9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Indispensable, Hence Invaluable, November 18, 2002
This review is from: Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies (Paperback)
I am an eager student of business models and strategies, especially of those formulated for organizations involved in e-business. For that reason, this book's subtitle ("Web Globalization Strategies") caught my eye but I did not know quite what to expect as I began to read it. In the Introduction, Yunker explains precisely what the book is -- and is not -- about. Here is a brief excerpt:
"We live in a world of many languages, many cultures, and many countries, yet we all share one Internet. Initially, English dominated the Internet because English speakers dominated the Internet. Today, more than half of all Internet users are not native-English speakers.
"Want to increase your potential online audience by 200 million people? Create French, Italian, German, and Spanish web sites. Add Japanese and Chinese, and you'll gain another 200 million -- without opening a single international office. Web globalization will open your organization to virtually unlimited opportunities, but also many risks. This book offers guidelines and suggestions for bridging the borders between languages, cultures, countries, and ultimately, people."
Yunker carefully organizes his material within seven Parts, with Part VII ("Appendices") consisting of an in-depth glossary and reference section. He also provides a listing of country codes, language codes, and character sets as well as a chart which explains the significance of various colors around the world. In Parts I through VI, Yunker answers questions which include:
* What are the basics of Web globalization (e.g. lingo and key concepts) to "get a taste" for navigating the multi-lingual Internet?
* What are some of the most common mistakes which organizations make when taking their Web sites global? How and why? Which lessons can be learned from these mistakes? How can other organizations avoid those mistakes?
* What does the Web workflow consist of? What are the key participants? What about costs, especially hidden costs? Why are "internationalization" and "localization" the two foundations of globalization?
* How to select and then manage translators or a translation services provider? How to maintain quality throughout the process? What will be required of copy writers to credit and edit text(s) for a global audience?
* Why is designing for one country much easier than designing for many countries? What is involved when creating and then managing multilingual content? How can cultural and technical obstacles affect Web design?
* Why is it prudent to promote a Web site one country at a time? What is necessary to understand about multilingual search engines, portals, and domain names?
There are six "hands-on" chapters which explain, step-by-step (hand-by-hand?) how to translate a Web site into eight different languages. "Files are also available to download so that you can follow along on your own. By the end of the book, you will have created a web page with a potential reach of more than two billion people." Yunker also includes what he calls seven "Spotlights": a probing analysis of each of several real-world case studies based on Monster.com, L.L. Bean, the Social Security Administration, FedEx, Burton Snowboards, Befrienders International, and FIFA World Cup, respectively. These case studies alone are well worth much more than the cost of the book.
By including in this review the brief excerpt from the Introduction, I hope I have suggested for which decision-makers in which organizations this book will be most valuable, indeed invaluable. Perhaps without intending to do so, Yunker has written a book which will also be of substantial value to those who provide various services to those organizations, services such as consulting, legal, accounting, insurance, logistics, transportation, and fulfillment. These service providers will also need to formulate appropriate web globalization strategies of their own to accommodate the strategies of their client organizations.
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability (1999) and Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed (2001) which Nielsen co-authored with Marie Tahir; Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2000); Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton's Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (Second Edition, 2002); Carla O'Dell's If Only We Knew What We Know: The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice (1998); and Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak's Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know (1997).
I also highly recommend this book to those who are associated with an organization now involved in or considering global e-learning initiatives. They are strongly encouraged to read, also, Allan J. Henderson's The E-Learning Question and Answer Book: A Survival Guide to Trainers and Business Managers (2002).
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A quick glance at web site globalization, December 1, 2002
This review is from: Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies (Paperback)
This book covers such issues of web site globalization as translation, design, development and management. Besides that, it shows in various examples and case studies that globalization aspects should be taken with care to avoid cultural, legal, technical and linguistic traps and pitfalls.
However, not all of the advices should be taken literally, because they can be the author's guessing, not experience. An example is the advice to use Unicode characters to display textual language selection menu in a global gateway web site. Rather than merely not displaying the characters of fonts not installed on a user's computers, a web browser may offer the user to download and install all the fonts needed to properly display all of the characters used on the page. Thus, the North American user will need to download fonts for Traditional Chinese, Kanji and so forth. The user may however choose to skip downloading fonts, but the question dialog box may nag the users, but the author writes nothing about this.
The book tends to expose problems, rather than to focus on solutions, because the solutions in this particular topic (web globalization) may quickly become outdated. Thus, the book encourages the reader to do further research, and offers references to companies that provide translation services and software for web content-management frameworks with globalization support.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Practical Knowledge for the Business Executive and IT Pro, December 15, 2002
This review is from: Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies (Paperback)
This is a fine book I recommend wholeheartedly to business executive and IT professional alike.
Indeed, it is perhaps the most accessible "textbook" I have ever read: well-organized, clearly written and handsomely formatted, Beyond Borders identifies and discusses the business and IT issues involved in making your website "globally ready." John Yunker takes the reader through the process of globalizing from inital preparation to final product.
But this is not a book on theory: it is practical throughout. The author's discussions of "how to do it" are supplemented in virtually every chapter with examples of "how it has actually been done" by companies such as Fedex, GE, Monster, etc. and complemented by brief Q&As with site project managers. In addition, the text is peppered with suggestions for further reading. The index is thorough and useful, and the author clearly lists sources where necessary.
As a writer myself (of the Asia Business Intelligence website), I am primarily concerned with business books that deal directly with Asia. However, Beyond Borders succinctly and practically deals with the business issues involved in web globalization -- one most businessmen are forced to confront -- while explaining the technical issues in plain English. John Yunker deals with all the salient issues you will neet to get a grasp of: global branding, budgeting, project management, language translation, character sets, the applications your company will need to create globalized web pages, etc.
So, if you are responsible for hitting international sales targets or if you manage or work in international marketing, advertising, public relations, market research, or training, you should read this book. It will open your eyes and put the tools in your hands very quickly.
I called it a "textbook" earlier in this review only because it exhaustively covers the subject of web globalization. (Make sure you look at the Table of Contents sample pages provided above.) But it reads very quickly: I read it carefully from cover to cover -- 500 plus pages -- in a total of no more than 10 hours -- a weekend. John Yunker packed a great deal of value into this book, and I strongly recommend you take advantage of it.
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