Learning often goes something like this: you "know" things in general theory, and only pay attention and apply them to your life after trial and error.

For the shrewd and savvy there is another option: you can learn in sharp secondhand detail and decide to forgo a painful learn-as-you-go process. It's sort of like knowing vaguely that childbirth is painful, versus experiencing the pain yourself, versus hearing about the process from your now-bedridden sister. After hearing a particularly intense anecdote, you really start wondering how you can obtain the dividends without the excruciating other stuff, maybe for the first time.

Childbirth and running a company both present unforeseen challenges and unexpected twists, but case studies of success in either case are heartening and enlightening. Heartening, because it's possible and fear is the worst enemy of any endeavor; enlightening, because it's more likely to be possible if you follow certain procedures.

With that in mind, welcome to MultiLingual's first-ever case studies issue. Although these true tales are a touch less melodramatic than your average birth recounting, they'll offer some handy evidence for doing things the right way nonetheless.

There's Eduardo Chacón's review of PROMT Version 9 to start things off. Tom Edwards' column on US sensitivities is informative as always, as is John Freivalds' on code-sharing languages and Adam Asnes' on simship. The case studies themselves cover topics such as optimization of software localization — from Frank Lin and Boris Gurevich — and hiring practices in the language industry, from Denise Spacinsky. Additionally, David Filip presents an article on leveraging translation memories with metadata, and Scott Bass offers some advice on XML authoring. Mohamed Attia, Bente Maegaard, Khalid Choukri and Olivier Hamon detail how to create a collaborative framework for building language technology, aimed in this case towards Arabic. This particular framework is different, by the way, than the recently-covered Meedan, which is a general forum used for sharing news.

A few companies have their own case studies in a new white paper section, as well. Then John Yunker reports on the current best global websites, and Claire Ulrich covers some recent technological developments in minority African languages. Daniel B. Harcz presents a mini-case study on translation agency specialization in the Takeaway to finish everything up. And there you have our little first-born case studies issue.

–Katie Botkin, Managing Editor