We still live in a world hindered by the consequences of that biblical Tower of Babel where language is a great barrier. But of course, we rebel against such tyrannies creating ways to find and reach each other through translation (or awkward hand gesturing). I found this wonderful video from TED which brings together online volunteers from around the globe who translate the talks to their own respective languages, aiding in TED's mission of spreading ideas worth spreading.
I myself volunteer with Global Voices, an international network of bloggers and citizen journalists who report on issues from around the world, by translating English news pieces to Filipino (Tagalog), along with hundreds of volunteers translating in 29 other languages. Online volunteering and translating has eliminated time and geographical constraints (something I write about in more depth in this TalentEgg piece). Getting involved in this way not only spreads the reach of information and ideas to as many nooks and crannies of the world as possible, but it also gives voice to those who aren't as often heard from in the mainstream media.
So why do I translate? Like many of my fellow volunteer translators, I do so because I'm a big believer of open and shared knowledge. Information and ideas should have no borders, physical or linguistic. And it's not just a selfless act of generosity for me. Translating, especially on a platform like Global Voices, is actually a selfish and active act of taking myself outside of my filter bubble or echo chamber and exposing myself to new ideas and softer, unpopular voices. And it keeps me sharp, giving me an opportunity to practice my mother tongue even when most of my daily communications take place in English.
Global Voices Summit 2010 -- Santiago, Chile (Photo from GV).
It's truly a wonderful endeavour and I recommend all you bilingual, trilingual, or multilingual(!) folks to contribute even just a couple hours of your time a week or a month to translate. I leave you with a beautiful quote from anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis...
A language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. Language is the flash of the human spirit. It's a vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world. -- Wade Davis
Last week I sat down with The Chimera Project, a unique and edgy contemporary dance company in Toronto, for a social media workshop. You'd think social media and contemporary dance would be worlds apart but the truth is that the two actually complement one another wonderfully. Social media is all about building and cultivating a community and it just so happens that contemporary dance (and dance in general) already has such an organic and vibrant community around it. This comes as no suprise because really, is there anything that brings people together more than the arts?
Below are the slides from the social media workshop with some tips on how dance companies can form a social media strategy and engage their followers. What's important to remember is that social media provides an amazing opportunity for dance companies to tell their story beyond the stage and to continue celebrating the beauty of physical movement with an audience that is truly passionate about their work.
Last Friday, I had the opportunity to go back to my alma mater, the University of Toronto, and speak on the panel for their first Communications Summit. The event brought together senior staff responsible for communicating with students, particularly those in their first year at the university. It was an effort to break down the silos between the many different departments and collaboratively create a strategic communications roadmap for the upcoming year. The summit was largely a response to a report released by the Council on Student Experience in July 2010, which found that many students didn't really feel a strong sense of support or community on campus (and as a recent grad, let me tell you...I can attest to that).
I was asked to speak about my work and research with Barry Wellman and Lee Rainie on networked creation and how it relates to the university as well as my own experience as a former student. And as someone working in marketing and communications, it was fascinating to get a behind-the-scenes look at how this all works in the university setting. I'm used to working with smaller, more collaborative and agile businesses and oganizations and it was really interesting to see how bigger, more bureaucratic institutions are dealing with and adapting to (or not) the changing networked media landscape.
Summit panelists: Theo, Coey, Chirag, and moiOne of the things that really resonated with me on that day was what keynote speaker and marketer, Max Valiquette, noted and that is that universities need to start thinking of themselves as brands. And that means more than just providing a "product"--in this case a public good: education--but also an experience...both online and offline. Many of the most successful businesses provide an experience for its customers (just think Starbucks) and there's no reason that universities should think of themselves as fundamentally different from such companies. The university is a profit-making institution with a very clear "customer". And if anything, universities actually have a leg up over other businesses in that they have direct and complete access to all of their customers. Failing to communicate your message effectively when you have not just all the personal and contact information of your audience (phone, email, schedule, address, birthday...like, actually everything), but also an audience that is actually interested in what you have to say? Well, that's almost unforgiveable.
Throughout the day, there were so many questions as to which communication platform was the best to reach out to the student population. Was it Facebook? Twitter? Email? And if it was email, did students prefer long messages that outlined everything or shorter notes with links for more information? Valiquette said something akin to email being dead and irrelevant, but some students in attendance indicated otherwise saying that they actually preferred email as their primary mode of communication. Conflicting answers that didn't really give the staff much to work with.
The problem here is that many of the staff members at U of T are approaching this with assumptions about students and the way they receive their information. But after talking to many of them, I discovered that none of those assumptions were actually being tested and confirmed. No one was looking at the data. Instead of running blindly with these assumptions, why not test them and learn with empirical data whether or not those assumptions are actually true? For instance, what are the open rates and click through rates of their emails? Which platforms were the largest referrers to their site? Looking at this concrete, empirical evidence would give better answers to their questions of which communication platforms are the most effective. Imagine all the time, money, and effort that could be saved if time was spent looking at this data and iterating properly.
The Communications "Roadmap". Photo by @tkenderdine
It's a huge undertaking but there are universities (Harvard, for instance) that are really keeping up with the times and communicating in ways that truly resonates with its students. The student population is one of the most natural communities out there and it's a very social demographic that is eager to participate in this networked world. I know it's easier said than done but U of T needs to start thinking more like a startup and experiment, test and retest, and iterate quickly (rinse and repeat!). They need to hack their own institution and disrupt their traditional and bureaucratic structure and create a space for innovation and collaboration. Failing to do so may mean the risk of becoming those archaic, irrelevant ivory towers that universities are so often accused of. And as a proud alumni, I sure hope that won't be the case!
So here's one of the things that really stuck out within just the first few days of my arrival here in the Philippines. People are obsessed with having white skin.
On my first day here, I went to the local grocery store to buy myself some of the native chicheria (snacks) that I've so badly missed. I found myself walking along the beauty aisle and almost everything there had labels that said things like "skin whitener" or "make your skin lighter!". Later on that day, I was playing with my baby nephew who told me I should be white and not brown. I was a bit taken aback by this. Back in Canada, I prided myself on having darker skin because for me, it made my Filipino heritage more prominent and that's something I've always been proud of. But here, to be white is to be beautiful. All the major celebrities here seem to be competing against each other as to who can have fairer skin. Every major billboard and every T.V. commercial features a woman with ridiculously white skin, it's almost blinding.
Meanwhile, in North America, there's this obsession with tanning and being darker than you actually are. Come summer time, every one is out on the beach or at the park "working on their tan". We've got tanning beds, tanning spray, lotion that'll give you that "tanned glow". People long to go somewhere warm during the cold winter months to give themselves some "color". It's the total opposite. Tanned skin is what we long for on that side of the world...
And so I'm left here wondering...why do we exoticize "the Other" so much and where in the world did we pick up these conceptions of beauty?
Global Voices Summit 2010 -- Santiago, Chile (Photo from GV).
