Culture impacts international business in a wide variety of ways. I’ve been taken by surprise many times by the extent of its impact. It’s difficult to identify all of the ways culture impacts business because culture evolves over time. This means different cultures are evolving at different speeds and in different directions.

The advice given in books written only a decade ago can be counterproductive today. And the cultural insights we picked up on our trips after university may not help us in international business today.

So what can you do in an environment where cross-cultural miscommunication and blunders pop up unexpectedly. Well one of the best tactics to work effectively in an international environment is to develop an open mindset.

Open Mindset

What is an open mindset?  It’s not always easy to grasp and it can have a slightly different meaning to different people.  But I’ll have a try at explaining what an open mindset means to me in international business and the steps you need to get there.

Self-Examination For An Open Mindset

There are several steps in the process of self-examination. I’ve put these steps first, but in reality I believe our path to opening our mindset is an on-going one.

• It’s not really something you can pick up once and then assume you’ll always have an open mindset.
• It’s a learning process and some steps take more time than others to absorb.
• Sometimes we need more time or experience to be ready to be able to learn more.

So you’ll also need to come back and revisit these steps as you grow your mindset.

#1: Recognize Your Own Focus

It’s important to understand where you are, what occupies your mindset and how different your viewpoint can be when compared to other cultures. How you set your own vision will determine what you see and how open your mindset is.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong about having a narrow focus for certain activities. We might even need this.  But when you are meeting with people from other cultures it’s important to realize just how limiting your own focus or vision is. It’s up to you then to open up or alter your reactions and come back when you are more able to meet people on their level.

#2: Identify Your Assumptions And Question Them

Many “mistakes” in international business begin with our own assumptions and culturally specific expectations being out of sync with another culture. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to identify the assumptions we make because we get so used to our own way of doing things and our own habits.

As you encounter a bit of cross-cultural friction, stop a second and question your assumptions.  Take the conversation slower and try to ask the other person the right questions to find out where the friction came from.

#3: Free Yourself Of A Negative Outlook

When we are confronted with different cultures human nature rears it’s head. We tend to view ourselves as being “good” and “right” while others who do things differently to us are quickly labeled as being “bad” or “wrong”.  Negative reactions are commonplace.

As soon as you recognize any elitist behavior recognize this and give others to the time you need for them to show you where they are coming from.

#4: Avoid Negative Judgment

People are usually good at understanding why it’s good to avoid quick judgment, but they have rather short definitions for “quick”.  In my international business experience I’ve learned to compartmentalize professional from personal expectations and to avoid all negative judgment of people from other cultures.  And this has come from making mistakes because there were too many times when I thought I was right passing a negative judgment only to discover my error much later on.

Most negative judgments stem from our incapacity of understanding another culture. Instead of focusing on the negative aspect I see in others, I focus on my own preferences and this usually leads to the right place.

Actions To Open Your Mindset

Once you have looked internally at all of the cultural baggage you bring with your own mindset, then you can work on opening and developing your mindset.

#5: Encourage Interaction

The next step is simply to cultivate interaction and open your mindset further. It’s also about cultivating an open attitude in your actions and making sure your actions are perceived as inviting interaction. So you’ll also hone your cross-cultural skills as you stimulate more interaction from others.

#6: Open Your Communication

When you interact more with people, you’ll probably see ways to open up your own communication a bit more to provide others with a deeper understanding of yourself and your ways of doing things.  This is fine-tuning your own communication to come across as more open to communication.

#7: Get Curious And Eager To Learn

An open mindset is a curious mindset.  It means you are eager to learn about others in order to understand people from different cultures fully and communicate on a truly one-to-one level. People from other cultures seem to do strange things, but often when we get to know the reasons behind their “strange” behavior, it all makes sense. Different ways of doing things appear normal when they are set in context.

How do you get curious?  Questions are important, but adapting your questions to find the right ones to ask people from different cultures is even more important.  You’ll need a broad international experience to fully develop your skills in curiosity.

Nurture Your International Talent

An open mindset is a sign of someone who can identify their own strengths and weakness and open their minds to feedback and question who they are.  And this open mindset can give you the upper edge in international business when dealing with different cultures. It’s not always easy, but it is always rewarding both on a professional level and on a personal level.

Now, over to you…

• What does an open mindset in international business mean to you?
• How do you develop an open mindset for international business?
• Why do you think an open mindset is important for international business?

More on Culture In International Business:

• How Culture Impacts An International Business
• What Is Culture? A Mind Map For More Sales
• Where Do You Want To Work?

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

7 Steps To An Open Mindset For More International Business

Cross-Cultural Social Media

This morning I woke up to some unexpected news. Facebook made a change in how you can set up your business page.  You used to be able to set up your Business Page so everyone who was not a fan or had not hit the “Like” button would land on a specific tab or “landing page” whenever they visited your page.  Businesses used this to:

• Get more people to like their page and build their Facebook audience
• Highlight offers
• Incite people to participate in a charity or a community
• And generally guide visitors to create a unique navigation experience on social media

Well this morning it appears Facebook took away this landing page capability. Now, this literally just happened and I still need to read something official from Facebook, so if you are concerned by this news, please read up about it on Mari Smith’s blog or the Social Media Examiner Facebook Page. I’m sure they’ll keep you informed.

At the time of writing this post, there is a question about just what this new change means and what will happen to the Facebook Business Pages currently using “welcome” tabs and other landing pages.  There is speculation this may be happening in phases and still no official news from Facebook.

But I want to share some cross-cultural insights on the impact of what happened in these first few hours because there are a few things worth noting and one of them is about how timing and communication is perceived by different cultures.

Latest Facebook Change

First, the short story…

Following the thread of how this news broke on the Social Media Examiner Facebook page, it appears a group of Facebook developers found they could no longer set up accounts to get new visitors to land on the customized tabs they had just created for their clients. And in this developers forum Facebook informed them that Facebook had changed their rules and Facebook users would not be able to do this unless:

• You are a Facebook authenticated business which means you have over 10,000 fans
• You asked your “Facebook representative” to do this for you, and this means you are an advertising client of Facebook where minimum monthly purchases are in the 5 figure range.

Businesses Losses

Again, I have to say it’s very early on and things may not be as they first appear. But if this is true, this change is particularly troublesome for businesses who are currently running a Facebook ad campaign. Their links are no longer going to their landing page as planned. Apparently at least some of them were not informed of the change the moment it happened.

This does not send a very good image of what it’s like to work with Facebook.  In fact, it could put a big dent in Facebook’s credibility from a business perspective. These new changes make it clear Facebook wants big business bucks, but this incident shows they don’t know how to play the big business game.

Cross-Cultural Losses

Unfortunately things get even worse when you consider this from a cross-cultural perspective.

Credibility. Different cultures use different frameworks to process credibility. It’ll be interesting to follow the different reactions from businesses in different countries.  It’s not going to be easy for Facebook to manage the loss of credibility across such a diverse set of followers.

Although businesses are adopting social media at a greater rate this year in North America, the climate is very different in other countries where businesses are still wondering what social media can do for them.  And I know many of the businesses around me here in France will have a good little chuckle and put the whole social media question aside to get on with “real” business.

Respect. The worst insight of this whole incident is the lack of respect Facebook shows towards their raving fans. They’ve put mud on the face of two of their own fan groups:

• The Facebook developers who sold Facebook services to their clients
• The businesses with ad campaigns linking to landing pages which are no longer working

Respect was lost because Facebook did not inform these two groups of fans in an appropriate manner at the appropriate time.

In some cultures this is very bad and should not be ignored by Facebook. People just don’t want to be associated with businesses who treat their own close “fans” with such disrespect. This is a “deal breaker” in many cultures.

Trust.  With the loss of credibility and the lack of respect there is a loss of trust. Trust is always very precarious in cross-cultural relationships. It’s very easy to lose trust between cultures, and much more difficult to build it up.

So businesses need to make an effort to lose as little trust as they possibly can. Clear upfront communication is one way to do this and it’s absence leads to mistrust.

The Impact Of Time On Cross-Cultural Damages

It’s interesting to look at how time and timing impact your communication from a cross-cultural communication perspective.  You see there are two things to look at:

• No matter what Facebook does from hereon in, the fact that this happened without informing people at the time it happened will mean a loss of credibility, respect and trust for many different cultures. And in cross-cultural relationships these take much more effort to build back up.
• No matter what the real situation is, Facebook needs to respond quickly because different cultures have different appreciations of time and of what has just happened.  There is only a narrow window to do this and get it right for a wide international audience at minimal cost.  Many cross-cultural mishaps become outright blunders simply because there is a lack of response within an appropriate time frame.

Immediate Reparation Of The Damage

Please remember, I’m responding to this news only a few hours after it broke and things may not be exactly as they seem.  But if all of this is indeed true, it’s not going to be easy for Facebook to find the best response for their wide international audience. Both the response itself and the timing of the response is critical.  Here’s what I suggest their response has to be:

• Elegant enough to repair some of the damage. Some cultures will respond well to a sincere apology which shows empathy towards them.
• Thorough enough to build up a bit of the trust  lost within the business community. This will take time and the next steps Facebook takes will be scrutinized.
• Very clear information to get this across well to a multicultural audience. And because many people believe their communication to be clear when it isn’t, this should proofed by someone with the right international communication skills.
• Within at least the first few hours of their head office opening today Facebook should at least give an acknowledgement that they will respond more fully within a maximum of a couple of days. It’s bad publicity when you put your clients in a situation where they lose business because of your actions. This is probably what happened to some of the people in the 2 “raving fan” categories above, and all businesses will be watching to see how Facebook responds.

