Thursday, March 11, 2010

Day 1 - Starting Strong

What a privilege to take part in the 11th IMI annual conference! Today was a wonderful experience, one that was filled with thought-provoking discussions, talented individuals, and challenging arguments.

After (rather embarrassingly) forgetting to actually turn my alarm ON and sleeping through the first panel session this morning (what a shame!) I arrived at AU during the first coffee break. After the break I joined Dr. Fardanesh's session entitled "Intercultural Communication, Business Negotiation, and Promotional Effectiveness." I have been interning and working at GALA Hispanic Theatre (www.galatheatre.org) for the past several months, and part of my job entails cross-cultural marketing to both Hispanic/Latino and non-Hispanic communities within DC. I thought that the presentation might provide some useful suggestions regarding intercultural marketing and, as such, would be applicable to my work at GALA. The session, however, covered only general concepts of cross-cultural business and really only scratched the surface of the issue. Although the topic was quite interesting, I left wanting more.

Next on the schedule was the luncheon and the keynote speech by Fons Trompenaars, "Creating a Culture of Innovation." I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Trompenaars presentation and his delightful sense of humor, which inevitably poked fun at everyone in the room. One of the most significant aspects of his presentation, in my opinion, was his discussion of a "through/through" approach to intercultural interactions rather than an "and/or" or an "and/and" approach. As Dr. Trompenaars pointed out, so much of culture cannot simply be placed on a linear continuum (male/female, high context/low context, dominant/submissive) but must rather be viewed in another dimension that does not create binary oppositions. His 5 Rs - Recognize, Respect, Reconcile, Realize, and Root - provide a framework within which to go about this process of multi-layered understanding and nuance.

My favorite session of the day, however, was Neal Goodman's presentation on "Intercultural Knowledge Management in Global Organizations," which followed lunch. This was a subject with which I have had little or no experience, and I will admit that it was somewhat challenging when we all had to share our thoughts on what aspects should comprise an effective knowledge management system. After a period of time, however, I began to see the enormous value of such a knowledge resource for any organization and I left the session energized to try to implement some sort of knowledge database in my organization. My fervor for implementation has been tempered somewhat by the interceding hours, and at this point I think that it is rather unlikely for me to be able to get an effective knowledge management system in place. Nonetheless, the session challenged me to explore this topic, and it is something that I plan on investigating more in the future.

To end the conference day, I watched "On a Wing and a Prayer: An American Muslim Learns to Fly" as part of the iFilm Series. I am particularly interested in intercultural issues that deal with Muslim or Arab populations and I thought that the film was a fun and interesting way to explore some of the issues that these populations have faced in recent years.

So that was my day, more or less.

In general, I think that one of the most interesting and exciting aspects of my first day at the IMI conference was just seeing and interacting with the incredible mix of people, interests, and occupations that made up the conference participant body. As a self-professed "art person" (I am currently working on a masters degree in Performing Arts Management with a focus on Cultural Diplomacy and Intercultural Arts Management), I felt a little bit out of place at times, and yet it was inspiring to discuss issues of intercultural relations with individuals from the business, political, non-profit, medical, and communication sectors. The conference was strong precisely because there were so many different experiences and backgrounds represented. Although I will admit that I wish there were a few more arts-inclined sessions (well, I can dream, right?) I thoroughly enjoyed challenging myself to interact with participants from different backgrounds than my own (and I will just add that I'm excited for tomorrow's presentation on creative media!). When introducing myself at lunch, I got a few questioning looks when I presented myself as an "arts manager," although everyone was supportive and encouraging, wanting me to share my thoughts on why the arts have an important role to play in intercultural relations. The woman sitting next to me (I apologize - I can't remember her name - but if it was you and you read this, let me know :) ) made an excellent comment, which I will hold with me for the rest of the conference and beyond. She said, essentially, that so often in intercultural relations we get caught up in the trainings, the politics, and the business of it all, the result of which is that we relegate the arts - a core cultural component - to a subsidiary role (if we give them a role at all beyond entertainment or diversion). It would be interesting, perhaps, to reverse these roles and place the arts first and foremost in cross-cultural interaction. It would certainly allow for an interesting process! I would be interested to hear what anybody else thinks about the possibilities for the arts (however one chooses to define them) as players in intercultural management. Should they be an important part of our discussions or should they play only a very minor role? This topic is not expressly part of the conference agenda, but it is one that I will have in mind as we move on to day 2 tomorrow.
Until then...
Laura Smith

No comments: