We are still working on it, but here is our start for an example of miscommunication:

http://www.brainhoney.com/lessondetails/4cdd2ba0f7cf4d4fb06af18b30cf310f

I just realized that I had not included Javier's email in the emails I sent out to the group for the entire last month! I know, I know - how could I have missed that? I don't know.

So here is the email that I sent to Diego and Javier today:

Hi Diego and Javier,

I made a big mistake. I just realized that I had not included Javier's email in the communication from the entire last month!
I feel very silly for having made such a big mistake.
No wonder your partnership has not done much!

Well, I suppose just simply do what you can. I know that time is
limited now, so feel free to do whatever your schedules and interests
allow - but please don't feel obligated to do any more than you (1) are
interested in, and (2) have time for.

If nothing else, it might be interesting for you to simply do the "meeting 1" exercise.

I am so sorry again. My brain must have been damaged in all the saunas here or something :)

All the very best,
Clint

Javier and I are working on collecting some of the information from literature about international virtual teams. You can see the google doc here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcp7kpgd_8dzmd9r&hl=en

Feel free to contribute to it as you will. :)

Hi all once again,

According to my calculations November is only
one week longer. Then basically there are only have two weeks in
December before the semester ends, so we only have about three weeks left where we are formally all together.

As I see none of the three groups have gotten as far as I hoped, I think I
will give you the option of shortening the previous assignment, if you
choose.

You can either decide to do what was previously outlined (in creating
lessons for each other, adjusting them, and trying them out on 3-5
people) or you can simply do the following:

1. Create together a short depiction of an example of cross-cultural miscommunication using some tool you pick ( e.g. BrainHoney, YouTube, Draw a Cartoon, Create a page on the research space, etc.). If
you feel inspired, you could also depict an invention (either tool or
technique) that would help people avoid that kind of miscommunication
in the future. Post what you create to the research space.
2. Answer a short questionnaire that I will send out early next week.

Diego and Javier, - I haven't seen you post your interaction
with each other yet. If you haven't been able to do the first meeting
yet, I highly recommend it. November is not over yet - and I think you
will enjoy it.

Minjuan - would you like to at least do the first activity with
someone? I think because you grew up in rural China, it would be very
interesting to get that data for the paper - and also for someone to
have that experience of interaction with you. I know you are busy, so
just let me know.

Because I wanted to get more data than only the three active
partnerships in our group - I have also assigned a creative problem
solving class here in Joensuu (which is made up of people from 12
different countries, I think) to also do the same activity that we are
doing. I will share that data with you as I get it. They are quite
excited about the assignment - and I think it will give us more to say.

By the first of December I will have an outline of a paper that we can
collaboratively write together using Google docs, and then our main
assignment for the two weeks of December will be in creating at least
one good draft of a paper to submit for publication.

We'll take things from there.

All the very best,
Clint

P.S. Don't forget the overarching questions for the partner activity.

