Intercultural Zone

The best investment a company can make is to hire a good writer

Nearly a year ago, on LinkedIn, Michael Seidle of Problog Service asked “Why is it so hard to find good writers?” All answers, including mine, looked at the question from the writer’s angle. You can learn how to write properly, but the ability to write compellingly is a gift that still takes work to perfect.

As I work my way through 30 Days to Better Business Writing, Matthew Stibbe’s recently published e-book for wordsmiths, several chapters swirl in my head, calling for a client-oriented version.

Maybe even client-oriented versions in other languages. Take Day 7, “Analyse bad writing”, and Day 16, “Manage your writing”, for example. Continue Reading…

Web 2.0, e-reputation and the changing role of the CCO

As Weber Shandwick underscores in Safeguarding Reputation: “Business success and sustainability [have] become increasingly dependent on reputation.”

Digimind’s 56-page study examines in detail how new media have changed the landscape.

Web 2.0 tools have generated a new paradigm that allows customers, consumers, patients, politicians, citizens, business companies, leaders, executives, employees and trades-unionists to express themselves freely on the net. They can unite into communities, talk amongst themselves, and exert pressure on other groups. All this sharing and working together happens in real time, independently from the daily publication of newspapers or the ritual of television newscasts.

A study published on the American blog 97th Floor showed that 29 of the Fortune 100 companies were the subject of “negative” content, as shown on the first page of results found on Google, when you enter their name as a query on the search engine.

(DIGIMIND-WP_ONLINE_REPUTATION.US.2008.pdf, p.20 and 7)

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How is the role of CCO changing and how are these new responsibilities triggering opportunities for language professionals to support their clients’ needs and objectives?

Corporate communications departments are adding new media and reputation management to their basket of responsibilities at a rapid pace.

Between September and December 2008, Weber Shandwick and SpencerStuart, with KRC Research, conducted their second annual survey on the Rising CCO, polling 159 senior corporate communications professionals (101 from North America, 46 from Europe, and 12 from Asia).

According to the results, for 38% of North American respondents and 46% of European ones, corporate reputation management is now the third most time-consuming part of a CCO’s responsibilities, after media relations and internal communications. One in five European CCOs added a Reputation Management function to their department in 2008 and European CCOs expected it to be their leading priority in 2009.

This shift leads to a reshuffling of the weight of various communications tools used in corporate communications. Media Relations remain the most relied upon resource for 84% and 74% of North American and European CCOs respectively in 2008. However, 18% of North American CCOs, but only 7% of European ones, responded social media/blogging were among the top three tools their department relied on most.

Looking forward, roughly 25% of global CCOs claim the blogosphere will be a significant challenge for their departments, with 30% and 26% of North American and European CCOs respectively expecting social media/blogging to grow most in importance in 2009. As a result, 41% of North American CCOs, but only 22% of European ones, added a social media/blogging function to their departments. It seems some corporate communications departments are going to have to play catch-up in 2010. Continue Reading…

White House innovation white paper advocates MT

The last section of the White House’s report, A Strategy for American Innovation: Driving towards Sustainable Growth and Quality Jobs issued September 20, 2009, presents “the President’s renewed commitment to science, technology and innovation [that] will allow the nation to set and meet ambitious goals that will improve our quality of life and establish the foundation for the industries and jobs of the future.”

The last of these 8 proposals supports:

Automatic, highly accurate and real-time translation between the major languages of the world – greatly lowering the barriers to international commerce and collaboration.

Let’s see how popular MT services translate the sentence into French. Continue Reading…

High context v. low context cultures: getting your message across is not simply a question of vocabulary and grammar

For an American, communicating successfully with a French audience requires more than mastering la langue de Molière. As in many other language pairs, getting your message across orally or in writing requires putting the target audience’s culture at the forefront of your efforts to seduce, persuade and convince.

The major difference between high and low context cultures is the amount of information that a person can comfortably manage. In a high context culture, background information tends to be implicit. In a low context culture, much of the background information needs to be made explicit in the communication.
Continue Reading…

Intercultural management: managing teams across borders and cultures (III) > a reader’s comments turns into an interesting discussion

Roger L. posted an exhaustive comment October 30th on the post Intercultural Management (II) that I wanted to bounce off on and discuss. As that is apparently not possible to do, it appears in toto below, interspersed with our comments and reactions.

