Joining a web 2.0 start-up to lead its Globalization effort was an eye opener for me in many ways. It required a bit of work-style adjustment on my part: from a no-walls environment where we may be visited at any time by one of our mascot dogs, to doing some coding myself, to the sound of a foosball game, to a more informal development process than I was used to (oops, did I use the p word?), to a do-it-yourself, hands-on attitude on just about everything.
But nowhere was the difference more noticeable than in the budget. At a small company every single dollar counts, and I knew right away that I would have to adopt a leaner and meaner approach to managing the internationalization and localization of our next generation product. That's where Skype came in.
Skype had been part of my life for a while already. I use it to communicate with family and friends in the UK, Brazil, France and Japan. Now I've put it to use at Plaxo, eliminating one of the most obvious costs in globalization: communication with partners, localizers, testers and power users of our product who live half a world away.
I simply ask people if they Skype. If they don't, I suggest they install it and recommend an inexpensive headpiece set. That way I can talk with any of my international associates for as long as needed. We use it to discuss bugs, test a feature real-time in different locales to gauge its implications for non-US users, or make sure localization instructions are well understood.
SkypingAround has become such an integral part of my day that I can no longer justify using the phone -- not even with one of the VoIP plans -- for any business related long distance calls. If other globalization managers are not following this model they should. It's one more budget line item they can eliminate.
By the way, stay tuned for the all new localized Plaxo, coming to you soon!
-- Regina Bustamante
Director, Globalization