Marcus (SL: Njiwamwitu Writer) and Sabine (SL: Willow Shenlin)’s meeting in SL –transcript 11/2/0/2007—
Note: the first 26 minutes were audio and chat. We moved to chat only in order to have a complete transcript of our conversation.
[8:20] Njiwamwitu Writer is Online
[8:24] Willow Shenlin: hi!
[8:24] Njiwamwitu Writer: Hi
[8:24] Willow Shenlin: I was just trying to find the questions on the wiki
[8:31] Willow Shenlin: http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki
[8:35] Njiwamwitu Writer: 1st "meeting" - get to know each other through an activity that Javier and I developed (record this). - Follow-up assignment - listen to the recording and see if you learn anything new from listening to the conversation in retrospect. (Post what you learn on the research space) 2nd meeting - discuss initial ideas for answers to the assigned questions - Follow-up assignment - create a short piece of instruction (~5 minutes worth) using some tool ( e.g. BrainHoney) that you think will inspire your partner to be more interested in and capable of doing something to preserve the environment. (Post what you create on the research space) 3rd meeting - Share your lessons with each other and discuss. - Follow-up assignment - take your partners lesson and alter it to be something that you think would be more effective/inspiring for your context, from your point of view. (Post your adapted lesson and what you learn on the research space) 4th meeting - Share your revised lessons with each other and discuss. - Follow-
[8:35] Willow Shenlin: yes, but I was wondering about the questions that were asked in the Adobe Connect meeting
[8:36] Willow Shenlin: That's the activity that Clint mentions he developed with Javier
[8:36] Willow Shenlin: I emailed Clint to ask where he posted the audio recording of the Adobe meeting so that we could get those questions again
[8:39] Willow Shenlin: yes, looked like no one has posted anything either
[8:41] Willow Shenlin: to guess what our partner's childhood was like
[8:41] Willow Shenlin: and possibly and his/her favorite past-time was
[8:42] Willow Shenlin: There were 6 or 7 questions total...but I can't remember all of them
[8:42] Njiwamwitu Writer: what is past-time?
[8:42] Willow Shenlin: activity, hobby
[8:42] Njiwamwitu Writer: aha
[8:42] Willow Shenlin: ok, so if I have to guess yours.....
[8:43] Willow Shenlin: ok
[8:43] Willow Shenlin: great
[8:43] Willow Shenlin: yes
[8:43] Willow Shenlin: great
[8:44] Willow Shenlin: I don't see him as online on my Skype panel
[8:44] Willow Shenlin: but if he is, we should all use Skype talk to each other, even if he is not with us in SL
[8:46] Njiwamwitu Writer: sorry talking to him now
[8:46] Willow Shenlin: great
[8:46] Willow Shenlin: are you guys on Skype?
[8:46] Njiwamwitu Writer: 1. What kinds of things would your partner do for fun as a child? What kinds of things do you think they do for fun now? 2. List what you think might have been the main topics that were of concern for their community as they were growing up? 3. In the community that they were raised in, what were the three most important holidays, and what was the meaning behind these holidays for their family and community? 4. Who were the most respected and most trusted people in their community and why? 5. How do you think that the answers to each of these four questions would be different if your partner was raised in the same community you were raised in? (Answer each of the questions again, imagining that they were raised in the same community as you were.)
[8:46] Willow Shenlin: I'll be right back. Get some coffee
[8:47] Willow Shenlin: Oh that was fast
[8:47] Willow Shenlin: tell Clint that if he wants to talk with us, he can through Skype without having to log in SL
[8:47] Njiwamwitu Writer: any question for Clint?
[8:47] Willow Shenlin: no
[8:47] Njiwamwitu Writer: he has to leave now
[8:47] Willow Shenlin: ok
[8:47] Njiwamwitu Writer: ok
[8:51] Willow Shenlin: ok, here is a hint: I grew up in the countryside
[8:51] Willow Shenlin: in Normandy
[8:51] Njiwamwitu Writer: ok I grew up in a small Kenyan town
[8:52] Willow Shenlin: ok, so I'll guess that you enjoyed running through the streets playing soccer?
[8:52] Willow Shenlin: and that now, you play soccer still
[8:53] Njiwamwitu Writer: I think you climbed trees and milked your neighbors’ cows
[8:53] Willow Shenlin: LOL!!!!!! Almost!
[8:53] Willow Shenlin: I did climb trees!!
[8:53] Njiwamwitu Writer: now I think most of your fun is spending time with your kids and meeting up with new people in Second life
[8:54] Willow Shenlin: My aunt had a farm and she once showed me how to milk a cow by hand. Usually it was always a machine
[8:54] Willow Shenlin: Excellent guessing.
[8:54] Njiwamwitu Writer: I did not play much soccer and don't happen much these days but I did climb trees
[8:54] Willow Shenlin: You did?! Interesting. How big was the town?
[8:54] Willow Shenlin: what did it look like?
[8:55] Willow Shenlin: What language does Kenya speak?
[8:56] Njiwamwitu Writer: not sure how many people that lives in Migori I guess population is relatively big 100000 but still mostly farmers not living exactly in town which gives it a very small impression
[8:56] Willow Shenlin: ah....cow farmers, right?
[8:56] Njiwamwitu Writer: I grew up on a mission station where I run around and play with my sister, neighbors and all my pets.
[8:57] Willow Shenlin: what pets?
[8:57] Njiwamwitu Writer: dogs, cameleons, turtles, rabbits
[8:57] Willow Shenlin: wow.....busy house
[8:57] Njiwamwitu Writer: killed a dangerous snake every now and then
[8:57] Njiwamwitu Writer: they were all outdoor pets
[8:58] Willow Shenlin: ah.....I have a serious problem with snakes......mice no problem, snake big problem
[8:58] Willow Shenlin: we had some vipers during the summer in Normandy
[8:59] Njiwamwitu Writer: Where I stayed in Kenya Lou is the tribal language and think they have 26 different tribes with different languages but the national languages are English and Swahili
[8:59] Willow Shenlin: If they are outdoor pets, did you park them so that they don't run away?
[8:59] Njiwamwitu Writer: what is vipers?
[8:59] Willow Shenlin: Fascinating! That's the Babel thing all over, isn't it?
[9:00] Willow Shenlin: Vipers are small venomous snakes.
[9:00] Njiwamwitu Writer: I guess :-)
[9:00] Willow Shenlin: Their bites are really painful and the venin can be deadly
[9:00] Njiwamwitu Writer: aha, I don't like snakes either
[9:00] Willow Shenlin: So what do you do now?
[9:01] Willow Shenlin: Teach, study, social coffee and discussion with fellow researchers?
[9:01] Njiwamwitu Writer: I grew up not far from Masai Mara which is one of the world most famous national parks and you have probably seen a lot of wild animal programmes from there
[9:01] Willow Shenlin: Ah yes!
[9:01] Willow Shenlin: Very beautiful
[9:01] Njiwamwitu Writer: yes so it was always exciting to go there for a visit
[9:01] Willow Shenlin: And the Masai people are probably the most "obvious" ones on TV
[9:02] Willow Shenlin: In fact, is the Masai tribe in that area at all?
[9:02] Willow Shenlin: or just a geographical misnomer?
[9:03] Njiwamwitu Writer: Nowadays I play tennis, squash, volleyball communicate with my friends far away via MSN and Skype, have a beer or two in local pub
[9:03] Njiwamwitu Writer: Yes the Masai people live in and around masai mara
[9:03] Willow Shenlin: What's squash?
[9:04] Willow Shenlin: I only know the vegetable ;-)
[9:04] Njiwamwitu Writer: a racket sport where you play a ball against 4 walls
[9:04] Willow Shenlin: Ah yes!!! and everyone has goggles to protect their eyes, right?
[9:04] Njiwamwitu Writer: I guess some but have never used myself
[9:05] Willow Shenlin: ok, next question
[9:05] Willow Shenlin: 2. List what you think might have been the main topics that were of concern for their community as they were growing up?
[9:05] Y Willow Shenlin: Concerns of political nature maybe?
[9:06] Njiwamwitu Writer: I guess
[9:06] Willow Shenlin: I do not recall any historical facts about Kenya like in neighboring countries such as war
[9:06] Willow Shenlin: ok, how about your community in Kenya had concerns of water supply
[9:06] Njiwamwitu Writer: Uganda and Idi Amin was not far away
[9:06] Willow Shenlin: the farmers would really need water for the cattle to survive
[9:07] Willow Shenlin: ah yes
[9:07] Willow Shenlin: indeed
[9:07] Willow Shenlin: Were there problems of civil war in Kenya?
[9:08] Njiwamwitu Writer: farmers in France are always protesting against something so maybe they were throwing grapes at city major to drink more whine or to serve milk in the schools or... :)
[9:09] Willow Shenlin : Ahahaha!!!!!
[9:09] Willow Shenlin: They are protesting mainly against the price of milk
[9:09] Njiwamwitu Writer: water was a common problem where I grew up as it is a dry area and when rains are delayed people are suffering
[9:09] Willow Shenlin: They are getting a smaller and smaller piece of the pie and are not happy about it because keeping a farm up
[9:09] Willow Shenlin: and running is really difficult and financially tough
[9:10] Willow Shenlin: The summers like last year were terrible for our farmers in France
[9:10] Willow Shenlin: April was hot and sunny....too early for the summer. Usually April is a rainy month.
[9:10] Njiwamwitu Writer: do you come from a wine district?
[9:11] Willow Shenlin: but then everything started growing too fast
[9:11] Willow Shenlin: then the rains did not stop the whole 3 months of summer......spoiling everything
[9:11] Willow Shenlin: terrible.....lots of suicide....very sad
[9:11] Njiwamwitu Writer: what do they grow where you grew up?
[9:11] Willow Shenlin: no, Normandy is the apple cider and cheese region of France
[9:12] Willow Shenlin: wheat
[9:12] Willow Shenlin: some corn in the later years
[9:12] Willow Shenlin: (American influence on farming)
[9:12] Willow Shenlin: oat
[9:12] Willow Shenlin: mainly dairy farmers
[9:12] Willow Shenlin: so Normandy has about 100 different cheese
[9:13] Njiwamwitu Writer: in Migori it was basically maize, tomatoes, pineapple, papaya... but a lot of sugarcanes as they have an sugar industry there
[9:13] Willow Shenlin: not counting the yogurts, heavy cream, etc
[9:13] Willow Shenlin: mmmmm, we grow green beans in Normandy
[9:13] Njiwamwitu Writer: aha so a cheese paradise, what is your favorite cheese?
[9:13] Willow Shenlin: arggggg......even in my mom's little garden.....I ate too much green beans when i was a kid
[9:14] Willow Shenlin: I love goat cheese, mild, toasted on fresh bread....yummy!
[9:14] Willow Shenlin: what was your favorite dish?
[9:14] Njiwamwitu Writer: I made a special order when having a Finnish visitor of Aora Blue Cheese from Finland it is just excellent, still have some left
[9:15] Willow Shenlin: Aora blue cheese.....that's a local cheese too?
[9:16] Njiwamwitu Writer: My favorite dish that I had a lot when I grew up was kuku and ugali which was like a chicken stew with a thick maize porridge
[9:16] Willow Shenlin: ah, I've seen that porridge....in a documentary about the children of Zaire
[9:17] Njiwamwitu Writer: today I eat a lot of Thai and Indian food
[9:17] Willow Shenlin: ah? I cook a lot ....so we ate a mainly what we are familiar with from back home
[9:18] Willow Shenlin: also I cook a few things from Normandy....also it is a bit more "Mediterranean" than the original Norman food
[9:18] Njiwamwitu Writer: watched a movie yesterday and thought about you...
[9:18] Njiwamwitu Writer: Michael Moores’ Sicko :-)
[9:18] Willow Shenlin: my husband loves pasta....his grandma was from Bologna...so he cooks pasta all the time
[9:18] Willow Shenlin: ah Michael MOore...
[9:19] Willow Shenlin: the poor guy is really a target for American "patriots"
[9:19] Willow Shenlin: I did not see that movie
[9:19] Willow Shenlin: that's the one about the medical system in the USA
[9:19] Willow Shenlin: right?
[9:19] Njiwamwitu Writer: He goes to Canada, UK, France and Cuba and compares the health system with US
[9:19] Willow Shenlin: He was on Oprah with a couple of people from the health system...for all of them to defend their views. very hot discussion.
[9:20] Willow Shenlin: mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, i bet the US is not happy to see themselves compared to a communist system like Cuba
[9:20] Willow Shenlin: even though it is the most efficient health system I've heard of
[9:20] Njiwamwitu Writer: was quite funny when he took 9/11 fire fighters declined medical care in US to get treated for free in Cuba
[9:20] Willow Shenlin: France's getting in deep trouble. no more money
[9:21] Willow Shenlin: wow!!!!!!i did not know that!
[9:21] Willow Shenlin: no wonder they are not mentioning this on the news here
[9:21] Njiwamwitu Writer: it is worth watching
[9:21] Willow Shenlin: I’ll look it up
[9:22] Willow Shenlin: 3. In the community that they were raised in, what were the three most important holidays, and what was the meaning behind these holidays for their family and community?
[9:23] Willow Shenlin: In the US, the African American community makes a big deal of ......ah, brain freeze...what's the name
[9:23] Willow Shenlin: i was going to ask if it is the same holiday in Petroria
[9:23] Willow Shenlin: Kwanza?
[9:24] Njiwamwitu Writer: In my family as well as in the community which is mostly Christian the biggest holidays was Christmas and Easter. I guess in Kenya independence day is big as well but for us Swedes midsummer is probably third biggest
[9:24] You: midsummer? tell more?
[9:25] You: teh Equinox? you celebrate teh equinox?
[9:26] Njiwamwitu Writer: longest day of the year and we dress a pole with flowers and dance around it. Ladies pick seven different kinds of flowers and put under the pillow to drem of their future prince
[9:26] You: was it easy to do this in Kenya?
[9:26] Njiwamwitu Writer: Equinox I do not know what it is
[9:27] Njiwamwitu Writer: not really but only spent 6 of my first nine years in Kenya and stayed in sweden for some years before getting back for last two years of high school
[9:27] Willow Shenlin: a lot of traveling.
[9:28] Willow Shenlin: we French are traditionally not so .....travelers
[9:28] Willow Shenlin: it takes my parents 6 months to organize a one month trip to the States :-)
[9:28] Njiwamwitu Writer: :) so what was your most important holidays?
[9:29] Willow Shenlin: In my community, the biggest holidays were also Christmas and Easter
[9:29] Willow Shenlin: Catholics
[9:29] Willow Shenlin: August was the month of the Virgin...so it had some special masses for it
[9:29] Willow Shenlin: But mainly Catholic holidays. Nothing regional or ancient
[9:30] Njiwamwitu Writer: I remember my father always organized a projector and generator and showed people the Jesus movie during Christmas and it was always interesting as many people had never seen a movie before and really got into it and people were crying and screaming...
[9:30] Willow Shenlin: Ah! Another big one was Kings' day. My family is big so we would all gather at my grandma's house after church and eat rice pudding and a special bread
[9:31] Willow Shenlin: goodness.....we do take a lot for granted.
[9:31] Willow Shenlin: was your father a missionary?
[9:31] Njiwamwitu Writer: yes he is a pastor and was a missionary
[9:32] Willow Shenlin: from Sweden...and then to South Africa? goodness...what an intriguing life.
[9:32] Willow Shenlin: 4. Who were the most respected and most trusted people in their community and why?
[9:33] Willow Shenlin: I’d guess that your dad would have been the most respected person in your community then
[9:35] Njiwamwitu Writer: I think pastors and bishops are very respected as religion is important. Also members of parliament and local decision makers. Age brings a lot of respect in the culture and older people always showed great respect. Also traditional healers have a lot of influence although by “us” missionaries viewed with big skepticism :)
[9:35] Willow Shenlin: in my community, i think that it was the old priest. It was a time when villages did not worry about strangers and violent events...so most adults were getting along just fine
[9:35] Willow Shenlin: mmm, yes.
[9:35] Willow Shenlin :I agree. same situation in my village
[9:36] Willow Shenlin: I was raised on a 300 people village (not counting the cows:-))
[9:36] Njiwamwitu Writer: hehe
[9:36] Willow Shenlin: So the mayor and the priest were major authorities
[9:36] Willow Shenlin: then the butcher and the baker
[9:37] Willow Shenlin: We had an equivalent to a healer in the village.....but the Church has done too much harm for the healer to be respected.
[9:37] Njiwamwitu Writer: I have met similar comments in South Africa with the difference that they do not count the blacks which sometimes makes this country a very uncomfortable country to live in
[9:38] Willow Shenlin: also a lot of people who go and see him to adjust a shoulder, a back, a headache.....kind of a chiropractor with some other medicinal skills
[9:38] Njiwamwitu Writer: the butcher that is interesting
[9:38] Willow Shenlin: ouch.....I am still trying to understand the "not count the blacks"
[9:39] Njiwamwitu Writer: in Sweden the worst thing you can say is that you are a pastor
[9:39] Willow Shenlin: it seems so .....unreal
[9:39] Willow Shenlin: no way!
[9:39] Willow Shenlin: in Sweden? why?
[9:39] Njiwamwitu Writer: It is very taboo to mention even religion in a Swedish context and I was sometimes mocked for having a father who was pastor
[9:40] Njiwamwitu Writer: we are not a very religious kind
[9:40] Willow Shenlin: So, .....what world view does the Swedish people hold?
[9:41] Willow Shenlin: Sweden has a royal family, no?
[9:41] Willow Shenlin: I am asking because usually royal family hold some religious power (at least in most European histories)
[9:42] Njiwamwitu Writer: majority would probably say that they do not believe in God, officially we are a protestant country but most people tend to think that religion is bogus
[9:42] Willow Shenlin: interesting
[9:42] Njiwamwitu Writer: yes we have a royal family
[9:43] Willow Shenlin: but the royal family does not make any part in religion, then i guess
[9:43] Njiwamwitu Writer: especially younger generation
[9:44] Willow Shenlin: ah yes, same problem in France to
[9:44] Njiwamwitu Writer: they are not allowed to talk either politics or religion we like them as puppies travelling the world and selling Sweden
[9:44] Willow Shenlin: the younger generation is a lot more critical of the Church's bloody historical past and current blunders, and refuse to see it in any political involvement
[9:46] Njiwamwitu Writer: I guess but think in Southern Europe and especially US going to church or Cathedral is something normal in Sweden it is not
[9:46] Willow Shenlin: In fact, I agree with this and it tends to get in my face when i see the church in the US trying to convince their members to vote differently based on their leader's opinions
[9:46] Willow Shenlin: yes, interesting point.
[9:47] Willow Shenlin: maybe the comparison would be that if you are a French employee of the government (police man, etc...) you are not allowed to demonstrate your religious affiliation (i.e., no necklace with a cross, etc...)
[9:47] Willow Shenlin: ok...5. How do you think that the answers to each of these four questions would be different if your partner was raised in the same community you were raised in?
[9:47] Willow Shenlin: actually i am not sure. my little village was a bit reticent with its fist inhabitant of color
[9:48] Willow Shenlin: I remember especially because I became very good friend with their daughter.
[9:48] Njiwamwitu Writer: I think I would stereotype less and maybe more detailed as more points of reference would be the same :)
[9:48] Willow Shenlin: yes. It is interesting
[9:49] Willow Shenlin: despite the geographical remoteness of our "villages" the human experience seems to repeat itself
[9:49] Willow Shenlin: religion, politics, family, water/food
[9:50] Willow Shenlin: ok, let me copy this and I'll email you the transcript shortly

I thought it was a good meeting. We tried to use Connect, then Skype, but Temtim said that the whole country of Ethiopia only had 56MB of bandwidth at the time, so we resorted to communicating through Skype Chat and a couple follow-up emails. I will attach the transcript of our meeting in the first comment to this blog entry.

