latin America holds five of the top ten worldwide markets, with Argentina leading the pack at 10 hours per month. Facebook is the overall leader in the region, followed by Windows Live Profile, then Orkut, which has a very strong base in Brazil, and Twitter in fourth place. Facebook ranks second to Orkut in Brazil, but the data shows that Brazilians are far more engaged with Orkut than Facebook. Twitter ranks higher in Venezuela with one in four Venezuelans visiting in June of 2011. Another popular social networking site in the region is Slideshare, with Peru leading all markets across the globe, followed by Venezuela and Colombia. These levels of engagement and growth represent and excellent opportunity for marketers and communicators to use these new channels to promote their brands and messages with an increasingly connected community. Latin America, Online Marketing, Social Media, Facebook, Twitter 2011-12-25T01:09:34+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/lessons_learned_from_an_evening_with_nci_en_espanol_and_voice_of_ameri/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/lessons_learned_from_an_evening_with_nci_en_espanol_and_voice_of_ameri/#When:20:21:42Z In my last blog, I shared some of the key points made by the team at Voice of America at our Reaching Latinos Online meetup. In this blog, I present some of the highlights from Nelvis Castro's panel presentation on the National Cancer Institute's Spanish-language web presence. Spanish-Language Web Strategy is Informed by Audience Research In response to a question regarding how the NCI decides what information to provide in Spanish, Nelvis explained that they make these decisions based on research they have reviewed or conducted to understand the Hispanic community’s needs when it comes to information on cancer. They do focus groups with members of the community and review commonly asked questions to NCI’s Cancer Information Service, 1-800-4-CANCER. They also review research reports by other organizations. Two Common Misperceptions that Impact Effective Hispanic Outreach During the presentation, Nelvis shared her perspective on two misconceptions around government outreach to the Hispanic community that she has worked to overcome over the years because she believes that they limit government agencies’ efforts to effective outreach: 1) Hispanics are hard to reach, and 2) You need to localize Spanish for each community in the United States to communicate with the Latino community. Misconception 1: Hispanics are hard to reach. Nelvis pointed out that Latinos are not hard to reach. You just need to take time to understand them and learn how to communicate with them, but Hispanics are interested and appreciative of useful health information provided by the government. Misconception 2: You have to Localize Everything for All Groups. Over the years, Nelvis has worked to counter the idea that to reach the Latino community, you have to provide localized version of your information for each community, e.g., Mexicans, Cubans, etc. She has often heard this as an excuse not to invest in outreach efforts because it would be too expensive. Her perspective is that, if you use a well written Spanish free of colloquialisms and terms that are country-specific only, you will effectively reach the Hispanic community. You don’t need to create several localized versions of the same material to communicate with the Hispanic community. NCI’s Translation Process The National Cancer Institute uses certified translators with strong science or medical backgrounds to translate its materials because they want to ensure that it is scientifically correct. When content is translated and submitted, it is reviewed by NCI project managers to ensure quality, consistency, and the use of appropriate medical terminology. Given that they have staff from a number of different countries, including Colombia, Peuu, Mexico and Cuba, they are also able to ensure that the Spanish is understandable for the overall Hispanic community. Nelvis also mentioned that NCI has begun using a translation memory software on a pilot basis. Mobile Version of NCI’s Bilingual Dictionary NCI developed a bilingual dictionary of cancer terms. They are able to use hyperlinks to specific terms in the dictionary that are referenced on their website to promote more comprehensive understanding and consistency. This dictionary of cancer terms is available on the NCI Website. The Lance Armstrong Foundation has also made a mobile version of this dictionary available for the IPhone, and Nelvis mentioned that the number of Spanish-language visitors exceeds those using it in English. Important Role of Young Latinos Nelvis commented on the importance of understanding the role of young Latinos and the important role they often play in helping their families access medical information and often serving as interpreters, at times for their parents who need information in Spanish and for other families who may not even be able to read. Results NCI’s Spanish-language website gets a good amount of traffic: approximately 500,000 visits and one million page views per month. A significant portion of this traffic comes from Latin America, which should not be surprising given that this disease affects