Thank you, Roger, for opening up the first discussion on the Zone!

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This is a good story, and it illustrates some sound management and organizational principles. But I think you’re placing too much of the blame on the boss, Benoit, and not enough on Steve.

As far as the initial email (sent on Wednesday) is concerned, the “when” is adequately defined by Benoit when he says that he wants his report by the end of the following week. Any responsible subordinate would know, or at the very least assume, that this means by Friday, latest, and would therefore try to get the report out by Thursday, or Friday morning (boss’ time). I think that when you criticize Benoit’s email by asking “WHEN: What is ‘end of next week’? What day, what time, in what time zone?” you are putting too much of the onus on the boss to be overly specific, when there’s no need to be. (Of course, if he did want it by, say, Thursday morning at 9:00am his time, and didn’t say so, then he would be at fault for not getting it on time. But he didn’t, so the subordinate can safely conclude that the deadline is what I said above.)

If this were a purely US + colocated team+ they knew each other, I would agree. However, this is not the case. Time, timing and “end of the week” can mean very different things in different cultures. End of the week for Benoit for example can mean Thurday at 9 AM, 6PM, sometime Friday — or even early the following week in fact. If the first, that meant mid-week for Steve. I have worked with teams who encountered serious project delays for things as similar and seemingly inocuous as this.
Continue Reading…

Intercultural management: managing teams across borders and cultures (II)

Small incidents or deficiencies can have unforeseen consequences when managing at a distance.

If you read the previous episode, you may be wondering: did Benoit get his report on time?

The short answer is yes…and no.

Benoit received a document around lunchtime Friday in Paris that did not live up to his expectations. Moreover, the following Monday morning, water cooler gossip suggested that there were some grumblings within his team. Benoit was not happy with these developments; in his mind, direct reports are supposed to provide solutions, not cause him more problems.

What had happened?
Continue Reading…

Intercultural management: managing teams across borders and cultures

Imagine this all too frequent scenario:

You have been working for a high tech multinational for about a year, one of the American members of a GVT (global virtual team). You are sitting in your open plan office on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco when your computer says, “ding!” and delivers an email from your boss, Benoit, in Paris.

Benoit writes:

“Please prepare a report on the status of Widget 913. Work with Michelle and Günter. I need it by end of next week.”

The email is not copied to Michelle and Günter – members of your team you’ve never met who are located, respectively, in Sophia Antipolis and Munich. Günter is senior to you in the company, Michelle is relatively new.

In Benoit’s mind, he has been very clear about what he needs, when he needs it, and who is to work on his request. He would be surprised to realize his request has generated questions and anxiety.
Continue Reading…

Compétences interculturelles et campagnes de pub’

La variable interculturelle est souvent décisive dans la réussite d’une campagne de pub.

Sachant que je suis toujours à l’affut d’exemples pour illustrer ce parti pris, voici la dernière perle reçue d’un confrère traducteur qui lui fut transmise par un de ses clients. Nous ne savons pas si cette histoire, en l’occurrence, est vraie, mais elle demeure caractéristique de ce qui peut se produire lorsqu’une entreprise, ou son agence de pub’, néglige de valider son concept auprès d’un professionnel en communication interculturelle.

Un commercial de Coca-Cola qui revient du Moyen-Orient très remonté. Il était parti pour y développer la marque.

Son ami lui demande alors : “pourquoi n’as-tu pas réussi avec les Arabes ?”

Il lui répond : « quand j’ai été envoyé au Moyen-Orient, j’étais très confiant de pouvoir faire de bonnes ventes car Coca-Cola n’est pas très connu là-bas. Mais le problème était que je ne parlais pas arabe. J’ai donc fait passer le message à travers 3 images…

La 1ère image représentait un homme allongé dans le sable chaud du désert, totalement faible et épuisé…
La 2ème représentait un homme buvant du Coca…
La 3ème photo montrait notre homme totalement rafraichi…

Ces panneaux furent publiés dans toute la ville…

“Ben ça aurait dû bien marcher !?!.. ” lui répond son ami…

“Aurait dû, comme tu dis.” lui répond le commercial… “Si j’avais su que les arabes lisaient de droite à gauche…”