In preparation for your first meeting activity with your
partner, do your best to guess what life has been like for your partner.

Do your best to
answer these questions:

1. What kinds of things would your partner do for fun as a
child? What kinds of things do you think they do for fun now?

2. List what you think might have been the main topics that
were of concern for their community as they were growing up?

3. In the community that they were raised in, what were the
three most important holidays, and what was the meaning behind these holidays
for their family and community?

4. Who were the most respected and most trusted people in
their community and why?

5. How do you think that the answers to each of these four
questions would be different if your partner was raised in the same community
you were raised in? (Answer each of the questions again, imagining that they
were raised in the same community as you were.)

Decide the best way to communicate with your partner in a
way that you can record your
communication (IM, Skype, Adobe Connect, Google Talk, etc). Share your
answers to the questions with each other, and see how close you were to
guessing correctly.

Post your answers and things you learned from the discussion to the
research space.

Follow-up assignment
- listen to the recording of your discussion some time over the next couple
days and see if you learn anything new from listening to the conversation in
retrospect.

• Is
  there anything your partner said that perhaps you didn’t really understand
  as you listen to your conversation again?
• Is
  there anything that you think maybe your partner didn’t catch from what
  you meant when you said certain things?
• Listening
  to the conversation again and thinking in retrospect, are there any
  addition questions you would have liked to ask?
• Is
  there anything new that you learn from listening to your conversation
  again later?

Post what your answers to these questions and what you learned on the
research space.

From Temtim:

Hi Clint

It is nice to start the virtual global team in new
form.

I will try to answer the two questions>

Question 1 - what type of miscommunication ...

I personally accostomed with more structured project
activities. I am more comfortable with more structured
activities for our Virtual team. I am new to the
research topic, when I joined the team I am expecting
to learn more from you as well as from others.
Unfortunately while we are on the process, I feel that
our team doesnot have very clear direction and
expected outputs. As a result communication among the
team members was limited.

The problem - what I learnt- our expectation to get
from this project can not match with each other -
diversified needs. As a result our effort could not be
channeled to one direction and output. As a result,
commitments are gradually getting fade away.

Question 2 - What tools

I don't think that it is a problem of technology. The
poor communication among the team falls on other
aspects - on social aspects of the team. In this
regard it is good to look at Structuration model of
technology by Orlikwiski (1992). We can design very
nice communication network but it does not bring
effective communicaiton among the team. Whether we use
Skype or Adobe Connect, if we have the real need to
communicate with each other, the available
technologies can satisfy our needs.

Best regards
Temtim

From Clint:

 Hi Temtim,

I realized I never sent you an email with my initial ideas for these
two questions. Here they are - and I will post both of our responses to
the research space.

1. What types of miscommunication can occur within international virtual teams?

Obviously on a basic level people need to be able to share a common language or have some reliable translation source.
I think you are right about the purposes and objectives need to be as
clear as possible - and that can be helpful in reducing
miscommunication.
I put down in the examples that miscommunication might occur when
people do not share common assumptions. By assumptions, I mean the
things that are usually assumed - without us necessarily being
conscious that we even assume them. This can include assumptions about:

• content - (the substance of what is being talked about. With any
  number of topics, people make assumptions about their importance and
  meaning. As an easy example, if I talk about "Benedict Arnold" most
  U.S. citizens would know what I was talking about. Many things related
  to history, culture, business, media, and even education often carry
  assumptions that are not shared throughout the world)
• context - (by this, I mean that even the content can mean
  different things, depending on the context it is framed in. There are
  many subtle and strong assumption tied with context that can easily go
  unrecognized by either the sender or receiver, and so thus engendering
  miscommunication)
• relationships - (I think this is a big one too. Very frequently
  assumptions exist regarding the way people see their relationships with
  others (teachers, students, friends, strangers, colleagues, business
  men, politicians, etc...), and set their expectations accordingly. When
  the reality of the other persons actions does not match your
  expectations (or even if it does, but for different reasons), then it
  is easy to see how miscommunication (by that I mean misunderstanding)
  can occur).
• what establishes trust/credibility - (in Japan, for example, you
  establish credibility in giving a speech by first telling the audience
  that you do not know very much and apologizing for taking their time.
  If you were Japanese and took that same approach in the U.S. or much of
  Europe, you would not get the trust that you expected)
• what grabs attention - (in Chinese web sites there is a lot of
  motion, sounds and moving things. People in the U.S. automatically see
  that as poor design, reminding them of amature earlier websites in the
  US. There is evidence, however, that Chinese users might actually
  prefer these designs - that they are better at grabbing and keeping
  attention, when that probably would not be the case in the U.S.)

2. What (a) techniques and (b) technological tools (both existing
and ones we can imagine) improve collaborations of international
virtual teams?
(e.g. reducing miscommunication by attributing
correct meaning to actions/words of others, establishing trust, even
fostering innovation and inspiration)

• I think that perhaps more time needs to be spent up-front in
  people getting to know and trust each other? There must be some
  understanding that people really care about each other - and are
  willing to put the interests of the other and understanding and
  respecting the other people as priority.
• There are already quite a few existing tools which make
  international collaboration so much easier than it would have been even
  5 or 10 years ago. E-mail, VOIP (voice over IP) tools like Skype, and
  computer sharing platforms (like Adobe Connect) - all increase the
  ability to make contact and communicate with people all over the world.
  The biggest issues with many of the existing tools I think maybe are
  bandwidth and cost (both of which deal with access).
• I would like to see more tools that allow for meta-communication
  - allowing for further questioning, explaining, and talking about the
  meaning behind what has been said by either party in a conversation.
• I think if there was some knowledge base of common
  mis-communication, then perhaps a system could tag information sharing
  in a way that would indicate it needs further discussion.
• I also think that as bandwidth increases, the current mode of
  writing will more easily expand to sharing visual images together, and
  that will stimulate interesting interactions.
• Any time that interactions can be recorded, I think that would
  help people to go back and reflect on their own and others' comments
  and reactions.
• The easier it is for people to take things and adapt them, I
  think the more valuable those tools will be in international contexts.
• Ultimately I don't think any tools will help if people do not
  have any reason to trust or respect others. I consider that a
  pre-requisite for any existing or future tools being of value.

Well, those are some of my initial thoughts of the top of my head. Any comments in reaction to them?

Thanks,
Clint

Hi Sabine,

Congratulations to the naturalization convocation! Seems we are a team for this month. Hope all is well with you? I am doing fine here in Pretoria where sun is shining most of the time. I will share a moment that affected me this week:

On Sunday I was driving and a car deliberatly tried to crash into my car - very scary. I am not sure what his intension was (maybe stealing the car), think he got upset for some strange reason and decided to teach me a lesson. However I managed to avoid crashing into him or anyone else but it scared the shit out of me.

1. What types of miscommunication can occur within international virtual teams?
I believe a miscommunication can happen for endless of reasons. I will try to list a few:
- Problems of expressing ourselves clear enough, this is a problem even in face-to-face teams but at least then it is easier to read between the lines through body language etc. Language and the use of the language is also a barrier. Often when we meet someone it is not primary from the words that we draw our conclusion of that person intensions but from the whole appearance. Is this person excited, happy, worried or trustworthy the eyes or the smile might tell... This usually not comes through with only text and only to some extent with voice.
- Culture, for instance some cultures is very straight to the point while other walk around the bush before getting to the point. What is unaccepted behavior in one culture might be normal practice in an other.
- We are all coloured of the world surrounding us, if other persons world looks different we might not be able to find explanations that make sense outside own context
- Methods for Building trust/credibility might be different, personally I think it is important to see a person behind the words to gain trust. Maybe when we think we are building trust it might have opposite effect.

2. What (a) techniques and (b) technological tools (both existing and ones we
can imagine) improve collaborations of international virtual teams?
a) Showing and explaining own world, finding common entry points, building a relation before getting to "business", finding out intensions/why
b) I think any tool that can capture as much as possible of a face-to-face interaction where as many senses as possible are captured, maybe even smell?

/Marcus

Hi everyone in the IMPDET Cross-Cultural Research Group,

First, let me share a bit of good news - an editor from a top journal
somehow already found out about our group and specifically requested that we
submit an article about our experience. Two professors at different
universities have also contacted me to request more information about our
project. Those things are always encouraging - and indicate the value in what
we are doing.

Next, I wanted to touch base with the plans for the month of November. An
outline of our interaction is included in this email, although more detailed
instruction/ideas will be given next week. Please read this email carefully,
and email me with any questions or concerns that you might have.

Partners
Each of you will be assigned a partner to collaborate together for the month of
November.
Sabine & Marcus (Sabine - are you OK? - I haven't heard from you and I am
worried about your condition)
Javier & Diego
Clint & Temtim
(and depending on their access/availability either Esko & Adele, if they
can and would like to, or a new student named Patrizia who has also expressed
interest in joining us)
(Minjuan is in Micronesia with very bad Internet access for the next month)

Questions
With your partner you will work together on these specific questions:
1. What types of miscommunication can occur within international virtual teams?

(e.g. not sharing a common language, not sharing common assumptions about:
content, context, relationships, what establishes trust/credibility, what grabs
attention, etc...)
2. What (a) techniques and (b) technological tools (both existing and ones we
can imagine) improve collaborations of international virtual teams?
(e.g. reducing miscommunication by attributing correct meaning to actions/words
of others, establishing trust, even fostering innovation and inspiration)

This week - please email your partner with you initial answers for these
questions (and go to the research space and post a blog entry of your email) .

Collaboration with Partner
Pick which tools work best for you (IM, Skype, Adobe Connect, SecondLife, etc.)
and record all the meetings in some format for future use. You will choose the
days that work best for you during the month to virtually meet with each other,
but I would suggest you plan out the whole month from the begining so you know
what to expect. I encourage you to contact your partner ASAP to get an idea of
their schedule, and what tools would work best in communicating with them.Your
collaboration will look something like this:

1st "meeting" - get to know each other through an activity that
Javier and I developed (record this).
- Follow-up assignment - listen to the recording and see if you learn
anything new from listening to the conversation in retrospect. (Post what you
learn on the research space)

2nd meeting - discuss initial ideas for answers to the assigned
questions
- Follow-up assignment - create a short piece of instruction (~5 minutes
worth) using some tool ( e.g. BrainHoney) that you think will inspire your
partner to be more interested in and capable of doing something to preserve the
environment. (Post what you create on the research space)

3rd meeting - Share your lessons with each other and discuss.
- Follow-up assignment - take your partners lesson and alter it to be
something that you think would be more effective/inspiring for your context,
from your point of view. (Post your adapted lesson and what you learn on the
research space)

4th meeting - Share your revised lessons with each other and discuss.
- Follow-up assignment - take both versions of the lesson and show them
to 3-5 other people in your area, and get their feedback. (Post what you learn
on the research space)

5th meeting - Reflection on your two assigned research questions. How
effective was your communication with each other? What seemed to be difficult?
What tools and/or techniques did you use which seemed to help? What do you wish
you had that would help even more?
- Follow-up assignment - Draft a section of a joint paper that we will
write on this topic. (Post this on the research space)

Conference call
We will have a conference call on this upcoming Thursday (Nov. 8th) to discuss
this assignment in more detail and to answer any questions/concerns etc.

