Yesterday was the workshop I have been helping to organize for the NGO I volunteer with, Leaders of Tomorrow. We partnered with the Netherlands Institute in Amman to host two scholars who spoke about intercultural business practices and social media. When we started planning the event, we expected it to be about 20 people or so, in a small, interactive type workshop. After posting the opportunity once on the Leaders website (leadersot.org- woo check it out!) we got over 90 responses and ended up having a total of 50 participants! People were engaged and asked great questions, as one of the speakers put it afterwards "If you wanted to give me a good impression of Jordanians, you have certainly done it." The spokeswoman for LoT told us Jordanians are an interested and well educated people, but they don't have enough opportunities to express their interests and ideas. This was certainly a great example of people eager to stretch their minds.
The speakers covered a number of aspects of the issues at hand including social media in business practices, workplace rewards based on culture, workplace mobility based on culture, appropriateness and usefulness of social media in marketing and hr. To me, three points especially stood out as new and interesting information (though it was all good!)
1. The majority of the world's market are being ignored. The "developed" world is a minority of people on this planet. And yet, they are the majority of the ones that are truly being marketed to. A lot of under-developed countries have been written off by all kinds of businesses as "too poor" to sell to. However, if companies would simply lower their profit margins on individual sales the mass of consumers they would gain in these countries would be huge. Poor people may not have a lot of money, but they are certainly still consumers! Cell phone companies were given as an example of a company that understood this. Everyone in Jordan has a cell phone. My Sudanese refugee students all have cell phones. People in Jordan don't have a lot, but they are not dragging through the streets. They can still buy things, and they do buy cell phones, which is possible because they are much much cheaper here than in the states. Entrepreneurs in these countries have a comparative advantage in that they know that their fellow citizens can still spend money. The thing I thought about most during this part of the talk was infectious disease. Where is this idea more true? Pharmaceutical companies have made drugs so expensive they can only be sold in the west, but where is the majority of populations with HIV/AIDS, TB, etc. Certainly not in the west. If these companies would cut profit margins they could do good and make money so why not? Because they have no idea what it is like in "developing countries," they don't understand that people still buy things. duh.
2. People will do things for free. I know this one sounds nuts, but these lecturers made a good point. If someone told you, I'm going to start a website to give people information, and I want everyone to use my website for everything, and I will just get people to post things about stuff that they know. And then some people will monitor the stuff and make sure it's true. And I will not pay them, they will just do it because they are interested. Do you think, that's crazy? That's wikipedia! and Yahoo answers, and a million other ways of getting information online. The lecturer made the point that very few people actually work just for money. He asked a woman in the audience "why do you work?" and her response, of course was, "to get paid." Then he asked her, "where do you work?" and she said, "PR because she liked to talk with people and meet new, interesting professionals." So this was the reason she worked. Because it was interesting to her, because she was motivated by her profession. The point here was not that every job has to be interesting to the worker, but people must have some motivation to do their job outside of money, whether it be from good management, or interest, or a sense of accomplishment. If you can sell something as interesting to a person, you can get them to work without a physical exchange of capital. I like taking the money out of business- it makes the whole thing much more appealing to me.
3. If you want to know what someone wants, just ask! This one I learned a long time ago at Sierra Service Project, but I thought it was funny for business people to be saying it like it was this brand new idea. In a different context, it does sound sort of revolutionary. The idea was presented as, wow, if you ask consumers, they will tell you what they want! If you want to know a culture, just ask the people of that culture! no shit. (pardon my French) Service lesson 101 says that the first step of service is to ask. If you go into anywhere saying, "I know what you need" whether you are trying to donate or sell your services you are going to get a nice kick on the way out of your very unsuccessful attempt to get anything done.
So that was the workshop. Good times.
To follow, a few notes about blogging: I have no idea who reads this, which is fine, but if anyone ever reads anything you want to comment on, please do! If you don't or can't post your comments because you don't have an account, I would love e-mails at jencompton@gmail.com. It doesnt have to be about anything I write about but I would like to be more in contact with people from the motherland (and anywhere).
