Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication

The Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC) is held in Oregon each summer for three weeks. This year it will be held July 11-27 at Reed College in Portland. Sessions range from a couple of hours in the evening, to one day, three days, and five days. People come from all around the world to study with many of the leaders in the intercultural field.

What does this have to do with visuals in communication?

SIIC has played a huge role in the development of VisualsSpeak. First as a test bed while we were testing the tool, it was a gathering of people from around the world in one place. Second, attending the workshops has advanced my understanding of cross-cultural effectiveness.

Interculturalists live in the world of bridging communication differences. Understanding how meaning is created through a variety of value lenses is key to helping others navigate cultural perspectives. Starting conversations through images makes many of those values evident, and assembling images begins to show some of the relationships between them.

How does this work? It starts with the way the question is asked. A simple question in the US, who are you? can be threatening to someone from a culture where answering that question may have put their well being as risk. Often a question is anchored in the assumptions of the person asking it. I was never so aware of this as I have become from working at SIIC with people who have been willing to challenge my thinking. Intention does not equal the desired impact when working across differences. I have learned to ask a wider variety of people about the questions I want to ask, and to offer a range of options so participants can find what is comfortable for them.

Participants gather images in response to a question and assemble them. Each story is unique. People talk about what is important to them. The visual nature of the process allows people to also express relationships between parts. Not only is the possibility present for the individual to gain insight, but others get to see a bigger “picture” of the person.

I will be presenting in a number of sessions at SIIC in the next few weeks, and will make an effort to write more about it as time allows. There are also free evening sessions, so as the schedule is released I will let you know so that if you happen to be in the Portland, Oregon area you can avail yourself of some great programs. I will be presenting one on Monday July 23. More to come.