Panel: What's Globalization?

Tex Texin 00:00 Now we're moving to the last panel discussion of, of the day, which is called what is local is what is globalization. And I want to say that this panel is actually truly global, because we have Rachel, who is joining us literally from the future. She's in Australia, and she is already living her Friday. And on the other hand, we have Doug and tax from California. And we have our wonderful panel moderator, you can have a Sony who is in Barcelona in Spain. So let's find what what's globalization? Right? UK? Yuka Nakasone 00:39 Yes. Hi, go. Hello, thank you very much for this opportunity, because this is one of my favorite subject. Hi, that Hi. Tech's we are working on konnichiwa it's truly horrible. Rachel, Tex Texin 01:05 I think we can. Yeah, she's she's, she's waiting for each. We can probably Yuka Nakasone 01:13 yesterday, actually. Oh. Tex Texin 01:20 Okay. We're still looking for a show. But just a reminder, for everybody who is joining, or I didn't know, they started not from scratch, because we had a 12 hour matter marathon with, with all those presentations. So at the end, we will have everything recorded and split into multiple discussions so people can easily browse those recordings and then and then watch at their own pleasure. Yuka Nakasone 01:46 Yep. And there's so many good discussions. That yeah, I'm almost Oh, you know, 12. Unbelievable. What should I do ego? Should we wait a little? Yeah, Tex Texin 02:06 I believe we can we can actually start introducing our panelists, and we will hope that Rachel will join. Probably she has some technical issues. But yeah, okay. Wait for her. Yeah, thank you. Yuka Nakasone 02:15 So we're going to discuss what globalization today. And Rachel is missing, because she's in the future in Sydney, Australia tomorrow. From me, actually, and other. The other wonderful panelists are here. Let me introduce Tex Texin. Hi, everyone. Hi. He's based in Silicon Valley in California. Let me try to explain because he, uh, he does many things as well. Tex Texin, also known as intellectualization. Guy, is it true? Yes. Yeah. You have a website called www. International a guy? Yeah. So that's where yeah, that's where you can, you can find him. And Tex is a globalization consultant, providing global products, strategy, Unicode, and internationalization architecture and training. And he has created numerous global products, that internationalization development teams and guided companies in taking businesses to new region, regional markets and also contributes in nonprofit activities. He's participating in creating several data standards and open source software and other industry nonprofit organizations. Is that correct? Tex Texin 04:11 Yeah. Yes, that that was all good. Thank you. Yuka Nakasone 04:13 Yeah. Thank you very much for coming. And so he's an engineer. Let's, let's say, right. And another panelist. That is, I'm not sure if I can read his introduction because I like like this, but that book is this correct book. Doug Bruhnke 04:42 In katakana, Boo Ron Yuka Nakasone 04:46 key, brand key point, brand key Frankie Douglas banky, founder and CEO of the global chamber What a name. And Doug is not not a professional in the localization industry. But he did stay in a holiday last night. Yeah, he's a he's a chemical engineer, turn. Global Business executive when du Pont's executive executive in Asia retired at no one wanted the job. Then he turned into a global intrapreneur when he early retired, oh my god and found it global chamber. Global chamber is now growing in 525 metropolitan areas in 195 countries everywhere in the world. Dag hopes he he'll be more than a weird curiosity today. Right? So yeah. And thank you for coming. And actually, if you if anybody is watching doesn't know global chamber. It's an organization like a little bit like Chamber of Commerce, is it right? Helping companies to go to certain region or certain country or certain city to develop their business and make money? The correct? Doug Bruhnke 06:41 It is it's the only global chamber dedicated to the global tribe, people who are growing their business across borders. So yes, thank you. ppreciate. Yuka Nakasone 06:50 So this is that. And thank you for coming. Hi, Rachel. Rachel Carruthers 06:55 Hi, I'm so sorry. I'm a bit late. I had some trouble connecting. Yuka Nakasone 07:04 So here she is. Richard. Richard causa, this is a challenging surname for me as well for a Japanese. Did they pronounce it correctly? Rachel Carruthers 07:21 It's Carruthers quite clear. Yuka Nakasone 07:26 And she's head of localization at Canva. Many of you know what is Canva is right. I mean, it's a graphic design platform. Is it correct? Yes. So she's looking over globalization at Canva. And Rachel and her team's help go to market strategies in key growth markets. They also focus on giving Canva users a product experience that feels truly local food localization of not just the platform itself, but the content within it. So that Rachel, welcome to the first panel. So, yeah, today we are talking about globalization. And why I, I came so curious about this subject is when I was leading a globalization effort at Big Blue, which is a retail technology company in Barcelona. I was doing let's say internal presentation, to evangelize localization and globalization internally. And I realized that my audience coming from different functions in the company had different notion of the word globalization. So when I said I read globalization at the reaction was very interesting. So I started to integrate what's globalization at the first of my presentation, that's, that's how I develop this concept of what's called position and I, I like to explore a little bit about this with all of you today. And so first question, first we have to defined what school is ation right. So, definition of globalization. Let me share the presentation Yeah, so, yeah, definition of globalization. What does globalization means to you? Let's go round. And tell us what it is what it means to you. Okay. So first, Tex. Sure, well. So globalization is originally a term that comes from economics. And it has to do with companies that want to participate in the global economy and enter into foreign markets. And that that term became adopted by companies to this to the, describe the activities they had in adapting their products and services, to different markets. So went from an economic definition to one that companies use to describe their activities to get into those markets. And then it became a definition for those of us that design and support products and services, the actions that that we take, which is to specifically modify the products for individual markets. And it came to