• Finland - 6:00pm
• Addis Ababa - 7:00pm
• Pretoria - 6:00pm
• Utah - 9:00am
• California - 8:00am

Don't worry - I checked World Clock Meeting Planner to make
sure the correct times ( http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?month=11&day=8&year=2007&pa=7&pa=101&pa=269&pa=220&pa=770)
We will use Adobe Connect again, and as a back-up I will also have my Skype and
email open - to try and help answer any problems that might arise.

All the very best,
Clint

Recording from last conference call (although it was a very scattered
conversation and mainly getting to know the tool):

http://connectpro64128288.emea.acrobat.com/p84129603/

I think you will enjoy reading each other's comments. I will add more here after I have a better conversation with two group members - but here are at least some of the initial thoughts I have collected. I am equally interested in the comments where you agree with each other as with the ideas we it seems like you disagree. What are your thoughts/reactions after reading these?

Here are some thought by group members regarding how things are going so far:

"It is quite challenging. As I am reading the psychology of personality
- I need to confront those ideas with the ones about culture. So it is
pushing me more than I thought. That is positive in a way. Maybe need
more collaboration together.
Need to develop more sense of trust. We don't know each other very well, only worked with each other a little bit."

"My experience of the course so far is very good. I have enjoyed the
discussions on skype and on the web site. I have learned a lot
especially from Clint, Sabine and Javier who has been most active in
posting stuff. The articles we have read has been very interesting and
generated interesting discussions. I realize I might not have
contributed that much but guess I have not allocated enough time. But
check almost on daily basis for new posts as I found most comments and
discussions very interesting. Through our skype communications I am
getting a feeling of getting to know other participants and we are kind
of building up a community and would not be surprised if many of us
will keep in touch even after the course."

"Well, I don't know exactly what to say. I have participated more in
discussion, than posting. My challenge is that we are talking about too
many things probably - my perception - that I am kind of lost sometime.
Drupal is not the easiest to work with - and I can not see the big picture - the full integration."

"I see the posting talking about cultural things - but culture is such a
huge thing - so I feel lost. So I am not sure exactly what I should
contribute. Should I just comment, add new information - what is my role?
Should I be doing new research, just comment on others, focus my research on some specific aspect?
I don't feel like I have the rules of the game, and I'm not so good with the tool too.
Maybe it is also just the way we are posting things, maybe just my perspective - I'm not sure how others see it."

"This is my first time trying to do this kind of thing. I like them,
but need to know better how to structure the work using these tools. I don't like as much posting. I prefer a certain kind of structure that
kind guide the work I am doing, with regards to a main problem.

So posting is not enough for me - there should be something more that
forms a consistent structure of doing things in a way that everything
is integrated.

Because I have this situation, I do not feel like I have done as much in achieving what I wanted to do.

The other thing is I don't know if I should start contacting other
members to ask questions about what I am interested in, because I know
they are busy and not sure if they have time..."

"I should be more involved, because it is a learning process, but I
might not handle as well that kind of activity - spending a lot of time
just posting things without enough focus on real research - takes a lot
of time and effort - but prefer something with more continuity that
could be understood as a whole - and not just in parts everywhere."

"These types of teams evolve over time - need to know each other -
the workspace does not accomplish everything simply by enabling
communication. We actually need to connect with others in a certain way
before actually collaborating. By starting with ambiguity first, it made it difficult. We have expanded at first, but now need to narrow."

"I think this experience has been very interesting. Lots of readings on topics I was not aware existed.
More fulfilling than I expected - in discovering very interesting
topics, more than I first expected. In that sense I wish I had more
time to dedicate to it.
One of the reasons I am short on time is that I need to finish course work so that I can start on my dissertation."

"If I am late or incomplete in reading, I get an idea of the topics of
discussion from reading everyone else's posts - and so the blog helps me go faster in the reading, because it
gives me a better idea of what is going on. I am using the group in an
efficient way, I think. I was very interested in Temtim's responses because his context seems to be so different. I
wish Minjuan would have contributed more with her responses. I would really like to hear more from her."

"I feel that goal of trusting each other has already been established -
in that I feel that I can post my thoughts and trust that someone will
respond in a respectful way with their agreement or disagreement.
But now that I think about it, I don't know how much I would value the
comment as much of someone who has posted less frequently. All of us
have a fair amount of knowledge, but I have a feeling that my gut
reaction is to maybe not take a comment of someone who is newly posted
as someone who has been more active.
I think it was a good thing to bring up and think about in a group/community setting."

"In reading things, I wanted to resist being considered French (too many
stereotypes that I did not want to deal with), but in discussing with
others, it helps to put my own culture in perspective (accept certain
aspects of my culture I don't like and also recognize where I do not
line up with the national characteristics)."

Here are some suggestions by group members regarding how we might enrich what we are doing:

• Everyone do a culture inventory test (e.g. a "twenty statement tests") - so we learn more about each other.
• Activity in pairs: Predict something about each other. For example, imagine conditions of (1) where your partner grew up and (2) how that person would be different if they grew up in your home town?
• Do a little literature review to find out four or
  five common mistakes in cross-cultural collaboration and to find out if
  we are able to overcome them or if we also fail miserably.
• Each person shares a few pictures - then someone else writes a story around the pictures by asking questions about them.
• Think it is good to have meetings every now and then. Experiment with having us be able to see each other.
• Find other things that help us get to know the person a little better, not just academically, but who they are as a person.
• We need to have a framework that we can share. A structure that we
  can use in our work. I feel kind of like we are shooting too much
  anywhere. There is the teaching and sharing, but something is implicit that should be more explicit.

• Need to make more clear what is the problem we are trying to solve. If no problem it is more a social activity. At this point I think we need to make more clear what the problem is, what the
  tools are we are using, what the structures and constraints are, some
  potential solutions, show related cases of things working in this kind
  of collaboration work, etc..

• One thing we could do is have an experience of something that we want to work together.

• Culture is too big - but we need to divide into smaller topics, pick
  certain aspects of culture, and assign smaller groups of people to work
  on specific aspects. A need to narrow, a need to create a structure, and then we can
  collaborate on something more concrete - more related to something
  specific.

• How do we connect with each other? Through conversations when working on something
  specific. When assigned on the same topic - talk together about it, and
  discuss issues, understand it, create a basis for communication, and
  then writing can come a little bit later.
• Again - it is important to see the whole - if working as a team need to work
  on a purpose that is visible to everyone. A big picture of the whole as
  well as the specific part that we are assigned. I would suggest for instance to use a concept map to see the whole picture and where we fit into the big project, how we are contributing to the big project.
• I prefer to talk - rather than posting. Probably we can talk more, as we are structuring the paper and everything.
• What is probably missing is blogging more often. If ever would be
  posting, say twice a week - for example, that we would be more
  energized to go in there and read and respond. It happens, but there
  are certain dips in involvement, but I wish it was more consistent.
• I do not want to put a judgment on directed projects - but I like the way
  things are. My creative juices flow better when the project(s) leave me
  a certain level of freedom (for ideas, for discussion, for creation,
  for sharing). I also "feel" that the project respects more our
  individual life (demands and other commitments) as it is.

What are your thoughts/reactions after reading these?

In my experience, it seems like two topics that people avoid in polite discussions are politics and religion.

Perhaps it is because they are two forces that have done so much to shape the world in both positive and negative ways - and unfortunately have been the core source of so much conflict?

I think the increasingly common reaction in the US is for people to either become polarized (focusing way too much on differences in a negative way) or else become apathetic and kind of calloused and condescending to either religion or politics.

When dealing with cross-cultural interactions, however, how much of a role does faith and religion really play in it? It seems like religion has such a big role in how people define themselves and thier relationship with the world and with others in it. But in general, most people in academics seem to avoid addressing the significance of the issue. Even in publications I have written previously, I have classed religion simply as one of many "sub-cultures" - but does maybe it have even a bigger role than national culture? I honestly don't know?

I guess I started thinking about this a lot more because I recently posted an entry to my public blog about "Being a Mormon Christian", which is not something I normally would talk about in a professional setting. My purpose was to try and share my personal experience in growing up in the Mormon Church, which was very different from a lot of the information and representations I have seen in recent media coverage.

But it made me wonder more about what it is exactly about religion that makes it such a sensitive topic?

Why is it difficult to have peaceful, meaningful conversations about any religion? Is it like that everywhere in the world or are there some places that are better than others?

What kinds of environments and circumstances make it easier for people with different beliefs to co-exist in peace, and even understand and respect each other - without feeling either fear, conflict, or a need for coersion?

I know for sure people don't want anything dictated to them, and I like America's concept of the seperation of Church and State, but in cross-cultural communication - how much of an effect do all of these things have?

And how can we create safe enough research environments where we can learn more about them?

I'm curious what everyone's thoughts are in response to these questions and ideas - I think the multiple perspectives from different cultures would be very interesting.

On a more personal note - if you read my blog entry about being a Mormon - what is your honest reaction? I am very curious in a cross-cultural perspective on it. Any initial thoughts and positive or negative reactions to any specific parts are welcome.

The Guardian: The Bitterest Pill: "German film-makers are now daring to tackle the Third Reich and the Holocaust. Can they portray the reality, or must history be sweetened?". Interesting about current cultural taboos. (I must say that it can also be applied for other countries' movies)

Simon Baron-Cohen (Borat's cousin): I Cannot Tell a Lie - what people with autism can tell us about honesty.

Firstly I have to say something about the similarities with the research made in Psychology between psychology of personality and psychology of individual differences because of I am currently reading a book about the psychology of personality. Briefly,

1. Psychology of individual differences deals with the differences in people, their quantification and the relationships between the differences (traits)

2. For psychology of personality the differences are based on personality's characteristics. Up to a certain extent it represents a more unitarian concept than the former one.

Just replace individual / personality by "culture" to see it more clearly.

So, the analogies that I have found are:

1. The focus of analysis: about differences themselves or about the supposed ground of those differences. For instance, it's the difference between saying "A is taller than B" and saying "A's feeding has been richer than B's". I discuss about this issue later.

2. Traits vs. Dimensions: with traits you are trying to identify which are the main stable characteristics of someone's behavior (culture) (and nothing else). Example: "this culture is open, individualistic, with respect to the elder ones". It's something that you have or not. Dimensions would be understood as "meta traits". In addition, they have a more quantitative approach. For instance in Hosftede's sense, to say that a culture is individualistic imply: people taking care of themselves (including immediately family only), self-orientation, identity based on individual and so on

3. The "danger" of defining unique elements in cultures so that they could not be compared. Or in other words, the description of cultures should be very wide and abstract to avoid being lost in "particularities".

For instance, I think the danger those particularities is well expressed in the paragraph (p. 4) that states: "[...] It is simply that they are better prepared for that situation with a cultural worldview is more consistent with the worldview of the teacher and school than is the cultural worldview of the learners from a minority culture".
In my opinion this sentence partially expresses the contrast between learning and performance. The idea is that the only way to measure learning is to observe what an individual does. And that can be influenced by knowledge acquisition as well as by performance itself. In other words, in the former sentence "better prepared" would mean better knowledge acquisition or better level of performance (independently of how knowledge is acquired. For instance the practices used would be more familiar for a given group than to another).

In my case, I reckon that if I do not have in mind this fact, it is quite natural for me to think that differences are more representative than they really are. In this sense I also reckon that it would be easier to find unique aspects in different cultures leading to a huge difficulties in how they could be compared. On the other hand, I must say that culture affects both sides: how knowledge is acquired (more specifically: which knowledge is acquired) and the level of performance (how things are done).

