Session II: July 19-23, 2010

18. Culture, Communication, and Collaboration: Using Technology to Build Connection Terence Brake Most multinational organizations in the business or nonprofit worlds value the “idea” of collaboration across borders, but aspiration and reality are often far apart. Having people work together across physical, psychological, and cultural distances—via new collaborative technologies—presents new challenges and opportunities for interculturalists whose task is to facilitate human connection and understanding. In this workshop, explorations of virtual collaborative frameworks, tools, and best practices are blended with interactive learning experiences to promote skills development in cultural self-awareness, culture learning, cultural co-creation, intercultural communication and dialogue, and conflict management in a digital world.

Designed for Objectives Learning Activities Terence Brake Consultants, trainers, educators, and business people who want to increase their understanding and skills for achieving successful global collaboration in an increasingly digital world. Participants will have the opportunity to: Identify the features of the environment that make global collaboration a critical competency in today’s organizations Learn about the challenges of “virtual distance” in working across borders through technology Explore the features and capabilities of new collaborative technologies and the challenges and opportunities they present to collaborating across cultures Learn and apply a best practice framework (The Six Cs of Global Collaboration) for starting, developing, running, and monitoring a global team Learn and apply cross-cultural collaboration skills in experiential exercises Link lessons learned to cross-border collaboration their own fields, e.g., business, education, research, nonprofit work Brief presentations of conceptual frameworks Sharing and discussing experiences of working across borders Experiential exercises to highlight and develop cross-cultural collaboration skills Analysis of several collaborative technologies and their impact when working in teams across cultures Application of The Six Cs of Global Collaboration framework and best practices when completing course assignments via technology Monitoring and evaluation of cross-cultural collaboration in course workgroups (Participants should bring a laptop with wireless capability because some exercises will be conducted via technology.)   Terence Brake is the president of TMA-Americas, a consultancy focused on providing learning solutions for organizations experiencing the human challenges of globalization. In 1994 Terry received the ASTD International Area Award for his work on the cultural challenges of cross-border business. He has authored several books, including The Global Leader and Managing Globally, and has contributed chapters on globalization issues to many others. His latest book is  Where in the World is My Team: Making a Success of Your Virtual Global Workplace.