Intercultural Communication
The world has become a smaller place than it used to be. This is due to the use of computers, telephones, and the internet. When something happens on one side of the world the other side of the world can be informed within a very short of the occurrence. Just recently, a tsunami hit many countries shorelines and the news service had reports of it on web sites and television stations within hours of the wave hitting the shore. This new era in technology has enabled humans to talk across state and country lines like we are right next door to them. I recently made a service call, concerning my home's DSL service, and the technician on the phone was located in India.
I work for Hewlett-Packard's manufacturing department, here in Houston, where the computers I support are shipped all over the world. The service I perform at Hewlett-Packard is to provide consultation services to sales teams, customers, and factory personnel. Most of my services are provided through phone conference calls and the email system. My position can be a lot of fun, but it can offer many challenges also. One of the challenges is working with other countries and their sales teams. When I first started this job manufacturing had what they called regions like: AP (Asia Pacific), LA (Latin America), Japan, Canada, and Europe. The Latin America region consisted of Mexico and South America. South America was broken into many smaller sub-regions like: Brazil, Venezuela, and Chile to name a few.
My intercultural communication issue happened when I was having a conference call with a sales manger and his team from Mexico. During the conference call I kept referring to this sale as being for the Latin America region. Part of my job is to make sure they understood th ...