4. Nomothetic vs. ideographic. In the paper is also reflected both ways of researching. Nomothetic stands for generalization: the study of a lot of cultures / individuals in order to find general characteristics or traits. More or less what Hofstede has done. Ideographic reflects the study in depth of something (personality or culture). For instance, psychoanalysis is ideographic. Or when an anthropologist submerges herself in a tribe.
It seems that in the former history of psychology - which up to a certain extent deals with problems similar or related to the ones stated in the paper - was quite easy to narrow your focus and get stuck in one of the research trends and forget the other one and leading to endless discussions about which methodology is the best one. (Apply that to Hofstede's methodology and its critics).

5. The critics made by Lamiell [look at the file attached] which deepen the former aspects and have quite sense to me. I have attached an article where he explains in length his thoughts. Summarizing:

5.1 The knowledge of the individual differences is not the knowledge of an individual. It only has sense if the variance is 0. In other words, what is true for a group is not necessarily true for individuals. Up to a certain extent what is measured for a group are adjusted values or emergent properties.

5.2 The individual behavior is not caused nor can be explained by the differences between individuals. It's just a statement of the difference. Dot. Differences are just relative measurements. It's like two cars crossing in opposite directions. The relative speed of the cars (from the point of view of the passengers) is bigger than the absolute speed of the cars.

Besides of the similarities I have more issues to discuss, specifically with the idea of Communities of Practice (CoPS) by Etienne Wenger and more specifically with the last of the recommendations for future research: "how do online learning platforms and online learning communities get structured in a way to better understand and respond to cultural diversity and even gain from it?". I think that the concept of CoPs is very useful for the following reasons:

1. Because of the idea itself. CoPs can be explained in this way: We do different things in order to accomplish certain enterprises. This process relates us with others and the world (the environment and even ourselves). These relationships are tuned as long as the interaction lasts. That is: there is learning. We learn.

The interaction (with the people and the world) and the pursuit of enterprises crystallizes in practices. Practices belong to a group of people (a community) in a continual pursuit of a shared enterprise. Practice is social (or at least it seems to be). That's why the name of communities of practice.

2. How learning is understood as something that happens anywhere at anytime. Wenger expresses it in this way:

"1. We are social beings
2. Knowledge is a matter of competence with respect to valued enterprises
3. Knowing is a matter of participating in the pursuit of those enterprises
4. Meaning is what learning is to produce"

3. The level of analysis. Firstly, in a theoretical level CoPs are in the between theories of social structure (which emphasize cultural systems and give primacy mostly to institutions, norms and rules) and theories of social experience (they focus on the experience and the local construction of individual or interpersonal events such as activities and conversations).In other words, learning would be between something BIG such as culture and the individual or interpersonal interactions.

Besides, in my opinion sometimes the term culture is far too big and its prone to an inadequate analysis. I think that sometimes, if difficulties challenges arises from culture, a possible solution would imply to change the culture itself (as a whole). CoPs would allow a most accurate level of analysis: the culture as a whole should not be "changed". With the community - their systems of meanings and values - the problem is scaled down.

Here is a list of some research ideas I have. If you have any interest in collaborating on the research and publication of any of these specific topics, let me know and lets get started asap (as soon as possible).

If you have any other ideas, please feel free to share them - and lets see if we can refine them as well, getting other interested people involved and start finding answers and writing some high-quality interesting papers.

Research Paper Topics:

1. This team itself - the stages, process, and evolution of what we experience and what we learn together (perhaps presented from multiple viewpoints). This might involve a short survey or some short interviews at the end of our experience together, and then perhaps using an online environment to collaboratively write it up with anyone who is interested.
2. Using eye tracking equipment here at our lab - what are the cultural differences in the way people from different countries look at ____ (an image, a computer screen, a piece of instruction, etc... yet to be determined)? Esentially we need to find the largest international groups here in Joensuu and get them in to use our equipment in looking at something. We are kind of duplicating a study that was done with Americans and Chinese that found some pretty interesting results. Do we find the same thing or different results?
3. Review of literature on culture and online learning. This would be an extension of the encyclopedia article that we just read, which we would submit to a journal.
4. Review of the trends and changes over the years in the papers presented at the CATaC conference (Cultural Attitudes toward Technology and Communication http://www.catacconference.org/). I was invited by the conference organizers to do this meta-study, which I think will be interesting, and would welcome anyone who would like to help analyze the themes of the papers presented over the last 4 conferences. This will be presented at the next CATaC in Nimes, France, and subsequently published in a journal.
5. The impact (strengths and weaknesses) of Web 2.0 tools for international collaborative work that we are doing? This can be a specific look at even some of the platfom features we have tried to use for specific types of cross-cultural understanding and communication.
6. The use of web analytics and decision automation in customizing online experiences for cultural differences.
7. The impact of introductions (customized for cultural preferences) in establishing rapport, trust, interest, credibility, etc. I have some good material on this that I think would be fun to turn into a study. As we are customizing a lesson in a few weeks, we could focus on this aspect for a study of its own.
8. What is "culture"? - This would be more of a theoretical paper, looking at the concept of culture from a 21st century stand point.
9. Culture and Ethics - related to the discussion that ensued in posts between Sabine and myself - and perhaps in her upcoming discussion week.
10. Evaluation of the IMPDET program from a cross-cultural standpoint. This is an evaluation that I have been asked to do of the whole IMDPET program, which I imagine will be publishable. If anyone wants to help collect, analyze, write-up and publish this data, let me know.

Well, those are some of my initial ideas - do any of them strike anyone's interest? Part of me keeping my deal and helping you publish is that you have to pick something that you are interested in collaborating on, or propose a topic that you are willing to take the lead on.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and seeing your ideas.

Please sign up for a week to lead the discussion group, even if you do not know what article you will pick
http://www.whatiamlearning.com/drupaled/wiki/schedule

Since no one has signed up yet for this next week, we will do some other things.

First, if you have not posted about the last article(s), we really do want to hear your thoughts - so please post this week.

For everyone, since we will not have an additional article, I would encourage three other things:

(1) Think of an event or experience with questions that you could and post
it on the reflection wiki (in the format outlined) - perhaps something
about the functioning within our group or questions or something you
noticed about your reaction in or about another culture's behavior that
caught you off-guard, seemed strange to you, etc..., - it is a great
opportunity to get a lot of different perspectives on something that
interests you (if you have never used a wiki before, and need some help with that, please let me know),
(2) read and respond to comments and questions of others,
(3) Select a tentative research question - outline rationale and implications - post it as a blog
(don't stress too much about this, just put up some ideas as they come
to you, but they do not need to be refined or flawless - just some rough initial thoughts is fine).

If the third thing is difficult for some, then I will propose some tentative ideas, based on our experiences so far.

Also, it was an enjoyable conference call - the notes are below. Feel free to edit/correct anything that I didn't get accurate.
Perhaps Adele and Minjuan could share their answers too
(Esko will be unable to participate again until late October)

I could not resist sharing this paper. 

"A crystal seen from each of its vertices: European views of European national characters" by James Shilts Boster and Kateryna Maltseva, Cross-Cultural Research 2006; 40; 47. (19 pages). The online version of this article can be found at http://ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/40/1/47

It starts as:

   "In heaven, all the policeman are English, all the car mechanics are German, all the cooks are French, all the hotel keepers are Swiss, and all the lovers are Italian.

    In hell, all the policeman are German, all the car mechanics are French, all the cooks are English, all the hotel keepers are Italian, and all the lovers are Swiss." 

In general, jokes that depend on national stereotypes are in bad taste, but we submit that the one above is an instructive exception. It does not choose a stigmatized group and heap further abuse on it; instead, it targets a number of the most economically powerful nations on the planet and attributes both the best and worst of traits to each of them. But for our purposes, what is most interesting about the joke is that its humor depends on teh audience's knolwedge of a great deal about each of the nations; heaven adn hell are distinguished by whether the assginment of occupations takes advantage of the nations' envisioned best traits or exposes their worst ones. In other words, the joke aligns a collection of nations in a field of attributes. The research reported here has  similar purpose: We explore adn describe what it is that Europeans know (or think they know) about the placement of their own and other nations on a number of attribute dimensions. We also describe patterns in how these beliefs aredistributed. Note that "nation" in our usage is not equivalent to teh nation-state.....

1. What are the main thoughts you carry away ...

From the article, I learn a lot of things with regard to cross cultural issues. I understand that cultural differences are important elements that we should take into consideration when we design online learning materails. Points I learn is that what does it mean cultural competency, what factors contribute for cross cultural conflict, difference between the western and other society culturs in learning and suggestions proposed to consider in online learning design to narrow culutral differences.

2. Are there any specific research ideas ...

The quotation by John Dewey and Berger and Luckmann and Bennet are important ideas included in this article to the design of online learning course

3. Can you think of any (ideas, studies, articles, or authors) that might be missing from this article - but which should be included?

I think this is a short article. For a beginner like me, it leaves many questions to understand croos-cultural issues in online learning. For example there are many instructional design models, here mentioned only one model ADDIE.  For example some researchers says learning is a social process and uses a different instructional design models. It may be more appropraite model to include cultural issues in online instruction design

 4.  Do any of the suggestions for future research interest you in particular, and why?

The research ideas suggested are good. But immediately what comes to mind is that we are designing online instruction for people with different cultures. Can it be achievable? I want to quot Dewey's word " ... when a student finds the curriculum relevant to his or her life situation". A student one from US and the other from Ethiopia  can take the same course, thanks to the internet technology. The technology allows but do we think that they have the same goal and target? I think no. Because they come from different socio-economic background, they will not have the same interest and goal. There is another suggestions, online learning should be design with different layers so that it can address different learner groups but with one layer design. I don't think so.

In additon to the suggestion - I also suggest prototyping approach. course materials are designed and distributed to the target learners and then we gather the pros and cons of the first vesion, from that feedback, with internet it is possible to gather feedbacks, we may able to design an online course material that can address different cultural groups.  

1. What are the main thoughts you carry away with you after reading this article?

What keeps coming to my mind is my attempt to contextualize a programming course for a Tanzanian context a couple of years ago and how well this article captures the questions and problems we were facing. My main thoughts circulates around the statement that - There is no such thing as “culture-free” teaching or learning but on the same time realizing how much most teaching practices are “infected” by western practices. I could especially associate with the three main barriers and the bridge-building model.

2. Are there any specific research ideas, studies, articles, or authors cited that you think seem most relevant in this article?
I think it is a great article where I find more or less everything relevant with an excellent conclusion for cross-cultural learning including Wang & Reeves

3. Can you think of any (ideas, studies, articles, or authors) that might be missing from this article - but which should be included?
I think it would be great if there would be more to balance the anglo-american patterns

4. Do any of the suggestions for future research interest you in particular, and why? Or are there any suggestions for future research that you would add?
I found especially interesting - Are there indeed universal principles for instructional design where I think a way forward would be to find what is definitely not universal and try to minimize the use of it for online cross-cultural learning

1. What are the main thoughts you carry away with you after reading this article?

 [a) There is a lot more done and published about culture and online learning than I thought, 2) I've got a seriously long bibliography to catch up with, 3) I need more coffee.]

