Recently, one of our site license clients told us their focus is on keeping people by teaching the skills that support inclusive and collaborative teams, and that this is one of the key ways they leverage Cultural Detective. 

"Cultural Detective is a phenomenal tool for teaching both of these skills and applying them on a global, as well as domestic level," the client said. As Janet Bennett points out in her article, Culture General or Cultural Specific? That is the Question , "Rare is the professional arena where we face colleagues from only one or two cultures. Instead, each of us operates with a wealth of cultural diversity that is rich, complex, and challenging. This reality suggests that learning a single specific culture serves us well, and learning about cultural difference in general serves us even better."  

Her brother has gone to school only 30 days this year. They were trapped in their house for two weeks without electricity. Each time they go to the grocery they are uncertain of ever being able to come back. Leaving their only source of income, an internet café behind, the single mom and her two children have been struggling to avoid falling apart. 

 Read the Travelogue

Block your calendars for two brand-new five-day workshops by Cultural Detective creator Dianne Hofner Saphiere, to be conducted at the 36th annual Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC) on the Reed College campus in Portland, OR. 

July 16-20 (SIIC Session II) Dianne will co-facilitate a workshop with Barbara Schaetti entitled, "Developing Intercultural Competence: An Integrated Practice." 

Then, July 23-27 (SIIC Session III), Dianne will co-facilitate with Jonamay Lambert a workshop entitled "Designing and Implementing Global Diversity Training."Cultural Detective authors Donna Stringer, Basma Ibrahim DeVries, and Tatyana Fertelmeyster will also be facilitating workshops at SIIC in July.

Don't forget that between Sessions II and III there will be a Cultural Detective Facilitator Certification workshop, right on campus to make it easy! 

The Summer Institute offers about 50 different workshops, plus programs for Fellows and New Interculturalists. Be sure not to miss it!

Link to the Summer Institute

Kevin and Rita Booker, very active Cultural Detective community members and extremely talented professionals, have put together a series of three articles on using film in intercultural education that I think you will find very helpful. 

If you use movie clips or YouTube videos in your coaching, training or teaching, or if you want to do that more, be sure to take a look. Lots of learning there.

By the way, if you love film, be sure to check out CDTV, our Cultural Detective channel on YouTube, with over 20 playlists. We welcome your recommendations (urls) on videos to add. Together we can build a convenient central repository of films to use to help our world become a more inclusive and collaborative place!

If I were to ask you what it takes to be effective across cultures, what comes to mind? Some of the classics: self-awareness, open-mindedness, curiosity, flexibility, maybe communication skills; all are important. But where is creativity in this picture? 

You could argue that creativity is an output of some of the above. But I think it's worth highlighting the importance of creativity as a stand-alone competency for working across cultures, especially when it comes not just to being aware of cultural differences, but being able to develop effective bridging solutions to differences you may experience.

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