![[image Addison Phillips]](https://www.unicode.org/announcements/addison-phillips-intvw.png)
Throughout the year, we engage in in-depth discussions with Unicode
contributors to spotlight their vital contributions and share their stories.
These conversations are a key part of our initiative to recognize the often
unseen efforts of our volunteers, offering a more personal glimpse into the
lives of those who drive our mission forward.
In our latest feature, meet Addison Phillips, a dedicated volunteer who
brings a wealth of enthusiasm, expertise, and passion to the Unicode community.
Q: What do you do now and what’s your role with Unicode?
A: I am currently Chair of the Unicode Message Format Working Group. I
retired having spent the last 14 years at Amazon as well as a variety of other
organizations including Yahoo, Web Methods (part of Software AG), and
AT&T/Lucent Technologies. I’m primarily an “internationalization architect”, but
I’ve worked in the localization, tools, and consulting space.
Q: How long have you been a volunteer at Unicode? Is there an area of
focus currently?
A: A long time. I have volunteered on different levels with Unicode since the
early 2000s. I had some less consistent involvement in the late 1990s.
Most recently, I’ve been the Chair of the Message Format Working Group, which
is part of the CLDR project. We just released our Technical Preview a couple of
months ago, as part of LDML45.
A lot of locale data is focused on individual APIs–how do you format a
number? How do you format a time? How do you call “January” or “Tuesday” or
“Morocco” in a given language? But Message Format, to me, is a much better
starting point for the people building the software–and the people localizing
it. It’s a format that lets developers make easy-to-translate, grammatical
messages and saves all these people from having to learn all the low-level
formatting minutiae. Building an open, shared, consistent standard for
formatting will unlock so much.
Q: How did you first become involved with Unicode?
A: Initially, I attended Unicode conferences, as I was working in
localization and the i18n consulting space. I was lobbying for Unicode support,
for example from browser makers such as Netscape. I started presenting at
Unicode conferences, including the Introduction to Internationalization
tutorial. In the early 2000s, I joined the conference review committee and the
editorial committee and also engaged my employers to become members of Unicode.
In March 2003, I attended the Unicode conference in Prague, where Mark Davis
(Unicode’s cofounder) and I cooked up a plan to address issues with locale
identifiers–then a hot topic–which resulted in BCP47. That work is a cornerstone
of the locale data work that, today, is CLDR. On-going, I had steady but what I
would consider “lower tier involvement” with Unicode including lots of
communication about needed fixes.
Q: What do you enjoy about contributing to Unicode?
A: The camaraderie. These are the people who “speak my language”: they share
the same concerns, and face the same problems. Unicode as an organization has
been really effective at delivering impactful things, both as a consumer and
promoter of these technologies. It’s been a powerful way to effect change.
Really early in my career, I was working on an overseas mainframe project at
AT&T. It was scary: I needed to find a system-specific encoding map. There was
one guy who was rumored to have the mapping. I had to call the Adobe switchboard
and hope they would connect me to this “Ken Lunde” person (luckily he took the
call!). It was a tricky world to live in, with every company having its own
operating system and each operating system having its own set of character
encodings per language. Everything was bespoke. Because of Unicode, this issue
no longer exists. Unicode changed how computing works and how it’s thought of;
having CLDR data and ICU as an implementation of that, it has made life so much
easier.
Q: Do you have a favorite Unicode project you’ve worked on? Why?
A: I have really liked a lot of the projects. I am most excited by the growth
of the community engagement area. Education and awareness is the biggest problem
we have in the internationalization space. The encoding of text and the support
of different languages and cultures is now widely available, but nobody is aware
of it. No one learns it in computer science courses. Engineers are busy and they
generate this kind of “disinformation bubble” of quick hacks that localization
teams in particular have to overcome.
In my roles with previous employers and in my consulting–and the reason I did
the tutorials at Unicode conferences–was, before we can actually move forward,
everyone needs to be on common ground, with common understanding and a common
vocabulary. I couldn’t be happier than to see Unicode reaching the community
with information and providing standard information so everyone, no matter what
environment they come from, can learn this stuff–the right way.
Q: What contribution(s) to the Unicode community are you most proud of?
A: The locale identifier work (BCP47) was pretty impactful. The personal
things and making people aware that Unicode is there and a reliable source of
information. Promoting Unicode has been an impactful thing. Over the years, I’ve
taught the internationalization tutorial to thousands of people which I believe
has had a long-term impact.
Q: How did you become involved in computer science?
A: I had a job in the 1980s at a company that built shopping centers, and,
among other things, operated a bookstore. They had developed a retail system
running on minicomputers that they sold to other independent bookstores, and I
worked for the owner developing that system: that was my first professional job
and it laid the groundwork for everything. Later, I had a job with the
localization/internationalization group at AT&T: once you’ve shipped “not
English” there’s no going back. I followed that to internationalization
consulting, working with
Bill Hall.
Q: What is your favorite book?
A: I am an avid reader so it’s hard to pick just one book. My preferred
genres are fantasy and science fiction. (Fun fact: I went to Amazon to work on
Kindle!)
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: Born in France, but my parents are Americans. When I was young, I lived in
France and Germany. I went to high school and spent my formative years in
Carmel, CA.
Q: Beach or Mountains?
A: Beach. I mean, it pretty much has to be “beach”, since I live in a town
called “Dillon’s Beach”.
Q: Any advice for anyone interested in volunteering at Unicode?
A: Two things. First, jump in, the water’s fine. The Unicode space can be
heavy with jargon and seem full of insider knowledge, but don’t be put off by
that. Ask questions, because people are always super excited to share. There
truly are no dumb questions. Don’t think just because things are operating a
certain way, that you can’t question it, as there might be a new, better, or
different way to do it. Maybe nobody said anything before! If you come with
well-thought out questions, there will always be a positive reception. Unicode
is a happy and helpful space to work in.
Second, give back. Unicode is an incredibly small organization. The number of
contributors is way smaller than the impact Unicode has. And Unicode could do so
much more, if only we had more people contributing. Linguistic and cultural
support in software could be so much more powerful, if only we had
contributions.
Q: Anything else you’d like to share?
A: I’ve spent 25 years at W3C and I’ve been the Chair of the
Internationalization Working Group for most of that time. We are a partner
organization in promoting internationalization. We need help there too.
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