 | Another International Study Supports CD Approach
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Bertelsmann Stiftung-Fondazione Cariplo Study
 The central theses of this research and policy paper, entitled "Intercultural Competence-The Key Competence in the 21st Century," highlight five key ways in which Cultural Detective is state-of-the-art intercultural practice. |
 | Overlaying Lenses
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People Are Complex, Not CharicaturesWhat role does personality play vis á vis culture? Does organizational culture or professional training trump nationality? What about generational differences, sexual orientation, or spiritual tradition? Don't those cultures influence us as much as or more than others?
That's where Cultural Detective
Values Lenses can be enormously helpful. While not aiming to directly answer the above questions, Values Lenses provide tools for dialogue, to enable us to live and work better together. Cultural Detective Self Discovery can help us examine our personal values, and we can then contrast those with our national, ethnic, spiritual tradition, or gender values by overlaying Values Lenses.
A colleague recently complained to me, "My participants learn the answers, then they change the questions. 'This Mexican guy didn't behave the way he was supposed to...'" Values Lenses help us teach patterns: that the man in question, yes, is Mexican. But maybe he was also Blended Culture, and had lived in Brazil a while. No doubt his age and economic class as well as education level came into play. Using the Cultural Detective Worksheet we can unravel the mystery of an interaction in context, looking at what real people did in real situations. And using Lenses, we can tease apart what part of what the guy did was because of who he is as an individual, vs. what role organizational or generational culture played. |
 | Coaching Using Cultural Detective
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 Coaching can quite often increase productivity, effectiveness and satisfaction much more quickly and meaningfully than can training. Be sure to review the exciting one-year, multi-location coaching skills program grounded in the Cultural Detective method that Cultural Detective Romania co-author Rita Booker has put together. Her husband, Kevin Booker, co-author of our forthcoming Cultural Detective Austria, is a filmmaker. You definitely want to check out the video these two have put together to announce the new program. |
 | How a Client Uses CD in Study Abroad
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 Cultural Detective materials are primarily targeted at adult populations: corporations, NGOs, universities. AFS Intercultural Programs license the Cultural Detective for use with high school exchange students and host families. Read a first-person user account about how they put this method and materials to use.
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 | Intercultural Comes of Age
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Janet Bennett Reflects on How Far We've Come
 As an intercultural professional, do you sometimes wish you had a more "standard" profession, such as dentist or engineer, something easier to explain to friends and family? While perhaps still not a household word or commonly understood, the intercultural profession has surely established its credibility in the world over the past thirty years.
In a recent keynote presentation to a SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research) audience, Janet Bennett noted that: -
Many professional accreditation agencies now require intercultural competence.
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Many international aid and humanitarian agencies (prepare before a tsunami) do as well.
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Bar and other law associations require intercultural education.
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Many health, pharmaceutical, and dental schools now hold culturally competent
health care as an accreditation requirement.
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Public policy and political leaders acknowledge that intercultural and language
competence are key to meeting the demands of the 21st century.
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Business schools and granting agencies have
diversity and inclusion requirements.
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Organizations have intercultural and diversity/inclusion benchmarks and scorecards.
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Parents desire global competence for their children.
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 | The Lost Generation
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A Poem Read Forward and Backwards
 OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria on 9 June said youth joblessness is likely to
stay high for the next two years, creating the potential for a "lost
generation."
Cultural Detective is all
about seeing multiple viewpoints in the world; understanding what people
are intending by their words and actions; and engaging in ways that are
most effective, satisfying and collaborative.
This poem entitled
"The Lost Generation" provides two very different ways of looking at
our youth. After you watch the video, be sure to check out our Cultural Detective Generational Harmony package, too.
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 | Teaching Tolerance
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Wide Variety of Outstanding Resources
 We have showcased the tremendous free-of-charge resources from the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Teaching Tolerance" program before. If you have not checked them out, be sure to do so. One that recently caught our eye is an entire curriculum for secondary school students developed around a recent HBO film on Brazilian humanitarian and United Nations diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello.
The 27-page download-able Teacher's Guide is intended to provide different lenses through which students can view the documentary. Learning is structured around three different themes: service to others, bridging cultural gaps, and human rights.
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 | 2010 Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication |
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Register Now! · July 14-30, 2010 · Portland, OR USA
The 34th annual Summer Institute for Intercultural
Communication (SIIC) offers professional development opportunities for people
working in education, training, business, and consulting, in both international
and domestic intercultural contexts. Whether you are leading a global team,
designing a new diversity initiative, preparing a course for fall term, or
directing a study abroad program, the Summer Institute for Intercultural
Communication will provide the opportunity for intense engagement with
intercultural issues, resources, and professionals.
In addition to over 40 in-depth workshops in
one-day, three-day, and five-day formats, SIIC also offers two service-learning
programs for those who desire an intense professional immersion experience. The
staff at ICI are available by phone (+1-503-297-4622) and email to answer your questions about
the SIIC programs and workshops and to advise on workshop selection.
Sessions showcasing the Cultural
Detective method and materials will include (amongst others):
- A five-day advanced methods workshop July 26-30 facilitated by Dianne Hofner Saphiere, creator of Cultural Detective. You will leave this workshop with concrete plans for improving intercultural effectiveness in your organization and for getting your job done better and with less effort (Workshop 31).
- A three-day session on experiential methods, July 14-16 (Workshop 7), conducted by Tatyana Fertelmeyster (CD Russia) and Basma Ibrahim DeVries (CD Egypt).
- A Cultural Detective Facilitator Certification between SIIC sessions 2 and 3, July 24-25.
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Online Facilitated Learning
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Interactive, Engaging and Amazingly Productive!
Sound like a dream to roll out the Cultural Detective method and materials to your people around the world, without the hassle and expense of travel?
Here is what a recent sponsor, an organizational vice president, has to say:
"I remain extremely impressed with what your Cultural Detective team has been able to achieve with our staff, in a very short time, through these webinars. You adapted the material to our world, you actively engaged the participants from a wide assortment of our international locations, helping us to learn a memorable and seemingly simple process that is incredibly deep and complex. These webinars were a major step forward in enabling us to achieve our organizational goals and objectives."
If you are looking for an affordable way to enable managers, executives and dispersed team members to resolve conflict, bridge differences, and collaborate more effectively across cultures, sponsor one of these online learning events today. Email or telephone Kris at +1-913-764-2624 to learn more or to schedule.
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Related Products
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Ecotonos, Redundancía, Shinrai, Communication Highwire
Cultural Detective authors have created many intercultural effectiveness simulations, games and tools. Are you aware of them?
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Connect with Cultural Detective on Facebook
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Join the Group and/or Take the Quiz
 Be sure to join our Cultural Detective fan page on Facebook, by clicking on the icon at the left. There you'll get updates and can chat with other users.

Over 800 people have taken one of those infamous Facebook quizzes, this one created for Cultural Detectives, entitled "What's My Detective Style?". Have you? Take the quiz to find out which famous international detective you are most similar to. |
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Visit Our Archive |
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We record the latest news updates, and have archived past issues of this newsletter, on one of our web pages. Past issues include instructions for interesting activities, theoretical discussions about intercultural issues, and links to many intercultural resources. Please take a look and enjoy the resources you find!
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