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15th Annual IMI Conference on Intercultural Relations March 13-14, 2014
Washington, D.C. Twitter coverage: @kovalmolod #IMI2014 Thursday, March 13, 2014
Session 1
Global Consulting: Insights on Bridging Cultures, Influencing and Use of Power, Suzanne Zaldivar Track: Business
The session was a good start of the conference learning for me. It mainly
focused on the power dynamics. I was familiar with most of the theories and
frameworks mentioned, such as Ethnocentric - Ethnorelative continuum, but it was
interesting to apply it to the idea of building consulting/helping relationship.
The most useful part of the
session was an exercise on mapping
contextual power dynamics. It
corresponded with what I previously
learned in my Communication for Social
and Economic Development and
International Communications courses
about power distribution, and network
theory. The scenario focused on
international entities providing
consultant support to the government
representatives in Afghanistan. It
included both individual and partner
work, which was valuable in regards to
the in-session networking.
It would be valuable to learn more about hands-on experience of the trainer,
some challenging situations or a real-life case study. Overall, this session helped me
to refresh my knowledge about power networks and reconsider some of the
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approaches in application to consultancy. Insight: consulting literally means
discussing (translated from Latin)!
Session 2 Flipping the Cross-Cultural Training Program: Promoting Participant Pre-Training Learning, Neal Goodman & Jennifer Horowitz
Track: Education, Training and Exchanges / Media and Technology
This session primarily focused on pre-training online activities. One of the most
useful takeaways for me was a presentation of a self-assessment tool that includes
11 cultural dimensions: http://www.global-dynamics.com/culture-wise/cultural-
tendencies-diagnostic-assessment. It helps to determine one’s own position on the
cultural scale and compare it to other cultures in the world. This is especially valuable
for people going abroad to a different culture. I’m currently taking a Social
Documentary class and my documentary project is devoted to cross-cultural
understanding. I’m planning to refer to this tool in my project description as one of the
ways to enhance experiences abroad.
The session also included
group discussions by area of
primary focus or topic of interest.
According to my previous
experience of e-teaching and e-
learning I joined the group who
discussed the ways to better
engage corporate employees and
leaders into a flipped cross-cultural
learning. We had a productive conversation and came up with several main
principles of approaching corporate employees: videos, preliminary interviews of top
managers in regards to their learning expectations, and including more digital and
real-time simulations and interactive learning scenarios.
Keynote Speaker, Rosiland Jordan, Al Jazeera http://blogs.aljazeera.com/profile/rosiland-jordan
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This was an inspiring and valuable speech for me as an International Media
graduate student with the experience of working in the Russian bureau of the British
newspaper The Guardian. For instance, the keynote speaker described what
international media should be about – “understanding, respecting, describing,
reaching across cultural differences.” She also mentioned a burning subject of U.S.-
Russia relations around Ukraine crisis, speaking about how people need to hear
different perspectives on political news. She gave an example of the human story
related to the crisis that they covered showing a wider view on how political situation
affects families, business, human relations.
R. Jordan also talked
about engaging global youth in
reporting and holding them
accountable at the same time. It
was interesting to learn that
Aljazeera gets a lot of news and
story leads from social media
users.
Some of the other ideas
that resonated with me: “We have
an obligation to explain as much as we report,” (confronting biases through a detailed
narrative) “ We have to stop assuming that the world in which we were born is the
world we live in now,” "When under a deadline we have be careful not to stereotype
the communities on which we report."
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Session 3 Enlivening Cross-Cultural Training: Three Activities to Encourage Engagement
and Skill Building, Pamela Ex Track: Topics in Intercultural Relations
This was one of the most applied,
interactive and useful sessions. I learned a lot of
ideas, and look forward to applying new activities
in my own work. First, we learned about six ways
to enliven and shorten introductions at the
trainings.
Then, we focused on how to engage
participants into discussing multiple
perspectives. We were invited to split into
groups and do an exercise on cross-cultural
interactions and stereotypes. I’ve realized
that this exercise would be applicable not
only for cross-cultural setting, but for any
training that involves multiple perspectives.
For example, it could be used when talking
about differences between genders. In fact,
I’ve used a similar exercise when working
on public health awareness with a mixed
group of teenage boys and girls.
The trainer provided a detailed
handout and invited all the participants to
share their experiences. The session
closed down with another exercise on many
faces of “yes”, which looked at the meaning of “yes” and “no” in direct and indirect
cultures. This exercise corresponded with everything I learned in my intercultural
communication classes and provided me with a practical tool that can be easily
applied in my future work.
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Session 4 Contrast-Culture Simulation, Mr. Khan & Gary Weaver
Track: Topics in Intercultural Relations Everyone should meet Mr. Khan at least once! I’ve heard a lot about this
exercise in Prof. Weaver’s classes and finally got a chance to see it. I didn’t get to
participate, because I’m not an American, but it was very interesting to observe the
interaction. I was working out scenarios and behaviors that I would apply in a similar
situation. It was important to be reminded that when we are doing a simulation
exercise like that, we should give enough time to the volunteer role-player to debrief
and get out of the role.
