Web Theologian

What is it that you have had to overcome today? In this past decade? In your life so far? Each of us has our list of things, they are our personal journey. There is gratitude in my life for those places that have I had the space, freedom and support to grow through and over some obstacles.

Meeting people who have been knocked down and are looking up from the ground, or starting the journey, that I have the chance to team up with is so exciting. Knowing I have had to move through proving myself to a place of being myself, remembering “failure is an event, not a person.” Slowly coming to the awareness of strength that I have had available, and I see people with that same potential and can’t wait to see them grow.

Seattle Seahawks’ Richard Sherman motions to fans after intercepting in the end zone against the San Francisco 49ers in the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 23, 2012, in Seattle. The Seahawks won 42-13. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

There are two sports teams that I really enjoy right right now: The Golden State Warriors and the Seattle Seahawks. Both these teams are filled with players that are/have overcome. Some say they have a chip on their shoulders. When a team of individual overcomers joins together around a common goal, something magic happens. It is rare, hard, and rocky, but watching the accomplish things no one has ever does brings life.

These days I’m grateful for what I’m overcoming and grateful for those around me working becoming more human and working together to accomplish great things for others!

If you have read a few posts of mine I’m incredibly grateful, but I would imagine you have noticed something. If there has ever been an opportunity that I have commented on a Facebook post you have probably seen it there. God forbid if you are someone I text then you have seen it for certain. And if you are Renato Beninato, my old boss, I have gotten detailed feedback on it. I have been known to not pay attention to details in my writing.

Just this week I received some feedback from a friend that reads my blog:

can I encourage you to edit your web-blog posts a little. Not any of the content or anything just the spelling/ grammar. I saw a couple words that made it though spell check but are not what I think you intended to say.

I have learned over the years that generally those who write me such feedback are blessing me a great deal and have engaged to the level where they often want to benefit me with their insight. There are a few parts of this that I want to make mention.

First, it is not in my nature to pay attention to such details. There are hundreds of stories from early in my marriage that highlight this. The one I remember most clearly is when we would have guests over and serve them something to drink, if I had to pull out the glasses from the back of the cabinet I would not rinse them before serving the drink. Poor form as there was likely dust in the glasses and this does not make a good impression on your guests. Sorry if you were one of those friends that this happened to.

Second, just because this is not in my nature it does not mean that I am not capable of such a level of detail. One of my mentors would always say, “A broke clock is right twice a day.” This is an analogy that is fading a bit with phones and digital only time displays, but hopefully you are old enough to get the point.

Third, if these are your gifts and it is easy for you to support I am immensely grateful for your encouragement. I rinse glasses for guests, because my wife loving and patiently brought this to my attention. More often then not I return the toilet seat to the down position (remember I live with four women). Just over the past two weeks I worked on an bid and presentation with a team at work, and the level of detail that we were able to achieve in this presentation is something we are proud of. It is true to use another analogy, we are all part of one body and the body functions best when each part does what it is created to do. We are all better when we function as one.

If I were writing professionally at the moment I would hire an editor, and then I’d get all the credit for her support in the background. For now I write for passion on a very limited timeline, so if there are those interested in supporting or providing feedback I commit to listening and incorporating the improvements on the details. Also embarrassment is a great motivator for me so my attention to details will improve because I won’t want to hear from you.

For now I want tot say thanks to those who care enough to be engaged and say something. I appreciate your input on my journey!

Warning: this blog post will have discussions of nudity and the word penis in it, if either of these offend you it would be best for you not to read, for the rest of you who are more intrigued enjoy:)

This past week I have been more aware that in Seattle we are entering spring. The flowers are blooming the storms are blowing in with spring time winds, and my mind is turning toward some of the most fun events of the coming season. One that always stands out for me is the Fremont Solstice Parade, it is a celebration of the solstice that includes locally made floats, bands, and is highlighted with hundreds of naked bicyclists roaming freely throughout the parade route on the streets of the neighborhood of Fremont in Seattle.

I don’t remember the conversation but Karin, my wife tells me that when we were first married while I enjoyed the parade I said that once we had kids I would never take them to the parade because of the nudity. She just dismissed this as my conservative East Coast roots, which never deterred her as she even was a part of a dance group that performed in the parade. Her story still cracks me up, she says she remembers doing a roll on the ground and as she turns to come back up to her feel raising her head she said, “Well there is a PENIS.” as one of the naked bicyclist glided past her in route down the parade.

Perhaps the story that most changed my position on taking children to the parade has to do with a friend who took her daughter who was around 10 years old to the parade. She did not prepare her in any way for what she was about to see and was using it as a situation for discussion if anything were to come up (no pun intended). So they went to the entire parade and had a great time, ended up grabbing some lunch where I should mentioned many nudist gather in the neighborhood during the parade for them it is a unifying yearly event for them, and finally were making their way back to the car and the daughter had not said a word. Finally the mother broke down and asked if she had noticed anything unusual at the parade. The daughter responded no and the mother pressed. “You mean you did not notice all the naked people?” and the daughters response was classic, “No mom, I don’t have a dirty mind like you so I don’t see those things.”

