Cross Cultural News

Cross Cultural News is a blog by Neil Payne of Kwintessential Language and Cultural Specialists. Neil writes about the impact of culture and language in our world using topical examples to drive home his points.

Features include: business traveling, etiquette, diversity, vocabulary, expatriate and HR.

Check out this well-designed and relevant blog today.

BRICOLAGE

(bree-ko-LAZH) noun, Something created using a mix of whatever happens to be available. [From French bricolage (do-it-yourself job), from bricoler (to putter around, to do odd jobs), from bricole (trifle), from Italian briccola.]

By 38 year old female in Houston, Texas. Being 39 and from Dallas, I feel a strange kinship.

Here is a sample of her writing:

When they perfect the human modem, I will be in line for the implant.
Access to the internet makes me feel like I'm the smartest person alive - the
internet being an extension of my own brain. There is nothing I can't access on
the net. The key to the universe is Boolean. I enjoy words and art. Pictures
painted with words are perfection, almost too beautiful to bear. When I can find
time (and settle my mind), I draw, paint and make "stuff." I like to journal,
tell stories and watch people and laugh loud and hard.

By the simple handle Finijo, this femme de plume inks uncommon thoughts about common subjects and vice versa. Bricolage is what it is... an eclectic but tasty read.

molly.com - Molly E. Holzschlag

On the top of Molly's page she writes:

I'm Molly E. Holzschlag, and this web site shares my web development work and personal thoughts. Think of it as a personality site. Given that, one hopes I have an interesting enough personality to keep you entertained for at least a little while.

You don't just have to think of it as a personality site, it is. Molly is one talented lady! A quick sample of some of her recent posts provides an indication of her various interests.

In "Andy Warhol Stepped on Me" she writes:

THIS POST IS ABOUT FAME, how we brush up against it, how it brushes up against us, and how it can knock us over, step on us, and even trash our house.

In "Finding the Missing Pieces" she writes:

SOMETIMES I FIND MISSING PIECES OF MYSELF. Some readers here know I once was a serious musician and performer. I haven’t been following that muse lately, though. She still calls, but I’ve been ignoring her, for whatever reason(s).

Sometimes, visiting the past can help us find a missing piece. Today, I’m thinking of a concert I did with Patty Sundberg in our nearly ten-year duo, “Courage Sisters.” (Wow, check out that page for a real flashback, yikes!)

For more of Molly, go here to read her.

Chocolate and Vodka - Suw Charman

The internet is so big and wide and wonderful... I only found Suw yesterday via this posting:

"We are not rational beings. None of us. We like to think that we are, we like to point to logic and reason as our cornerstones, but still, we are not rational. We are emotional, passionate, illogical beings, and the sooner we realize it the better.

The assumption that we are rational beings leads to all sorts of pain. It leads us to believe that if only we acted in just such a way, people would respond just as we want them to, and all would be well with the world. It makes us think that when things go wrong, there must be a reason: it must be something we did or something we said that made the person we love turn away from us. It makes us work over again and again past experiences and failure, worrying away at them, trying to figure out what we did wrong, what they did wrong, what went wrong.

But really, that's all bollocks. We are not rational beings. We do not behave in a rational manner. Our decisions do not submit to dissection by logic. Half the time, we do not even understand why we do what we do. Certainly we rarely understand why other people do what they do, or how our actions have influenced them and how their actions influence us."

Suw has been writing at Chocolate and Vodka and Strange Attractor.

Part of the Corante stable of blogs, Strange Attractor's remit is to:
Pick out patterns from the apparent chaos that is the blogosphere and explore business blogging, as well as adjacent territories such as social technologies,
writing and storytelling, e-learning, digital rights and journalism.

I recommend reading Suw!

Reflexions - susanvg

In her profile, Susan quotes Nietzsche:
"Life without music would be a mistake."

To create her blog name she says:

Reflex - something spontaneous, instinctive
Reflection - involving thinking, meditation
I decided to combine the two words to give a space to be spontaneous as well as to stop and take time to play with ideas, and hopefully to have them reflected back to me with comments from others

Her posting on Commerce in the Classroom raises some interesting questions for discussion.

If you are interested in education and like music, then read Susan and join the discussion!

WonderBranding - Michele Miller

Michele writes today:

Boy, are you a player.

If you're reading this, you are hot. As in being part of the generation that's riding the wave of new trends in communication.<

She goes on to quote a PEW study that 11 million Americans have created blogs. I just down loaded the report myself (she has a link from her site). I question the numbers. This was from November, 2004 Technorati is tracking 10 million, and a number of those are from around the world. I don't know, it just doesn't add up for me.

But while I have a question on the Pew study, I do not have a question about Michele.

If I need to know what's going on with marketing to women, her blog is one of my key stops.

