We are constantly shuttling between local and global in our work today. Your markets may be in your home town one month, and across the country the next. Your consulting work can be on site around the corner, or across the country. Online night and day, we inform, coordinate, network, and market here at home and across the world. In the midst of massive information overload, the diverse team must have the expertise to cross cultures competently and the wisdom to make effective decisions quickly. In the future, the overload will only intensify. How will we master the global – local connection as it moves and morphs at lightening speed?
We were in Paris for two weeks at a stretch and after hitting some of the fabulous tourist spots – The Sacre Coeur, The Palais Garnier, The Notre Dame Cathedral – thought, we would cover every arrondissement by metro, tram and bus. Why? You may well ask. I can only shrug and say it seemed like a good idea at the time.
As someone who lived in Tehran, Iran back in the 1970’s, I especially enjoyed seeing the movie Argo win the Best Picture Oscar. It’s a great story, with compelling characters and lots of suspense. The fact that the story is true makes it even more incredible because the plot is like something that would spring from the mind of Tom Clancy. Imagine sneaking US embassy personnel out of Iran right under the noses of militants using the far-fetched story that they were there to scout movie locations? I had no idea the CIA was so creative. The film also serves as a reacquainting of how America got where we are in our relationship with Iran.
I have a passion for promoting standards formulation, standards adaptation, standards implementation, Indigenous development and working for a sustainable technological base in developing countries. It is due to this passion that I work with Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority, Pakistan Engineering council and other professional forums. My HRD project aims to empower deprived woman and their children in order to give better human beings to this world. I operate in Pakistan, but I plan to expand to other countries. Women in this part of the world are very deprived; they do not stand equal to men (male- dominated society).
Communicating with clients and customers is the most important job for any marketing professional. Clear, precise communication skills are an integral part of connecting with any audience. When the contact is from a different culture than the marketer, communications can get tricky. But understanding how to convey a message appropriately to a multicultural audience in the global economy is critical.
Many African leaders have used the term ‘We Africans’ in their speeches and statements. Subsequently, many researches and works based on findings in one African society have been deemed to be relevant elsewhere in Africa. For example there are books on African organizations, on the African management style, on African values…Those pieces of work are never based on empirical studies covering the entire continent.
The president of the Chattanooga area Chamber of Commerce opened the combination reception, celebration, and press conference at Chattanooga’s Hunter Museum on July 15, 2014. The online invitations had gone out only 24 hours earlier, but the room was packed with 800 people. It had been six years since I attended the announcement of the Volkswagen plant coming to Chattanooga in this room. This year was noteworthy because of the wrangling over union representation, politics, state funding, and various personality driven conflicts that would determine whether Volkswagen would build a second car here.
The good people of the First Waughtown Baptist Church were consumed by utter jubilation – it was Baptism Sunday. Wearing the best of their Sunday best they sang hymns as they proceeded to the banks of the Belview Creek not far from the Church and just beyond the old Belview School. The candidate for baptism was none other than my mother’s distant relation Brother Hines. Bro Hines hailed from a strong old Baptist family and his people were numbered amongst the founders of First Waughtown and it’s mother church First Baptist Winston and his father was a Baptist pastor of the family church in Davidson County.
Although my grandmother has been dead, for over ten years her cousin Magalene Dulin Gaither, still refers to me as “Betty’s grandson.” Magalene, while mature in age is far from being absentminded as a matter of fact, she reigns as a sort of Queen Mother of Davie County. She is active in a number of civic and social organizations; she organizes weddings; her phone is the first to ring upon a death – even before the undertaker; she writes, directs and produces dramatic performances; she is an acclaimed historian, educator, and musician; she assists folks with their college thesis and anyone seeking public office or any other place of notoriety is sure to ring her phone and to knock at her door to receive her blessings. In the words of our late cousin, Sadie Dulin Jones, “if Mrs. Gaither doesn’t know about it, then it just didn’t happen…”
A high school classmate of mine recently posted a notice on a Facebook webpage to which we both subscribe about the passing of her younger brother, Peter. Peter, as it turned out was a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard. After serving for four years he attended college as a radio broadcast major. He graduated as valedictorian of his class and became involved in the administration of his college alma mater for thirty years, many of those years spent in financial services as the bursar. His sister and his colleagues noted that he always had a special concern for those who had given service to their country in the armed forces. “Peter really felt that it was not just his job or the college’s job,” remarked one of his colleagues in her reflections on his life, “but the job of all of us really, to make sure that veterans are taken care of when they come back.”
