Students pursuing an information systems degree may on the surface look not much different than their computer science major peers, but information systems takes IT principles and applies them strategically to business needs like data management and cybersecurity. Here are some things you will learn while earning an information systems degree.

Having business intelligence is an advantage for those pursuing technology position in businesses. 

1. How business principles intersect with technology.

Instead of learning about technology in a vacuum like many computer science degrees teach, you will learn business principles along with computer science skills in order to be able to use technology strategically within a business or organization. Instead of being told what to do with technology and just doing it, an information systems graduate will have the leadership skills to shape and guide a business while implementing technologies that will benefit it.

2. How to apply computer science principles to real-world business situations.

Computer science tends to be theoretical in nature, but it isn’t much good unless it is applied to a company or organization. Information systems students take business courses along with computer science courses, so they know how their theoretical knowledge can benefit an organization and how they can help businesses meet their goals with technology solutions.

3. How to really work with people.

While computer science careers often require working with a team to create or fix computer systems, information systems careers are built on understanding the human dynamics of business and being able to use technology in ways that will work for real people within an organization. While a computer science major may be able to serve on an IT team to develop and implement technologies, an information systems graduate is more likely to be the project manager that leads the team and implements business strategies.

Understanding how technology powers businesses and being part of that process is the job of an information systems major. 

4. How to run a business.

Information systems graduates will have taken courses in accounting, management, and business finance in addition to their technology courses, giving them the skills they need to run a business for themselves or take on a leadership position in a new or existing business. Having this in-depth business knowledge will be valuable to companies seeking to integrate technology with their newly formed or existing business goals.

5. How to see the bigger picture.

It is always valuable for anyone involved in a business to understand how business works, particularly someone who will be creating or working with the systems that business uses to run its operations. Seeing the bigger picture will help you make decisions about how to configure systems for maximum effectiveness so that they work within the framework of the business—and even position it for future growth and development.

Florida Tech’s information systems degree is taught by faculty with connections to several local businesses who can serve as mentors for students. A technology lab within the college of business is capable of running a medium-sized company. Internships and other real-world opportunities get students thinking about both technology and business principles in new ways. Learn about our information systems degree program today!

How does it feel to be the first graduate of the M.S. in Accounting Program?

It feels good. I’m glad I can be a part of something new at FIT. Plus, I’m really happy the program opened because this is the field I would like to work in.

Was there any kind of specific inspiration to pursue a master’s degree? Why at Florida Tech?

I have several. First, I am the first sibling of six to graduate college and pursue a masters and I hope that my hard work carries forward and encourages my other brothers and sister to finish college and continue their education. Second, FIT offered a Fast Track program that allowed me to complete the program sooner and I couldn’t say no to that opportunity to be able to get a masters in half the time. Lastly, I plan on taking the CPA (certified public accounting) exam which requires a masters degree to meet the minimum education requirements to receive the certification.

What connection do you have to FIT through your family?

My grandfather taught some sciences and engineering courses back when the university was just starting. He recommended me to apply to FIT back when I was still a senior in high school. I never knew I would actually follow through and graduate from here. Graduating is a crazy feeling.

What is something someone would be surprised to know about you?

I know a lot about cars. Cars are something I was introduced to back in 2005 when I went to my first car show. Since then, I have admired everything about cars. I also don’t like plastic and in the last year I have been focusing on minimizing the way I receive/utilize plastic.

What advice would you give someone interested in earning an MS at FIT.

First, if you are interested in earning an MS and are a current student at FIT, consider the fast track program so you can graduate and pursue your career sooner. Second, study hard and don’t forget what you learned from your undergrad experience.  Even if you lack the work experience your bachelors should help create a platform for your MS.

A C-suite (executive) position may be within reach for those who get a master’s in management degree.

The surprising benefits to continuing your education with a master’s in management

Many people work as managers across almost every business and industry. But managers often don’t have the training they really need to help an organization succeed. There are several reasons why pursuing a master’s in management degree makes sense and many advantages to having this degree.

A Path to Executive Leadership

Sure, you might not need a master’s degree in management to be a mid-level manager. If you want to rise higher in the ranks, however, you need the newest and best information and skills.

In order to become part of a company’s executive leadership team, you will need skills like strategic planning, financial management, negotiating contracts, and analyzing goals and profitability. Without top notch skills, you will not be considered for top-level positions.

A Broader Perspective

A master’s in management degree brings an international, multicultural perspective to management skills, giving students a broader perspective on issues of management and the skills that are needed to manage international companies and global brands.

You may even get to visit another country while studying for your degree or have the opportunity to learn another language. This could help you land an international position at a major company where you will use those skills and many others to manage assets all over the world.

If you want to become a senior manager who can help your company run more smoothly, a master’s in management degree will help you get there.

Using Technology to Achieve Goals

Pursuing an advanced management degree gives students access to cutting-edge technologies that facilitate management. While it is possible to discover some of these technological tools in the process of working in management, the educational environment provides an incubator for a large number of ideas and tools that can lead to innovation and new ways of operating.

