#MEDIAENT

Interpreneur is an innovative app which aims to keep alive the opportunity of bilingualism and linguistic communication as a means of both professional and social gain. Interpreneur would be accessible around the globe, and would work as a user directory. It eliminates the ongoing crisis of what many end users of current translation services have been faced with.

A major commercial implication of organisations in continents such as Africa and Asia is that their countries, and languages respectively, are becoming alienated through the loss of ability to cohesively exist alongside western languages that dominant the globe, such as English and Spanish, and to the far-east, Mandarin. The market trend here is that these top spoken languages are autonomous of countries which in turn dominate business, social and cultural spheres. Therefore, under these circumstances, who would feel the need to learn Shona, the Zimbabwean mother tongue? Maybe the question which should instead be asked is how could Zimbabweans utilise learning another African language, or perhaps a more widely spoken western language, to put the social and professional potential of Zimbabwe on the map? Many people from African, Asian and European countries migrate to the U.K and U.S for example, and assimilation can mean those who originate from those countries are forgetting how they can keep their home languages and cultures alive.

Here are some striking statistics I found on endangered languages:

                                                                                                           Source: TheDay.co.uk, May 2012

Similarly, audiences within the current translation services market are not becoming enriched by the bridging between language learning and experience a country’s culture. Rosetta Stone currently goes by the motto that “you can’t learn a culture if you don’t speak the language.”.  Livemocha, a similar translation company that is solely web-based currently claims that there are 16+ million members in their community which span every single country in the world. However, one stunning statistic is that almost all of their top ten countries represented on the website are of successful economies, and their first languages are the most widely spoken on earth.

So, thinking about the target audiences of Interpreneur, two areas of the app will exist, to enrich language within people’s social and professional communications. The market research I have done in terms of audience markets has brought me to traveller blogs, such as Nomadic Matt.

http://www.nomadicmatt.com/?s=language

His posts on language sum up his experiences in many different countries to which he was a complete tourist. He explained during his travels in China that once you immerse yourself in the culture of China, many people there will open up to you in a muiltitude of intelligible languages spoken around the country. Clearly there is a gap in the market for Interpreneur to exist to serve a social cause in that travellers are able to seek out cultural experiences with language being what drives them to unlock their experience.

Click through below to see my audience research surrounding competitor Rosetta Stone, which uncovered user Delaine Thomas’ need for app based linguistic and cultural information which engages professionals, rather than simply becoming another translation service.

http://emilioenterprise.tumblr.com/post/132608786089/market-research-researching-potential-audiences

Below is another post I made collating market and industry reports information on competitors and trends in the translation industry which my app aims to address.

http://emilioenterprise.tumblr.com/post/132613111044/market-research-market-and-industry-reports

The support needed to fund Interpreneur is straightforward: rewards-based crowdfunding through websites such as Kickstarter means that through advertising what Interpreneur has to offer them as clients of the app, we can incentivize their investment in the start-up of the enterprise. The target audience will be drawn to a Kickstarter campaign which will provide teaser content to showcase what Interpreneur is doing to engage youth professionals, global travellers and urban culture seekers with wanderlust, in placing language within their cultural interest to attain goals within their own lives.

Marketing the app through these websites will emphasize how exciting and revolutionary it would be to “unlock” smaller countries’ culture through the gem of their country, their endangered languages.

And the means to engage with the language and dialects of hundreds of countries out there is accessible through an app, anytime, anywhere.

So, what are the next steps for Interpreneur to thrive as a language enterprise?

Interpreneur would need to work alongside app developers to create a free-for-all trial of the app which can exist across multiple mobile operating systems, such as iOS and Android.