be both internationalization and localization. Localization, as you know, is tailoring a product to meet the needs of end users, their cultural and linguistic requirements. And then internationalization in in my mind, is really two things. One is to remove assumptions about cultural assumptions from products so that the product or service can be used in any market. Whereas localization is the adaptation of the product for the markets. But the other piece that I think is really important for internationalization is to be able to support these different markets efficiently. It's often the case that you can, you can do lots of things to get into a market and modify your product to support a market. But it needs to be efficient over the life of the product, which which has to do with supporting it. As you produce new versions to make it to add new languages. And so it's really, for me internationalization is about being efficient in being able to support these different markets, and then make that easy for localization. Does that help? Yeah, thank you very much. So the thing is precise. So you said that it came from the economic economical word, like general meaning is to expand business activities internationally. And it became a little technical, and in your world, this is globalization is localization plus internationalization? And actually, you're very specialized in internationalization as well. Right. Yeah, it was very, very interesting, because the the panel discussion before Roe, the legal lead, they talked about ROI of localization. And Chris England from active Sorry, I forgot the name of the company. A he shared that this will position has to be defined really well. So I try to do it alone. Was this this presentation as well. So that's that. And next, Rachel, would you like to share what's the definition of globalization for you, please? Rachel Carruthers 14:46 Yeah, absolutely. So I think it was. There's an interesting that that you mentioned before, texts, which you know, are and that people have kind of echoed in the comments, some companies and businesses and magazines swap meanings of globalization and internationalization. It's it's kind of a good segue that comment and how we look at things, never actually. So somehow, somewhere along the line, the vernacular kind of lost its way a bit canvas, to the point where folks now say, you know, H and N are international or internationalization for like, literally everything that they interpret to mean non English. So that can be everything from just the localization practices, everything that texts has already reviewed, you know, the, the actual components of localization, when it comes down to internationalising. Currency, you know, the actual translation of the UI itself, everything like that. People take it to mean the engineering requirements, and that small faction, and people are actually the right. The agent and engineers, you know, they take it to mean the bespoke content that we make, that that type of production that's market specific, like the template we produce, they take it to mean the very team that itself that's focused realization at Canva, our team, when our name is actually Global Services, and it houses localization, internationalization, engineering, l QA, go to the market localization and preparation. So it's yeah, it's quite interesting. And, you know, there's, it's definitely helps to unpack what each of these things mean. But for me, and definitely, in my role, I would say that the essence of globalization is really having localization, internationalization, you know, those those critical foundations, and growth and strategy functions sitting closely together in the larger company organization. And that's why we have built our team as such global services at Canva. having them sit closely together, has really helped in my experience, this has fostered a higher degree of communication, and collaboration between those co informing areas. I'm sure a lot of you're maybe familiar with this scenario, but it's very easy to kind of peg localization and the practices in this one bucket or no matter where it is at the company. And oftentimes things can get thrown over the fence to localization, right, and then it becomes up the others deal with it international logistic deal with it. But I think in having these spaces closer together, you're helping again, to kind of call inform strategy. So, you know, localization requirements are initially really defined by a company's growth requirements as well. So which markets do you want to go into why what's the opportunity size, everything like that. And so subsequently, you know, we start growing our user base in our market after we've localized or launched a product there. And then as that environment starts to take shape, new growth channels or opportunities become apparent, which we need to localize for. And then it becomes almost flywheel, right, to kind of take that marketing concept of growth and localization, the emergence of that go to market strategy, as well. And however, you might need to tether that for a specific market. So yeah, for again, for me, it's really having localization and growth almost be this this marriage together to produce a strong globalization strategy. Yuka Nakasone 18:28 Wow. You saltley BC lady. Yeah. So your world is not only the pure technical globalization, marketing strategy, or research, I included, like go to market strategy. And do you do execution or, or just the strategy side, Rachel Carruthers 18:57 we do bits and pieces, it kind of depends on the market and what the execution piece is. So we do a lot of we do execute a lot of the market research and stuff like that. We definitely execute a lot of the technical areas of localizations, typically, but when it starts, get into the more business ops components, like legal requirements, entity and everything like that, that's where our responsibilities end. And that goes on to the legal and fin ops. And yes, Yuka Nakasone 19:31 that's interesting, because Chris's comment came from there. I'm going to explain you later. Then. Now, let's go to Doug's definition. Would you mind sharing your thoughts about the definition of globalization? Sure, Doug Bruhnke 19:50 you can I think mine is colored by two main factors. Number one, as you pointed out, I am an engineer and I'm a chemical engineer which Perhaps makes it worse. Chemical Engineers worry about systems. Because if you don't have the system working, let's say in an oil refinery, it blows up. And so I guess the good news for all of us doing global business, if we do a mis translation, or we set the wrong price, or we make some other faux pas, somewhere, it's usually recoverable. You know, when a refinery blows up, that's