Florida Tech’s Master’s in Management degree program couples experienced faculty with real-world experiences to prepare students for executive positions in diverse industries. The program is set up for students to attend classes part-time or through the virtual site, so they can continue working while they pursue their degree.

Learn more about our Master’s in Management program and the flexible options offered by Florida Tech to suit your needs and lifestyle.

Assist organizations in their contract and acquisition needs with a master’s in acquisition and contract management.

Contract management is the process by which organizations procure materials and services they need to operate.

There is no direct experience necessary for students to pursue a master’s degree in this area, although a business background is helpful and may cut down on the prerequisite courses students need to take.

Here are some of the most valuable skills you will learn as you learn with a master’s in acquisition and contract management.

1. How to set policies for acquisition and contract management

Organizations have distinct and often different policies in this area that must be carefully constructed so that everything works the way it should.

2. How to procure materials and services a company needs

The best possible prices for the best quality products and services will help maximize profits for the company or contain an organization’s costs and have a direct impact on the quality of the products and services it can produce.

3. How to comply with government regulations

Many acquisition and contract management jobs are government-affiliated, so coursework will cover federal practices and regulations that impact the field to enable degree holders to be eligible for government positions upon graduation.

4. How to handle legal and financial aspects of contract management

Contracts must follow all pertinent laws and regulations, including financial regulations, so a degree must cover these and other issues so that students will be prepared for what they will face in these areas.

Working with contracts and acquisition involves teamwork and negotiation.

5. How to terminate a contract appropriately

Sometimes an organization wants or needs to change or terminate a contract for various reasons or has a conflict related to a contract; the courses offered in a master’s in acquisition and contract management degree program will show how to accomplish this without running into problems or further disputes with other organizations.

6. How to negotiate better contract terms and offer incentives

The success of an organization could very well rest on the way contracts are negotiated and whether favorable terms are achieved. Negotiation skills are important and must be learned as part of this degree program.

7. How to manage projects

Florida Tech’s Master’s in Acquisition and Contract Management includes a capstone project that allows each student to work as part of a team to research and manage a project related to acquisition and contracts to give students practical, hands-on experience.

8. How to make critical decisions

 Acquisitions and contract management is a field that needs leaders who can make important decisions for organizations. Florida Tech prepares students to be leaders in business and government fields that can contribute positively to organizations by helping them win and construct favorable contracts.

Are you interested in learning more? Click here for additional information on FIT’s Master’s in Acquisition and Contract Management program.

What skills do successful entrepreneurs have in common?

Learning to start a business means developing many different skills.

Here are some characteristics of successful entrepreneurs that Florida Tech students can develop as they pursue their entrepreneurship degree.

1. Good money managers.

It takes money to run any business, and having good money management skills is essential to keeping the business running and making it successful. Budgeting, cutting costs, and scaling up when sales increase are all skills that help entrepreneurs be more successful.

2. The ability to sell.

Entrepreneurs are always selling something — their goods and services to consumers and their business to potential investors and employees. No matter what kind of business you start, you will need to be able to sell.

3. Hiring quality employees and managing them well.

Having the right talent to help your business grow and thrive requires skills in hiring and managing people, which include being able to identify people’s skills and develop them throughout the term of employment.

4.  Spotting trends and strategy.

Business is constantly changing, and spotting new trends on which to build strategy can allow entrepreneurs to capitalize on those trends. As with so many things, timing can be everything when it comes to business success.

Becoming an entrepreneur means hiring and managing people.

5. Building a brand reputation.

The reputation of a business — its branding — must be built over time by providing positive customer experiences and marketing effectively.

6. Attracting positive attention.

Getting attention on social media and in the press can make or break your business. There is a great deal that entrepreneurs can do to learn about marketing and develop these skills.

7. Handling stress.

Owning a business is stressful. Things can go wrong, and there are many aspects of any business that must be managed in order to keep going. The stress of entrepreneurship can get to anyone, so learning how to handle stress will help you do all the many things required to run a business successfully without breaking under the strain.

8. Becoming resilient.

Along with handling stress, being able to weather the ups and downs of entrepreneurship with resilience can help business owners press on when things don’t seem to be going well.

9. Focus.

The ability to focus intensely on each step along the way to developing a business is another characteristic successful entrepreneurs need to keep distractions at bay. Entrepreneurs are often described as being “too focused” on their businesses and their goals, but this hyperfocus can be the very thing that makes them successful.

Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur and developing the skills you need to succeed? Florida Tech offers an entrepreneurship track within its business administration degree as well as The Student Business Incubator program to help students start their own businesses. Download the entrepreneurship brochure to learn more about our entrepreneurship degree program.

Stand out from the crowd with a Florida Tech DBA

Pursuing an advanced degree will open doors for a leadership career in business.

1. You will stand out from the pack—of MBAs.

An MBA is a popular degree for business leaders and managers, but a DBA shows that you are willing to go the extra mile to prepare for a leadership position. DBA degrees are expected or required for many of the top positions to which you may aspire, like chief officer positions or, in larger companies, vice president positions directly beneath the c-suite.