Pangeanic - Reports on the current translation industry

http://www.pangeanic.com/knowledge_center/size-of-the-translation-industry/#

I found this article on Pangeanic, a translation agency, who analyse the current industry trends surrounding professional translation services.Their comment on the environment of professional services was that the most recent economic trend in the 21st century of Eastern countries migrating to the U.S has meant that many speakers of Middle Eastern and African languages are losing out on the benefits of what the report defines as “localization”. They mention that where certain languages are now being forgotten about, small to medium enterprises are benefitting from the effects of language “localization” which takes into account local cultural and linguistic traits, different keyword trends, etc., generally using translation as a sales tool or for marketing purposes. 

http://labs.theguardian.com/digital-language-divide/

This industry report analyses the current language situation over Twitter. A startling fact on the report mentions that almost 50% of languages spoken throughout tweets are NOT in English. This highlights the need for an app which will engage almost everybody speaking any language to learn a second.

Pappas DMI

Pappas DMI also recognised through their industry reports into competitors that speaking a new language was considered “a gateway to understanding culture, making deeper interpersonal connections, and self-improvement.”

Rosetta Stone - Delaine’s Story

The video above is from the YouTube page of what would potentially be my main industry competitor in terms of my enterpreneurial idea, Rosetta Stone. They have published this video to document the story behind Delaine Thomas, whose goal is to understand a plurality of languages in different areas of India. 

I found it important to note that Delaine’s reasons behind her travelling were of a professional nature. She was trying to research social services across the country which required her to speak to many people on a daily basis, to find out information. 

Another thing I noted down from this was that she is from the U.S, a western, third-world country in which the primary language spoken in English, the most spoken language in the world.

Therefore, a gap in Rosetta Stone’s marketing strategy within its enterprise model is that it is still alienating many individuals of developing countries who may want to learn a second language in order to boost their own professional projects through utilizing their first languages.

Linking back to my market and industry research, The Guardian research expressed that when using the internet as a tool for gathering information for professional projects, online encyclopaedias for example become less of a useful research tool when trying to translate certain articles.

My enterprise idea would be to build a universally accessible app (through iTunes, Android, etc) which acts as a database of a wide range of bilingual speakers from around the globe. The app would eliminate language barriers in both professional and social situations.

Key Partners

Interpretors - speakers of both English and either Spanish, French or Chinese. Trialling a number of these speakers live on the app would be a prerequisite to start off the venture. This would mean incentivizing them to provide their language skills through commission-based rewards.

Key Activities

A multi-user platform on mobile devices which allows for video/audio, face-to-face, live communication. Within the app would also be training sessions that the speakers could off round the clock, giving their expertise on different linguistic challenges, understanding strong dialects, and slang/”street” language.

Key Resources

Technical resources, such as app developers and moderator teams. Also financial resources would be pertinent in upholding the service as it expands to serve different languages and communication needs.

Value Propositions

MotionFish - www.motionfishmediaproject.org.uk

Looking into the mission statement of the company, I was really impressed with the mutual exclusivity that both their primary target customers would be granted. The main value proposition of the company was to enhance training, skills and media enterprise skills for media graduates on making professional video content for small businesses’ websites.

I really like this idea as in turn it benefits the companies who are much valued by MotionFish as their community interest targets. As well as offering physical services such as video marketing packages for the businesses, and physical media equipments, facilities and spaces for the graduates, the value propositions of MotionFish are high.

They propose to use the different expertise of staff within their company to advise, mentor and train both parties on how they can each get the most out of the enterprise, by forwarding their business or media production skills and guiding them in the right “self-marketing” directions - i.e building business/media showreels to further future employability.

SlackPress - http://www.slackpress.co.uk/

SlackPress’s social enterprise idea provides creative opportunity by combining storytelling with media production to enable local communities to again kickstart their video productions. They state on their website that they aim to nurture this talent with graduates who come to them, and combine this with developing digital media skills to produce web content for a number of charitable events organisations local to them in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland. Therefore a large proportion of its clientel are of community interest.

They hold a more varied range of value propositions particularly towards the benefit of local organisations and causes. They include community interest video production, event video production, corporate video production, media training and workshop programmes, training development plans and materials.