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