I heartily recommend that you spend some time and read Michele!

hyku - Josh Hallett

Josh Hallett's blog byline says:

Commentary by Josh Hallett on the utilization of blogs for public relations & marketing and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.

Josh wrote today:

These mishaps can be amplified on the blogosphere. If you make a stupid pitch to a journalist you will lose credibility with the journalist, but chances are they aren't going to dedicate a column to how stupid you are. With a blogger things are a bit different, they just might post something about how stupid you are.

Worse yet, what happens when a blogger does not like the product or information you have advanced them?

I would answer that it would depend upon whether the blogger you choose is one who is respectful of an individual's opinion or one who enjoys mudslinging.

What's that old adage? Forwarned is forearmed, I think.

Anyway, Josh is a good writer, read him here.

BrandShift - Group Blog

There are lots of discussions around brand and branding these days. This blog is quite a good collection of bloggers/brand people.

Jennifer Rice
Johnnie Moore
John Winsor
Andy Lark

As an example of what you will find there, Jennifer posted on co-creation that generated a whole host of comments and a real blog discussion.

If you have not already found this brand discussion site, please visit BrandShift.

Keep Trying - Mike Sanders

On Examining More Half-Truths of the Blogosphere, Mike writes:

Before reading this post please go to the mirror and repeat the following 7 times:

"Bloggin's gonna save the world"
"Bloggin's gonna save the world"
"Bloggin's gonna save the world"

...Are you back? Did it feel silly?

Good - then you're ready to read this post.in Please Don't Drink the Blogging Kool-Aid, Mkie writes:

There is a generally known principal, that the more a person stands to benefit from a situation, the more his objectivity is impaired. The intelligent reader understands that opinions are partially reflected by self-interest.

A second known principal is that once someone has drunk the blogging kool aid, there is very little that can be done. In some cases the person can be brought back to reality, but 95% of the time they must give up blogging in the process.

Since you found this hitchhiker's guide, one can assume you like blogging.

If you like blogging about blogging, then read Mike!

culturekitchen - Liza Sabater, et al

While Liza originated this blog, others post to it as well so it is more a group blog than an individual blog. As Liza writes:

In a sense, this blog is a very public salon, or as I thought of it when I came up with the name, a very busy kitchen. Some of the most intense conversations about art, culture, sex, politics I have had, have happened in kitchens. To me kitchens are the original cultural centers.

Hence, c u l t u r e k i t c h e n

Mark writes:

The artist must know his craft and excel at it, so that the craft does not get in the way of the intention. The craft must enable the intention. Then the vision in the mind can be actualized in the world, and with that, escape is possible.

Lorraine writes:

I think it could be argued that an environment in which loyalty is emphasized, the desire to belong is cemented through the idea that spiritual cohesion is necessary--therefore drop your individual religious identity in deference to the group's--and a belief that there is some kind of "winning" involved when you are successful in defending your faith, are all a fertile breeding ground for attitudes of insensitivity, entitlement, and brutality and power/control that leads to rape.

Yes, this is good stuff. Read c u l t u r e k i t c h e n!

Learned on Women

Andrea Learned writes on "the women's market... deconstructed" in her blog.

If you are familiar with Tom Peters' rant on women and their impact on the marketplace, then this is one blog to read.

Andrea, co-author of "Don't Think Pink" writes well. In a recent posting on "Women and Travel and Sleep", she said:

Sleep-deprivation is on that ever-growing list of things that influence a woman’s purchasing process. (It may shorten her attention span or make her short with your sales staff, for example). Perhaps your brand can take a new look at itself, through sleepy eyes, to learn how to even better serve its women’s market.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

You can't go wrong reading Andrea!

A Sense of Place - Ronni Bennett

Ronni's blog As Time Goes By was written up here earlier.

She has expanded her writing to another blog due to events in her life that have lead to the realization of the importance of A Sense of Place in one's life.

Good writing, well worth reading and sharing.
It is a part of life we can all acknowledge.

Read Ronni.

Decent Marketing - Katherine Stone

For the marketing inclined, if you have not already found Katherine, please allow me to introduce her. She writes:

... Katherine S. Stone, former Director of Experiential Marketing at The Coca-Cola Company. She is considered as a leader in the field of experiential marketing -- she speaks on the subject to companies and marketing organizations across the U.S., and serves on the board of the International Experiential Marketing Association. Having led one of the very few Experiential Marketing functions that exist among Fortune 500 companies, she has a unique perspective on how to surmount the challenges that companies face internally and with their customers as they attempt to create and execute experiential concepts. Blah, blah, blah. The point is, she really cares about doing a better job marketing to people. And she hopes you do too.

Nothing like a little sense of humor mixed in.

Her blog got onto my Bloglines listing when I read this:

"I'm beginning to think the best companies are the ones that make me do the least work."

That's my kind of market analysis! Read Katherine!