*I actually have a question: Since we've established that culture and education are intimately connected, and that more cultural competence is a thoughafter skill/knowledge/application in instructional designing and delivering....when, where and how could we see cultural competence training for instructional designer and/or faculty (or any educators)? Most doctoral programs do not form educators, they shape researchers. So most students going from their Masters to their doctoral program have no training in pedagogy, no elective in teaching science. Moreover, most graduates have achieved an certain level of expertise in a specific field with very little cross-disciplinary application and even less cross-border collaboration or curiosity.

For example, most of my fellow colleagues in American Literature have absolutely no idea of the European connections (origin, influences, etc) to the American literature. And some have even cried blasphemy when "religions" were discussed as "cultural mythologies" (in a bigger conversation on cultural bias in literature, such as interpretation problems a student raised in a non-christian culture is faced when given a piece of western literature). Not to mention the lack of discussion between professionals across discipline within a same university, and the still mistifying transfer of research into practice (either due to a lack of exchange between researchers and practitioners, or a lack of time/resources/administrative green light/etc for the educator to translate research into practice). 

When I try to answer the question "what would an instructional medium look like if it were not designed by a western mind rather, by an Eastern mind?"  I keep remembering a study that showed where an American student's eyes looked on a pictures vs where an Chinese student's eyes focused instead. The pictures showed a definite contrast between the American focus on some actions details (windows of the train, faces of people) compared to the Chinese eye that went for the background (trees, sky, front and end of train) first. And yet, when a boat is built in China Second Life in order to offer a place of gathering for the Chinese speaking community, I did not see anything different than in any other sims on the grid. I am actually not sure what I was expecting.

* Another question is: If we were to develop a program to train cultural competency (awareness, sensitivity, etc) for educators, how are we to deal with the feeling of threat? Such training is not much different than trying to convince a faculty of the educationally sound skills of certain conferencing tools....which faculty will not touch because "close to retirement, do'nt bother me/so far so good/it's pandora all over again/ etc....Except that dealing with "culture", we touch the individuals at a much more intimate level. Teaching cultural awareness would mean dealing with individuals secure enough in their own indentity that they do not feel threatened. Their world view becomes all the more holistic and informed. I am just not sure that even many higher ed educators would be ready for that challenge.

2. Are there any specific research ideas, studies, articles, or authors cited that ou think seem most relevant in this article?

They all seem quite relevant.I was even surprised to read about Rapaille's cultural comparative applications. "Early survival traits" of the society was indeed the favored explanation among international students during my first 2 years of exchange program in the Midwest (I posted about this while answering to Clint's post of Cultural expectations in Finland). 

3.Can you think of any (ideas, studies, articles, or authors) that might be missing from this article -but which shoudl be included.

no. The length of the article would leave no room to the author' point of view. Still I wanted to ask if (p6 paragraph 4) the Rogers et al's bridge-building model (3) was not referring to Reigeluth's 1970s Elaboration Theory.

4. Do any of the suggestions for future research interest you in particular, and why? or are there any suggestions for future research that you would add?

All the suggestions are quite interesting because they are all part of the bigger question. But I might even narrow down the last one ( How do online learning platforms and online learning communities get structured in a way to better understand and respond to cultural diversity and even gain from it?). Maria Schutt's dissertation provides a great foundation for online learning student perception of instructor social presence and immediacy. She used video-audio-text vs audio-text recordings of lectures and randomly sent groups of students to the treatments. My interest is to replicate this study by in Second Life, to look at the role of the visual agent (avatar)'s gestures, behaviors, text and/or chat, etc. in the perceived social presence, immediacy, and possibly in learning outcomes. I'd love to add the cultural variables to this (but I have to figure out if this is a variable that I can realistically integrate in this study....if I want to finish this doctoral program reasonably soon).

1. What are the main thoughts you carry away with you after reading this article? No education is value free, framed in context and culture what we bring to an educational setting and what we design the learning event as is interpreted differently.  I think it would be significant to be comfortable with a degree of uncertainty.

2. Are there any specific research ideas, studies, articles, or authors cited that you think seem most relevant in this article? I think all the research sited is relevant and have gained a personal bird’s eye view of the field.

3. Can you think of any (ideas, studies, articles, or authors) that might be missing from this article - but which should be included? I would wonder if it would make a difference if you are working with different subcultures within a culture for example the older generation and younger generation or whether you are working with male and female groups would be considered significant as well. Just a thought…

4. Do any of the suggestions for future research interest you in particular, and why? Or are there any suggestions for future research that you would add? I am interested in the incorporation and accommodation to facilitate more cultural elements into online courses. What would it entail to culturally contextualize online learning.. 

1. What are the main thoughts you carry away with you after reading this article? Although I am listed an co-author, Clint wrote most of it. I like the section on culture and online learning. It gave me a nice overview of existing studies and their main findings.

2. Are there any specific research ideas, studies, articles, or authors cited that you think seem most relevant in this article?They all seem relevant to me. Researchers approached culture and online learning from different perspectives. The Wang and Reeve's article has an impressive list of research questions. I like those most.

3. Can you think of any (ideas, studies, articles, or authors) that might be missing from this article - but which should be included? For a short article like this, the references are sufficient.

4. Do any of the suggestions for future research interest you in particular, and why? Or are there any suggestions for future research that you would add?
I am most interested in:• What is the process by which learners change and adapt to instructional techniques and approaches that are foreign to them—and how can we help to bridge the gaps more effectively?People have put great burdens on designers and instructors to practice cultural responsiveness; I think the learners can do so too. As a person from a completely different educational system, I had to adapt to the American teaching and learning. It took lots of efforts, but it helped me grow professionally and personally. 

- What do you think about their method of using Hofstede's national level characteristics to understand individual group members?

I believe that it points out characteristics that can help us better understand different cultures but it might also lead to stereotyping because after all we are all individuals and in the globalized world of today (that we all seem to be a part of) I guess stereotyping becomes rather a threat than a mean as it becomes almost impossible to fit any individual into the characteristics on a national level as we get as much global influence as local. However I believe Hofstede’s national level characteristics is probably a good start and can’t be ignored for a model of management of cross-cultural projects. However I feel the model is far from complete. I can’t really put the finger on what is missing but I am questioning how useful the model is. I also struggle a bit with how to define culture and I think it could make another interesting discussion in this forum :-) I found particularly important in any group work the level of individualism/collectivism also I liked the idea of defining trust as risk taking and the more willingness to risk/trust the higher probability of cooperative behavior.

- We are kind of in the "transition process" with this research group. How have you felt about the degree of ambiguity regarding what exactly we will be doing? Would you prefer this group to be either more flexible (defining your own role) or prefer a structure that is more pre-determined with someone telling you exactly what is happening and what your role is?

I do not mind flexibility but I also believe that personally I perform better when more pre-determined and structured.

- In your opinion, how much does culture really matter in distributed teams? In what way?
I believe culture does matter as we might behave differently and often understanding the cultural differences it also helps understanding differences or maybe even to us “strange” behaviors. What I believe matters even more though is the common goal and realizing that the cross-cultural collaboration is needed to reach the goal.

What do you think about their method of using Hofstede's national level
characteristics to understand individual group members?

He touches on various issues that would definitely influence the optimum
functioning of a culturally diverse group.

We are kind of in the "transition process" with this research group. How
have you felt about the degree of ambiguity regarding what exactly we will be
doing? Would you prefer this group to be either more flexible (defining your
own role) or prefer a structure that is more pre-determined with someone
telling you exactly what is happening and what your role is?

I am comfortable with the degree of ambiguity. I personally like to work in
defined outside boundaries with freedom to manipulate and navigate inside them.
It would be helpful to have a bit of a structure further than a week so that I
can plan in advance.

In your opinion, how much does culture really matter in
distributed teams? In what way? No one enters any conversation or relationship
value free. I think these are our cultural “baggage”

Let me share my thoughts with you about this issue. We have been collecting different attributes of what we mean by "trust". Summarizing (more or less) :

• Clint: To rely on someone as well as a sense of predictability in the behaviour (to do what you say you are going to do). It's also to take care of the others.
• Esko: The quality of the relationship. Feeling respect and reciprocity
• Marcus: The basis of many relationships. To understand each other (especially between cultures). He also addressed how you can feel trust.
• Sabine: A basic ingredient. It arises from the character: reputation, willingness, presence. To give a chance.
• Tentim: Trust is built from a common goal or ground to start with.
• Adele: It comes from history, looking backwards, after reflection. "An intention to allow a state to develop"
• Minjuan: Belief, faith, to openly share yourself. To share your goals. There are different levels of trust
• Diego: Nemawashi. To develop a shared understanding as a scaffold.
• Me: A gut feeling. Confidence and predictablity. Physical and ethical dimensions.

Up to a certain extent it seems there are two big dimensions in our definition of trust: what I called "affective" (how we feel) and what I called "competence" (how we do). When I read all the answers I had the feeling of having dealt with this issue before. I reviewed my handbook of social psychology and I found that it seems that people distinguish easily between social-affective competence and intelectual-performance competence for socially valuable values. Further, it seems that the most valued features among people are: sincerity, honesty, understanding, loyal and trustworthy which, in my opinion, fit quite well with our definition of trust. (Lydon: "Interpersonal similarity and the social and intellectual dimensions of first impressions" Social Cognition 6, 269 - 286)

I dug a little bit more to find out why. A possible explanation comes from the implicit personality theory (IPT). IPTs are the beliefs we have about which people's features or characteristics happen together (for instance, quiet people are timid).

What do you think about their method of using Hofstede's national level characteristics to understand individual group members?

Some years ago I was interested on Hofstede's ideas. I think they are a good place to start to think about cultural differences or at least it was a serious effort to address those questions. For instance, his definition of culture is quite intriguing to me. I have attached four articles about Hostede's "theory" and the dicussion generated if you are interested (look at the end of the post, "attachments"): 1. An article by Hofstede himself; 2. A study which states that"national character does not reflect mean personality trait"; 3. A criticism by Brendan McSweeney to Hofstede; 4. Hofstede's reply to McSweeney.

In my case, some doubts arised which are pretty much the same ones Sabine has correctly pointed out. Let me try to summarize them:

1. Hofstede's method is Factor Analysis. As far as I know about it - very little, and specially searching in my handbook of individual differences in psychology - it seems that factor analysis is prone to circularity, the factors themselves are quite subjective and with Factor Analysis is a bit difficult to make causal inferences. On the other hand, Factor Analysis gives us a map to explore.

2. The misunderstanding of supposing that the cause of the differences between groups is the same one of the differences between individuals of a given group.

3. Comparing groups tends to ignore the heterogeneity within a group. For instance, the differences within women (or men) as a group are bigger than the mean differences between men and women.

And, in my opinion, this is exactly the "error" the author has made. While you study groups (i.e. nations) is ok. But if you compare individuals the results may lead to wrong conclusions

We are kind of in the "transition process" with this research group. How have you felt about the degree of ambiguity regarding what exactly we will be doing? Would you prefer this group to be either more flexible (defining your own role) or prefer a structure that is more pre-determined with someone telling you exactly what is happening and what your role is?

Ambiguity is fine to me because it gives enough freedom to think on your own words and not about what the "teacher" expects. Within the ambiguity realm, I see myself as an explorer. Besides, a higher or lesser degree of flexibility is also good - both of them allow to stretch your mind in different ways while they are appropiate -. In other words, in my opinion it's not the flexibility what matters (so far) but the content itself.

In your opinion, how much does culture really matter in distributed teams? In what way?

It matters quite much. According to Hofstede's culture definition (bold is mine): “as a collective phenomenon, because it is at least partly shared with people who live or lived within the same social environment where it was learned. It is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.”

