Profiling Users from
Around the World

This seminar provides the tools and methods for answering the question, "How and why do the information needs of a user from one country differ from those of a user in a different country?"

In a highly interactive setting, explore the cultural biases you bring to your work with your peers who may or may not share your cultural context. Consider ways of creating world-ready information products that can be customized for any cultural context (localization) or standardized for world distribution (globalization).

The tools we use in this workshop are popular models of culture from Europe and the U.S. We review the cultural variables that define these models of culture and discuss them in the context of technical communication. Cultural models can include those developed by Edward T. Hall, Fons Trompenaars, Geerte Hofstede, John Mole, David Victor, and others.

Come prepared to participate in lots of group exercises and discussion. The entire audience participates in a thorough cultural analysis of the predominant culture represented in the audience.

We use this information to determine the cultural biases inherent in information products. We compare these results with the findings of cultural anthropologists and international business consultants. We conclude by discussing methods for creating world-ready information products.

Length: 1-2 days

Objectives

• Know how to analyze culture
• Create a cultural model that makes sense
• Collect cultural data about your audience
• Apply cultural data to create localized information products and to identify cultural bias

Our Tools

International Variables

Models of Culture

International Resources

Worksheets and Storyboards

Meta Models of Culture

Layers of Culture

Objective Culture, Subjective Culture

The Iceberg Model

The Pyramid Model

The Onion Model

Four Models of Culture

Edward Hall

David Victor

Geert Hofstede

Fons Trompenaars

International Resources

Internal Resources

Printed Matter

Third Party Resources

International, National, and Local Resources

Customers

Applications

Cultural Bias

Cultural Rewriting

Localization (general and radical), Localization cookbooks

Internationalization, International guides

Globalization