Remember we get what we look for, are you looking for the positive or negative around you, I leave it to you to judge what category the naked folks fall into.

Addition: Seth Godin in his elegance describes something similar to this story, here.

Yesterday, I was able to celebrate Karin Lynne Stevens’ Birthday.This is the eighteenth birthday that I have gotten to celebrate with her and it ends up a fun adventure every year! Often I find it hard to believe that we have had been together for this long. Last night we had a wonderful time with one of our dearest friends enjoying the sights and sounds of First Thursday’s free admissions to museums in Pioneer Square. The year below we were exploring the beaches of Kauai, Hawaii and soaking up all the good vibes of the island.

Tomorrow we are getting to travel together again, we are off to a fun night in San Francisco. The girls get to spend a wonderful night with their god mother, while we are enjoying time with Karin’s brother and our nephew. Needless to say we are very excited.

There is so much to be thankful in our life, the fact that we still enjoy each other, we travel well together, we have the freedom to get away for time, loved ones are able to take care of our kids, and we are able to fulfill our adventurous spirit. So enjoy this picture from Jon Burg’s Boardwalk Empire Christmas party years ago, and we will be offline for a bit having an adventure!

Each day most successful people start with with a plan, there are just key activities that have to get done in order to achieve our goals. Even if you aren’t as focused as Zig Ziglar, Seth Godin, or Tim Ferris you likely have some type of practice in this area.

Today like any other I have my plan and while in a meeting with a coworker as we are working on a priority that jumped it’s way to the top I said to her, “I’m getting more then I planned done.” She said that she wished that was the case as her attention had ended up in other places then she had planned. But she was right, the same happened for me. My daily plan was severely adjusted and I had not touched anything in the plan yet. That is because I had all these other things going on, things that are more important and a higher level priority. Instead of seeing it as a negative, I’m excited to spend my time on areas that have the biggest impact on my and other’s success! Discipline comes in identifying when these unplanned things are enhancing or detracting from your success, but it is great to have a plan that is flexible enough to allow me to accomplish the best rather then just good.

I grew up with dogs, but now I have two cats in my home. One we have had for about five years and we got him as an adult rescue, George. He is very relaxed and had the perfect temperament since our youngest daughter was two when we got him.

George had some major issues related to diet and he was extremely sedentary. One experience with kidney stones and we almost lost him, but thankful he survived though it was an extremely dramatic season for our family. Overall he has been a great pet and he is always willing to snuggle up in your lap.

Last year we got a kitten, Lucy. She has been curious since birth, playful, and has brought out the best of George. The addition of her to our family has been to everyone’s benefit.

There are many things that I really enjoy about having these two things in our lives, watching the play together has been the most surprising part as we thought George was incapable. But the most recent thing that has really gotten me about Lucy is her obsession with the birds. We have a number of bird feeders around our house and she has found every optimal spot to watch them, always in a hunting stance. She naturally has this attraction and instinct, that is because she is a CAT.

George on the other hand was with us when we had the mice in our attic. He considers bringing us single socks and towels and putting them in front of our bedroom door his version of mousing. He lets our groans that are our single to be proud of him. Now that I have Lucy in all her natural ability to compare I can’t help but wonder what did George go through that has made him so limited in his natural instinct. The affection that he offers to our family I am forever grateful for, and yet it is clear to me that he is not doing what he is created to do. He is stuck. Watching Lucy I can’t help be admire how see lives fully in what she is created to do.

Did you miss the excitement around leap year? My children didn’t for a large part of the day on Sunday we spent time talking about how special it was…and what if you had been born on this day…and were we going to have a treat to celebrate Leap Year the next day. Regardless I didn’t get it.

Then yesterday afternoon while looking through my newsfeed I saw that some companies were giving employees a day off to volunteer, and as usual some companies were using it as a marketing opportunity because we know it is hard for them just to do the right thing. While working out in the morning I was listening to Tim Ferris’ podcast where he interviews Seth Godin, Seth is a big influencer on me but I had not listen to him in a while and I mean years but hearing him talk reminded me of why his words transform me. So last night I read his blog, A whole year? Yes, a whole year for leaping.

It hit me, I had taken a leap yesterday without even realizing it. Yesterday was more significant to me then my reflection/resolutions at the beginning of the year, because I leaped. This year is one of change for me, I’m taking on new challenges and yesterday without any consciousness of Leap Year I had plunged into the deep in. Taking on my new responsibilities and goal with a focus and a hopefulness. Here is just a bit of what I’m dealing with:

1. Transitioning a role to a coworker with strengths that make her perfect to lead.
2. Focusing full time in business development, my strength and passion.
3. A secret project that will likely launch in April with my current job that is something I have wanted to do for years.

So if you have not taken the leap yet this year I would encourage you to do it. Strangely the universe motivated me to do it yesterday, February 29th but I know the only significance in that may be that it motivated me to get back writing:)

Here is a link to a previous post with a picture of Seth Godin, Karin Stevens (wife) and me.