Interestingly, while observing and analyzing this exercise, I remembered a
number of similar interactions, in which I
was involved. Some of them didn’t
happen on the international level, but it
was definitely a cross-cultural
experience, because of different values,
education, and communication
principles. This session helped me to
analyze these experiences and come up
with the tips for future interactions.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Session 5 The Function of Storytelling on Facebook and Twitter, Paige Arthur &
Alexandra Botti Track: Media and Technology
This session was of special interest to me as I’m doing my independent study
on online commenting behaviors in social media, and also update several social
media groups and pages for work. The session focused on sociolinguistic aspects of
social media storytelling, which was also relevant to my undergraduate research in
linguistics. It provided a lot of interesting insights and ideas, such as, "Identity is
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strongly shaped by narrative" (David Matsumoto) or "Consistency is crucial to avoid
being considered fake" (Goffman)
The speakers talked about bigger
and smaller narratives, narrative strategies
to enhance our digital relationships and
understanding of others. They also draw an
important distinction between Twitter and
Facebook: Twitter is mostly content based,
while Facebook focuses on affective text. In
short, our use of Twitter can be largely
described as "my expertise" vs. Facebook –
"my best day".
I had a fruitful conversation with the
session leaders at the end, and we
exchanged resources, contacts and agreed
to be in touch on the possible research
cooperation.
Session 6
Leading through Conflict: Cross-Cultural Analysis and Skill Building for Third
Party Intervention, Gururaj Kumar, Julian Portilla & Jared Ordway Track: Business
This session also
included a simulation, which
corresponded with the Khan
exercise. It focused on the idea
of preliminary data analysis,
which is critical for a leader in a
conflict situation. More
specifically, it explored a space
that exists on the intersection of
conflict, leadership and cultures.
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While the simulation was interesting, I gained more from the theoretical part of
this session. There was some valuable advice on how to observe emerging patterns
through the data analysis, as well as on 21st century leadership. Such features as
reflection, diversity and ingenuity were reconsidered in regards to the new
approaches to leadership. For example, in regards to ingenuity, instead of preserving
status quo it is now more important to be able to rethink core assumptions and
respond to new threats and opportunities.
Keynote Speaker, Moisés Naím, an internationally-syndicated columnist and best-
selling author of influential books, http://moisesnaim.com/
This was an extremely powerful speech
by a renowned expert on power distribution,
which included a presentation of his recently
published book The End of Power. He started
by asking, “Who can immediately give me a
name of the top person in The Washington
Post today?” Nobody could come up with a
quick answer, while everybody working in the
field of international relations knew such facts
10-15 years ago. Thus, he demonstrated that
distribution of power and powerful individuals
has changed. "Being a dictator is not a stable
secure job anymore," he noted. In fact,
individuals we wouldn’t think of before, such as a Brazilian clown Tiririca, can gain
more power these days and make it to the top government. Some other powerful
facts: "For every dollar that the Taliban spent on 9/11, the US has spent 7 million."
An important takeaway/insight: "The power to control is being replaced by the
power to block" (this is especially relevant in regards to the internet surveillance
programs in different countries). Also, large-scale concentrations of power are
becoming harder to sustain. But power over modern telecommunications is becoming
more and more valuable. At the same, social media and modern technologies are just
tools, but they need users and drivers who have their agenda, intentions and
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motivations. One of the most repeated, re-tweeted and powerful ideas discussed by
the speaker was that now “power is easier to acquire, harder to use and easier to
lose.” It was great that all the participants received the book, which develops many of
the ideas mentioned by the speaker.
Session 7
Our Five Senses at Work in Our Cross Cultural Interactions, Patricia M Coleman Track: Topics in Intercultural Relations
This session was interactive and raised consciousness about our five senses.
It provided interesting exercises focusing and reflecting on one or several senses.
The trainer involved a variety of techniques and props – videos, sounds, even a
touch-and-taste exercise. The session was very popular among the conference
participants. I was more interested in observing the trainer facilitating discussions and
exercises. I also provided detailed photo coverage of the session.
Some of the takeaways: what matters with our senses is a frame of reference.
Also, being cross-cultural is about asking questions, not making assumptions (which
was well demonstrated in the exercise when participants were invited to drink water
that could as well be acid or vinegar). There were many interesting techniques on
breaking stereotypes that we create while trusting our senses, without applying
thinking and interaction skills.
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Session 8 D-I-V-E the Digital Intercultural Virtual Edge: Using Technology to Enhance
Intercultural Learning, Collaboration, Innovation and Relationship Building, Lobna Ismail & Shelley Morrison
Track: Media and Technology
Some of the outstanding moments of this session were a series of powerful
videos on breaking Islam stereotypes. Again, I realized how such videos can be
relevant in any other field that involves breaking stigma, finding new angles and
approaches to cross-cultural problems. I had a chance to communicate with both
presenters throughout the conference and learned a lot about their experience. This
session summarized their expertise and provided specific tools and ideas of using
technology for collaboration and learning.
We were briefly introduced to the Second Life game, which was called “a
must-do” for intercultural professionals interested in global virtual projects. One other
valuable web site is “Visual speaks” – it has resources for conducting a cross-cultural
comparison. It provides a variety of pictures that can be used for analyzing
differences in perceptions.
All the participants contributed to
the session by sharing names of the
films that may create cross-cultural
learning experience, valuable web-
resources. This session helped me to
organize my knowledge of the subject
and set new goals for development and
exploring new digital resources. It was a
good way to finish my learning
experience at the conference. Session
facilitators provided all the participants
with a useful handout on digital
resources.