not a good thing. And you're not going to recover from that. So the system matters. And so I've always approached everything that I've done, including, like globalization work, in a system approach, kind of way. And so that includes, from, you know, I come at it from a business side of it. So So it's thinking about how do we make a profit, you know, we're going to spend some money and we want to get some revenue, and then how do we optimize that profit. And that includes doing the market research on the front end and the product development. So actually, a lot of what Rachel talked about, probably, you know, over a beer, we would probably agree on almost everything in terms of the definition of how this all works out, because she's growing a product around the world. And largely, those are the things that I've been involved with. It includes the legal side of it intellectual property, and hiring people. So you're interested in immigration, and hiring and firing related to that anything related to HR services, you've got to pay taxes, you've got to do banking, you've got to do the sales. And so you've got to set pricing and decide who's going to sell your product, you've got marketing issues, you've got logistics and getting product in and out of ports, you've got, of course, all the cultural issues, and you've got language and translation. And so so when I think of the things that having both done and watched businesses succeed around the world and become globalized, you know, it's it's a coherent package of activity and work. What we have against us as global people, is that most of the people in the world are not globally minded, you know, as I think all of us have noticed, right? Then when when we go to a party, for instance, of just random people, you know, very often they're very locally centered local is warm and fuzzy, right? It's, it's killing cars and hugs and kisses and local stuff. And that feels really good. And global is usually like, our plant got bought by a foreign company. And, you know, it's it's negative stuff, and most people don't really understand that. And so that's certainly something that we have against us as as we globalize, but it hasn't stopped us. And, you know, I think Kofi Annan was the one who said, you know, arguing that globalization doesn't exist, or that won't proceed is like arguing against the laws of gravity, it's happening, changing. We know, it's, you know, there's no way to stop this thing, rolling down the hill, people will try to stop it, but you know, they're gonna get run over. And I certainly I hope, in my lifetime, I want to get to the point where we can embrace global as a positive thing. And certainly, all of the folks that I know and global chamber and many of the folks I see here, that are that have been involved with global chamber directly or indirectly, we were active, we're having fun, we're changing the world, we're impacting the world and globalization is definitely happening. And it's, and it's definitely something that's comprehensive and something that involves a lot of different factors. And that's one key thing to the for all of us to remember. It's not one function. It's it's a whole series of activities that have to happen if it's going to be successful. Yuka Nakasone 23:48 Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's a very comprehensive explanation and I just take a mental note about Google Market, because this is another subject, what is global market, who one company is totally different discussion as well. And summarizing your discussion, so it's company wide effort, all the business development activities necessary for product or service to be launched and or sold in a foreign market is your area of globalization from marketing strategy, research that Richard does, and sells fulfillment, I mean, delivering proof of service products, support and you said legal, taxation, hl. everything right. And as a result Out of all this coming. The may be product marketing, globalization that text discussed, like, what about transition? What about internationalization? So that's your work. This is what I, what I kind of understood. So we we three, we for all working in the globalization industry like, like that's it. But the different definition around this word, this word. It's, I think it's very important to have this in mind. And of course, having these knowledge, maybe we can take advantage as well. And when I, when I think about globalization, a word, what reminds me is this tale of an elephant and six ways like we. So right now, and maybe some people don't know about the tale, this is a famous, famous tale. From ancient India, I think that there's, there's a, in a village, once upon a time in a village, six blind people. And somebody told them, that there's a very unique animal coming into the village, and they wanted to see it, and you see it, they're blind, but wanted to see it. So they went to see the animal. And all these six people described what they saw. Of course, they are blind, and they touched trunk, or leg, or ear, or the tail. And they describe something totally different. Like, an elephant is like a big snake, the wind, who was touching the trunk? And actually know, it's a tree stump. The one who was touching the lake? What are you saying it is like a sash of leather. I mean, the year you're all wrong. It's actually like a little fiery mouse is very, very mouse. It's the the, the extreme of the tail was a like a mouse. So all these elephants, everybody was right. But none of them describe as a whole. So that's the, the, let's say the spirit of the tale. And I think this applies to maybe internationalization or globalization, these words that we use. And let me stop sharing this. Now, so that's been said, Who's to go, like knowing this difference? What kind of advantage you could get from this kind of situations or what you thought about hearing other people other others talking about this? Okay, that's all right. Yeah. Rachel Carruthers 29:25 So I guess a bit before I mentioned kind of that, you know, obviously, that a lot of internally again, at least at Canva have these different interpretations of what international means. And so for, for me, and for my team, every internal client or stakeholder having a different interpretation of what globalization or even international means to them, really helps our function better understand what their primary objectives are. It's almost like an insight into their minds. You know, people are, are very clear about What's most important to them and, you know, off the back of that, we can help shape the globalization program or approach to best suit their needs, we act as kind of almost like a service bubble services within Canva to kind