Getting Beyond This Unfortunate Communication Incident

Because I’m writing this very early after the first incident, it’s important to note things may not be as they seem.  A close look at this situation, in this early phase, makes it’s easy to understand why you need to quickly respond with clear communication.

If Facebook is indeed changing the way how you can set up your landing page,  they will need to work on building trust.   Of course, businesses can still use URL redirects to drive people outside of Facebook towards specific Facebook tabs or landing pages because all tabs have a unique URL.

But Facebook should also try to show businesses a solution, or the path they see for businesses to use Facebook, and not just the big businesses who can afford Facebook advertising. Facebook needs to acquire a bit more of the social media mindset and come down to meet all of their business users. It’s important to have trust built at this level in an international environment.

Otherwise they will lose a part of the “raving” element of their “raving fans” because part of their international audience will not be able to connect with them in a strong way. This leaves a door open to competition. It’s hard to evaluate the cultural impact of “raving fans” from other countries because many cultures don’t really fit into this description. The image changes from one culture to another.

And this is probably where you can bring in parallels from traditional international marketing with the 5 different steps to becoming an international business. The idea being you need to learn how to create relationships with one country first, then a few different ones, and it’s only by acquiring these international skills that you can become a “global” business, like Nike for example.

With this is mind and if all of this is true, it looks like Facebook just showed it’s limitations. Despite the massive presence worldwide, it hasn’t yet learned the skills it needs to communicate with a global audience.

That’s looking at Facebook, but it doesn’t take into account the users. And Facebook’s future will depend on how their users will want to use their platform.

On a side note, I’d like to bring up one other thing.  Unfortunately working internationally you see a lot of people trying to cheat systems to make money. And my second thought to the Facebook change was this:

• The minimum amount of fans businesses need to be authenticated is 10,000 = too many for most businesses to realistically attain.
• The minimum amount businesses can spend to advertise on Facebook is 5 figures = big money most businesses cannot afford to spend on Facebook.

This probably means an onslaught of people figuring out ways to sell businesses large quantities of “fans”.  And this will probably mean people on Facebook will also have to deal with an increase in spam related issues. Will it all be worth it? Will this change the Facebook environment enough to make people leave?  Will this leave a big enough opportunity for another social media platform?

Now It’s Your Turn

• What other cross-cultural perspectives do you see in this incident?
• Do you think this incident will impact how businesses invest in Facebook?
• Does this incident make you want to invest more in your own blog or website?

Please leave your comments below.

Need Help?

If ever you need help in figuring out how to respond to a communication incident across a broad international audience, contact me and I’ll give you a quote.  With over 25 years in developing international markets, I’ve played a pivotal role in diffusing many a business crisis in cross-cultural environments.

More on Cross-Cultural Social Media

• How to Connect Globally With Social Media
• Choice Of Social Media For International Markets
• The Cultural Divide In The Social Media Evolution
• Cultural Differences In Social Media Marketing
• How Cultural Differences Impact International Social Media
• 7 Cross-Cultural Skills For Businesses To Master Social Media
• Social Media Marketing Across Cultures
• Guerrilla Marketing With Social Media To Enter New International Markets
• Understanding Social Media For Stronger International Web Marketing
• Ethnic Origins On Social Media

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cross-Cultural Blunder On Latest Facebook Change

Social Media Localization

It’s funny how things sometimes happen in a series. Last week all of the North Americans I spoke with asked me the same question:

“Do you need to adapt your social media communication to different cultural audiences?”

It intrigued me that all of these questions came from North Americans and I think I have an answer as to why this happened… more on that later. I want to answer this question first.

By the way, for those of you who are not familiar with the term “localization” this refers to adapting all of your communication to different local cultures. It’s much more than just translation and includes all aspects of communication. Localization means adapting your communication make sure your message gets across in the right way.

Adapt Your Communication For International Audiences

The short answer is: yes.

To create genuine communication you must adapt how your social media communication to the different cultural audiences you want to reach.

Adapting your communication always gives you better results when communicating with different cultures, and sometimes it’s critical to do so. If you don’t adapt your communication you can lose relationships which leads to losing clients and business.

More Cultural Differences Are Visible On Social Media

But there is also a longer answer because the localization of social media communication goes deeper than cross-cultural people skills. Social media communication can be a little bit more challenging than other traditional forms of communication such as print communication or emails.

Here are two characteristics of cross-cultural social media that magnify the cultural differences others see in you.