A Florida Tech Doctor of Business Administration degree will prepare you to lead in business, government, education, non-profit, and healthcare industries with a thorough understanding of the challenges facing these sectors and the practical skills required to meet those challenges.

2. You will learn the most advanced skills and techniques for managing and leading businesses and organizations.

Employers are more likely to select a DBA graduate than an MBA because of the more advanced skills and knowledge they gain with the doctoral degree. DBA coursework is rigorous and has high expectations for achievement, which employers will appreciate when they hire you for a top position in their organization.

One major difference between DBA degrees and PhDs is that DBAs offer hands-on, practical training rather than just theories and book learning. PhDs often become professors or researchers rather than applying their knowledge by working for businesses directly.

A DBA will be instrumental in getting a leadership position with a business or organization.

 3. You will command a higher salary.

Employers know that advanced degrees come with higher salary requirements because of the increased value degree-holders bring to the organization. Six figure salaries are the norm in larger companies, and even smaller companies will pay more to a DBA degree holder than they would to someone with a lower degree.

4. You will challenge yourself to continue to grow.

Continual growth is necessary to business success, and a DBA degree is an excellent way to fuel that growth. Your professors and fellow students form a collaborative community, and the cohort program at Florida Tech will help you make the best use of these resources in your learning.

5. With a Doctor of Business Administration, you will open multiple career paths.

A Florida Tech DBA degree offers a breadth of knowledge and experience that few if any schools can claim. If you want to pursue academia or research rather than hands-on application of your skills in a business or organizational setting, you will be well-prepared for those career paths at Florida Tech.

Some of the best professors and researchers can incorporate the practical, hands-on skills needed in complex business environments into their instruction or research methodology with superior educational results, and a DBA degree from Florida Tech will help to achieve these outcomes. Learn more about our DBA program today.

The X-Culture project allows business students an opportunity to experience the challenges of working on a global virtual team (GVT). Each GVT consists of six students and each student is from a different country and university. Over a two month period, the GVT must develop a market entry plan for a multinational company. During the project, the students must overcome communication, time zone, cultural, time management, coordination, “missing” team member, and other issues to successful complete the project.

The Chevy ruled at Panther Plaza when the Nathan M. Bisk College of Business marketing class team set out to fulfill a class assignment to promote Chevy vehicles in the Chevrolet Campus Marketing Challenge Promotions Program. The team, which calls itself “Panther Promotions,” took real-world marketing outdoors for “Fun in the Sun,” an afternoon of learning and games to affect opinions about the Chevrolet brand. The team invited as many Florida Tech students as they could to the event. The marketing challenge was to have students fill out Chevy opinion surveys “before” and “after” they learned about the cool new cars parked at the plaza—the Equinox, Camaro and new Cruze. The “Stuff the Trunk” game illustrated storage capacity for the Equinox and Camaro by making guests guess how many bags fit in the trunk. That trunk is so big, you could fit Grandma in it. The team didn’t have to try very hard to get attention for the Camaro. The Camaro has been a hot car since it was introduced in 1967. Playing games and winning prizes was a nice break from classes for the students who came to see what was happening. And, it was smart of the team to bring plenty of snacks and drinks. No surprise; they disappeared fast. What a way to master a subject!

 

Business students are turning increasingly to Doctor of Business (DBA) degrees to prepare themselves to manage today’s complex business environments. Professionals with at least 5 years of management experience who want to become leaders in not just business but also government, education, and non-profit industries can learn the advanced skills they need for these roles.

Dual Focus: Research and Executive Leadership Experience

While Ph.D. degrees have some similar coursework to DBA degrees, DBAs tend to involve both research and application, with students working to apply theory to solve today’s business problems. Most DBA degrees have both research and practical components so that students have multiple options after completing the degree. Some DBA students work toward completing their degrees while employed as executives, while others work at the degree full-time.

To earn an DBA degree, students complete a dissertation, an original work of some length which may involve independent research or a compilation of existing research. Potential career paths for DBA graduates include senior managerial consultants, CEOs, operations managers, business training professionals and college professors.

Many companies expect their executives to have doctoral level training.

Specialty Areas for DBA Degrees

Students pursuing DBA degrees can specialize in any of the following areas:

Management science. Covering the best practices and most effective methods for managing employees, this specialty helps executives both implement and advise all levels of management on improving and developing the most effective methods of management possible.

Technology management. IT and other technologies are increasingly essential to the management of many businesses. The way in which technology is managed has a direct impact on the business as a whole, and executives need to both understand and deal with these realities.

Organizational behavior. Executives who manage people need a thorough understanding of the principles of organization that often govern their behaviors. Being able to influence these behaviors can help businesses optimize their overall functioning.

Economics and finance. Economic realities can empower or limit businesses, so knowledge of economics is an important executive skill, particularly for CFOs and others involved with financial management functions.

Business ethics and accountability practices. Larger companies will need executives who are able to ensure that the business follows ethics rules and incorporates accountability practices into its management.

While DBA programs give students a basic foundation in each of these areas as well as others, specialty areas can allow graduates to obtain an advanced position within their particular area of focus and expertise.