of help other teams approach what their globalization needs are, right. So it's a constant opportunity for education internally. And the aim with for that long term is to really create self sufficiency or self efficacy with ownership of globalization and understanding of globalization and the different components, you know, the differences between localization, globalization, internationalization really being brought to life more autonomously over time. So it world for us, it's about helping them, you know, set up, set up a program, set up a project, whatever it may be, and again, being able to kind of step back and say, no longer needed here. So yeah, as the tie that binds across many different areas, that central service, we've, we do have that opportunity to drive manifold impact really. So rather than just a team of us, working towards user growth, revenue growth for Canva. Considering international audiences, we have the opportunity to expand that as many times over, as the company has employees through this educational piece, and helping them understand the differences of what globalization might mean, in their own world and in their own sphere. Yeah, Tex Texin 31:38 thank you. I think the the elephant example is a good one, because it points out that even those of us who've worked for a long time in globalization, we don't know what we don't know. Right? I see it as part of my role run is to train and educate the organization, about the things we do know about different markets and how we have to adapt the product, but also to to consistently remind the entire organization, that we always have to discover the things that might be different in different cultures and around the world that might surprise us. So we have to do research upfront. And we also have to do quite a bit of market testing and experimentation to really understand whatever functionality we're offering, whatever our products are for different markets, how they will be received and perceived. So that so they're not surprised. And that, you know, we don't have the equivalent of Doug's oil explosion within the market, right. So you were fortunate today that, you know, many of the things that we do and internationalization localization have been commoditized, you can take advantage of software libraries and lots of research material and design material that says, here's what you have to do. And here's software that will help you do it or do it for you. And yet, people going into markets, and this is where I tried to help them, you need to understand that it's always it's not always 100%. And a lot of this depends on context. The first who've worked with with colors, you'll see these color charts that say, here's what this color means. But it's not universal. It's that color means something depending on whether it's product packaging, or used on clothing, or we're using some other context, and it can mean something completely different. And so we need to really focused on helping the organization be aware of this and to not be overconfident in their approach. And it's often the case that an organization they only see their their product and even their globalized products, through what their goals are, what they're trying to do and the message they're trying to deliver. But because they see it that way, they don't recognize that maybe there's another interpretation to what they're doing which would be perceived in the market because the market doesn't understand the message they're trying to deliver. Really important that you people that companies do their homework upfront, but then also test on the on the release sent as well. Yeah, Yuka Nakasone 34:55 that's a that's a very important Which step to take to test? And actually, I have a question because as a localization function, we have limited resources, as you said, what we don't know, we don't know. Right? You have, for example, Tex, you have so much of experiences. So maybe you you can do more than most localization people can do. But for example, I look as a localization function, which is mostly doing language is, for example, asked, where is the next market? We have to go, like to reach a witch? Who knows how to do that. But if we don't know what to do, what is the response to the company? In that moment? We have to suggest, for example, talk to global chamber. Is that the answer? Or Doug Bruhnke 36:12 I think it relates when i to the picture, at least how I perceive the picture, it's somewhat insulting to the people that are around the elephant. And I don't think it's perfectly valid in real life that people want to do the right thing. But very often, they're not informed of that. And so what's missing in that picture is who's sitting and leading the elephant on the top. And if they're doing a good job, they'll be able to inform everybody about, you know that this is a system, this is an elephant. And we're all working on the same team. I in the before, when we talked about this program, earlier, UK, I gave an example of one of the worst bosses I've ever had happened to coincide with me being transferred as an expat to Japan. And so I was sent to Japan to improve the business in Asia and Japan. And it this is the Teflon business. So enough time has passed that I think I can say it was Teflon, and a variety of other products. And everybody knows Teflon. So this guy was an idiot who was running the business, quite honestly. And so the first thing he did, while I'm traveling to Japan, to move with my family is to raise the price. Without asking, he decided that the US price needed to go up. So everywhere in the world was going to go up even though the curtain that currency at that time, the price in Japan was like three times what it should have been. But he decided it had to go up. So our number one customer, my first job was like going in and apologizing and falling on the sword and losing business and fighting back for that business. So we made a bad decision. And he was horrendous. So to recover, he decided, well, I'm going to go to Japan, and I'm going to save the day. So he shows up on a Friday afternoon, the day before we had a quality complaint. And we're basically on the verge of shutting down Mitsubishi Motors with one of our other products. He shows up in the office, and everybody's scrambling on getting that solved, including me, although I was his babysitter, and he was expecting us to bow down at his feet. You know, King Dave, guess what we were tied up with what was happening out in the marketplace. That's globalization, right? You have a headquarters, but you've got local people doing the right thing for the local company. And then finally, a third example of what an idiot he was, was that I finally, after another year, so convinced