people worldwide, and they are looking for high-quality, credible information on this important topic too. Events, Government, Health, Hispanic Youth, Strategy, Bilingual Strategy, Translation Management , US Hispanic 2011-12-14T20:21:42+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/highlights_from_an_evening_with_the_national_cancer_institute_and_the_/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/highlights_from_an_evening_with_the_national_cancer_institute_and_the_/#When:22:14:46Z We recently had the opportunity to host Clara Dominguez and Iscar Blanco from the Voice of America's Latin American Division and Nelvis Castro of the National Cancer Institute for a lively panel discussion on the topic of Bilingual / Multilingual Strategy and Translation Management. Although there were many great points made and discussed at the meetup, below I present some of the key highlights shared by the talented team at Voice of America. I’ll share my key takeaways from Nelvis Castro of the NCI in our next blog.  A Global News Organization VOA is a multimedia global news organization that broadcast in 43 languages. VOA employs approximately 1,000 people here in the DC area and has bureaus all over the world. They have one Internet platform to support their work worldwide.  Because they broadcast to countries throughout Latin America, they have to develop stories that are of interest to people across the Americas, as well as localized content at a regional and country level. Using Data to Inform Strategy Iscar talked about how they regularly review analytics data to identify trends and topics of interest to write about, and he highlighted how useful and important this has become in their daily activities.   Synergizing Across Regions and Countries  They have two editorial meetings each day with their colleagues from different regions where they share their respetive top stories. This allows them to identify stories that would be of interest to audiences in other regions. In some cases, they are able to synergize, e.g., Chavez travelling to China. The story is covered in both languages. Originally written in Chinese, it is then translated into English and then translated into Spanish. Fast-Paced Multilingual Journalism Producing a story at VOA is very much a team effort and the VOA Latin America Team moves quickly. Iscar described a typical scenario of how a story comes together and how quickly things move….“One person may be working on the title...another person is finding the right picture...and another person is calling an expert for a quote on the topic. When it gets to a certain point, someone will take all the pieces and put it together." Thereafter it goes to editorial. At VOA, they don’t use translators. Clara explained that one reason they don’t is because most of their journalists are bilingual and can translate the stories that are of interest to others in the organization. They explained that you really can’t translate a news story word for word.  Clara and Iscar added that when you translate a story, it’s news. It’s different than your typical literal translation and in the process of translating, it can become a richer news story. It also has to do with time. They need to move quickly to get stories out, because, as they explained, people are less patient than they used to be. Type of Spanish they Use When they produce stories at VOA, they can’t localize their articles for all the various subsegments of the audience. They write in such a way that the person in Venezuela, the person in Mexico, will understand what they are reading. Clara said “When you write in Spanish, you need to write in a universal Spanish so that everybody, anywhere can understand what you are trying to convey. Need to Keep Content Fresh Iscar highlighted the importance of always keeping your web content fresh, because users will quickly get frustrated if they don’t see changes on your website. Using Social Media  VOA has integrated social media into its overall web presence, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Clara explained that social media is an important platform to disseminate information, and that they use it to inform and interact with their audience, receive feedback and promote their programs. Mobile on the Rise  One of the meetup participants inquired about the number of mobile visits. Iscar explained that a large portion of their visits come from mobile phones, and he highlighted the importance of writing for both mobile and the web. Training Young Journalists Throughout the World  Clara briefly mentioned the VOA’s journalist training program, but didn’t have time to go into detail. However, you can find more information on their past training activities in Latin America by visiting the VOA website. Events, Latin America, Online Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Bilingual Strategy, Multilingual Strategy 2011-12-02T22:14:46+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/bilingual_multilingual_web_strategy_and_translation_management_-_novem/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/bilingual_multilingual_web_strategy_and_translation_management_-_novem/#When:23:04:28Z We are very excited to welcome Nelvis Castro, Associate Director, Communications