Florida Institute of Technology offers DBA programs with small class sizes and individualized learning options to instill leadership skills that will be needed by today’s companies. FIT DBAs have been hired by NASA, Lockheed Martin and Siemens Energy, among others. DBA graduates go on to positions like senior managerial consultants, CEOs, managers of operations, training professionals and college professors. Learn more about Florida Tech’s DBA degree and whether it’s what your career needs.

Students Thomas Haynie, far left, and Margo McClintic, far right, are joined by Canteen’s Chris Barnum as the ribbon is cut on the new Avenue C micro-market at the College of Business.

While simulating the launch of a new business venture is the requirement, some students go a step further. College of Business students Margo McClintic and Thomas Haynie took that extra step and now have left a lasting mark on the halls of Babcock Oaks.

“We went around campus and asked people if they could solve a problem on campus, what would it be? The answer was to have food available at the College of Business, which is half a mile off campus. After weeks of market research, we found the perfect option was Avenue C by Canteen. Canteen is our food vending service provider on campus, so it wasn’t a problem to add Avenue C on the contract.”

Avenue C by Canteen is a self-service micro-market that offers a wide variety of different products like coffee, fruit and even a refrigerated case with items like burgers and salads. The location in the College of Business is one of 8 in Brevard County.

“Our biggest challenge was meeting the needs of everyone. Many students wanted Starbucks, but a year or so ago Starbucks ended their licensing program. Fortunately, our campus dining services and Canteen had a grandfathered license so we were able to offer a Starbucks coffee bar. The next challenge we tackled was to find a way to use our Panther ID Card to purchase items from Avenue C. Thankfully paperwork to solve that problem should be finalized soon.”

Borderless Collaboration

The SBI has helped launch 20 business in 3 years

The colleges and schools that make up Florida Institute of Technology are home to students studying unique disciplines learning new ideas and innovative concepts. You’ve probably heard the phrase “think outside of the box” more than a few times, at Florida Tech’s Student Business Incubator students are encouraged to think outside of their college. Engineering students with an idea and process-driven business students come together at the Student Business Incubator to form well-rounded teams to pursue their ideas.

Not an engineering or business student? That’s OK the only requirements to take advantage of all the SBI has to offer are a passion for innovation and entrepreneurship. Scott Benjamin, Ph.D., and other experts help advise to advise and guide all sorts of young businesses and share their experiences in enterprising.

Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset

The SBI provides 2,400 sq. ft. of shared office, meeting and work-space

While helping launch budding businesses is a big part of what the Student Business Incubator does, there’s a little more to it. The SBI encourages the study of entrepreneurship regardless of whether or not you have any interest in starting a business. Ultimately, it is all about problem solving. Whether you’re trying to launch a business or overcome an engineering challenge, the underlying problem solving process may not be so different. Studying entrepreneurship at the SBI lends some valuable perspective to the curious student and can really change the way you look at life’s varied challenges.

Entrepreneurship at a Tech School

One Florida Tech graduate, Andrew Hernandez, was drawn to the SBI by a desire to pursue his business ideas and a curiosity for how to launch them. As an engineer, he needed an introduction to entrepreneurship. Working with the SBI, Andrew learned what it takes to launch a business and how to apply process modeling and problem solving skills from engineering to processes in the business world.

The mentors at the SBI have over 50 years combined entrepreneurial experience

“Studying entrepreneurship is beneficial to anyone. I think that benefit can be enhanced and complemented by the study of STEM fields. It is actually a desirable combination given the mix of technical expertise and business acumen. You break down a wall that can be very limiting and broaden yourself across the spectrum of what many organizations do. Many of the greatest minds and business leaders are both deeply involved in the development of their products and the growth and development of their businesses.”

Learn more about the Student Business Incubator

In her article written for the Florida Tech Crimson Lindsay Isaac talks to the students who created Stoopidnotes and learns how it came to be and how it could shake things up on the Florida Tech campus. The platform allows students to share a wide variety of useful information previously only found in the classroom like practice tests and problems, study guides and of course notes.

“The website, created for students by students, launched at the end of October and already has over 200 users.

Students who register for Stoopidnotes are able to search for notes by professor’s name, course name or the name of the student who uploaded the notes. The website rewards Top Note Takers, also referred to as TNTs, through a point system. Users have the ability to like files posted on Stoopidnotes. When a student’s file is upvoted or when a student uploads notes, that student receives points.

‘The idea for Stoopidnotes began as an assignment for Business Plan Research class,’ said founder of Stoopidnotes Kevin Jackman, a senior majoring in business administration and marketing.”

If you missed a class, aren’t a strong note-taker or just want to make sure you didn’t miss anything before a big test, you can jump on Stoopidnotes and compare your notebook to your classmates’. This platform provides a powerful resource not just for student athletes but any student who wants to get the most out of their time in the classroom.

The company is named Nereus. You can find out more at nereus-aq.com.