Your cultural differences are obvious. It’s hard to hide from who you are on social media and this means

You get close when you’re social. Social media gets you closer to people. It is a social environment and people tend to let their guards down when they are behind a computer. It’s easier to say things online that you wouldn’t say in person. It’s easy to forget about trying to respect the other person’s cultural differences.

This is why you should always pay attention to the messages you are conveying to others and how they are perceived on social media.

People Skills To Connect With Different Cultures On Social Media

Good cross-cultural social media skills require both:

• Strong “soft” skills or people skills
• Good cross-cultural skills

Over the years I’ve noticed how most North American business professionals don’t have time for these “soft” skills.  They prefer to focus on the skills that are easy to measure and ones you can learn through courses. This may be why this question seems to crop up more often there than in the other cultures I network with.

Cross-cultural skills are not so easy to pick up or develop, they:

• Require some personal work
• Usually require international experience

Localization Of Social Media

Some of the people I spoke with needed some more insights

Here are the personal observations I shared with them regarding cross-cultural differences on two popular social media platforms.

Different Networking Practices On Twitter

Prior to my cross-cultural twitter interviews I chat with my guests and try to learn more about how they use Twitter in their country.  For some people it may come as a surprise to learn that English speakers in different countries do not have the same habits on Twitter.

Some cultures are more at ease in striking up instant friendships, and some cultures need a bit more time.  This impacts the relationships you form on Twitter.  And if you use Twitter for international networking it also means you need to use cross-cultural communication skills even on Twitter.

Different Job Hunting Practices On LinkedIn

One of the people I spoke to yesterday needed to advise his clients on business networking on LinkedIn.  Communication on LinkedIn is just the same as any other communication.

Every time I navigate on LinkedIn I’m struck by it’s the strong North American atmosphere. In cross-cultural terms most of the people I run into on LinkedIn have very strong traits of “individualism”.  Obviously LinkedIn is mainly a job hunting platform which brings out these North American traits even more.

Even if you come across people from different cultures on LinkedIn there is a very strong probability they use it differently than a North American on LinkedIn.

Different Perceptions Of The New Like Button On Facebook

It’s easy to see how different people use Facebook and thanks to the newly improved Insights box on Facebook Business Pages you can monitor some international metrics.  But the fun thing I’m noticing lately is the differences in appreciation of the new “Like” button.  So many of the North Americans in my network seem to identify more personal endorsement just because the button is now called “Like” and not “Become A Fan”.

The reaction to this small little word reminds me of the need to localize social media buttons in some Eastern countries.

• In most Western cultures having a real photo creates credibility and in some Eastern cultures it creates discomfort. Cartoon gravatars work much better.
• In Western cultures it’s easy to use the notion of being a “friend” on social media and in some Eastern cultures the use of the term “friend” creates uncomfortable situations for fear of offending others by not being their friend.

Those are extreme reactions to small things in social media.  And when you dig deeper and analyze communication on Facebook, you’re sure to encounter subtle differences in perception which can have significant impact on your Facebook marketing.

No Standard Social Media Localization Plan

Even with the knowledge of some of these differences you still cannot expect to come up with a standard international social media localization plan or generalizations for all international markets.  It’s hard to do. Social media marketing for international audiences is still evolving due to a number of reasons:

• Some countries are still catching up to social media and at different speeds.
• The cultural differences between generations within different countries makes it difficult to provide a cookie cutter solution for using social media.
• We should see growth in online communication from several countries thanks to recent changes by ICANN to allow URLs with different alphabets.
• The demographics in many countries are undergoing dramatic changes and this will eventually impact cross-cultural communication with these countries. Cross-cultural generalizations established in the last century are rapidly becoming obsolete.

Social media marketing in different cultures follows the same basics as in your own country: you need to get to know your audience well before you can create an effective communication plan. The good news is that you can use social media to help you get to know your audience if you take the time to go slowly and do the person-to-person networking you need to learn how to adapt your communication.

Now, Over To You

• Have you adapted any of your communication on social media to different international audiences?
• What are your favorite social media platforms for your international audiences?
• What cultural differences do you notice on the different social media platforms?

It would be great to hear from you. Please share your comments below.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Do You Need Social Media Localization?

International Links

Here are the international and cross-cultural links found last week.

Cross-Cultural Topics

• Baidu Integrates Real-Time Translation into its Browser - Putting the Google/China story aside, this is proof the tools for International Marketing are getting much more interesting.
• Asia’s Expensive Restaurants - Part of the fun when travelling is trying the local food. I wonder what extra these restaurants have to offer.
• For Japanese Women, The Past Is The Latest Fad – Here’s an interesting read on Japanese culture today.
• Globish, Technology, and the Plight of the Japanese Language - A very interesting read on how Globish impacts other languages. Grab a coffee, there are lots of videos too.

Facebook Business Page on Cross-Cultural Communication:

International Business

• The India Way Of Doing Business - This is a fascinating read even if you are interested in doing business in a culture other than India. It highlights the cultural differences in doing business.