?ic @TomorrowToday.biz = A Group Blog

Found this site today... Yes, while I am still trying to catch up on some things, I am still being diverted by the attraction of following links that look promising... but this one may have been destined to be found today.

The cryptic title translates as “What I see at TomorrowToday.biz” - an outlet for musings, observations and futureneering from the company helping you to transition into the connection economy

The connection economy? They explain it as follows: (Bold my emphasis)

Some may wonder why we set up this blog. After all, in a knowledge/information economy, isn’t it crazy to give away your intellectual capital? Why would you put internal discussions, creative thinking and the basis of your competitive advantage out into the public arena? Why not just make this website an internal intranet, not publicly accessible?

There are a few reasons…

Firstly, we are convinced that we are no longer in an information economy. By that, we do not mean that information/knowledge/services are not important - they are! They are necessary for success. The infrastructure they necessitate and enable are critical. But, being necessary does not mean that these things are sufficient for a competitive advantage these days. We believe that we are in transition to a connection economy, dominated by relationships, connectedness, globilisation, emotional intelligence, teamwork and the like.

Yes, this is why it caught my eye. One of the items I need to catch up on is writing about GEL 2005. One of the speakers there was Jimmy Wales, founder of wikipedia.org. Without getting too much into what he said, suffice to say thare there is a connection with what these folks say:

We believe that one of the basic building blocks of any KM system is to get your key Knowledge Workers to share their data, thoughts, musings and ideas. Because of this, we prefer to refer to it as “Knowledge UnManagement”. That’s the point - the systems can be managed, but the flow of knowledge and the interactions of knowledge workers (i.e. everyone!) should not be. Its in those crazy spaces that the creativity will come.

Knowledge UnManagement - I like that. Manage the system, keep the system simple so it is usable. More use will generate more connections, more sharing, more creativity.

Hence, the need to spread the word today, right now.

This is good stuff, read the blog!

Ageless Marketing - David Wolfe

The demographics are telling us that the baby boomers are they retire will cause some major disruptions in the current economy. This is one of many topics of interest to David.

A review of previous posts shows one on engagement marketing. I agree with the concept. It is very similar to my engagement model for determing readers in the blogosphere.

David has a discourse on right brain-left brain, Eastern vs. Western thought.

He also chimed in on Dan Pink's new book "A Whole New Mind".

Plenty of food for thought here on marketing, et al.

I encourage you to add David to your daily feed!

A Clear Eye - Tom Asacker

Tom Asacker, author of three books, blogs regularly on branding and other business related items.

He generally starts with a quote from someone famous, or even someone not so famous, and then presents his point from there.

Nice style, good writing.

His post today is generating some passionate comments.

Start your day with a good quote and thought provoking comment from Tom!

Irish Blogs

Irish Blogs
There all Irish blogs

Clare Dillon's Blog
News from Microsoft Ireland's Developer & Platform Group

A Little Nonsense - Johnny Biscuit

Johnny Biscuit or "Executive Smarty Pants" has his own web site and his own blog.

He posted today:

This blog is different than my comedy act, in case you haven't noticed. When I am on stage I am funny. I have an obligation to deliver what I promise, which is laughs. Here, I have no such obligation. I know it can be confusing to people who want to keep it simple; funny guy funny, serious guy serious. But the only way you get to be funny; funny beyond pie-in-the-face or take-off-your-shirt-and-look-at-my-fat belly funny, is to have something behind it.

He writes in his Bio page:

Those two trips changed everything for me," says Johnny. "Once you've seen people drinking out of puddles in the road...it's different."

"I like where I find myself today," says Johnny. "I find myself with perspective and a drive to communicate with people and to laugh with people because life is more valuable to me, now that I've done a few things, lived a little."

Johnny tries to always bring something to the party.

I have not seen Johnny in action (yet) but from what I have read of him,
if there is a party that he is in, I would like to be part of it!

Read more of him here.

Speechwriting - Ghostwriting: Jane Genova

Jane Genova has her own blog and it is well worth a read.

She has written on the "Vow of Poverty":

Lesson learned: Talk therapy doesn't help much. Action - changing your present life - does.

I'm more open to opportunity. And, yeah, more successful. And on my terms. A start-up ecommerce firm invited me to be a partner. Two clients, so eager for my services, offered to come to my place to discuss their communications needs. Coming to me?

Go to read her for more good advice!

Good Experience - Mark Hurst

What is a good experience?

Sometimes you can answer this kind of question by defining what it is "not"
easier than by defining what it "is".

In this particular case, to understand good experience, read the blog.

Mark Hurst posts good insights weekly.

I found this blog sometime ago and it is permanently on my blogroll.

Running Inspiration

Running inspiration. Running advice. Running thoughts.

Read Passionate Runner by Steve Sherlock

Earth 911

Not a blog... a comprehensive, one-stop clearinghouse for good info on recycling, energy conservation and air pollution prevention. Check it out!



Earth 911