LocWorld38 took place in Seattle October 17-19, 2018, after a six-year hiatus from the city. Future-focused presentations included “Alexa, What Does the Future of Localization Look Like?” However, RWS Moravia CEO Paul Danter noted in the keynote panel on October 19 that it is difficult to know which technology “is actually disruptive” until the future is hindsight.

With an eye on a digital future, the October 18 keynote speaker Marcus East, chief technology officer of National Geographic, spoke about how change is the only constant. The bad news, said East, is that many businesses are getting digital transformation wrong, and as a result are not surviving. East said he believes that companies that survive “have a culture of change.” Specifically, they have flexible technology; a culture of experimentation; a culture of measurement — the desire to measure results, either success or failure — collaboration; agility or “the ability to move really, really fast”; and the belief that “the customer is the king or queen.”

National Geographic has the biggest Instagram following of any corporate brand; they have the most user engagement of any media company in the world. Their team “builds the product to serve a global audience” partly because the team itself is quite international. “Many companies today are not truly planning for a global audience,” East summarized.

His predictions for the future were that personalization will be increasingly important, as will the internet of things, blockchain and AI.

Attendance at the event was high, pulling from nearby tech companies headquartered in Seattle, and LocWorld’s official networking events sponsored by a host of companies were popular.