My experience with the X-Culture project definitely has a positive note. There were some glitches along the way, but my team made sure to make them work. At first I was very nervous to meet my team. I get very nervous meeting people for the first time, and I had some reservations with using Skype or talking on the phone with other students. Especially because there is a problem with trying to understand different accents and other such things. However, I was very thankful that Facebook was the preferred means of communication. Our group started out strong with all six members sending out the welcome email. All looked very welcoming. However, one week in one of our members was dropped. By the second week, another group member stopped responding. By the end of the project there were only three of us fully working on the project together. One would think that this would make us three very frustrated, but we treated this very professionally. We did not bad mouth anyone and we got the work done together. We separated the work equally between the three of us and we turned in a finished product.

From this experience I learned that virtual teams are not as hard as others make it out to be. Personally, I enjoyed this experience very much. Though it is a nerve-wracking exercise it did seem rewarding in the end. I also learned that there are different motivations in different cultures. It seemed to me that Mexico had some very motivated students whom were dedicated to their school work, where other countries did not. It made me wonder what the education looks like in these cultures. Is it strict like the United States? Or is there more emphasis on other career opportunities, or starting families?

If I were to do this project again, I would only change to make the teams more global. My team had three US students, and though we were in different time zones, I would like to be challenged with the language barrier. Other than that, I believe the work is fair and the report is the perfect length and right amount of work.

To improve future projects I would suggest having a grad student in each group. This observer can then report (truthfully) back to the directors to see who is and is not participating. I would also recommend more global teams. If the groups need to be smaller for this to happen then I do not think it is a bad idea to consider. My group had three core members and we were able to get the work done, so I believe it would be possible for other students too. There is the problem of students dropping out, so essentially I believe every team should start with 4-5 members, from all different areas, to really gain the full experience.

At this point in the project it has become very clear to me that I am very lucky to have the group that I have been placed with. Though the group has gone from six members to now 4, we all get along very well. It is also nice because we are split up into only two time zones, therefore communication is very easy. We divided all of the work by the research that we did for each milestone. Our draft report is almost final and everything has moved along very smoothly. Coming into this project I anticipated a lot of issues to arise, however none of that has happened with my group. We are very cohesive and it is working out great! To me this is very good news because it gives me hope that I am heading in the correct direction with my major. Though this is a small scale version of what I hope to be doing in the future, it does make me excited that I am able to work with other cultures. This has been a very enjoyable experience for me!

Four FIT students were honored on April 10, 2014 at the Financial Executives International Academic Night. Three students, Ernestas Zarskis, Gwendolyn Kauffmann, and Vernon Mugabe Kihuguru won scholarships and Brian Kryszczynski won an award for the FEI Distinguished Scholar Program. Students that attended the Financial Executives International Academic Night enjoyed an excellent opportunity to network with Central Florida executives and discuss important issues in the fields of finance and accounting. The keynote speaker of the evening was Craig McAllaster, the Dean of the School of Business at Rollins. His talk emphasized that different generations have different approaches to their work lives and managers must understand this in order to be effective.

Ernestas Zarskis is an accounting major and is on Men’s Rowing Varsity Team. He was a Florida Tech Athletic Director’s Honor Roll Recipient in both Spring 2012 and Spring 2013. He was also honored as a National Consortium for Academics and Sports Honor Roll Recipient both Spring 2012 and Spring 2013. He is multilingual being fluent in Lithuanian and English, proficient in Russian and conversational in Polish. In addition to course work and athletics, Ernestas has shown his leadership role as a Facility Supervisor at the Florida Institute of Technology Clemente Center.

Gwendolyn Kauffmann will receive her Bachelor of Science in Accounting this May. She plans to continue on the Fast Track MBA program with an emphasis in accounting. She is on the FIT Women’s Tennis Team and has taught free tennis clinics to Brevard area students. Gwen is a member of the Delta Mu Delta Honor Society, the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, and received the Outstanding Junior of the Year Award in 2013. In addition to working at the FIT Clemente Center, she is currently an intern at Berman Hopkins Wright and LaHam as an associate staff accountant.

Vernon Kihuguru is a junior majoring in International Business with a minor in Computational Mathematics. Vernon plans on a career in investment banking. His interest was sparked the summer of 2012, when he was the Investment Banking Intern at the Stanbic Bank in Uganda. He has served as the Treasurer of the Florida Institute of Technology African Students Association. Vernon is a tutor in the FIT Academic Support Center and he has been on Dean’s list every semester since 2011.

Brian Kryszczynski, the medallion winner, will be receiving his M.B.A this spring and he was also a FIT undergrad with a major in Mechanical Engineering. He has been working at Quantum Technology Sciences, Inc. in Cocoa Beach, Florida since 2009. Brian’s objective is to use a combination of his technical expertise and management experience in order to expand his role into business and strategic management. He is a member of Delta Mu Delta Honor Society and was runner-up in the ANGA Collegiate Energy Challenge in 2012. He has been a Board Member and on the Executive Council of Pi Kappa Alpha.