at National Cancer Institute from the National Cancer Institute, Iscar Blanco, Supervisor and Managing Editor at Voice of America's Spanish-language Website, and Clara Dominguez, Managing Editor of VOA’s Latin America Division, to share their perspectives on what it takes to develop a strong bilingual / multilingual webpresence and talk about the intricacies of the translation process. Some of the questions we'll be asking our guests in this roundtable discussion include: How is your Spanish-language web presence integrated into your overall communications strategy? What do you consider the most important points to take into consideration when developing a bilingual / multilingual strategy? Describe your organization's content development / translation process and its strengths and weaknesses? What tools do you currently use to facilitate the translation process? How do you deal with internationalization issues? How does your organization deal with the diversity of Spanish in the U.S. and Latin America? Do you think that there is a “neutral” Spanish? Please join us on November 17th at 6pm to learn and share your perspectives on these interesting topics. Visit our Reaching Latinos Online meetup group to get signed up and read more about our guests.  Events, Government, Health, Latin America, Strategy, Bilingual Strategy, Multilingual Strategy, Translation Management 2011-11-12T23:04:28+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/reaching_latinos_with_valuable_health_information_-_medlineplus_en_esp/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/reaching_latinos_with_valuable_health_information_-_medlineplus_en_esp/#When:14:04:58Z On one of the worst nights for weather in the Greater DC area in September, we had the great fortune of hosting a presentation on the Spanish-language government website MedlinePlus en español. Fedora Braverman, who manages the day to day operations of the site, and Loren Frant, who leads the MedlinePlus.gov team at the National Library of Medicine, braved the harsh rains and flooding to share their experience with the group. Fedora provided a walkthrough of MedlinePlus en español, highlighting the different types of content provided for Latinos in the United States and sharing the details of how they go about producing it. Below I present some of the key ideas shared at the meetup, both in Fedora’s presentation and the dynamic Q&A session that followed. If you were there and have additional points, please share them in the comments.  If you weren’t there, but have questions, please feel free to ask those here, and we’ll ask Fedora to answer them.  Making Content Culturally-Relevant  Fedora highlighted the importance of not just doing “translation,” but adapting the content to ensure that it is culturally-relevant and resonates with your Hispanic audience. When they do translations for MedlinePlus en español, they think of it more as “cultural adaptation,” and are concerned with the cultural relevance of the information they're sharing. Fedora made the point that if the audience is not able to identify with your website, they won't stick around very long.   Importance of Understanding Variations in Terminology  Fedora also talked about the need to understand how health and medical terms vary in Spanish depending on country of origin. She gave the example of the word flu in English. In some countries, they call it "gripe" and in others they call it "influenza.” MedlinePlus uses an index where these terms are cross-referenced so that users are able to find the information using the terminology that they are familiar with.   Making Information Accessible  In terms of making the site accessible and facilitating navigation, MedlinePlus provides prominent access to MedlinePlus en español on the MedlinePlus homepage, and has opted for the model of providing a full parallel site. Understand Your Audience Fedora talked about the importance of understanding your audience and making sure that your content is relevant and meets their needs. She pointed out that the audience for MedlinePlus en español is different than that of MedlinePlus. They use a set of well defined personas to ensure that they are keeping the particular segments they are trying to reach in mind as they develop content for the Hispanic site.  Focus on Ensuring Quality Content MedlinePlus en español works hard to ensure that the content it provides on the Hispanic site is culturally-relevant and of the highest quality possible.  They are also very careful about linking to external information provided by other organizations. They have established a set of guidelines to make sure that this content is accurate, up-to-date, produced by reputable sources, available at no charge, etc.  Fedora mentioned that it is not always easy to find good content on health topics in Spanish. One example of a high-quality content source that the link to is Nacersano, the March of Dime’s Spanish language web presence. She also mentioned that they like to link to sites with multimedia.   Concern for Readability  In addition to their concern for quality, MedlinePlus en español is concerned about ensuring that the content provided on the site is readable. Prior to publishing new content, they use the Huerta Index to analyze the readability of the content to ensure that it is at the right reading level for their audience.  