Facebook Business Page on International Business:

International Marketing

• Cross-cultural Communication Strategy – the 4 Building Blocks - Read Amadou M. Sall’s article on how to build a cross-cultural marketing strategy with a Global Mindset, Global Knowledge, Global Cross-Cultural Skills & Global Business Skills.
• One Piece Localization or Censorship? - Click through and watch this 4 minute video to see an example of a Japanese anime cartoon localized for the American market. What do you think of this?

Facebook Business Page on International Marketing:

International Sales

• A special report on America’s economy: Export or die - Do you think American businesses will need to rely less on selling to Americans and more on selling abroad?
• History of American Sales Culture - Here’s an interesting look at the American sales culture by Alen Majer. If you have insights about other sales cultures please let me know.
• SarahLacy.com: My Favorite Books about Emerging Markets - What are your favorite books on emergying marketing?

Facebook Business Page on International Sales:

International Social Media

• In Canada, .ca is replacing .com - Here in France most French websites use .fr What’s the trend in your country?
• Multilingual SEO: Things to Remember - This is a good read on Search Engine Journal to get you started with multilingual SEO. Do you have any other tips to add?
• Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Working with multi-regional websites - Read this for guidelines on how to structure multilingual blogs and websites to reach different markets.
• How To Add Languages That You Speak To Google Chrome - Here’s a useful tip for multilingual Chrome users.
• What translation means for SEO – Blogs & Content - Here’s a look at the difference of translation for SEO and for advertising or marketing. What do you think of the translation solely for SEO purposes? We don’t usually do it in English. But it seems some websites need it to reach global audiences fast.
• Cause for concern – The Personal videos Campaign - Here’s a video case study of how an Israeli TV show used free social media as its only source of publicity. The results: 4.7% rating for the season debut and 1,800 mentions in blogs, social networks & newspapers in Israel.
  Do you have any other video social media case studies to share?

Facebook Business Page on International Social Media:

Now It’s Your Turn

• What about you? Did you find any interesting links recently?
• What do these international and cross-cultural links inspire for you?
• Which international link is your favorite?

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Links: Week 15 2010

International Business Networking

International business and cross-cultural communication university professors have been sharing my blog with their  students for some time now. I see this by monitoring the statistics on my blog.

A few of these university professors embrace social media and also connect with me on Twitter and Facebook. And it’s fun when they ask me to join in on their classes using Twitter.

Many of the students are awkward and don’t know how to create meaningful conversations with me.  They stick to stilted requests for the information they need.  But some students get it and engage with me on social media with conversations that truly interest both of us.  Some students even create cross-cultural communication blogs to review my blog as part of their homework assignments.

It’s great to see students move out of the student role into real social media networking because we are usually passionate about the same topics and they become fun connections on social media.  Unfortunately these students usually come and go very rapidly.

Homework Assignement Cop Out

I also regularly get requests from students to help them complete their homework.  Most of these requests would take me at least a good half hour to respond to.

You can read more about why I don’t respond to requests to do homework assignments but essentially I just don’t have the time to do this. Besides, this blog is not about doing university assignments, it’s where I share the experience I have after over 25 years in international business.

New Trend In Requests From Students

Most of the requests I get from students are on this blog’s subject: cross-cultural skills in today’s media for international business development.  But what’s interesting is that I’ve been getting a different type of request recently.  This time students are asking me to help them with university assignments on social media.

Now this might corresponds to my involvement with Social Media Examiner and it’s rapid rise to popularity, but I’ve also noticed the online chatter about well-known universities now starting social media programs.

Social Media Survey

I’d like to share with you a survey I received recently from a university student who said her professor had asked all students to contact bloggers with these questions.

