By Clemens Rettich, on January 11th, 2012 
Thinking from the back of the envelope…
Sometimes It’s Not Enough to be Unique
Sometimes the value we offer just doesn’t match a need in our market or community. As the common wisdom once went, “There’s no selling coal in Newcastle.” They’ve already got lots, thank you!
We call that a market without white space. It’s all filled with lots of shapes and colours already, and doesn’t need any more.
It’s also a sponge. When a sponge is full, shy of wringing it out, nothing you can do is going to make room for more. Changing up your . . . → Read More: Find a New Sponge
By Clemens Rettich, on December 20th, 2011 
Lend me your ears
When Shakespeare penned the words “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…” in Julius Caesar he did his share to perpetuate the tradition that confuses great oratory with great communication. That tradition has done more to damage our understanding of good communication than almost anything else.
Check out Google. Enter the search term “communication”, and click on the “Images” search tab. Count the number of ears that are featured as opposed to mouths, megaphones, speakers, etc. We say “I’m all ears…” but you wouldn’t know it from the walk we walk. It’s all talk! It . . . → Read More: The Ears Have It
By Clemens Rettich, on November 15th, 2011 
What are you selling?
If nothing, then you are not in business. If only commodities, then you won’t be in business for long.
“But wait,” you say “I am a service provider. I don’t sell commodities. So I guess I’m safe.”
Sorry. A service alone is still a commodity. In the brave new world of social business, anything is a commodity to the extent to which it is a) a transaction that consists only of the exchange of a good or service for money, and b) reproducible in every important way.
So a service which is repeated over . . . → Read More: The Social Market: Relationships, Stories, and Desire
By Claudia Waitman, on October 27th, 2011 
By: Claudia Waitman, President & CEO of Junction International
When I introduce myself to small businesses and explain what Junction International offers in terms of translation and cross cultural consulting services, I often get the response: “That’s great. But lucky enough for us, one of our employees speaks Spanish.” Or worse yet, I’ve even heard, “We used an online free translation site and then I tweaked it thanks to my high school French classes.” While all too common, these responses still make me want to scream!
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an . . . → Read More: Hola Equals Hello… But It’s Not That Simple
By Clemens Rettich, on October 26th, 2011 
The Goods
Xobni is add-on software for Microsoft Outlook (and other platforms). After installing Xobni, connecting it with your various social accounts, and letting it do its data-gathering thing, it sits to the side of your Outlook window.
Xobni can store all of your data in the cloud where you have syncing capability with almost every device and platform you use (Pro version). It puts any other form of contact data syncing to shame.
When you click on an email in your inbox, in a sidebar Xobni shows you:
The social media accounts that person has (including their most . . . → Read More: My Favourite Social Tool: Xobni
By Claudia Waitman, on October 12th, 2011
This is a guest post from Claudia Waitman, President & CEO of Junction International. Her previous post was Kisses & Bows: Cross-Cultural Consulting
CAT = Consistency In Translation
In a recent article I wrote on “Going Global On A Budget,” I spoke about the importance of consistency. I specifically recommended companies try and say the same thing the same way every time. My goal was not to make your piece sound redundant or boring but rather to simplify the translation process for you and your professional language partner. This practice of being consistent will help your translation partner leverage repetitive . . . → Read More: Translation Memory. Translation Memory. Translation Memory.
By Clemens Rettich, on October 11th, 2011 
This morning, (October 11, 2011) IBM (TSX: IBM:US) released a valuable study into the pressures, stresses, and some successes of corporate Chief Marketing Officers trying to come to terms with the rapidly shifting ground-rules in their worlds.
IBM conducted face to face interviews with more than 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and 19 industries. This study, entitled From Stretched to Strengthened is part of an ongoing work called the C-Suite research program, interviewing 15,000 CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CHROs and CSCOs.
Over the next few days I will be exploring different facets of the CMO study; it has . . . → Read More: 2011 IBM Study: What Keeps Your CMO Awake At Night?
By Clemens Rettich, on October 10th, 2011 
Whether you are Canadian or American, it is not the exact date of Thanksgiving that matters as much as the commitment we make to express our gratitude for what we have been given.
My Thanksgiving list this year is long, but I’ll focus on four things I am grateful for:
That I have the opportunity to do only what I love every day. Two weeks ago I attended an evening staff meeting at the production facility of a client. In the few moments before I took my place at the front of the room, my client and I were . . . → Read More: Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving – My Gratitude List
By Clemens Rettich, on October 6th, 2011 
It’s never what it seems…
We’ve all heard the stories so many times we’ve kind of come to expect them: the stories of celebrities who seem to have everything until the mask slips. Then they seem to have nothing.
Alcoholism, addictions, emptiness, abuse, loneliness, issues with debt, self-esteem, shattered families.
Yet even though we know all that, we still too often find ourselves in a new environment, surrounded by seemingly successful people, feeling a serious case of ‘imposter syndrome’ coming on. Why do we do that? Why do we understand the pains and struggles of our own journeys, and the repeated . . . → Read More: It’s Not What it Seems – Finding Your Confidence
By Clemens Rettich, on September 23rd, 2011 
Facebook is experiencing seismic shocks as it tries one more time to find the perfect fit between our lives and desires, and the larger social (and social business) community.
Unlike various software platforms, Facebook has never really adopted the public version number (beta, 1.0, 1.x, 2.0…) game. It has been more organic and idiosyncratic than that. Certain changes do seem to have been on the ‘new model’ level however: news feeds (that introduction was interesting), fan pages, Facebook chat, the appearance and disappearance of tabbed profiles (Facebook ‘beta’), all might have been seen as new version numbers.
What about . . . → Read More: Facebook 3.0? New Feature Round-Up
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