This third and final blog concludes the X-Culture project I have been working on with my teammates from across the world over the course of this semester, as a part of Dr. Muth’s brilliant & stimulating International Business class. My teammates and I cut it close to the deadline when handing in our Final Report, but thankfully each team member completed his or her section to a good standard with the exception of one idle teammate. The project had been an interesting experience in terms of organizing and communicating with people living in differing time zones and cultures, the use of a Facebook team page aided us with this issue as every team member seemed to be a avid Facebook user. In conclusion, it was a good experience and definitely something worth putting time and effort into in order to experience working with people from different backgrounds, cultures & languages.

I was assigned to group 10 and my teammates varied from India, Thailand, Mexico, and two students from the United States; one from Florida International University and the other from Eastern Washington University. At first I remember thinking that the project will be easy! I was excited to start the project because I love getting to know people and testing my abilities especially when it comes to meeting deadlines and being understanding of people from different backgrounds. I met my teammates and got to know more about them, and realized that even though we come from different places we still had some similarities when it came to likes, favorite TV shows, and hobbies. We were assigned a mentor from Eastern Washington University, and her goal for the project was to make sure we were on track, she was not allowed to participate in the project in terms of researching our group work or taking part in writing our final report. She was effective and advised when she was supposed to.

At first the project was going okay especially when it came to getting to know each other, and just bringing in ideas about the project; what our products would be and the location. Everyone participated accordingly and gave inputs plus we had our mentor check up on us and ensure that we were on the right path. Somewhere during the project, as things became more serious and we had to research on our location and know more about Cambodia, the group was not as active as it should have been. I believe the reason for this was that our group members became busy with other things and therefore did not have as much time for the product as they did before. At some point, one of our group members, who was from Thailand, became inactive; he stopped discussing with us and contributing. We emailed him asking what the problem was and why he stopped participating, he emailed back after three days stating that he was very busy and was actually on a study abroad. To be honest, we were all upset about this because it was unfair to all of us and that meant we had to add extra work to every other persons work since that meant he’ll be unavailable most of the time. At the end of the day, we found a way to make it work. We divided the sections of the report and all went to research on it. I ensured that our work was submitted on time and everyone had their parts done.

If I was given the opportunity of doing this research again I will not mind doing it with my group members again, they were all very helpful and even though most of us were busy with school work we still found a way to dedicate time to the project. I also loved the fact that most of us were internationals and/or had international experience that we did not mind sharing.  The only thing I will change concerning this project will be to ensure that all the professors from the different schools weighed the project equally that way each student feels the same amount of pressure and I believe will dedicate the same amount of time needed for the project.

Now that X-Culture is over I’m left with a sense of relief that I no longer have to fit in another commitment into my busy life.  My sentiments are bitter sweet now that my time with the X-Culture project has come to an end.    At this point I cannot really put a finger on whether or not X-Culture was a positive or negative experience, instead my impression remains indifferent.  Surely I learned a lot about having to deal with an international team and the challenges that one is faced when collaborating and working internationally but, the question is, are my experiences from the X-Culture project applicable to the business world?  While there are certainly some similarities between the X-Culture project and the business world, X-Culture fundamentally lacks some of the biggest factors that drive business: income and accountability.  In short, it is very difficult to encourage a group of people, regardless of their backgrounds, to work towards a common goal without incentives that their livelihoods depend on.  Overall, I had the sense that X-Culture was just another check the box activity for many group members and their level of participation and quality of work seemed to mirror this.  If I were asked whether or not I would participate in X-Culture again I would have to pass.  I believe I would have gotten a better and well rounded experience drafting an international business plan and entry strategy had I done a project by myself, instead of me completing just two sections in a poorly orchestrated group collaboration.

The X-Culture project is over, and I feel that I have learned from this experience. My team started the project very well. We communicated several times a week to go over our project and learn about each other. Over the duration of the assignment, people started to stop communicating to the group.

The girl from India was originally one of the most active people. Then she sent us an email saying that she would be going to Malaysia for a while and that we may not hear from her. Our group did not hear from her for about three weeks until the day the report was due, and we had already turned it in. I wrote her part for her.

The girl from Thailand also stopped communicating for a while before the project. I am thankful that she was at least able to complete her part of the report, even though I had to fix a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes. The gentleman from Mexico started off as our unofficial leader. He would message us every day and send us the information that we needed. When we started writing the report, he wrote his part in Spanish and then used Google Translate to put it into English. When I read through it, I couldn’t understand what he was saying and each paragraph was a long, run on sentence. I had to rewrite his whole part of the report.

The gentleman from Florida International University was originally from the UAE. He showed up about two weeks into the report and disappeared a couple times throughout the process. He wrote his part with terrible English, and I had to rewrite it for him. His part was also supposed to be about 3 pages and he gave us half a page.

The only other person who really worked hard on this assignment and produced good quality work was the girl from Washington. She was active throughout the entire project and did her assigned part effectively. She is the only person that I would want to work with again.

One thing that I felt strongly about during this project is that I do not think that it is fair for the American students. The international students are often unable to write in with grammar. There were several parts of the paper that I was trying to rewrite, and I couldn’t even understand what they were trying to say. I think that this puts an unfair amount of responsibility on the people who know English. I also heard of a lot of plagiarism that took place during the project. There were a couple parts of the paper that would go from terrible English to perfect English and great vocabulary. This made me nervous about plagiarism.

