EDS' Next Big Thing Blog: Read and Respond to What the EDS Fellows Say About Technology

Posted by Dennis Howlett Wednesday, January 11, 2006 5:05 PM

This is an incredibly complex issue and one with which anyone who has lived in different countries will readily identify.

In my experience, culture is an internal, external and x-border issue. Internal family and corporate cultures are quite common in the US as a way of binding the business together (Wal-Mart, Nordstrom, HP). Much less common outside the US. Then there is the issue of culture clash inside the immediate business ecosphere and between regions within the same country. I recall someone saying it is almost impossible for people in Fargo to have an intelligible (not intelligent) discussion with someone from New Orleans. The same is true in the UK where the use of language is very different in different parts of even that tiny country.

Finally there are x-border cultural differences.

X-border gets a lot of attention because it is so immediately obvious. It impacts in many tiny ways that get amplified (almost) in proportion to the distance that separates the people concerned. And that's before we think about language and how that impacts cultural translation.

The French use what we might think of as flowery expressions in both spoken and written language. The German habit of constructing compound words makes writing for that audience very difficult. You need to allow 25-30% more in absolute word length before you then chop back to 'fit' things within a specific framework or word length.

Was it Oscar Wilde who said: "Britain and America are two great nations separated by a common language?" How true.

From a business perspective, culture is massively important. China and India for example represent a long term threat, not because of size but because of the value they place on work and education and the way those values are part of their DNA.

I'd be surprised on the other hand if Spain became an economic powerhouse in my lifetime because they don't have a culture of service. They work to live and not the other way around. Spain's government knows this has to change but when the first problem is weaning people off 'siesta' and 'fiesta' then it's an uphill struggle. (There are 3000+ fiesta days in the official Spanish calendar)

I could go on with other examples but I'm sure you get the picture.

The trick is to be culturally sensitive and play to strengths without displacing what 'we' may view as weaknesses. And then lead by example and not imposition.

The mess MSFT got itself into over blacking out Xiao Jing on their MSN network and the subsequent gnashing of teeth is a great example where a failure to understand cultural morés led to a confused and unsatisfactory debate and non-resolution.

Sadly, when 'we' think 'we' know what's best, we sometimes make terrible mistakes. It is something I believe we need to pay more attention to as creeping globalization takes hold.

Posted by Charlie Bess Thursday, January 12, 2006 2:23 PM

Another interesting thought is the understanding of the perspectives of people outside the country by the people within the country. (That was one confusing sentence!)

One time I was talking with some friends from the UK and we were discussing some of the issues people outside the US would never thoroughly understand unless they interacted with folks in country (e.g., gun control, the civil war, patriotism, the US press). I know for a fact when I talk with them about those kind of things it is virtually impossible for them to understand my perspective easily. The context is not there. I know that, so I have exercise extra effort to not base any conversations on my cultural assumptions.

When I asked them about what areas of the English psyche are misunderstood by people outside the England - they could not think of anything. That really made me wonder... Is the US culture that complex or is it that we are used to having everyone second guess our motives?

As we look at and interact with other cultures you need to walk a mile in their shoes before you actually can hope to understand their perspective.

Posted by Dennis Howlett Friday, January 13, 2006 1:44 AM

I guess we're discussing the complexity of understanding cultural difference. I don't think there are fast fixes but I do think there are emerging lessons.

Figuring the most appropriate starting point is hard in itself because we all come to these things with DNA informed perspectives. Can we, as you quite rightly challenge, "walk in others' shoes?" As the Scottish poet Robert Burns said:

"I wish the Laird, the gift he gee'us
To see ourselves as ithers see us"

Dialect or not, the meaning transcends.

For me, the learning curve in accepting certain facets of the global change in knowledge transference and enrichment aka blogs was a monumental intellectual hurdle to clamber. How much harder is it to embed or integrate the bones of what the cultural melting pot means into a kind of global DNA?

Increasingly I see the 'revolution' in this coming from the bottom up. From the people who have little to lose and everything to gain. These are the people to whom we need pay attention. These are the people who make what 'we' believe is in the best interests of our corporate paymasters a reality or a disaster.

Enterprises will, over time resolve how they communicate over cultural divides. And in doing so, they will redefine the relationships we have with those in our ecosystem. They will tear down the walled gardens and present us with at times seemingly ill-formed open landscapes.

If 'we' as advisers are to truly understand how cultural differences are resolved, then we need listen to the conversations that are occurring globally. Today that is largely among the world of lowly geeks.

It's something I see as the toughest issue in responding to the challenges of the next big thing(s)