1. How does social media change advertising for businesses? I don’t think of social media as advertising. It’s more like business networking to me. Yes, businesses can do some advertising on social media. But Facebook ads and paid tweets represent a small minority of the social media tactics.
2. Do companies benefit more by advertising through social media? Why, or why not? I wouldn’t know. I don’t use social media for advertising. Social media does improve your visibility online, but this is a vast topic and you’d need to fine tune your question to keep this answer reasonable.
3. How have social media changed in the past five years? It would be easier to answer this question, if you asked “how has social media changed in the last year“. There have been too many changes for me to want to answer this in a short survey.
4. Can you predict the way social media will change in the next ten years? We can barely predict how social media will be in a year’s time, 10 years is a bit too far into the future.
5. How have social media empowered consumers, and given them a voice? Well, I think people have always had the voice on social media.
6. How does social media change the way people now communicate? Again this seems a funny question to me. I’m not a scholar and  haven’t done any research… but I do think social media came about because communication changed fundamentally a while back. Even if some people haven’t yet connected the dots to understand this, it’s not the other way round.
7. Has social media become overly addicting? Why or why not? Again, this is a question someone who is new to social media would ask. Very rapidly when you use social media on a regular basis, other questions take the lead, such as personal productivity and focus.
8. Do social media change consumers’ purchasing decisions? Why or why not? Of course.  People are influenced by what their friends say and recommend.  Social media is social.
9. Twitter grew a lot faster than expected. Why is Twitter beneficial and effective? Again it’s about networking and Twitter is real-time networking.
10. Can you predict that social media will always be free like most of it is now? Why or why not? As I said, I don’t think anyone knows with reasonable certitude what’s in store for social media in the future.
11. What are some disadvantages of social media? You need to jump in and actually use it for a while to understand what’s really happening.  If the person who wrote these questions had actually used social media, theses questions would be very different.
12. What are the main advantages of social media? Being closer in tune with society today.
13. Is LinkedIn the best social network to communicate professionally? Why or why not? How does LinkedIn help consumers find jobs? LinkedIn is a place for job hunters to meet potential employers, and vice-versa. Plus it’s predominately North American in culture. So it’s good for people who fall into those categories.

Now although this student asked for detailed answers by Thursday, I’m sure you can see why this is impossible even if I was in the business of helping out university students.

Improving Questions To Get A Response With Meaning

First of all, it’s very easy to see by the questions that the neither the professor nor the student know anything about social media or why businesses should use it.  This survey will not give any good results about social media.

What’s interesting is that to correct this survey you need a few of the important skills you also use in international business networking.

• Prior research is essential to get the questions right.  These are not the right questions to send to a blogger.
• Don’t make assumptions.  This survey starts off by assuming bloggers use social media as advertising. The survey also associates consumers with LinkedIn which is not accurate. There are several wrong assumptions here that make these questions irrelevant.

When you know you don’t have enough information to ask the right questions, start off simple and spend time first to scope out the main areas of your topic.

This might mean taking action in two or three steps to learn enough before you know which questions are the right ones to ask. And it takes a bit more work than blasting off an email.

In fact, it also means you’ll need to create in-person connections if you want to actually get the valuable information you need.

So, if the student who sent me this survey reads this, what should she do?

• Start by reviewing the my blog and revising the list of questions
• Leave a short question or two in the comments here, but step back and ask basic questions on the topic
• Tell me about yourself, where you’re from, what you are studying, why and what you actually like about the questions you want answers to…  but only in a couple of short sentences
• Avoid wide open ended questions that need a book to answer them
• And avoid writing a mini saga about yourself
• Say hello on Twitter
• Give a shout out on Facebook
• Continue the conversation and let it ping pong back and forth a bit to create some sort of a connection

Above all, stop being the student in a constant stream of anonymous cookie-cutter requests more suited to the last century and start being a real person who is interesting to talk to.  It’s better networking.  You’ll end up getting much more information this way and you’ll also start understanding what social media is about.

What about you?

• As a blogger, have you noticed an increase in questions from social media students?
• What would you recommend social media students do to learn more about how social media impacts business?
• Do you think email is still a good tool to use for surveys?

Please leave your comments below.

More on International Business Networking:

• Social Media Student Asks Wrong Questions
• 2 Habits To Grow Your International Network
• The Biggest Mistake In International Networking
• Follow Up With Your First International Clients
• Online Business Networking When Cultural Communication Styles Clash

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Networking With The Wrong Questions

Events

You’ll probably notice quite a few tweets and Facebook chatter about an event called Sugartone, the Sweet Business Blogging contest.

The Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest is organized by BizSugar, the social bookmarking site for business articles, and Bloggertone the business bloggers community and it starts Monday March 15th.

Before telling you more about Sugartone, let me share with you why I’m involved.

BizSugar

My blog readers know that I’m always business focused.

Even when I talk about the soft people skills involved in developing strong cross-cultural skills, it’s always with a business focus in mind.

And even though I do a lot of social networking, all of my online presence is business related. I don’t have anything embarrassing online to hide.

This is why I appreciate BizSugar which is a social bookmarking site for business articles.  It’s a refreshing change compared to the rudeness or “snarky” comments encountered on other social bookmarking platforms.

The community on BizSugar is filled with like-minded professionals.  I even use it to develop my business network. And I enjoy the community there so much that I use it as a news reader and write a weekly review of the articles I find inspiring there for international business.

Bloggertone

I enjoy networking with the Irish social media community because so many of the Irish businesses are passionate about developing internationally.  Unfortunately most Irish companies need to generate international business to survive.  And as I’m also passionate about international business, and I enjoy their energy.  So I network with a number of Irish business folk online.

This is how I came to know Bloggertone which only launched a few months ago. And their growth has been fantastic. I really appreciate the strong community feeling in this blogging community. It’s a pleasure to network with them because they understand how to be social.

