What’s that you say? You haven’t heard of the Global Readiness Forum? Don’t worry. Neither had we, which is why we had no choice but to create it! But who are we, and what exactly is it that we do, you ask? Simply put, the Global Readiness Forum is a group of global business leaders and language industry veterans who study current events and trends at the intersection of language, culture, ethnicity, geopolitics and global business — you know, the types of things that led many of us to be curious about the world and language in the first place, but which, too often, go unnoticed in our traditional day-to-day work.
Can’t make it? Don’t currently qualify? Tune in to our sister podcast, The Venn Diagram, hosted by Michael Reid, and be sure to check out this week’s curated topics below!
September 24, 2021
Why does Hispanic Heritage Month start in the middle of September and why is called Hispanic Heritage and not Latino or Latinx Heritage Month? We’ll find out this week in our Globalization Group discussion. Then we’ll look at a what some corporations such as Mattel (Barbie, once again!) and Google are doing in honor of the celebration and salsa with the infamous Dancing Taco of Broward County. Why we’re on the subject, check out this video overview and then head over to Pew Research for some key facts about U.S. Latinos for National Hispanic Heritage Month.
In the news, we’ll deep dive into a submarine deal gone awry between Australia and France over cultural clashes, setting our periscopes on how cultural differences pose challenges to our international business dealings. Revisiting some past topics, we’ll see N.J. say that’s not vanilla to Ben & Jerry’s boycott of the occupied territories and withdraw all investments from the parent company Unilever, then we’ll check back into the Chinese crackdown on tutoring with concerns around how it affects English-language learning. Continuing on the topic of education, we’ll discuss an article about how language classes are moving past the gender binary. In this article you might notice the use of the gender-neutral honorific Mx. I hadn’t seen that before. Had you? Finally, we’ll wrap up with news that Apple Pay arrives in Chile as it continues its South American expansion, segueing into a brief discussion of challenges of determining what pay methods to accept in all your global markets.
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My interest is piqued! How do I get in on the action? We’re currently accepting applications to join our client-side discussion group, reserved for senior-level professionals working in client-side roles in global operations, which meets at 9 am Pacific Time every other Friday.