Also, after re-reading some of my blog posts I learned I need to be a more careful proof reader. I apologize for my lack of attention to these details and hope it doesn't bother any of my avid readers. In other words, Mom, sorry I'm a dummy and don't proof my blog.
The speakers covered a number of aspects of the issues at hand including social media in business practices, workplace rewards based on culture, workplace mobility based on culture, appropriateness and usefulness of social media in marketing and hr. To me, three points especially stood out as new and interesting information (though it was all good!)
1. The majority of the world's market are being ignored. The "developed" world is a minority of people on this planet. And yet, they are the majority of the ones that are truly being marketed to. A lot of under-developed countries have been written off by all kinds of businesses as "too poor" to sell to. However, if companies would simply lower their profit margins on individual sales the mass of consumers they would gain in these countries would be huge. Poor people may not have a lot of money, but they are certainly still consumers! Cell phone companies were given as an example of a company that understood this. Everyone in Jordan has a cell phone. My Sudanese refugee students all have cell phones. People in Jordan don't have a lot, but they are not dragging through the streets. They can still buy things, and they do buy cell phones, which is possible because they are much much cheaper here than in the states. Entrepreneurs in these countries have a comparative advantage in that they know that their fellow citizens can still spend money. The thing I thought about most during this part of the talk was infectious disease. Where is this idea more true? Pharmaceutical companies have made drugs so expensive they can only be sold in the west, but where is the majority of populations with HIV/AIDS, TB, etc. Certainly not in the west. If these companies would cut profit margins they could do good and make money so why not? Because they have no idea what it is like in "developing countries," they don't understand that people still buy things. duh.
2. People will do things for free. I know this one sounds nuts, but these lecturers made a good point. If someone told you, I'm going to start a website to give people information, and I want everyone to use my website for everything, and I will just get people to post things about stuff that they know. And then some people will monitor the stuff and make sure it's true. And I will not pay them, they will just do it because they are interested. Do you think, that's crazy? That's wikipedia! and Yahoo answers, and a million other ways of getting information online. The lecturer made the point that very few people actually work just for money. He asked a woman in the audience "why do you work?" and her response, of course was, "to get paid." Then he asked her, "where do you work?" and she said, "PR because she liked to talk with people and meet new, interesting professionals." So this was the reason she worked. Because it was interesting to her, because she was motivated by her profession. The point here was not that every job has to be interesting to the worker, but people must have some motivation to do their job outside of money, whether it be from good management, or interest, or a sense of accomplishment. If you can sell something as interesting to a person, you can get them to work without a physical exchange of capital. I like taking the money out of business- it makes the whole thing much more appealing to me.
3. If you want to know what someone wants, just ask! This one I learned a long time ago at Sierra Service Project, but I thought it was funny for business people to be saying it like it was this brand new idea. In a different context, it does sound sort of revolutionary. The idea was presented as, wow, if you ask consumers, they will tell you what they want! If you want to know a culture, just ask the people of that culture! no shit. (pardon my French) Service lesson 101 says that the first step of service is to ask. If you go into anywhere saying, "I know what you need" whether you are trying to donate or sell your services you are going to get a nice kick on the way out of your very unsuccessful attempt to get anything done.
So that was the workshop. Good times.
To follow, a few notes about blogging: I have no idea who reads this, which is fine, but if anyone ever reads anything you want to comment on, please do! If you don't or can't post your comments because you don't have an account, I would love e-mails at jencompton@gmail.com. It doesnt have to be about anything I write about but I would like to be more in contact with people from the motherland (and anywhere).
Also, after re-reading some of my blog posts I learned I need to be a more careful proof reader. I apologize for my lack of attention to these details and hope it doesn't bother any of my avid readers. In other words, Mom, sorry I'm a dummy and don't proof my blog.
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