the business to build a plant in Japan that would be comparable to the Japanese quality. It was absolutely the right strategy at the time, very forward thinking. They approve that I go back to Japan, and then somebody and technology back bid me locally, again, a lot of the challenges we have on global businesses, the people running these businesses are local, and they're really just kind of responding to things that are happening within their city block. And they don't really kind of connect to what's happening around the world. If they get pressure locally, they cave. And so that's what happened. Somebody this guy caved, did the wrong thing. They did build the plant 10 years later, but it was 10 years too late. So So there are a variety of factors in those stories, but they relate to having a good boss who's sitting on that elephant, keeping people together because it's not that they're dumb or they don't want to do the right thing. They just need to be coordinated and told what and guided in terms of doing the right thing. And then you're going to have real globalization and real forward moving Yuka Nakasone 39:44 Yeah. And in the company, that person or that function, what would it be like, for example, for example, language group localization group. I just don't think that, that they have whole knowledge about globalization, as we discussed, like, there's some part missing from the business side. Right. So somebody from somebody who had the business says business knowledge has to be leading this globalization effort. From my point of view, that's, that's what is what should happen. Doug Bruhnke 40:39 It doesn't always happen. But, but but it is a key part is leadership and communication. And back and forth. I mean, if there's nothing else that I would convey to everybody on this call, and in this community is, you know, keep pushing, you know, because you know, a lot of information. And a lot of times you have, like, the keys to the kingdom, and people aren't listening. So don't give up, keep pushing, keep pressing, to understand how it fits. I mean, we don't want to sub optimize localization cost, for instance, at the end of the day, there's only so much you can spend, right, and there is a, there is a decision that needs to be made in all of these areas legal and accounting, and, you know, all of the different cost elements involved with the business. So that takes leadership and running a business. And a key part of that is having somebody who is really not just smart, but also recognizes that they have valuable resources, and that localization is a valuable resource that they can count on and need to count on. So that's critical, Tex Texin 41:48 slightly different point of view. Because the way the conversation is focused, now, it seems like there's one point in within the organization that somehow is gonna bring all of this together. And you know, you can look at it from, you know, maybe there's an executive of, you know, global VP, maybe it's, you know, the localization project manager, because she's, he or she is talking to, you know, everyone around the world. But just as you would with a, let's say, just an English product, you talk to the marketing folks, you talk, you get legal as a stakeholder, you talk to the sales office, you need to do the same thing, globally, and you have to reach out and you certainly the localization folks can be a point of contact, but there should be marketing folks who are trying to address the market in not only the market information, but what the market reaction could be in the same thing for the field office and the same thing for support. So we have to look at this systemically, and holistically, and it's not like there's going to be one person who has made all of this, but there can be one or more people who drive. But we need to reach out and do these things. So Doug Bruhnke 43:20 I meant to talk more about an executive team, I was thinking like you need to center and then you need to like a logical executive team that has the different functions and a back and forth and so yeah, I didn't I agree with you, I needed one person. But if that one person is defective, you know, it takes a village to combat and Rachel probably sees that all the time. I gotta believe that with cannabis success, that you've got a probably a pretty successful, it's pretty smart team. And, I mean, if you don't, then it would probably be not very good to see. So but but I gotta believe that given your success, you've got a really good team. Tex Texin 43:58 And before Rachel responds, though, I just want to make the other half of the point, which is there isn't one point in the process where you do this. So it's often you could mentioned earlier that localization is kind of at the the fly at the tail, the dog that is being asked to fix problems at the at the end. But if internationalization and localization especially for agile development is brought in, excuse me early in the design process, where they can raise questions about what this means globally, as well as other points down through the pre release and release process throughout that is where globalization needs to be brought up and and addressed. So it's not I think you're right, it needs to be an executive team, but also It's not one point in the development process where these questions have to be addressed. So, Rachel, go ahead. Rachel Carruthers 45:09 Yeah, yeah, no, I think to complement what both of you have said, That's exactly why I've built the team that we have to them and made it the shape that we have it today. So it started out as just just as simply a localization team, right, and taking care of, you know, the manifold that localization needs of Canva. But once we, as a company, and at an executive level, I suppose, as well decided that localization or became self evident, really, that localization and therefore, globalization was going to become such a key component for growth. Because growth can mean so many things, it really became evident that I needed to build a structure that had this kind of what I call like, hub and spoke model where we are realized, you know, kind of forces, as you mentioned, Doug, like a bit of a, you know, an executive team almost, but we have that cross cutting insight to be able to help advise a lot of these different spaces, whilst not necessarily driving them ourselves, right, because if we were responsible for the operations, and the localization and all the marketing channels, and, you know, legal that would be would be the whole company, to some extent, right. And so, basically, being able to have a function that helps the company to see the forest for the trees. And the function needs to have close ties with, you know, C suite needs to