»question«

To sum it up: what do I want my web application to be like?

The target group are people being sent to work abroad. To be specific my web application is aiming at people who need to prepare themselves for this mission. They might eventually attend a language course but they do not benefit from a cross-cultural training prior to their departure. Based on recent studies it is 40% of companies who do not prepare their employees. I still need to find numbers for this but it's presumably small and middle-class companies who do not afford preparational training courses for their employees.

The web app wants to alleviate the effects of a missing preparation. I use the word alleviate because I am aware of the fact that even the nicest web app will never be able to substitute a proper training. Thus the purpose of a web app has to be to raise awareness, to allow future expatriates a glimpse into the foreign world, to support understanding of the cultural differences.

So, into what will I have to further investigate?

• I will need to know more about the Polish history. Since my web app is specifically about working in Poland, I am not sure in how far I will integrate the Polish history in general but nevertheless it is essential background knowledge. Especially after the turbulent and adverserial past Germany and Poland share.
• The educational system. Which subjects are stressed in general? How is education valued? How to people get into their jobs?
• Which significance does work have? In which relation do leisure time and working time stand? Is there a strict separation of the two fields?
• How is work organized? When are meetings held? Who carries which responsibilities?
• Style of communication. Within the company as well as towards the head office? How does communication with partners work? How with clients?

I'll hope to find an answer to these questions in the interviews as well as in books and articles. Some questions sound to be rather specific and I expect specific answers, too, but actually I see each answer, story and piece of information to lead to a more general picture. Osland and Bird had described the learning process to be analagous to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. It's about learning an internal logic rather than learning the exact rules.

PS: This is not meant to be a full list of best intentions. It's a start. Suggestions are always welcomed :-) and I needed to free some memory space in my head so I can continue to think...

I decided on the structure board to be so fullfullfull because it is reflecting the collage-character of the web application. There will not be a typical navigation bar with the main categories and their sub categories. Each screen will include several linkages which will take the user to different sights.

The page on "continued training" for example could link to "motivation" but as well to general "concepts of education". The later would for example link to the "model employee" since the way and content of learning reveal quite a lot about desirable character traits.

I'm not sure if it works. I can understand that people get lost but for now it's my working model. Maybe I can break it down into more general categories later but in the moment that would not help me much - I need the overview...

It's done. What a relief. The structure board for my web application. I tried to put in all possible aspects of work. This might seem a little crowded at first but it reflects pretty much the collage I have in mind. Additionally, I will have to kick out points to which I will not get enough information. Thus:



click to enlarge ...

Tomorrow I'll add specific information about Poland to this abstract. Stay tuned ;-)

Turkey is everywhere. Having grown up in Western Germany I have grown up next to the kids of Turkish immigrants. I like to put an emphasis on having grown up beside each other because I really do not know any myself.

Finally, in Belgium I got close friends with two Erasmus students from Turkey which actually allowed Turkey to become a country in my head. Turkey was not in the houses of immigrants anymore who belong to neither culture but became a vivid, buzzing country on its own.

The debate about Turkey's entry into the European Union further drew my attention.

It might be quite interesting to work out the interdependencies: Turkey's drive towards Europe, the relation between German and Turkish economies, and the interactions possible between Turkish immigrants and their country of origin.

I liked the idea. But I've never been there and Turkey is quite far away.

Marie was asking if I thought the difference between Poland and Germany to be big enough to make a cross-cultural training necessary. (It needs to be added that she defined this as a provocative question and did not at all aim at generally doubting my plans.)

Yes!

It reminded me of the fact that Eastern Germany was actually the hardest place for me to adapt to. I remember to have always had to explain everything I said and thought. I just seemed to trip into one misunderstanding after the other. They just pop up and it was impossible to really see the differences coming. While I will still cite this later, I need to include a quote from Bhawuk, Podsiadlowski, Graf, and Triandis:
"[P]eople from cultures with smaller cultural distance may also be confronted with major communication problems, as they do not expect each other to have different basic assumptions and they may be even less aware of their own and the others' cultural backgrounds."

When I was talking to Frank yesterday about the interviews, he suggested to programme an online questionnaire. But the thing is that I'm not looking for numbers. The numbers are what bugged me most about all the studies I read: they try to clarify things but just make everything very abstract.

Freya gave me a nice word for what I wanna do: qualitative survey. I want to hear stories, I want to create an image of the country. My former boss would call it the look and feel.

This actually goes pretty much in line with the culture assimilators which try to approach cultures by means of presenting critical incidents.

I will need facts and figures, too. Sure. But the question is: how to present them? After all I'm not a scholar but a designer (to-be ;-)

Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła - Poland is not lost yet.

Actually, I don't even know where to start with the pros.

Starting with business: Poland is a Eastern European country (yes, sorry, Linda&Miro, I know, just like Slowenia not geographically but still). Thus can be considered an emerging market. (Guess, I still need numbers for that.)

Then I've been to Poland already a couple of times and it is kind of around the corner (3 hours drive) which would solve the problem of getting visual material.

Poland is strongly interlinked with Germany - despite the recent problems. Hopefully, this interdependance shows in numbers of businesses going there. (Need numbers for that as well.)

I know Polish people. Connections - yesyes! I know Polish immigrants, I know a Polish mayor (ok, actually my mum knows him, but that counts), and I know people living in Poland. But: I don't know any business people having gone to Poland; neither of German origin nor maybe immigrants having gone back to Poland. So, that is the big drawback.

Ok, still have some books lying here and then will start researching....

I defnitely need to focus on introducing German expatriates to one specific country (and maybe the other way round as well). I've known that from the beginning on.

First I had wanted to take a country I have lived in myself. Thus: Canada, South Africa, France, or Belgium. Israel with my sister living there would have been another option. The States should have been ok as well. I had wanted to take a country familiar to me because I was hoping I could better judge on the country-specific information I'm reading.
Well, the countries I've lived in are not expatriate-wonderland, they are not relevant to German expatriates (don't pin me down on that, it's just a naive impression of mine).

Asia is surely the biggest issue in expatriate research which reflects the interests of German businesses.
I have no clue about Asia!

Other emerging markets seem to be Eastern Europe and South America. From a German perspective I thought Turkey might be interesting.

Now it's like: Why not Poland?