Solutions Round Table
The Solutions Round Table is a two-day event that will take place on February 11-12, 2025 on the campus of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, California. It will focus on the practice and application of various aspects of Solution Architecture. The moderators will facilitate open communication about real-world issues, problem resolutions, and wishes for technology and process improvement.
Tuesday, February 11th – Wednesday, February 12th, 2025
The objectives of the Round Table are to:
- Promote a better understanding of the practice of Solution Architecture within the language services industry
- Create a channel of open communication for Solutions Architects and related fields to discuss specific issues outside the confines of a business relationship
- Explore different areas of Solutions Engineering including supporting technology evaluation and deployment, sales support, and supporting operations in a variety of client and vendor dimensions.
- Peer-to-peer exchange of ideas
- Sharing of experiences
- Frank and free discussions of issues confronting the industry
- Networking
Focus, experience, learn!
What is Solutions Architecture? This multidisciplinary practice started becoming common in the language services industry around decade ago, emerging as a role that supports solving business problems in our increasingly complex and interconnected field. Inspired by the metaphor of designing a building, the practice involves applying technology and process solutions to business problems, understanding the interactions of different systems and procedures and how they interact with each other, how the solution will scale and be maintained, as well as understanding costs, recommending pricing, understanding customer satisfaction, sales strategy and presentation skills and the , and guiding the team in charge of execution to produce the deliverable to spec .
In early 2025, we are introducing the Solutions Round Table to focus on the practice and application of various aspects of Solution Architecture. Moderator Erik Vogt will facilitate open communication with the assistance of an advisory board with members from major global brands about real-world issues, problem resolutions, and wishes for technology and process improvement.
Ideal participants are inquisitive, curious, and willing to share their experiences in understanding and solving problems in the language industry.
An Advisory Board assists in the creation of the agenda and facilitates the topics and presentations that comprise the 2025 event. Most Board members plan to attend the Round Table. To assess the sophistication of information that will be available to attendees at the Round Table, read the bios of the Advisory Board members. There is a lot to be learned from this group of experienced industry practitioners.
Who is there and what happens?
The Localization Institute’s 2024 Translation Technology Round Table
Most Round Table attendees have at least ten years of experience in the translation industry in various roles involving solutions development, hands on management, engineering or technology application – often a combination of all four. As a result, presentations and discussions deal with advanced topics. Newbies who wish to listen, ask questions, and learn are also welcome.
The format of the Round Table relies on short presentations, some of them impromptu, followed by extensive discussions involving as many attendees as possible.
To ensure that Round Table topics are as relevant and timely as possible for the participants, we leave the last session unplanned. The subject matter for this open session is determined onsite by the attendees. Open session topics can be proposed at any time during the event.
The Round Table’s success depends on attendees being willing to share information and experiences freely. To encourage spontaneity, no formal minutes or records are kept or published. Attendees are free to keep their own notes.
Discussion of translation tool prices and details of vendor contracts is not permitted.
The Round Table is chaired by industry veteran Erik Vogt.
Round Table Agenda Topics
- What is a Solution? Introduction of frameworks for discussion. Explore the scope of the field, what activities are and aren’t solutions? What is “in scope” for the discussions.
- What role does a Solutions Architect or a Solutions Team play within an org? Is an SA a technical wizard or a pre-sales consultant? Project Manager for the proposal response? Does a Solutions Team sit under sales, operations, development, or somewhere in between?
- Is there such a thing as a Solutions – Oriented Business and how would one build one?
- Tools/Techniques for good Solutions Design: Mitigating Uncertainty, Risk, and Constraints
- Defining ROI and Success: Pitching ROI. Comparing options in a normalized manner. Communicating Business value to senior mgmt
- Understanding solutions across roles and providers: With few dedicated SA roles on client-side teams, who are the solutions people and how do they build and implement solutions across teams and vendors?
- Where do Standards play a role? Bespoke vs. Standardization. When to break the old and start over? What’s a Standard?
- Data, Metrics, PIs, KPIs: Measuring what matters – governance, control points, performance and success metrics. When should they be defined? How important are they?
The complete agenda and timetable for the Solutions Round Table, as well as details on the speakers and moderators for each round table discussion session, will be published here soon.
Registration also includes access to an Opening Reception on the night of Monday, February 10th at Alvarado Street Brewery and our round table dinner at Cibo’s Ristorante Italiano on Tuesday evening, February 11th. More details on these social networking events will be published here soon.