Some suggestions for bettering this project in the future include shortening the duration. Perhaps this would keep students from losing interest and disappearing over time. Like I said before, my group started out pretty well and got worse over time. Another idea would be for the group to come up with the business plan, and then each student to write their own report to turn in to their professor. Overall, I am glad that I did this project, and I feel that it helped me to understand other cultures a bit more.

I am a student of Business Administration; I got a chance to work on X- Culture project in my International Business class. Virtual project that involved people around the world, and in my team, I had seven people from different colleges around the world. However, I was bit nervous in the beginning about this project, but it went well after each passing day.

We worked 3 month together to make best report for Trasluz casual wear, located in Spain, who wanted to expand their business in other country. My team first contact with each other through E- Mail, but then we made Facebook group, where we discussed in a group about our project.

We divided work for each team member according to demand in X- Culture student guide so that only one or two people do not have workload. However, by the end of the project two of my team member did not reply to our messages; therefore, me and other team member from U.K. did their work. Each one in my team was responsible for research and writing of their parts of the report, but we all discuss ideas with each other to get best out of them.

Over all, it was a great experience; I learned how to be a good team leader, and how to assign work that makes other teammate comfortable. I would like to do this kind of project in future.

In the end I really appreciated and enjoyed most of this assignment. This was way more interesting than just splitting the class in groups and then meeting the night before the assignment is due in the library to split duties and then leave to do it on your own, like most classes do. X-Culture was very satisfying when the proposal was completed, I felt as if I actually accomplished something, not just gave my professor a paper to be graded and thrown away. I was a part of an international think-tank that was given the task of writing a proposal for a multinational company. There’s something very satisfying in that.

The X-culture project was a fun an informative project. The project helped me understand other cultures a little better and I hoped it helped them understand mine. My teammates were very cooperative and always willing to communicate whether it be through email or Facebook or Skype. Over the course of the project our ideas were flowing nicely and everyone was putting in new comments and ideas and everyone else was deciding and in the end we all came together and cooperated and succeeded in making a pretty good business proposal.

When we look back on the things we have done we always look for the good things.  This project was a success on multiple fronts.  Our group learned how to effectively communicate over great distances and different time zones.  We worked together in order to let everyone do what they do well.  If we had a good leader our team was mature enough to let them lead and we really benefited from this.

Taking a step back to look at what we accomplished, our group could’ve done much better.  Some of our group had bigger projects going on.  Personally I struggled with playing sports and focusing on the task at hand.  Being on a bus three times a week makes communication especially difficult.

If I were to do all of this again I wouldn’t necessarily change anything other than having more communication with my teammates.  This would’ve sped up the process and they all seemed like people I would like to get to know more.

I remember sitting there in class. Professor Muth had just let the class know that a major portion of our grade was based on a group project. I tried to get a feel for how the class felt about this, and for the most part we were all in agreement.  This project would likely be one that requires more much attention and work than any other project we have completed thus far.

Group projects are already a hassle when you have to deal with schedules and the motivation of your classmates. The added variables such as language barriers, time zone conflicts, and just overall different way of thinking made this project a liable source of anxiety attacks.

The same questions were asked over and over again, but one stood out most. What if we could not get into contact with our teammates? I did not ask the question, because I already knew the answer to it. The year is 2014, and it would be a safe bet to assume that every one of my classmates had a smart phone. Most probably also had access to at least one social media account.

I started to think on how far we have come. A couple of years ago this project could not be completed. No way. I sat there with the realization that talking to people across the world is as easy as talking to someone across campus. I have done numerous group projects were I actually never met the group. We all assigned a part for each other, and we would do it. No actual face to face activity was done. There would be no difference in this project – just farther I.P addresses.

I was right. The “hassle” of communication was absent. I got a response after the first email was sent. I was actually late on emailing my team and when I finally got to send the email. All the responses were very welcoming and reassuring. We all exchanged information about ourselves and set up communication avenues.
Here is where I should have picked up were my group would see issues in the future. Everyone was getting along and we all agreed that the project could be done with no stress if we worked together. However, I felt that this was a project I could easily lead the team through. I could tell personality wise that nobody else on my team had that rare ‘take charge’ attitude. I did not want my teammates to feel that the “American football player “ was imposing his will on the group, and everything has to be what I want. So I held back and let us go forward as a collective group.

Problems began arising when we would get those surveys and goal emails from our professors mid-week. We had not set a leader. With no leader there was no organization. With no organization, when we got to those midweek emails, we had to scramble to figure out what we had to do before Friday. It began to turn into “lets turn this in now, and catch up next week.”

The anxiety was starting to get to me when there was about 4 weeks left and all communication had broken off with my teammates. I could not take it anymore. I went on Facebook and one by one assigned each person a different part of the project. We all agreed on what we wanted to do for our company, but we never got to who was going to do what.

I hoped that my teammates just didn’t quit on the course and leave my English teammate (who I still keep in contact with) and I alone to do everything. My prayers were answered and they all took the orders with no retorts. I had intended to assign myself the hardest parts, but one of my teammates from Mexico volunteered to do them. He was a brilliant kid who really contributed heavily to the project.