Bringing Both Business Communities Together

On the one hand you have a great community of professionals sharing their expertise by publishing articles on Bloggertone, and on the other hand you have another great community of professionals providing social recognition for business articles.

It was only a question of time before these two communities decided to do something together to help business professionals marketing their expertise online.

Sugartone

So, what is Sugartone?

Sugartone is the Sweet Business Blogging Contest for busy professionals to win $6921 in prizes to help them improve their marketing and generate more business.

It’s free to enter, easy for everyone to participate and there are lots of chances to win prizes.

Here are the 2 different ways you can participate in the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest:

• Write an original business article writer with a great title
• Vote and comment on the business articles submitted for the contest

There are 10 winners for the Top 10 Titles and 10 winners for the Top 10 Commenters

It’s that easy to enter the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest, so go check it out here

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Sugartone: The Sweet Business Blogging Contest

How To Develop Your Cross-Cultural Skills

E arlier this week I tried to help someone on a forum, but I ran into some communication hurdles. Now, there is only so much you can do in writing and there is only so much time I can spend on a forum. So, when after a few attempts I realized that this person had some “baggage” creating barriers to our conversation, I decided to drop it. This was not the time and place to go any further. We really needed a face to face discussion to have a meaningful conversation.

This incident reminded me of the importance of getting acquainted with your own cultural baggage.

The Interference Of Baggage

In the case above, this person lived with a painful disease and she had created ways of dealing with this pain that impacted her communication in general. In addition, her baggage came in the way of others wanting to interact with her.

You know what I’m talking about right? If you pay attention, you will occasionally notice people with “baggage”.  You may know of people who have gone through a lot and who have not yet finished the healing process.  And there might not be challenging life experiences behind this baggage. Some people carry baggage that impacts their communication because they consider themselves too short, too tall, too skinny, too fat. It can be anything really.  But the point is that communication is not easy because this person has baggage that gets in the way.

Now that you have an idea of what I’m referring to with regards to “baggage”, let’s move on and look closer at cultural baggage.

What Is Cultural Baggage?

Of course we all have cultural baggage that comes with our own culture.  Although this can lead to some interesting observations, let’s look at cultural baggage as it impacts cross-cultural communication. Along the lines of what I outlined above.

The main problem with our culture baggage is that we tend to make wrong assumptions. We have assumptions about ourselves, our family, friends and the world around us.  These assumptions are based on our own experience. And we tend to think this is the only way of doing things. We rarely question our assumptions because they seem so natural to us.  These assumptions relate to what we find polite, kind, respectful, friendly… you get the picture.  And they also relate to our own life experiences, as I mentioned above.

Because these assumptions are based on our cultural background, heritage and environment, they can quickly become unnecessary baggage and get in the way of cross-cultural communication.

You have two options to deal with these assumptions.

1. First Develop Awareness For Your Own Cultural Baggage

The first step is to realize and acknowledge the cultural baggage you carry around with you and to identify the specific pieces of baggage you hang onto that impact your cross-cultural communication.

The cultural baggage you carry with you impacts:

• How others perceive you
• The quality of your communication
• The success of your international business relationships

So you need to be aware of how you come across to others. And this means developing a keen awareness of the the cultural baggage you carry with you. This will help you to see when others have cultural baggage that interferes with your communication.  This knowledge will help you to understand other cultures and also to find the suitable path for effective communication.

2. Learn When To Unload Your Cultural Baggage

It’s natural to assume that you must get rid of all of the excess cultural baggage interfering with your cross-cultural communication.  But this is not the solution.

You don’t need to give up who you are in order to be good at cross-cultural communication.

Knowing your personal boundaries. With practice you will learn to identify your personal boundaries for what feels comfortable to you.  There are no rules except good cross-cultural communicators know their boundaries well and learn how to avoid getting so close to these boundaries to stir up negative feelings.  This might be feelings of aggression, dislike and not accepting to be associated with someone.

Placing your cultural baggage aside. Curiosity is often a good way to forget your own cultural baggage.  As you focus on the other person it is often easy to keep your own cultural baggage within.  But in some cases you may need to temporarily set a cumbersome piece of baggage down for a moment or two.  All you need is a few minutes.  Enough time to find the right path of mutual understanding and direct your communication into easier areas.

Sometimes your cultural baggage can be helpful to you. This is usually the case when you have let the communication go beyond the boundaries you are comfortable with. Although you can find comfort in holding onto your cultural baggage in these circumstances, this does not help you to improve your cultural skills.

To improve your cross-cultural skills you need to make the effort of learning more about your boundaries and how to put aside the most cumbersome pieces of baggage for just a moment.

And you can also progressively learn to carry less baggage with you.

