On LISA's Untimely but Very Proverbial Demise

Old proverbs say that: “Ignorance is bliss … and peace of life”. Therefore we should always remain grateful to our industry's seasoned professionals for keeping us in the dark about certain unpleasant facts of life, legal and financial issues, and dealings withinin our industry organizations, etc. If we are not aware of certain facts, we will not worry our little heads about them, and life will be good.

There had been signals and rumours for some time now that all was not well at the industry’s oldest Language Industry Standards Association (LISA). However, when the announcement suddenly came on the eve of the Standards Summit in Boston that LISA had just declared itself insolvent and was shutting down operations as of 28 February 2011, a lot of people were very surprised.

In fact, the people that were most surprised of all were the LISA members who had not been notified about this important development by LISA! In spite of some claims that such an announcement had been made to the membership earlier that day by Michael Anobile in an email, many members seem to have experienced considerable difficulty finding this important email in their inboxes.

This is a truly comforting situation because if anything brings our industry in line with the real world out there, it is the fact that the people who have any vested interest in a given venture or organisation always find out last about any important developments. In our little GILT industry we usually have to rely on the 'good old fishmonger wives’ and ‘evidently enlightened evangelist bloggers’ for any watered down with hearsay scraps of information. Which is actually great, because we are not excessively exposed to harsh reality and real information. It’s all for our own good.

However, sometimes reality just can’t stop biting you in the ass. Two days, and still no explanation of any sort, later, an announcement to this effect was posted on the LISA website: “As of 2011 February 28, the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) is insolvent. In spite of the financial constraints LISA faces as an organization, we are exploring ways to continue the association's good works for the industry. If you are not a member and are interested in being advised of our progress, please register here. Thank you.”

This was posted under “Important News” - but obviously only for the benefit of non-members. Yet another clever move to keep the LISA members happy in their state of ignorance. For, in spite of the fact that as a member you were still told absolutely nothing and were not advised of anything, at least the non-members were being asked to register and be advised on LISA’s progress in “exploring ways to continue the association's good works for the industry”. While LISA members could still retain their privileged position of being in no position to know anything.

Hence, I am sure these poor ‘non-members’ were absolutely sick with worry about LISA and biting their fingernails with anticipation, while the good old lucky LISA members could just sit back and enjoy their status of ‘blissful ignorance’ and meditate about the virtual unimportance of all information in a world that’s been ‘twitterized out of all sense’ anyway.

Let’s admit it. Since 28 February, life without LISA has been ignorantly blissful to all those in the privileged ex-member position. The only clouds that mar our clear blue skies are the odd automated spam emails that we still receive several times per week from the LISA Admin who, obviously unaware of the fact that he has been ‘liquidated’, still keeps promoting this or that company or webinar – much akin to the ultra-reliable, sociopathic HAL series' computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

Oh, and from time to time, the comfortingly boring buzz of our internet existence is disrupted with the far away howling of the jackals (i.e. some of our industry’s typically lazy but very resourceful organizations and individuals) who are frantically trying to figure out how to get at the LISA carcass (a small body of standards, documentation and know-how, and some odd conference brands), tear it to pieces, and drag off the bones to their separate lairs in order to chew on them for the next 20 years or so.

So let us remain in this state of blissful ignorance as long as possible. May we resist the temptation to interfere with the funeral service or the wake of our faithfully departed LISA. For, if we make too much noise, the proverbial corpse might just hear our insincere condolences, spring back to life and start demanding some more membership dues, more support, and some proper eulogies.