have close ties with Biz Ops, everything like that. But we're really almost the champions, you know, the evangel, of globalization. And again, going back to that education piece, whatever that might mean, whatever shape that takes with regards to certain areas of the business, we can help advise. Yeah, it's really being that that kind of champion force. And then, you know, yes, if I was to get into the hiring, and immigration details of employees and full time contracts within India, I would be far over my head and out of my depth. But fortunately, we have folks within the business who, you know, who are plugged into the spaces and have this knowledge. So it's for us to be the champion of what needs to happen and have that really cross cutting vision and lead that vision. And yes, to your point does be near impossible and quite obnoxious. Frankly, I definitely think I'm probably considered one of the most obnoxious people at Canva. Because Doug Bruhnke 47:43 gotta keep pushing, gotta keep the only way progress gets made. Rachel Carruthers 47:47 That's right. Yeah, it's what's best for the business. And that's what's best for our users as well. You know, if we're really, from our perspective, again, if we're really pushing this mission to power the world to design and democratize design, you know, not to think about her users and banging that drum all day, every day. Yuka Nakasone 48:05 Yeah. And let me ask you a question, Rachel, then, so if somebody from Admin department, say, Hey, we're going to this country and taxation should be taken care of by your team? Would you take it? Probably not Rachel Carruthers 48:26 to be honest, because I think what we would need to know what we mean by taxation. But if I alter that question a bit, maybe to look at pricing, product pricing, right, not taxation, and that is something that our team would help to look at, again, in its court and in an advisory capacity, saying, you know, let's take a look at the types of users that we have in this market. What are their user behaviors or existing user patterns within the product? Are they mobile users? Are they daily users? Are they monthly users? All of these things that we can kind of unpack? Are they more the the free product cases? Are they pro product users? You know, what's the Big Mac Index in that market? All of these things that we work on with the pricing strategy and analysis and data teams, and then ultimately the pricing team will actually implement that. So yeah, again, more of a an advisory work function for sure. Yuka Nakasone 49:26 Because it was the question from Chris England from Active Campaign was a campaign. He was asked from an executive that it oh, this is international. So this is yours, right? But he was like, Oh, my God, we're luggage service function. Should I say yes. I think he didn't say yes, but he kind of saying in the panel discussion that maybe we should have said yes. To you know, to to grow our efficacy maybe efficacy of the group? I don't know. So, in this case, for example, tech so that if somebody comes to, to localization people, or internationalization people saying, what should we do with succession? What's your answer? So my, my answer is okay. Okay. Yes, I have to, I'm a software architect. And so, but it's not like I go off and do it on my own, I have to go and say, well, I need to understand the requirements, I need to, you know, find experts in the legal entity, in order to be able to define what the correct rules are. And I have to be able to support that within the software. And then I have to talk to the localization people and make sure they're hooked up with the right legal folks to be able to get the right language to talk about these things. So I don't go off and do it on my own. But I start to build up a list of what are the what's the kind of information I need done, if it's the first time we've done this, we've never done it before. I'm going to allocate a lot of time for before we can ever get into a market. And I'll have to figure out who can do the testing for it. But I usually don't say no. I turn around and say, well, here are the resources that I need and will build up a plan. That's, that's my approach to things. And it starts, well, thank you. That in turn drives the executives to start to think about what they need to do and what it means to put something like tax in a different market. And frankly, from a software point of view, we're always dealing with, you know, there's VAT tax, there's local taxes, so we're able to design modules to do all of those kinds of things. So maybe Doug has a different perspective. So please. So what is the correct answer for you? Doug Bruhnke 52:31 No, I would say all of us should do what we need to do. An example of that, for me was, you know, Hyundai used to not be a very capable automotive company. And so I'm old enough to be part of their early days. And as a young engineer, I was called to go out onto their plant floor. And it was a disaster. It was just quality problems. They sent me up to their fuel hose manufacturer in Daegu, in which I did and I was like, Well, okay, I'll go and they wanted me to go out on the factory floor and help them make fuel hose. And there's so many aspects of this, that were totally wrong. But I just, you know, I kind of played along, and I helped from an engineering perspective, how I could, you know, there's ways engineers approach problems. And so I helped a little but I recognized that I was not the right answer. So I went back to corporate and said, Look, you know, I need our best person. And that best person didn't want to go to Korea. He just was like, no way in the world. I'm not going so I went to the big boss and said, This is a huge client of ours. great potential. We need Dave. And so I can, they convinced him and told them, you're going to Korea so so here's how it got laid out. So he actually was brilliant and was great in the plans. However, here we are in Daegu, Korea in January, and the Daegu is in the mountains. And all we get up there and he's he's like griping to me the whole time. I can't believe you got you went over my head, and you got me out here. But he at least was fairly polite with them, and eventually solve their problem, but it was snowing all day. And here we are in the mountains outside of Daegu. And it's basically a blizzard, you know, in the mountains. So he's like fret, he's like looking out the window all day saying, oh my god, we're gonna get we're gonna die. You know, that kind of thing. So eventually, we leave the factory and it took about two hours to get down into town. At least it was downhill. And he was complaining to me the whole time. What how horrific this was and so we dropped him off at the hotel. I go out with