If that seems like a nod to Joss Whedon (Firefly, The Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog), it is. Joss Whedon’s products are fun. His stories are entertaining, engaging, and memorable. His works are fiction. On this blog we will focus on fact, occasionally illustrated with fiction. The goal is to convey cultural and information technology (IT) related concepts, their application and impact using a similar tone through text, imagery, and video. The topics we address here are serious, but we must have fun doing so. Keep it light. Be nice to each other, better yet follow the advice of Bill and Ted “Be excellent to each other…” (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure).

Culture can be a sensitive issue. It addresses many of the things we hold close, the approach on this blog will be to focus on the tools, results of analysis, and empirical information. The opinions will be provided for spice. We will examine the work of people like Gert Hofstede, Michael Minkov, Fons Trompenaars, and Shalom Schwartz to name a few. Along with studies ranging from Project GLOBE to the World Values Survey and more. If you are not familiar with these, don’t worry. I’ll introduce you.

Globalization is a reality, the term you use may vary. It is here. It is not coming; it is, however, an evolving work in progress, this is extremely evident in two disciplines with which I am very familiar: Information Technology and Science. Both of these disciplines rely on teams of individuals, often from different cultural backgrounds, to come together in an attempt to achieve common goals. These efforts are often complicated by the mixture of cultures. We will be investigating the ramifications of culture on these efforts and ways we can work through them.

Beyond this, the impact of culture on vendor selection, product identification, personnel, cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and organizations overall is central. Everything relating to culture is interrelated. What does all this mean?  How can we make it work?  Soo many questions, time to blog!

Welcome onboard, join the discussion.