Lighten The Load

Cross-cultural communication is not always easy in business.  You have little choice in who you have to deal with.  For some people the path towards developing the right mindset to build strong international relationships is a long one.  And it can be tiring in a profession where you have to constantly adapt to different cultures.

The good news is that the more international experience you have, the more you’ll understand different cultures. And this understanding helps you to learn more about yourself and your own cultural baggage.

If you encounter the same or similar communication problems, spend some quiet time thinking about the baggage you bring to the encounter and how this impacts your cross-cultural communication.  As you progressively acquire more self-knowledge you can lighten the baggage you carry with you little by little.

Once you learn to recognize cultural baggage you’ll also notice how the people with strong cultural skills master their own cultural baggage very well so that it does not impact their cross-cultural encounters.

What do you think?

• Have you ever had a conversation turn sour because the other person had too much baggage?
• How familiar are you with your own cultural baggage?
• Do you know if your cultural baggage is raising unnecessary hurdles in your cross-cultural communication?

More On How To Develop Your Cross-Cultural Skills:

• Getting Beyond Visible Cultural Differences
• International Exposure To Develop Cross-Cultural Skills
• How An Open Mindset Increases Confidence
• International Exposure To Develop Cross-Cultural Skills
• Morphing Into A Foreign Culture
• Prejudice – A Cross-Cultural Business Barrier

More In These Get International Clients Business Guides:

• Connect With Your International Markets
• Culture Customized Content
• Cultural Web Tools

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Getting Acquainted With Your Cultural Baggage

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Personal Development

This is Day 4 of the 30-day challenge to focus on your personal development in cross-cultural communication. Each day there is one short topic to reflect on.

Day 4 – Communication Skills for Cross-Cultural Competence

We previously talked about:

• How your own mindset and where you begin your cross-cultural communication is important
• How curiosity is the key to beginning cross-cultural communication
• How empathy is the foundation of all cultural skills

And before we go any further we must look at the subject of cross-cultural competence right in the face.  You need to have good communication skills for cross-cultural competence.  The stronger your communication skills the more competent you will become in international business.  You own communication skills are the tools you use for communicating effectively across cultures.

Communication To Connect Across Cultures

There is no universal ideal way to communicate.  Our communication style depends on may different factors: our culture, education, personality to name a few. We can all become good at cross-cultural communication.  The key to do this is be aware of:

• The different levels of communication

In cross-cultural communication we tend to focus on the language, but don’t forget that communication is much more than just language.  Becoming competent in cross-cultural skills involves becoming proficient in listening, reading and communicating on all of the different levels of communication.  This is why communication skills are so important.  Because there are many different communication skills.

Steps Towards Developing Good Cross-Cultural Communication Skills

Here are some practical steps to take to improve your communication skills.

First, remember that although you do not feel “weird” in any way, you will appear “different” to other cultures.  So pay attention to your own communication and  pay special attention to:

• Clarity in what you communicate
• Consistency in what you communicate

Next, begin slowly by paying attention to different aspects of the communication:

• Body language
• What is said
• What is not said
• How things are said
• When things are said
• Who says what

Learning how to filter all of this information at once and make sense of it takes experience. Learning exactly what to pay attention to also takes experience.  The main takeaway here is to know that you need to look for communication on many different levels.

Good Communication Skills

There are many great benefits for people who take the time to improve their communication skills.  Good communication impacts just about all aspects of our lives.  For us here it:

• Improves all aspects of international business
• Improves cross-cultural communication
• Avoids cross-cultural blunders

Main Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

For beginners the main challenges to improve your cross-cultural communication skills are when you:

• Are unaware of obvious communication difficulties
• Assume others understand you perfectly.. and continue
• Make wrong assumptions
• Do not take the time to open your ears and listen – hint curiosity helps you here too

Always Verify Understanding

There is a simple trick to help you as you become more skilled in cross-cultural communication

• Regularly verify mutual understanding

Now sometimes people get over zealous with this.  You don’t want to appear too fearful and raise any doubts about anyone’s communication abililties.  There is a skill in making this seem natural.  If you listen well enough you will know when it is wise to double check everyone has the same understanding.

And remember the same words spoken by two people does not mean they have the same understanding.

Your Actions Today

Here are a few tips to start with:

• Take things slowly – find the right sequence for your communication
• Ask questions
• Ask questions when something seem slightly odd
• Summarize your understanding at regular intervals and ask if this is right.

Where To Get Your CCCC Tips Every Day:

• Here on this blog: Four Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges In 2009
• Follow me on Twitter in March, June, September and December

Need Cross-Cultural Business Coaching?

Do you need help in navigating the cross-cultural minefields of international business? Sign up for confidential one-on-one coaching sessions.  Email me and ask to set up a call.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Personal Development In Cross-Cultural Communication – Day 4