Episode 2: Talia Baruch, Global-Ready Product Growth at Google, LinkedIn, SurveyMonkey, founder of GlobalSaké
In this episode, Talia Baruch provides a masterclass on how to properly localize a company's Vision, Mission, Value Prop, and product experience, and why it's so important to take on a global-ready mindset from the start. She goes into dozens of real world examples of how companies including LinkedIn, Evernote, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola adapted their approach in order to succeed overseas. Below is a chronological list of topics we cover with links to external resources. At the beginning of the episode, Talia describes her early influences, which include her upbringing in a multicultural home where East meets West (her father is from Samarkand's Silk Road and her mother from England), and in particular her summers growing up at “Yewsdene” (aka The Ark"), built by her grandfather, which was the safe haven "Paradise on Planet Earth," where WWII refugees and immigrants from across the globe came together in a fusion of shared cross-cultural perspectives. Talia shared some incredible photos of Yewsdene linked below. Enjoy!
The ParlamINT - Talia's GlobalSaké monthly series covering the holistic, cross-functional areas for building a global-ready and geo-fit product strategy, integrating the right regional and cultural factors to win local new markets on a global scale.
Yewsdene and Talia's Influencers. How far Localization has come in the past 20 years
How to set up your company to be global ready from the start, and the re-work needed if you don't.
Learnings from companies that nailed the local approach in Japan and China - Evernote and LinkedIn
Localizing your brand and lightweight entry strategy for China Localizing the entire user journey - way beyond language
How should you build your international team, and where this function should live within the organization
What's the right first hire, what other skills do you need on your international team
Internationalization vs. Localization and what most companies overlook. The spectrum between straight translation, localization, transcreation and local content origination.
Setting up your platform infrastructure architecture the right way to prevent code re-factoring and rework later
Vision, mission and value proposition - how these concepts intersect, and what should be adapted to fit your priority new markets
How Starbucks and Wix had to adapt their brands to not offend customers in the Middle East and Germany. Here's a video of Wix turning an awkward brand name mishap into marketing gold (hint: Google 'Wix in German').
Is anyone big enough to not need to localize?
Germany and Japan - why these markets are so different from the rest and what they have in common
Localizing your Marketing approach for Europe and Asia
The pitfalls of localizing for Asia but without local content The importance of "guanxi", reciprocity, and trust in Asia
Fun ones - Talia's biggest cultural learning, favorite hotel, tips for jetlag, and biggest influence