“The race for quality has no finish line- so technically, it’s more like a death march.” -Unknown

There are at least three elements that make localization challenging: Complexity of projects, control of rates and payments globally, and the ever pursuit of the “White Whale” of language quality. To carry the “White Whale” analogy further for Moravia our Captain Ahab is Moravia Language Services (MLS), a group of expert linguists dedicated to making sure that every word Moravia provides to a client is quality. And yes I do think it is fair to say that just like Ahab, MLS has encountered this White Whale and walked away with a limp at times. Every person at Moravia does know that quality is not merely the responsibility of MLS, but rather every member of client delivery must focus on the pursuit of this “White Whale”, so I guess that makes us the crew of the Pequod.

Is there a way to bring life to those pursuing this lofty goal in providing our clients quality in every word? Next I hope to share one perspective of how we hope this leads to life rather then a death march.

To start let’s look at the software development process to find out where we generally fit in. I start with software because most of my clients are in this industry, yet the same view could apply to product development, marketing, or life sciences. While it is helpful if company consider localization requirements early in the software development process, it is usually not the case. Take a fairly traditional image of the software development process:

At best we can hope that companies are taking internationalization into account during the Idea and Definition stage, others would describe this as the Requirements, Design stages. At the best case we find localization being done during the Review and Refinement stage, though often it is very late and on the downward path. Again it is usually at Testing/Verification (and when 90% of the budget is used up) that localization enters into the process.

When localization starts late in the process it creates greater challenges regarding quality. The less time you have before shipment, the great room for error. Some of our clients and many companies have adopted an Agile process to address this and Moravia has many good resources for you to check out on Agile localization here and here and here.

In short Agile is breaking down the long process of the first chart into chunks of development that can be reasonably managed in 2 or 3 week cycles, a sprint. The highlights of this process are the planning that takes place by the team and the daily accountability in stand up meetings. most companies use some form of this process incorporating some of the methods into their development. This is good because localization is planned for before each sprint, this additional time and insight regarding the limit of what could potential come for localization does improve capacity management of translators and ultimately quality on every word.

As I mentioned most companies are using some form of the agile process these days though it has been around for years now and would be consider a ‘mature’ model though not quite ‘vintage’ at this stage. One specific Agile methodology that really took of is known as Lean, with the book release by Erik Ries of The Lean Startup companies such as PayPal looked to drive this methodology into all aspects of their business not just software development.

I’m predicting that with the release in 2014 of Trevor Owens’ The Lean Enterprise, the methodology will be around for longer and will continue to be adopted by leading companies.

You can get an idea from the Lean workflow that sprints may not be as stable or controlled when compared to a strict Agile development. The sprints have the potential to lead to faster iteration, when the process is boiled down to Make > Check > Think, companies are able to move quickly. They Build prototypes or next version right away so results can Measured and Learn from the data before the next cycle. From the outsider prospective the rapid speed involved with Lean development has potential to be chaotic and negatively impact quality. There are controls specific to Lean that make quality greater rather then worse. This is the point I want to get to and we have the Toyota Company to thank for this remarkable quality process that has benefits far beyond manufacturing.

Toyota’s quality process, that has been adopted by Lead Development, has two emphasis PEOPLE and CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT. Both of these are key for Moravia to assure each word delivered is quality, this goes for every member of the team as well not just Language Quality Managers. For instance when a Localization Engineer writes a script that automates a portion of the hand off for the Project Manager and 30 minutes of time is saved. That means for every language thirty minutes can be introduced into the localization work flow that can be dedicated to additional time for the translator to translator, the proofreader to proofread, the editor to edit, or the reviewer to review. This Localization Engineer can have a major impact on language quality though he does not look at a specific word. These incremental improvements by our team members have enormous impacts on the quality of the words Moravia delivers.

Digging one level deeper, this means everyone involved with the localization workflow has the Andon System. Wikipedia describes the Adon System as:

An Andon System is one of the principal elements of the Jidoka quality-control method pioneered by Toyota as part of the Toyota Production System and therefore now part of the Lean approach.^[1][2] It gives the worker the ability, and moreover the empowerment, to stop production when a defect is found, and immediately call for assistance. Common reasons for manual activation of the Andon are part shortage, defect created or found, tool malfunction, or the existence of a safety problem. Work is stopped until a solution has been found. The alerts may be logged to a database so that they can be studied as part of a continuous-improvement program.

To me this is one of the most striking ways to bring life to quality improvement. No longer will the person who designed the manufacturing line, or the people manager, or the manager of the plant, or anyone else not involved directly with the production only have the power to stop the line because of poor quality. It is not the CEO, CTO or managing directors at Moravia who can make change. Rather every individual dedicated to that production has the ability and responsibility to own quality. This to me is life-giving! Providing Moravia employees the power to know that they are able to make positive change. This can lead to a healthy pride in your work and confidence that each word delivered is quality.

This is one way that we believe the pursuit of quality can change from a death march to a life giving process. We do this at Moravia because it is the right thing to do for our customers. This addresses one of the three elements I mentioned at the beginning of this article related to the complexity of localization keep an eye out for thoughts on the other two.

“Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.” -Herman Melville, Moby Dick