Stories form Everywhere by Jesse Ricke

This Diversity and Inclusion panel on international relationships was full of stories. Each panelist held marked experiences that informed their conduct across cultural borders. They gave us these experiences, most always funny as embarrassment should be, through their narratives that we might share their insights. Subjects ranged from NBA promotion in a country that doesn't play much professional basketball with coaches clinics and youth camps, to the important gesture of calling your international partner according to their time zone, to the need for staff from the regions you serve before you can work in that region. Everyone urged all media practitioners to get out of the country and find out for themselves.

Every culture has its norms that must be researched and respected, but some helpful universals emerged; we all seek to understand one another, we all respect the reciprocity of shared trust, and so long as business is kept as the prime focus cultural misunderstandings can be dealt with. Perhaps most intriguing was the discussion on cultural transcendence, arising from new technologies as we all begin to know what LOL means, or apparent in how an engaging brand can transcend a nation as basketball is loved even in a culture with anti-American sentiment. It's these stories of overarching humanness that, to me, speak most saliently of the future.