In my opinion Hofstede is trying to say that humans are "information processors" and that culture shapes how that information is processed (sometimes in a very basic level, given by language. Sometimes in a very high level such as politeness, etiquette and, yes, trust).

First, I have to provide some disclaimers: I had to read the article
slowly, with a pen, and sometimes re-read some passages. I have clearly
a few things to catch up with cross-cultural management literature.
and that's fine, that's why I join the team. To learn. So please, be
patient with me if there is some questions or concerns that I am
raising where you would consider there is no questions or concern to
have. So here we go (let's try "trust"):

• What do you think about their method of using
  Hofstede's national level characteristics to understand individual group
  members?

I was convinced by Evaristo's use of Hofstede's model to support his arguments. However, I was not convinced by the Hofstede's model completely. This leads me to questions a few of Evaristo' statements.

My first concern is about the reliability of the 1980s analysis of the world cultural dymanics by Hofstede and the usage of such tool for today's more global society (both humanly -people relocate more-, and technologically -communication and netiquettes have been discussed since).

Second, I have a fundamental doubt that national characteristics can be generalized to the individuals, especially if Evaristo is going to use them for cross-cultural projects. a) I think that national characteristics are more a product of political manipulation on the general population more than a geo-cultural influence from the people (although I have nothing to substantiate this except my own traveling and observing experiences). b) I would tend to believe (just an hypothesis right now) that individuals such as ourselves, would fall in the cracks of Hofstede's model as "exceptions" or "anomalies." The reason is that we self-selected to be part of this group, knowing the group's proposed goals. Those goals have somehow already helped in determining who (individualism/collaborative, etc) would be interested in participating. Also, should we assume that Minjuan and I are more collaborative and more feminine in our cultural characteristics according to Hofstede (i.e., because we are both from a more "social" -with differences of degree- countries, i.e., China and France)? How would some 12 and 15 years of being in the United States count toward possibly changing one's "original" tendencies? Does Hofstede's model allow for such variable in the individual's cultural make-up? All these questions are valid for all of the other members due to the extensive traveling or global awareness that most of the group has experienced (based on the posted bio)...hence, already influenced one's "native" country characteristics.

Third, Hofstede's model was certainly drawn from thousands or more samples of individuals across countries....the IMPDET team is made up of one individual from one country. I think that it would be a stretch, and possibly a danger, for us to draw cultural conclusions on each of our native origins. Not to completely dismiss Hofstede's model, I think that this is still a place to start....but maybe it is time to update the model to today's more wired and global world?

Fourth, (p65 last paragraph), "distributed projects have a natural tendency to flatten the perceived hierarchy, since direct managers become less visible"...how so? I thought that culture dictates relationships. So if my native culture has trained me to understand that decisions are made by the manager of the project, why/how does the technology force me to change that? The rest of the paragraph (continues p66) feels more like a westerner/US (i.e., more individualistic) bias on the part of the author.

(One non-content-related problem I had with the article in general is some general organization of ideas in paragraphs or APA formatting. I am under scrutiny right now -or rather a couple of articles of mine are- and APA being my doom so far, I got a little annoyed at some lack of APA formating, such as p60, paragraph 4, list of authors and dates is not alphabetized; or citing "Marks et al. (2001)" p60, end of paragraph 5, when "Marks et al." have never been cited before). Sorry for the nitpicking.

• We are kind of in the "transition process"
  with this research group. How have you felt about the degree of ambiguity
  regarding what exactly we will be doing? Would you prefer this group to be
  either more flexible (defining your own role) or prefer a structure that
  is more pre-determined with someone telling you exactly what is happening
  and what your role is?

p63: "In the transition processes, the level of task structure or formalization is lowest", dealing with a lower structure, more uncertainty, and possible power distance issues. I am quite at ease with the current state of this research team. And based on this reading, it has become more evident (to me) that we are following a certain protocol for a successful cross-cultural distributed project team. We had to answer a few questions (not to mention the now obvious "trust" question), publish a bio, discuss a couple of personal items, heard each other's voices...So I would speculate (quite knowingly based on the goals established for the team) that we are our own participants in figuring out a possible argument or new model for multicultural collaborative teams.

In fact, I have indexed a couple of paragraphs as "IMPDET" such as p62 paragraph 3, and p66 paragraph 3. I even wrote "IMPDET challenge?" in the margin of paragraph 3 p66 last sentence: "...if in addition to distance across locations, the cultural heterogenerity of groups is high, it is harder to develop trust among stakeholders."

Right now, I feel on target, knowing what is asked of me (role and task). I think that this could be interpreted in me feeling safe right now, in the role of the learner...

• In your opinion, how much does culture really matter in
  distributed teams? In what way?

I think that culture is extremely important. As I said earlier, Hofstede is a good place to start, but the world and societies have changed since the '80s. So I would not dismiss Hofstede's cultural model, but would be interested to see how we can alter it so that it is a better predictor of the current technologically-enhanced neo-web 3.0 world. Not to mention that our team is made of individuals already being "anomalies" (what are the global stats equivalent to "20% of Americans have a passport"? or geography literacy and global awareness? or terminal degree holders?). So "distributed teams" would also have to be "defined" as academic, business, etc...with most likely differing distinctive characteristics.

I think that culture matters in distributed teams because of being culturally awaress provides a "safe platform," i.e., allowance for misunderstanding, explanations not taken personally, egos a little more in check, appreciation for each other's knowledge of/gap in the language of mediation, etc.I think that Culture is very important in bringing creativity, new ideas, and other motivational elements to a distributed teams due to the different world views on problems/questions/tasks.

And it could also be a reason for a disastrous project (for all the reasons cited above). Hence trust.

Where is the line between "culturally sensitive" and integrity to ethics standards? 

I guess another way of stating this question is: what kind of ethics standards can we safely say are universal (and even if a majority of people in a particular culture do not adhere to those standars, it does not change the fact that they really should)? 

How far does cultural relativity go? 

I have some ideas, but I am also curious what thoughts everyone else might have on this issue. It is not related to the article we are discussing, but just a side thought.

Clint 

hi,

I try to answer some of the questions regrading to the article. The first question is not clear to me but I will try to answer as I understand it. Hofstede developed a cultural model that helps to describe the cultural diversity among nations. I think a nation means the totally of indidividuals. What is true for the nation may apply for the individual group members. His model could taken as a starting point to understand the cross cultural reasearch teams.

Regarding to the second question, prior knowledge and experience is important for our future activities. I personally new to our project, except few readings on culture. I need to read more and practical engagement to decide my own role. Therefore I prefere more pre-determined with someone telling me what I am going to do in this phase of the project.

In my opinion, culture affects the work of distributed team performance. When you are working in a team, if you are from the same culture, you can easily understand with each other. Your previous experience help for quick and smooth flow of ideas. You can easily understand the meaning of the word without too much explanation. But in multicultural teams, there are many gaps to understand with each other. Sometime I may be relectant to express my feeling to some other person. Becuase I don't know how the other person interpretes it. In our society culture, what ever you say, people say you - that is nice, that is good but they will not tell you their real feelings becuase of the fear that thier word my spoil their future relationship.

In addition to culture, there are also other factors that affect the virtual team- what is the environment in which we are operating. That affects the individual team performance. The problem in Ethiopia may not be a problem in Finland. If I raise it as a problem, the others may not even understand how it is a problem because they may not heard it or experienced it before.

Temtim, Ethiopia

Accomplishments I proud of

I am grown up in Ethiopian village where I didn’t hear the sound of car and other modern technologies. Unfortunately there is an elementary school within 5 minutes walking distance from my home. The school was one of the schools built by Swedish government to assist Ethiopian government to promote modern education. I started life from there and now I am a university lecturer. My village has now changed; there is a bus from the Addis Ababa, telephone service. Sometimes being lucky may seem work in our life. I am lucky and I had a chance to see many countries – Germany, Switzerland, Holland (Euraope), China and South Korea.

I am working in Addis Ababa University since 2003. When I joined the university, I employed as a lecturer for IT Education Unit in Business Education Department. I initiated to establish an ICT Education Department and my boss agreed on the idea. I was assigned to coordinate the team to develop the new department curriculum and establish the department. It was a challenge to bring people to work together, I took the initiative and did what I do and lastly, I was successful to establish the new Department. I am currently working the as a Department Head.

What makes successful international cross cultural research team

I think I may share my experience of group work. Originally I don’t like group work for the reason is that most of the teams in the group don’t equally (or what is expected from them) contribute for the achievement of group objective. Later when I read a project management book (I don’t remember its title and author), it says that 80 percent of the project work is done by 20 percent of the project team. Now I changed my attitude towards to group work, I am convinced in the objective, I should contribute what I can do without considering others contributions. Others should also have the same belief. Because we all live in different places, we all have different commitments that reduces our energy but we all have to do what we can do.

The other thing is communication is very important – that clarifies our team objective, our duties (what is expected from each of us), makes every body informed about the project progress and creates a sense of ownership in the project, learn the problem of others and find immediate solutions how we can fill the gap to make our project successful and so on.

As I was not able to participate in the former conference, Clint suggested to post the questions proposed in the blog. So here they are:

1. one thing in your life that you think you have done very well (e.g. an accomplishment that you are proud of - try not to be
too modest)

Hmm... that's a difficult question to answer. The first thing that pop up into my mind was how I ended a personal relationship. But it involves (too) many personal details to be talked about. However, all in all, I reckon that the best thing I have done in my life was the firm decision to go abroad - eventually I ended up in Finland -. Everything that happened afterwards is based on that decision.

Why I think is important? Well, it happened in a crucial moment in my life: I was having a (sort of) depression and everything seemed and tasted quite negative. In fact, many things were developing quite badly. I was stuck and I had to move forward but I did not know what to do. Decisions were hard to make. The announcement of the student exchange positions (Erasmus program) seemed to be a suitable option so I applied. Once I got elected I had to make more decisions and to mobilize all my resources to come here and it was a huge effort. Somehow it made me a different person (well, all decisions make you a different person). I had to do things that I had not done before. And the results have been mainly positive.

2. one hypothesis/ idea you have about what makes cross-cultural virtual learning teams effective

This is an hypothesis. People from different cultures have to overcome many different "invisible" meanings from their very own culture. Experience and knowledge help in the understanding. Somehow it is like learning a new language. The idea is to make those implict assumptions explicit as well as increasing the awareness of possible misunderstandings. How? Well, maybe a sort of dictionary or a collection of short stories stating those differences (for instance, the concept of punctuality or time between different cultures). Secondly, increasing the joint experiences between the members of the virtual course and to try to point out what one has understood from the other in order to show the possible misunderstandings.

"The Japanese refer to the creation  of trust trought time as nemawashi. Originally a horticultural word that means "to turn the roots" prior to replanting -or, by implication, "laying the groundwork" -nemawashi has come to mean the process by which groups in Japan develop the shared understanding without which nothing gets done"

Kayoko Ota "Tokio" in Workspheres" Design and Contemporary Work Styles, ed. Paola Antonelly

• What do you think about their method of using Hofstede's national level characteristics to understand individual group members?

This article proposed a model of management of cross-cultural distributed projects (page 4). I used Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in my studies of online learning. I do like his model. It provides a few constructs for exploring cultural differences in online learning. However, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are better for describing group than individual characteristics. Because Hofstede looks at cultural differences from the national rather than individual level. Sometimes, his model can be too generalized even for groups. During my study, I came across several groups that do not conform to their national characteristics.

