Motivational Content Translation
for B2B Technology Marketers
Welcome to the Cyrillite℠, online office of Vladimir Shelukhin. An independent English-to-Russian industrial communications professional I offer localization of field-specific content to international technology promoters and sellers who do their business in the former Soviet Union.
A pain point for this region is that instead of building confidence, Russian industrial marketing copy aimed at corporate buyers often sounds miserable because it was translated — verbatim. I capture the message as it was actually intended, and transfer it into my native language as if it had been written from scratch by a qualified Russian creative.
My work has two primary selling points:
- Focus on the message to be delivered solidly and persuasively;
- Focus on engagement of the target Russian-thinking business readership.
The value I add to a product supply chain is the commercially viable transformation of your technology marketing into equally carefully crafted and credible Russian outreach copy.
Services to Direct Clients and Communication Providers
- English-to-Russian marketing and technical translation
- Creative adaptation of product-specific content written to stay competitive
- Proofreading, editing, in-country layout and typography check
- Development of target industry terminology, TEnT glossary building
Subject Matter Insight
- Enterprise IT ecosystem, ITIL, cloud computing
- Network storage architecture (special focus on NetApp), adapters, switches, hubs, routers, interconnection devices
- Cloud implementation, shared multi-tenancy, ITSM
- Digital information security, CSIRT development, OWASP, PCI DSS, PA DSS
- Data protection and disaster recovery
- Business intelligence, decision support and workflow management systems
- Document flow and enterprise content management systems
- Knowledge management systems, information acquisition, data warehousing, OLAP
- Internet technologies and World Wide Web
- Web design and Web development
- Web typography
- Web standards, CSS, HTML, XML
- Internet security
- Internet advertising campaigns
- Graphic industries, printing and publishing
- Industrial graphic design and production
- Production equipment: platesetters and imagesetters, wide-format printers, plotters and cutters, screen print stations
- Prepress processes: digital galley preparation, typesetting, formatting and markup, imposition, preflight
- Editorial processes: graphic design, copy-editing, proofreading
- Typography conventions, in-house guides and manuals
- Font design and management
- Organizational development
- Industrial publicity and communication, technology content marketing
- Corporate government, business administration, organizational behavior, research, surveys and case studies
- Corporate guidance: business ethics: policies, rules, codes of conduct
- Business process management and re-engineering, service design
- Administrative management: project management, records management, personnel management, performance indicators
- Human resources management, responsibilities, functions, obligations, roles
- Leadership coaching and staff development, training courses, in-house workshops, mentoring
- Publicity communication planning, promotion and advertizing
- Identity manuals, visions, mission statements, goals, aims, objectives, targets
- Sales scripts, demonstration scripts
- Market research and surveys: consumer habits, demand, market trends, effectiveness, impact of public relations
- News releases
- Collateral materials: sales brochures and other printed product information, Web content
Key Competitive Strengths
- One place. One person. One point of responsibility.
Business value provider vs.
linguistic modem
Three complementary business capabilities add value to my translations:
- Subject domain and niche market insight;
- Technical and creative writing skills;
- In-depth knowledge of professional content file-format handling and language translation production.
Such a mix of specific skills rarely comes in one bundle, especially in the Russian translation market, which is overstocked with bargain-basement offers, yet is very short of qualified linguists who are technical, specialized, and creative at the same time.
- Clarity, style, and creativity that persuade and sell
Authentic localization for better business
No longer can technology marketers rely on cookie-cutter creative to lead prospects into the purchase funnel. In the social Web, marketers must engage technology decision-makers through multiple channels, delivering the right message, at the right time, with equal parts authenticity and credibility,
* says Bob Melk, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher at IDG Enterprise. And yes, everyone enjoys reading good writing, and not just when they are reading fiction. The executives and technical staff you are targeting are not exceptions, including if they live in a post-Soviet country.I had started to write for creative agencies and to edit for newspapers years before I began to translate professionally. In order to produce outstanding work equivalent to the source in its power to reach, engage, influence, and convert, I always do my best to see the big picture and take into account the readership that is to be advanced through the sales funnel, and then to fine-tune everything. You can forget about complaints from VARs, partners, sales or local technical support about convoluted phrasing that damages credibility rather than stimulating purchase.
* Melk, Bob. Bringing Method to Media Madness [PDF file]. — [s. l.]: IDG Enterprise, ca. 2011. P. 2.
- Translation workflow without headaches
One-stop shop, a low-maintenance service provider
I am exceptionally adept at desktop publishing — that is, exceptionally for a linguist (ambidexterity in language and computer-aided production is in very short supply among translators). Beginning in 1991, I have worked for over 12 years in-house, doing a bit of everything in the fields of pre-press, graphic design, commercial writing, and advertising, so I am acutely aware of how content flows in and out of key business processes.
Unlike most of my peers, I have a hand in pre- and post-translation preparation work, and always deliver my translations as publication-ready digital manuscripts, clear of rogue formatting and observing Russian typography conventions. You no longer need to hire a Russian content manager for single-sourcing XML to MS Word round-trips, or to make your non-Russian-speaking DTP staff deal with the challenges of fixing the layout and formatting of a PowerPoint presentation in Cyrillic characters.
- Versatile translation memory expertise
Wide Support of TM Tools
I am a proficient TM feeder and a native dweller in translation environments (memoQ 4 and 5, Déjà Vu X, SDL Trados 2007 Suite, SDL Trados Studio 2009, SDL TMS 20xx, and more).
- Organic specialized terminology
Greater Vocabulary Than Most Peers Can Boast Of
Every working day I maintain and stock up my terminology retrieval system of more than 110 personal bilingual subject matter thesauri which I started in the first couple of years of my language career.
The delay in creation of new terminology in the former Soviet Union, especially noticeable in the dizzying development of the IT sphere, requires the greatest care and very specific lexicological skills to select and co-locate organic, grammatically and etymologically correct Russian equivalents. No struggling kitchen-table translator has time, or qualification, or is willing to do such foundational work, and is left polluting carefully developed original marketing copy with unreadable, distorted, or silly shop talk and loan translations instead of technical terms of art.
- My signature under the work I produce
Working for hire, I take pride in my work and take responsibility for it
The anonymous translation, produced by the sort of word-replacing human resource that global translation brokers tend to hire, simply does not pay the bills, however cheap it may seem. With no face and no name, a sweatshop translator has no reputation to care about either.
By contrast, I am serious about my profession and business, and so I strongly endorse Chris Durban's “Sign Your Work” protocol. If I confirm a service order, that means I have studied your copy and satisfied myself that I am properly qualified to serve your marketing department with insightful, solid, technically correct localization that retains the original flow and effect. My name in the credits is an indication that I take responsibility for the Russian localized content I deliver.