Visual Design Preferences for the Hispanic User are Different  MedlinePlus en español found that Latinos prefer more vibrant and warm colors than the general market and this is reflected in the visual design of the Hispanic site. In the post-presentation discussion, Laura Godfrey from Gobiernousa.gov shared that this was also the case for GobiernoUSA.gov.  These were just a few of the useful points shared by Fedora and Loren that stormy evening in September. We thank them for coming out to share their experience and knowledge, and look forward to continuing the discussion and learning at future events. View the presentation on Slideshare here. MedlinePlus en español View more presentations from bixal Government, Health, Online Marketing, Content, US Hispanic 2011-11-01T14:04:58+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/how_can_internationally-focused_organizations_effectively_use_blogging/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/how_can_internationally-focused_organizations_effectively_use_blogging/#When:20:52:38Z I had the opportunity to attend Blogging without Borders, organized by our colleagues from the Inter-American Development Bank, FastrackMedia, and the Web Managers Roundtable yesterday at the IDB. Three panelists shared their perspectives and provided insight on how they use blogging to achieve their goals.  Although all three were very informative, I wanted to share some of the specific lessons I came away with from Shanta Devarajan, the Chief Economist for the Africa Region at the World Bank who runs the blog Africa Can. The following points made by Shanta may may be useful to individuals in international organizations, or in any type of organization for that matter, as they contemplate how they will use their blog as one way to achieve their missions/goals: He sees blogging as an integral part of his job that envles him to share ideas and important evidence-based research with his readers in a direct and easy to understand format to inspire discussion, get feedback, and inform those in who can make important decisions on related policies that will have an impact in Africa.   Ideas you share don’t have to be fully-baked.  They can be ¼ baked, but you can use a blog to share those ideas and have them critiqued to further refine or figure out that you were going down the wrong path. It’s important to write in a more personal and direct tone to really engage your readers and connect with them at a more personal level. In addition to being clearly written, your blog needs to have a personality and be engaging. Using other types of media, such as pictures and videos, can increase traffic and feedback. You don’t necessarily have to have a conclusion for your blog. You can use it to share an idea and / or obtain feedback, but don’t assume that you have to have a conclusion for every blog you write. Shanta invites his colleague to do guest blogs and mentioned that at times he has to edit them to loosen them up a bit in terms of tone. When inviting guest bloggers, he looks for people who are passionate about the topic, because that is an important factor in making the blog engaging. It’s important that senior staff in the organization create the space that will motivate individuals within the organization to blog and share. Shanta noted that the blogs that are written in French actually get more comments than those in English. I hope these great insights are useful in some way as you formulate your organization’s blogging strategy.  You can visit Shanta’s blog and follow him on Twitter for more inspiration!  International Development , Online Marketing, Content 2011-10-21T20:52:38+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/white_house_and_gsa_crowdsource_useful_ideas_around_providing_content_/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/white_house_and_gsa_crowdsource_useful_ideas_around_providing_content_/#When:00:50:55Z The National Dialogue to Improve Federal Websites ends this evening, and a number of great ideas have been shared around the important topic of Content in Other Languages. I am honored to have been given the opportunity to serve as a Discussion Catalyst by the White House and GSA, and have enjoyed learning from all of those who participated around this topic and many others. Being that today is the last day, I wanted to share some of the interesting ideas shared, voted on and discussed.    Making Multilingual Online Presence “Sustainable” Laura Godfrey of GobiernoUSA.gov made an important point in light of the federal government’s renewed commitment to Executive Order 13166.  Laura noted that the government should produce content for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) populations in a sustainable manner; in other words, service to LEP populations should be integrated into the government’s overall customer service strategy so that it can endure.  