The recent 2011 Global Commerce Conference, hosted by MultiLing Corporation and Utah Business Magazine, provided exceptionally valuable information through a panel of local business professionals and a guest speaker to an attentive audience at Noah’s in South Jordan.

Panel members included:  Brian Chandler: VP of Product Development, MultiLing Corporation, Andrew Lewis:  Consul and Head of Trade, UK Trade and Investments; Nate Seifert: Commercial Officer at U.S. Commercial Services; Brett Heimburger, Director, Asia, Governor’s Office of Economic Development; Kent Millington: Director, Technology Commercialization, Utah Valley University; and Chris Boyle: President and CEO, Access Technology Solutions. The panel was moderated by Tyler Dabo of Utah Business Magazine.

The panel discussed how expanding to the global marketplace can be a strategic and effective step for a business. A major theme during the panel discussion was localization, when a business understands the cultures, lives and customs of people in foreign markets, then communicates their brand appropriately. The panel shared good and bad examples of localizing in foreign markets and discussed the positive and negative consequences that can come from either understanding or not understanding the best way to communicate in a given market. One point the panel made multiple times was the importance of consumers in every country feeling like the products they use come from their own country or culture. That is the power of localization.

Lee Daniels, Former President and CEO of Titus Communications and AT&T Japan, provided the keynote address and  shared experiences and examples of translating brands, products and advertisements in global markets. He discussed how translation is more than just taking words from one language to another, but is also understanding phrases, terms and speech patterns that are unique to a given language or people. Daniels shared stories and experiences about the importance of understanding differences in culture, food and religion in foreign markets, and offered suggestions on how to avoid mistakes and make a good impression.

A video recording of the entire event will be available soon on MultiLing’s website at www.multiling.com