the cranes, and I'm thinking what do they think he solved their problem, but he's been such a pain in the butt to these people. And they were like, well, yeah, but he solved our problems. So we went out to dinner. We went out to a second place in the third place. We went to a karaoke place in the base. Smith have this wherever. And there was no karaoke machine. It was just a guy with a guitar. It's only spoke Korean goes, well, what song would you want? Finally, it's like, well, what song would you like to do? So there I am. It's like, oh my God, how bad could this be? So I saying, Hey Jude, we figured out how to do. He knew how to play Hey, Jude enough of it. And I knew enough of the lyrics to do it. I sang it, I was hooked, I'm sure portable, but what happened was, they were happy, you know, they bought a lot more of our product, this guy never spoke to me again, you know, after Korea, but to me, that's an example of what we all need to do is right, take it to the next level, don't be restricted by your own function, try to understand as much as you can, and then go to whatever extents required, even singing karaoke, you know, without seeing and without any words in front of you. Because, you know, we're all just trying to do our best and customers anywhere. Appreciate that. So just Yuka Nakasone 56:01 so your suggestion is localization people or globalization function should push our boundaries and push our limits and go for it, serve the company and recognized. That's your suggestion, right? Doug Bruhnke 56:17 I think any function should know without being a pain, right? You we know that we know those people who are functional people who say, you know, we need to do this. And you know, we have to spend unlimited gobs of money in my function, and they don't give up right, you have to have a give and take, you have to, at some point, understand, but the more you understand, the better equipped, you'll be to make the argument that you can get more and so that's really what I'm saying is just, you know, understand as much as you can, so that you can make those arguments, but realize there's more arguments to come. So there's a place where you have to stop and keep singing as the other model Yuka Nakasone 56:59 is about. I just wanted to add to that is you need to know, as a as a leader in the company, how to talk to the different parts of the organization, so that the argument that works with your your tweet is different than the arguments you use to persuade your engineers is different than the arguments I need to make with the localization folks. And throughout the company, you have to cater your arguments and the way you talk to people to match who you're talking to, and what their interests are. So anyway, I'll leave it at that. Yeah, that was the conclusion. I mean, we have to recognize the differences and know how to talk to your customer, internal or external. That's kind of our conclusion, right? Yes, yes. So thank you for being patient there. Tex Texin 57:59 No problem. No problem. It was a really great discussion and really interesting stories that the duck shared that so thanks for that. We have a couple of questions in our q&a tab. So if you can go there Yuka. And present those. That would be good, Yuka Nakasone 58:15 right? Yeah. So Oh, my God, I don't know the answer. What are the major globalization transport the next 510 years, as we don't have much time, just quickly, who wants to go? Automation, automation, okay. And commoditization, I think we continue to see that the software has more inherent support. And the kinds of things we do become more or less commoditized. So you can do the same things the same way around the world, or with the same type of support. But automation, specially in the translation space, but even automation of internationalization has been coming along and will continue. So it Yeah, Rachel? Rachel Carruthers 59:11 Yeah, I mean, this is quite an obvious one, but definitely the digitization of, of emerging markets, for sure. And the way that people are getting online for I mean, obviously, I'm coming from much more of the tech space, but the way that people are interacting with not just SAS but the internet, this amazing set something like a million people will be getting online for the first time today. And again, tomorrow. And again, tomorrow. We're seeing judges digitization right sided has ever seen before. And so it's really just shaping. You know, what it means to what it means for people to be communicating in a more globalized world on what that means for companies and where they need to meet their users. All of that's changing Yuka Nakasone 59:56 around those lines, the audience might be interested to go to the The UNESCO site and see what they're doing for what was the International Year, and is now becoming the decade for indigenous language support. So, the IDI l international decade of indigenous languages is promotion to bring along these languages that have not had digital digital support until now. Alright, so that five to 10 years trend. Doug Bruhnke 1:00:35 Clearly artificial intelligence on top of digital is where it's headed. And you know, so that we, I think back, you know, in the early days, again, dating myself, the teletype machine was around when I started, and I remember just that, click, click, click, click, click sound, and just like the world felt like it was so immensely far away. And then, you know, we got, you know, cell phones, and now we have digital technologies to reach people. And now we have artificial intelligence, telling us, Hey, as long as this is your customer, you need to talk to this person. And so we've got technologies that just simplify the world so much. And so again, Kofi Annan was right that globalization is, is is not stopping, and in fact, quite promising. It's going to accelerate as these technologies are incorporated into businesses. So I'm really excited. Yuka Nakasone 1:01:30 Okay, thank you. And the second question is, I don't know, what is the difference of globalization definition between 1981 and 2021? It just don't know the answer. Who knows the answer? Tex Texin 1:01:44 And I can probably add to that, because I saw in the chat, Catherine Busman, said that outside of physician industry, globalization means completely different things. Or two worlds are colliding today. So basically, I would say and probably rephrase that. Since globalization can mean different things to different people from within the industry and from outside. Do you feel? You know, you have to explain it a bit more than usual. Do you have some interesting observations around that? Yuka Nakasone 1:02:18 You know, that was a problem. You know, the political issue was a problem even in the 70s. So I