I think that her point is key, because unlike many of the other ideas, which were tactical in nature, Laura's addressed strategy. After all, without a strong strategy, tactics won't take you very far. Ensure Cultural Relevance Ensure that content for multilingual and LEP audiences is culturally relevant, not just a word-for-word translation of the content developed for English speakers. This is particularly important for certain types of information (e.g. health-related information) and should be considered early on in the process of understanding audiences and developing websites, not after a website has been fully developed in English. Translation vs Cultural Adaptation Felipe Korzenny, author of the recently published Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer, noted that translations often miss the cultural context of communication (i.e. things get lost in translation). A cultural adaptation of the text usually better conveys the intended message. Thus starting the communication from scratch (eg in Spanish) after assimilating the intended meaning is more effective than simply translating the words. Importance of testing multilingual content / design with representative users Test multilingual content / design to ensure usability and understand audience needs.  Very often, content and design in other languages is not tested with representative users. Given that the designers, developers and content producers are often very different than these end user groups, it is even more important to test design and content, particularly to ensure that the design is appealing and that the content is readable, understandable and culturally relevant.  Exploit the Possibilities Offered by Social Media Our colleagues at Social Media Spanish, who have done some great work with CDC, recommended that government agencies should use social media to reach multilingual users, especially the Hispanic community. All agencies need to have a presence in different social media platforms to connect directly to their audiences in their specific language. This should be an open dialogue where agencies can listen and learn from these audiences and then provide useful and relevant content on their websites and social media channels.  Google Translate - You Get What You Pay For  One participant proposed that all sites be required to add Google Translate code.  The chief advantage of this approach is that it is cheap. This idea was proposed early on in the dialogue and was the subject of some vehement objections. Although automated translation has improved over the years, it is not a real solution to convey important government information to these audiences who oftentimes need the (clearest) information more than others. The absence of much support for this idea (it received 27 negative votes) reflects a a lack of confidence in the use of automated tools for use in providing content to speakers of other languages. You can view the whole list of ideas here: A National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites  We look forward to learning more about the next steps, and how the government is going to use all of the good ideas that were crowdsourced to inform the process of improving federal websites.  Kudos to the White House and GSA for reaching out to the community to consult with the community and surface as many good ideas as possible to guide the process of improving the government's web presence.   Events, Government, Hispanic Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media, US Hispanic 2011-10-05T00:50:55+00:00 http://www.bixal.com/blog/national_dialogue_on_improving_federal_websites_starts_this_monday/ http://www.bixal.com/blog/national_dialogue_on_improving_federal_websites_starts_this_monday/#When:16:50:05Z Have ideas regarding how the government can improve Federal websites?  If so, please join us in participating in an exciting initiative that starts Monday:  The National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites to share them! The Dialogue is a nationwide, two-week online conversation with web experts and the public to generate ideas for re-inventing how the federal government delivers information and services online.  It's part of the larger .gov Reform Initiative launched earlier this summer by the White House and the U.S. General Services Administration. The dialogue will launch Monday, Sept. 19 at 2 pm ET and run until Friday, Sept. 30. You'll be able to access it at: http://www.usa.gov/webreform/dialogue.shtml The purpose is to allow people to submit and vote on ideas for improving various aspects of improving federal websites, such as:  content, search, usability, accessibility, social media, multilingual content, and online services. The .gov Task Force will review the ideas and consider them as they develop a National Web Strategy and make recommendations for streamlining federal websites, strengthening federal web policy, and improving citizens'  experience with federal websites. I'm honored to be part of a group of web experts who have volunteered to serve as discussion catalysts, to help spur the conversation.  So I'll be chiming in regularly to the discussion and hopes you can join her to submit your ideas and comment on others. You can also follow comments about the dialogue on Twitter using the hashtag  #dotgov. Please spread the word with others in your network and encourage them to get involved in this very important conversation.  Events, Government, US Hispanic 2011-09-17T16:50:05+00:00