Building responsible remote communities
The recent (ongoing) events with the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the need to develop innovative new ways to engage with each other. It has been inspiring to see how companies and organizations have stepped up to provide online/remote training and webinars to those who are practicing responsible social-distancing.
Remote access to these resources and information is valuable but can leave out the human component. This is why we have started this global initiative with a focus on discussion and human interaction. Each session provides not only valuable information and insight but also an opportunity to experience the (remote) human contact that is absolutely critical to sustaining a healthy remote working environment.
Latest session topics
Chinese Cultural Purification
This week we’ll explore a handful of news items around Chinese “national rejuvenation” and “cultural purification” from restricted video game screen time for minors to banning of “effeminate men” from TV to the suspension of K-Pop fan accounts on Weibo. Then we’ll look at the phenomenon of “chicken blood” parents that underlies the restriction of…
US Afghanistan Exit
After 20 years, the US has withdrawn from Afghanistan and the Taliban has taken back control of the country. Obviously, this is a huge and heavy topic with the ensuing panic and humanitarian crisis in the country. We’ll have an open discussion of what this means for the world and the future of the country…
Censorship and Crackdowns in China
After a few weeks of detouring to other topics, we’re back to our favorite topic this week: China. We’ll look at China’s plan to create a karaoke blacklist, banning songs that are out of tune with the party line (Ain’t no party like the communist party…) and then study the Chinese crackdown on private tutoring…
Geopolitical, Cultural, and Gender Issues in the Olympics
Nothing like a world event such as the Olympics to bring out the geopolitical and geocultural issues! This week, we’ll look at the myriad relevant events that have arisen during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics—from the South Korean flag controversy to China’s accusing NBC of using an incomplete map to a broadcaster airing inappropriate stereotypes during…
Work-Life Balances Post-Pandemic
Over the past several years, Iceland cut its work week and found greater happiness and no loss in productivity. Starting from this, this week we will discuss work-life balance in the post-pandemic environment. What trends around work-life balance and shorter workweeks have you seen in your own companies in the US and overseas offices in…
Juneteenth & Black Racist Food Tropes
This year here in the United States Juneteenth made its last-minute debut as a federal holiday when President Biden signed into law legislation making it an official holiday. Although Juneteenth has been celebrated for well over a century in some parts of the country and was already an official state holiday in most US states…
Geopolitical and Cultural Issues in Tech
From Microsoft Bing’s disappearing Tank Man search results on the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown to Wix’s apology for removing a website in support of Hong Kong democracy to Google’s accidental ranking of Kannada as India’s ugliest language to Twitter’s fall from grace in Nigeria, there has been no lack of geopolitical and cultural issues…
Chinese Censorship and Hollywood
Just when you think it’s a slow news fortnight, you have to make major cuts to a number of very interesting topics, and the agenda still seems to be way too packed! This week (as many others) we’ll turn our regards toward China and Hollywood, starting with John Cena’s apology—in Mandarin nonetheless—to China for saying…
Israeli-Palestine Conflict: Gaza
In the year and a half plus that we have been doing this call, we have discussed a number of geopolitical disputes—from the Caucasus and Kashmir to Togo and Taiwan to the heights of the Himalayas and the depths of the South China Sea—but never have we officially touched up the hottest hot-buttonest geopolitical issue…
Colors and Culture
In the last call, we touched briefly upon how colors are perceived across cultures and their various meanings across the world. It was suggested that we take up this topic during a future call, so we will have an open discussion this week about this topic (meaning of colors, associated expressions in different languages, use…
Automatic Translations and Geocultural Risk
In today’s session, we discuss some recent occurrences of automatic translation mistakes that caused large problems for global brands we all know.
Companies continue to update terminology
Today we look at new words that are being flagged by various organizations as offensive. We frame our discussion around changes made by realtors, technology, sports, arts, and law.
Updating Problematic Terminology – Continued Discussion
We continue the conversation ignited by last week’s presentation to see how global countries approach the challenging of managing potentially problematic terminology across boarders.
Special Presentation: Process for Geocultural Review
Today we look briefly at a presentation on how companies manage potentially sensitive terminology in a scalable and systematic way.
Outdated Cultural Norms and Race
In the face of worldwide protests surrounding the black lives matter movement, global organizations have sought to update their brand imagery and messaging to be more inclusive.
Brand Solidarity
During this session, we continue an ongoing discussion on forced labor in the supply chain, looking specifically at child labor. Following is an open discussion about the role brands can/should/do play in policing inhumane behavior by their suppliers.
Technology and Indigenous Languages
During this session, we continue an ongoing discussion on forced labor in the supply chain, looking specifically at child labor. Following is an open discussion about the role brands can/should/do play in policing inhumane behavior by their suppliers.
Managing COVID Response Globally
During this session, we continue an ongoing discussion on forced labor in the supply chain, looking specifically at child labor. Following is an open discussion about the role brands can/should/do play in policing inhumane behavior by their suppliers.
Supply Chain Corporate Social Responsibility
During this session, we continue an ongoing discussion on forced labor in the supply chain, looking specifically at child labor. Following is an open discussion about the role brands can/should/do play in policing inhumane behavior by their suppliers.
Brand Messaging to Employees and Customers During COVID-19
We take a look at how some major international brands are handling the crisis. Some are handling it well, and some are making some mistakes.