• We are kind of in the "transition process" with this research group. How have you felt about the degree of ambiguity regarding what exactly we will be doing? Would you prefer this group to be either more flexible (defining your own role) or prefer a structure that is more pre-determined with someone telling you exactly what is happening and what your role is?

Transition process as described in the model in this article: the level of task structure is lowest. Task formalization is related to two of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, uncertainty avoidance and individualism. Now I am ready to answer this question from a metacognitive perspective. Yes our task formalization at this point is low, and I am unclear about what is laid out for the next few weeks. But I am not anxious to make it clear either. I like to be in flexible but semi-structured groups, where we have tasks to complete but also flexibility to explore.

• In your opinion, how much does culture really matter in distributed teams? In what way?

Culture matters a great deal! I echo what is said in this article. Trust is crucial in distributed teams; and Cultural differences could affect trust-building. Cultural differences can also affect how we communicate with each other, tone, politeness, honesty, collaboration. But culture is not going to be the only affecting factor. Acquaintance matters too. For instance, I know Sabine and Clint. They are both fun and energetic. I will stay in this group just to socialize with and to learn from for them! 

In your opinion, what does it mean to trust?

Openess, transparency, tolerance, empathy.

To be able to communicate and share experiences with others, openly.

Why do you want to be a part of this research team?

To communicate openly and share experiences, regardless of cultural barriers. To have a (cross-cultural) meaninful experience.

What are your personal goals for what you would like to have accomplished by the end of this research period (in December)?
Be aware of the most important barriers that are limiting
cross-cultural communications and the factors that motivate a better
communication, using Web 2.0. tools, like DrupalEd

Good morning all. I have the dubious honour to be the last to post. I had actually created a podcast but the message “access denied” has persuaded me to text enter. I had fun making it in any case!! To answer the questions my opinion of trust is that it is a reflective activity. I can look back to something and say there is trust but only because of history. I cannot in honesty say that I trust something or someone as I am evaluating and building relationships that I can reflect on and then say I trust... So I might want to trust but that will only be an intention to allow a state to develop. As to being part of the research team, I don’t think anyone can ever have too many believing mirrors in their life. Each person and relationship highlights and reveals another angle of not only them and their life but you and your life. That is always exiting. I am looking forward to learning from everyone and the opportunity to grow. By the end of December I would like to be able to contribute meaningfully to some type of reflection and what happens after December will be just as interesting... what will we all do with what we have gained... ? :-)

Since I am the last one to post, I agree with all of you.-J 

Q1: Trust means certainty, belief, faith. To me, trust means being able to openly share your ideas, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and even secrets with others, without being concerned about critiques or “betrayal”.  This is the type of trust I have with my sister. I also trust my colleagues, because we share the same goals, i.e., to develop and grow our programs. On the other hand, you may trust someone without sharing much common ground. For example, many people have huge generation gaps with their parents, but they still trust each other. So I guess trust can be at different levels and on certain aspects, completely trust and partially trust.

Q2: I would like to meet new people, to do some action research, and to have fun!

Q3: To write an article about this experience; to learn from this experience so I can better guide my students with teamwork.

Sorry, but I am going to write short entries here. I got too many blogs, one for life, one for work, one for Shanghai's Online College, and another one for my creative writing. But I will read your blogs. It's so nice to be part of this group.
I have been researching about cultural differences in online learning. Look forward to learing from all of you.--Minjuan

In your opinion, what does it mean to trust?
Interesting question. Up to a certain extent trust is a "gut feeling". You just know (feel) who to trust and who not. It gives you confidence and a sort of predictability. That feeling can be based on several things: knowledge, reputation and, especially, similarity. We are wired in this way (up to a certain extent of course) so the awareness of this bias is central to extend our notion of trust. So to speak, this is the... "physical" dimension of trust. The interesting part, in my opinion, arises from the ethical perspective. What you should do and you should not do. (And very probably we have different meanings and implications about ethics)
Why do you want to be a part of this research team?
Firstly, because this is a VERY interesting and challenging experience. Secondly, because it's like an experiment with ourselves. We want to try out new ideas and approaches about group dynamics and learning and people from different backgrounds.
What are your personal goals for what you would like to have accomplished by the end of this research period (in December)?
to learn something I would say is meaningful and concrete. To listen to new experiences, to know people and to develop that trustability called friendship. And finally, because the interesting thing is not the goal but the way we are doing things

Hi Everyone

My response to the question of (1) trust (2) interest (3) Goal

In my oponion, in order one to trust a team or an individual, the first question is do we have a common goal or interest? If the answer is yes, it means that we can trust with each other. of course this is the staring point to establish the trust. In the course of the time, we have to evaluate each other how we contribute to our goal. If we are committed and working for the achievement of our goal, our trust gets more stronger and stronger. If it is in the other way, our trust gradually fades away. Therefore, I trust the team as we are working for the common goal and consequently individual benefit.

Regarding my interest - it is an international team who has diversified experience all of which don't have the chance to have all that experience due to time and distance constraint. I expect that we all learn from the experience of each other. Especially me, who don't have a previous experience to work in an international team, I learn a lot in multicultural education and transfer that knowledge to my university.

Goal: At the end of this research project, I am expecting that I learn a lot in research and that will develop my research career. Besides our research output will be also published on reputable journal and that is another credit I get working in this international research team.

Temtim, Ethiopia

IN MY OPINION, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TRUST?

All of your answers truly echo my own. Trust is an essential ingredient in all relationships (private, public, business) and yet it is a component quite easily "dissolve-able". Many factors are involved for trust to be given, returned, and maintained, but I think that most fall under "character", such as reputation, willingness (to share, to collaborate, to listen, to critic), presence (staying in contact, support). It becomes obvious that for this team, the "characters" of the members will be established based on their social presence through the distance via this web-based tool and possibly other technologies (Clint mentioned possible phone conferencing in the future). But the basic assumption we all start with is still to trust each other's words, so that we can trust each other's bio (reputation), and extend the trust to group work responsibility. I think that "to trust" means "to give a chance."

WHY DO I WANT TO BE A PART OF THIS RESEARCH TEAM?

I want to be a part of this research team because I believe that this cross-cultural, multilingual and multidisciplinary team will identify essential elements for successful international distance collaboration. I have a direct interest in such results as my dissertation work is geared toward observing and analyzing 3D distance learning and teaching (via the Second Life platform) of foreign languages and cultures. I believe that the research team could provide answers or suggestions to best practices for educators' training for online distance teaching.

Risking to sound idealist (perhaps naive), I also believe that the Team's work can lay out the basis for an effective revision of Education (programs, curriculum, teacher training, scholar exchange, professional development and more). I am convinced that the work done by this team is visionary, making this team an agent of change quite necessary to allow for the educational paradigm shift to be better understood.

WHAT ARE MY PERSONAL GOALS FOR WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE END OF THIS RESEARCH PERIOD (in December)?

To study and better understand global virtual collaborative teams and cross-cultural online instruction were goals laid out by Clint and these are the reasons why I am in the team. So I am also appropriating them as my own goals. Being able to articulate the dynamics of a multinational team of multidisciplinary researchers and develop cross-cultural implementations would complement my education and training as an aspiring expert in international education and collaboration.

I hope to translate what I learn from this experience in publishable articles, for professional reasons (job hunting is one reason), and for intellectual reasons (the satisfaction to participate to the academic/research conversation and reach a global audience for example).

Hi everyone I am Marcus from Sweden doing my PhD studies in the IMPDET programme at University of Joensuu, Finland. I am currently based at Meraka Institute, Pretoria where I am running technology clubs for primary school kids. I was brought up in East Africa and often feel more at home in East Africa than in Sweden. South Africa is a great country with an interesting history and even more interesting future where its cultural diversity is finally slowly by slowly becomming a great strenght.

In your opinion, what does it mean to trust?

Trust in my opinion is not something that comes automatically it has to be earned and can be lost much easier than earned. It is one of the main building stones in all relations (business, friendship, partners...) Trust is also about understanding each other as once I understand how someone works and thinks I know with what I can trust or mistrust about the person. I would say that every person you meet starts on a certain level of trust let's call it the zero level but depending on reputation, context, appearance starting level can be higher or lower. A person can only reach a 100% trust level by long own experience. Every now and then I realize that a stranger very easy can gain my trust or mistrust without being able to justify why. I believe this is something that multicultural encounters can reduce as the more we get to know and understand people of different cultures/contexts the less suspicion and mistrust there will be and the easier it will be to gain trust. In South Africa where I am at the moment I have noticed a lot of mistrust between the color borders which makes me very sad but at the same time it is very stimulating to work with cross cultural initiatives as I believe positive own experiences reduces the mistrust and builds a unity beyond all this borders.

Why do you want to be a part of this research team?

Because I hope this research will widen my perspectives and I will learn a lot about myself and about other people by working in a multi-cultural research team.

What are your personal goals for what you would like to have accomplished by the end of this research period (in December)?

Personal growth, study points and enriched research perspectives

Hi,
my name is Esko. I live in Vantaa, Finland, and work in the University of Helsinki as a project coordinator. Research is something I do sometimes as part of my job but mostly in free time. However, since I have a family with two small kids, my time for carrying out studies is limited. Still I find this initiative an interesting opportunity to enagage in collaborative work with you and try to do my best to contribute as expected.

In my opinion, what does it mean to trust?

I agree with you, Clint, on the promises. Moreover, I think that trust depends on the quality of the relationship with another person. If a person feels that both s/he and another person respect each other, s/he can trust her/him. Furthermore, I should also feel that the other person trusts me (mutual trusting) in order to trust him/her. I trust my wife, because I believe that she respects me and trusts on me.

Why do I want to be a part of this research team?

I'm only taking my very first steps with my PhD project. My initial plan was approved by the University, but now I consider the plan poor and wish to renew it. Since I haven't been involved in any research team, I would love to discuss with you and learn from your thinking on these issues. It's also a great opportunity to get experience of cross-cultural collaboration online!

What are my personal goals for what you would like to have accomplished by the end of this research period (in December)?

I wish I had found a new focus for my study. I also hope to have established good relationships with all of you and contributed to our understanding of cross-cultural collaboration and instruction online.

Kind regards,
Esko

In my opinion, what does it mean to trust?

  Although I recognize this is a tough question, I wanted to address it up front, so we could get a better idea what this means for everyone. For me, I think trust means that you can rely that someone will do what they say they will do. I think there it also means that I know someone is not selfish - by that I mean it is easier for me to trust someone who I know has my best interest in mind, they care about me and want me to succeed.

Why do I want to be a part of this research team?

  I want to be a part of this research team because I believe that much of the work of the future will be done by international, cross-cultural virtual teams. I believe that I will learn a lot from each of you and from the experience of being a part of this research team. I also believe we will be able to publish valuable research that can help others with similar efforts.

What are my personal goals for what you would like to have accomplished by the end of this research period (in December)?

  Well, I think I have outlined pretty clearly what I think are two good objectives for this research initiative: To study and better understand:
1. Global virtual collaborative teams
2. Cross-cultural online instruction

I hope to learn more about each of these research areas as we read, discuss, experiment with, and write about them. 

What I would really like more than anything, however, is to be able to contribute in some way to the success of each of you personally and professionally. I want to do all I can to help each person who has committed time to this research to succeed, and in whatever way is most valuable to them (e.g. publishing, networking opportunities, personal growth, etc).