don't see that as something that has changed. It gets accented more or different at different times. But that's always going to be an issue people. People react to what they see as a threat to what No, and I don't know that. I think, as we get, become more global people see the benefits. And I just don't see that something that's changing. It's a different issue of how you deal with it. But it's, it hasn't changed from over those that period that the questioner was asking. Okay. Doug Bruhnke 1:03:15 Is Catherine bossman? That's the crux of this, this question that she creating trouble out there is not the problem. Tex Texin 1:03:23 I didn't know but we have someone who raised the hand. So they want to ask some questions live, we can probably take one. I don't know if that's someone else. But let's see who we have. I believe we will have someone so our Lolly key the the assistant who works directly beside this. She wanted to put someone live. Let me see. She's typing in something. Okay. Unknown Speaker 1:03:55 Hi. I didn't know this was actually work. Trying to use only functionality that we have. None of us have used yet. This today. So I actually already asked the question in the q&a section, but I think it will be worse to repeat it. orally. I'm considering that considering everything you've said. And I could listen to you for the whole day. Like really guys set up your own your own panel for a whole day and just talk because it's absolutely great listening to people who like you who who have already done it and who are so inspiring to others. Really great job. And so this is just an occasion to to send some appreciation to you. And also my question would be that you now have the chance to endorse one global organization. It can be a company, an association, a community or a person. anyone or any thing you want, watch or who Do you pitch? And it's a question to all the panelists. And yes, I agree that means you do. Yuka Nakasone 1:05:06 Okay, can we pick our own companies? That's so I don't know this is I'm an advisor to translation Commons, which is a nonprofit. You they support translators providing education, certification and the like. But the piece that I'm interested in is I'm working with translation Commons to help digitize in indigenous languages. And so I would say there are many companies and organizations that are doing great things that I couldn't do us, but I'm very active with this. And I think it's really important. These communities of indigenous languages are shut out from the global market, it hurts them when there's disasters or emergencies or need information about health care. Even in this pandemic, if you can't get information in the native language, they don't know, they don't have the right information to work with. And so helping these communities to have their language supported in the various platforms around the world, to be able to get information from their government and international organizations, I think is a really important thing. And so I volunteer and devote my time to that. So my endorsement at the moment, there are a lot of others. But there you go. You other guys, don't leave me hanging here by myself. Doug Bruhnke 1:06:54 Anybody besides Canva? Rachel, Rachel Carruthers 1:06:58 anybody besides Canva, I will also say enough, my one of my colleagues who is at Canva, but she, her name is Renee. And she is she heads up? Well, mobile growth kind of all things mobile at Canva. And putting Canva out of the picture and focusing on her, she really has such a wonderful, just grasp and passion on what it means to to shape a product to shape and experience for users. And being on mobile again, she's really in that space of folks who are approaching digitization for the first time, a lot of these folks are just using Canva, for the first time using the internet for the first time and the way that she's led, you know, growth through user empathy, and developing that education around the function. And in the places that she's been before. She's made such an impact. And for me, she's actually a personal role model for looking for somebody who really is able to educate around a business function. And what it means to truly talk about your users shoes, she is just my shining example and a mentor for me in a lot of ways. So we are highly recommend anybody who's on this call to connect with her. She's also just a lovely human being. And just Yes, wonders of what. Okay. Doug Bruhnke 1:08:26 For me, I'd like to put forth a person and accompany and the person would be Katherine Busman. I think sounds like many of you know what Katherine does on the localization side. And she's also very capable marketer, as well. And that's a deadly and good combination. So Katherine does some does a great podcast. She's on clubhouse, check her out there. And every Friday in the US and so she's she's a champion for global and progress and localization and marketing. And that's a like I said, that's, that's a really good combination. from a company perspective. I mentioned Hyundai before, and I had the good fortune to visit Korea my first time before the Olympics of 88. And it was a bit of a disaster of a country. But they they had a strategy and they moved it forward, just like Hyundai did. And when I think about what progress they've made and how they used to pump me for, like, what's Toyota doing, because I used to visit the Japanese companies, it's like, they just like, What are they doing? How are they handling this thing? They were so hungry, to make an impact, and they've made so much progress. I would also say Toyota is an amazing international company, look at the progress they have and their capabilities country to country in the positive perception, when they had that sudden acceleration problem, that it was not just in the US, but globally. They recovered quite quickly, much faster than Audi did because their brand is so strong and how do you build a brand you build a brand because you're connected locally, regionally and people want to buy the product and keep the product. And so you know, I'm not sure I know of a better company than than Toyota in terms of number of companies or countries that they not just sell a good product, but they do the right things on the ground as well. Yuka Nakasone 1:10:17 So with this, thank you very much. Yeah. And thanks. Thank you. Ego. I pass the baton to you right now. Doug Bruhnke 1:10:29 Thank you, you. You're masterful. Yuka Nakasone 1:10:32 Thank you. And thanks, everyone, for listening. Tex Texin 1:10:39 Thank you for questions for providing some interesting stories and insights. And, yeah, it was a truly fascinating and a long day, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we are. So thank you so much.