Round Table Location
Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS) – Monterey, California
McCone Boardroom
Round Table Organizer and Moderator
Erik Vogt – Founder, Vogt Strategy. With over two decades of rich experience in the language services industry, Erik’s career has been marked by a deep engagement in operations, solution design, and sales leadership, ranging from grassroots to senior executive roles. Erik’s passion is striving for a comprehensive understanding of the intricacies involved in globalizing and localizing content, products, and services across a spectrum of domains and markets is backed by adeptness in steering large international and interdisciplinary teams.
Erik has a passionate commitment to building and leading teams that excel in deploying complex solutions. His core competencies lie in pre-sales consulting, program management, process optimization, and global team management and is invigorated by the challenge of bridging multiple disciplines to develop impactful solutions, meticulously tailoring each project to its unique requirements, and fostering an environment where team members can realize their full potential.
Erik also has a dedication to continuous learning and innovation as evident through an MBA, MSML, AI certifications, and a personal commitment to dedicating 6-8 hours each week to learning. His ultimate mission is to empower customers and partners to actualize their ambitions and visions, aligning processes to achieve optimal outcomes. His deepest gratification comes from seeing satisfied customers, the growth and success of the teams he works with, and the synergy of well-coordinated team efforts.
Advisory Board Members
Tim Arata. Tim Arata has over 18 years of hands-on localization management experience. His expertise spans the entire global content workflow and the technologies that support it. Tim has a passion for building holistic localization strategies and international teams. Prior to cofounding Locale Solutions, he was at Apple where he helped pioneer and manage Apple’s localization processes, technologies, and quality assurance programs. Other experience includes WhatsApp (1 1/2 years where he grew and managed the content and localization teams); Localize Technologies (multilanguage vendor); and Idiom Technologies (the original enterprise translation management system). Tim has long been curious about the ubiquitous us/them aspect of the localization sales process.
Konstantin Savenkov. After receiving a PhD in 2008, Konstantin Savenkov led research and development efforts for online content services, then worked as CTO at Zvooq and as a chief operating officer at Bookmate. In 2016, he contributed his experience in artificial intelligence (AI), technology, and operations to found Intento, Inc., where they build tools to source, evaluate, and use machine translation and other cognitive AI services.
Darin Goble. Darin Goble is the head of solutions for Welocalize and has a 25-year leadership history in the localization and global content space managing production, engineering, and solutions organizations. He has a passion for embracing change and advancements within the industry grounded on positive impact for customers through effective collaboration, vision, and execution to ensure measurable outcomes.
Yonah Levensen. Yonah Levenson is the Academic Director and Instructor of Rutgers University’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) Certificate Program. In 2020-2021, she was awarded the Rutgers Professional Development Instructor of the year. Levenson is a Metadata and Taxonomy Strategy consultant. She is also the founder and co-chair of the Language Metadata Table (LMT), an industry-standard for language codes sponsored by MESAOnline.org (Media Entertainment Service Alliance). Formerly Yonah was the Manager of Metadata Strategy and Taxonomy Governance at WarnerMedia and HBO, as well as the Senior Metadata Analyst at Pearson Education. She also worked in the Identifier registry space on EIDR (Entertainment ID Registry), Ad-ID (for advertising) and ISBNs, She earned her MLIS at Rutgers University.
Jon Ritzdorf. For more than 20 years Jon Ritzdorf has been immersed in localization; starting as a translator, transitioning into engineering, and ultimately moving into strategy where he has remained for over a decade. As a former senior solutions architect, he currently crafts globalization strategies for companies ranging from Fortune 100 to start-ups and unicorns. Outside of his full-time job, Jon is also an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and the University of Maryland where he strives to uplift the next generation of professionals in language technology, solutions development, and the business side of the translation industry. In 2012, he received an award in “Teaching Excellence.”
Interview with Erik Vogt
Request More Information
If you would like more information on this round table, please contact manager Alex Bernet at alex@localizationinstitute.com
Round Table Decorum
The Round Table’s success depends on people being willing to share information and experiences freely. To encourage that, the sessions are not recorded or republished and no formal minutes or records are kept. Attendees are free to keep their own notes.
Terms and Conditions
Cancellation Policy:
The Localization Institute, Inc. reserves the right to cancel this Round Table if there are less than 10 registrants.
Your registration fee is not refundable. It is, however, transferable to a colleague, if we receive written notice prior to the start of the event. If we have to cancel a round table due to minimal enrollment, your registration fees will be fully refunded.
Payment:
We accept payment by credit card, Paypal or by invoice. Payment for invoices is due within 10 days.
If paying via Bank Transfer outside of the United States, you MUST select the FULL SWIFT option in order for your invoice to be paid in full.
