Just this past Wednesday, Starbucks released the official redesign of their classic logo. In a bold move somewhat reminiscent of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, they dropped the name of the company from their logo, freed the iconic, spread-finned siren from her circular prison, and zoomed up on her face (which, according to the senior creative manager at Starbucks, also went through a few fine calibrations of its own). While there’s been no small amount of outcry over this “travesty” of branding from loyal Starbucks enthusiasts (one of whom babbled about her gold-card status in a not-so-subtle threat), I for one think that the new wordless logo is a brave and applause-worthy maneuver toward true globalization on Starbucks’ part.

Straight from the mouth of Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, “our new brand identity will give us the freedom and flexibility to explore innovations and new channels of distribution that will keep us in step with our current customers and build strong connections with new customers.” From one angle, it’s pretty clear that Starbucks is going to move beyond caffeinated beverages, hence the removal of the word “coffee” from their logo. From another angle, though, by liberating their brand from the confines of language, building strong connections with new customers is precisely what they’re going to achieve in international markets.

A few months back, a new buzz word started popping up among language professionals in cyber space: globality. Described as the “end-state of globalization,” globality is essentially the ultimate goal of companies engaging in globalization/localization, a state in which their brand and products are equally and accurately represented across countries, cultures, and languages. (Side note: I’ve tried and tried to coin the word “localicious” for this very concept, but it never seemed to catch on.) In this respect, the new Starbucks logo is a huge leap over what may have otherwise been an alienating hurdle. They’re now a lot closer to globality than ever before.

Consider this: in a country like China, which is where I live, there are some 300 Starbucks locations. Traditionally speaking, the Chinese are not a coffee-drinking people; many of the older generation won’t touch the stuff. But coffee consumption, since the opening of the first Starbucks in China in 1999, has become a popular (if not expensive) pastime among younger Chinese people and businessmen.

Guest blog entry by Petra Held, European Business Development Manager and Localization Expert at CSOFT

Apart from having the special technical knowledge required to sell a product or service, sellers also have to take into consideration different aspects of mutual interaction, like specific cultural knowledge of your target market(s), which should be used to develop a brand of tailored charisma that is indirectly reinforced through such knowledge.

Europe is a multilingual and multicultural geographical area, rather small compared to some countries, and the sheer amount of diversity between the Northern and Southern parts cannot be more pronounced. The climatic differences alone are severe, and over the course of the centuries, have doubtlessly influenced the various mentalities of inhabitants throughout the continent. Even if globalization has helped to modify the insular way of thinking among European cultures, practically nobody inside the community is really eager to give up their identity, nor their culture, regardless of material advantage.

It’s the first Wednesday of the first month of a new (Gregorian) year, so what else would we be gearing up for except Wacky Word Wednesday? To all our readers out there, welcome back for this weekly celebration of the wackiest and most interesting words from around the world!

To dive right in, here’s the definition of today’s word, accismus, from TermWiki.com:

ac·cis·mus [ak-siz-muhs] -noun Coyness; feigning disinterest in something while actually desiring it

From the Greek akkismos, meaning “prudery,” and derived from akkizesthai, which means “to feign ignorance,” this word seems like a mouthful (okay, it is a mouthful), but it’s one of those words that we can all relate to, unbeknownst to us until someone brings it up.

To start with, first consider the term sour grapes. Aesop’s Fables, a world-renowned collection of short stories that integrate a lesson on morals into the plot, includes stories such as “The Tortoise and the Hare”, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, “The Ant and the Grasshopper”, etc. Another famous story in this list of didactic tales is “The Fox and the Grapes”. In this short story, the protagonist fox is hungry and enticed by some grapes hanging from a vine high above him. He jumps and leaps as high as he can, but cannot reach the grapes. After many attempts, he finally turns away in disgust and says “Oh, you aren’t even ripe yet! I don’t need any sour grapes.”

Can you believe that 2010 went by so quickly? In many ways, the New Year constitutes a new chapter in work, play and life in general. So for this week’s Straight from the Source, we thought we’d share with you a few thoughts, aspirations and resolutions from CSOFT team members for the year 2011.

This week’s question: What are your plans and resolutions for 2011?