The Localization Industry Standards Association (www.lisa.org) recently announced its insolvency and is expected to close down. Andovar has always been a keen proponent of Industry Standards over proprietary tools, but we think this is probably a positive development. The standards will continue and the subcommittees on their development will move elsewhere. Why the indifference then, to the impending departure of one the oldest associations in the industry?
LISA's main activities in the past decade has been to hold conferences on localization around the world. Most industry veterans agree that there are too many such conferences with GALA, ClientSide News, Localization World and LISA chasing the same attendees. The most recent LISA conference was still pushing the same workshops they advertised ten years ago and the Localization Client list of attendees had barely changed either.
Apart from the endless recycling of workshops among the the closed shop of lecturers and clients, it has always seemed to us that it was a conflict of interest for a standards organization to host for-profit conferences, with said profits going not to LISA but to a related private organization. At the same time the annual subscription fees of over USD $4,000 for “basic corporate memberships” seem extraordinarily high compared to the fees of other industry associations.
With the Localization industry experienced sustained strong growth, we see this as an opportunity for consolidation and restructuring of industry associations. The LISA conferences will go, but the standards will go on.