When we all sent in our parts for the draft I saw that our project had done a complete 180. All my teammates took their roles and did what I believed was a good job. Then we started to help each other out and that’s when I knew that all the prior difficulties were behind us.

We turned in our project and we all have gone our separate ways. I have only kept into contact with one of my teammates. I have yet to see what my grade on the project was, but a word to those that might take this course: Please make your leader known early. Save yourself and the group its time and hardship of playing catch-up. If you feel you can make a difference in the group, input your opinion.

If the group grade is something that I am not pleased about I will have nobody to be upset with but myself. Nobody participating in this project wants to fail the course. Most of us are actually really close to graduating. All it takes is proper leadership and a good team. I had a real good team. Leadership missed the first bus but eventually got there. Better late than never, right?

With this being my first semester taking business classes I was hoping for a nice easy transition into the field to gain some experience for the future. The x-culture project provided just what I was looking for. The group worked quite well together and our project was completed with few perceptible difficulties.

From what I understand my experience was different from most, since I happen to run the company that the group worked on. However this fact added to our group dynamic and I believe it was one of the reasons for the group performing as well as we did. My knowledge of the company allowed me to take the lead and become the overarching supervisor, while one of my teammates took on the managerial role of distributing work and providing deadlines for the rest of the team. This dynamic allowed our group to complete the project on time and with little difficulty. Overall X-culture was a satisfying endeavor that provided some of the experience I was looking for and I would certainly participate again.

Overall, my experience with X-Culture really was a positive one. Aside from a few issues early on with team members not responding to emails, or dropping out of the project without any warning, everything went pretty smoothly for us. I was lucky to be with a group of very intelligent and dedicated students who all wanted to do a good job and not just skirt by. My assumption at the beginning of the project was that as team leader, I was going to wind up having to do the bulk of the work, but that wound up not being the case, thankfully.

The most important thing that I learned from X-Culture is that being a diplomat can get you a long way, if you have the right group of people. I had been the leader of many successful team projects over the years, but I had never had a group of people who came from all over the world, so I was unsure if my leading style was going to work for the group. At the start of the project, I was concerned that my group would not take my authority seriously, whether it be because they did not care about the class in general, or because perhaps cultural differences would make them not want a female in charge. I am happy to report that I did not have any issues, and leading with a kind but firm hand really worked out for us.

Another important thing I took from the project is confidence. I know that I am a good student and have been a good leader in the past, but having to work on a global virtual team was completely new territory for me, and it really helped to have the experience overall, because I know that in an ever-globalizing world, I will more than likely be dealing with virtual teams quite frequently in a professional setting. It is good to know that I am capable of producing quality work while being charge of people from such varied cultures. My cultural confidence was also boosted. I had always thought of myself as an understanding person, particularly of cultural differences, but this project really proved to me that I do not need to have too many trepidations in working with different cultures in the future.

If I were to do anything differently, I would perhaps set the early deadlines I made for the group a day or two earlier than I had, just to be sure I did not run into any last minute headaches regarding things not being turned in on time, or having to edit things at the last minute, although neither problem wound up being too big of an issue for us.  For the most part, though, there is really not much I would do differently.

After weeks and weeks, I’m not sure how many, the X-Culture project is finished. Our final report was turned in on time and everything else went pretty smoothly. We started with a group of 7 people and ended with 4. I wish I could say that this project was a great learning experience and that I learned a lot from the different cultures that I worked with, but I can’t. And that’s fine. I truly have nothing else to say about X-Culture. So on that note…Good day!

After almost 3 months teamwork, we finally finished this whole project, this is really an unforgettable experience, 6 people from different country have different culture background get together though internet to deal with one project. I’m very fortunate because all my team members all participate in our work, everybody has a very positive attitude because we all have this confidence that we could do this project very well.

The X-Culture project was an overall unique and challenging experience. Not only is doing group work a challenge but when your group is located all over the world, things get a lot more interesting. I had several expectations for this project and was glad to be a part of it. I learned a lot about myself, other cultures, and new ways to communicate with group members.

After meeting my team (#11), I quickly learned my five teammates and we began the process of introducing ourselves and finding good means of communication.  My teammates were from Mexico, Thailand, India, and the United States. In the beginning the whole group contacted each other and participated for the most part.  We all decided to use WhatsApp as our main source of communication; along with that we used Google docs, email, and Skype.  The main challenge we faced with reaching each other is the large time differences. We quickly learned to make sure we communicated a few days before things were due.

The company we selected was Innospark out of Lithuania.  We created a new product for the company which was an improvement of the light table they already produced. We chose to develop a light table tablet. It is a smaller version of the table with a removable touchscreen tablet. This can make it easier to travel with and can allow children to play educational games while their parents keep track of their progress. Once the product is developed we picked to to expand Innosparks market into Germany through a joint venture. They have a stable economy and will be able to market and sell our product well and run our store front location.

The project went smoothly overall. We ran into a few problems along the way but nothing to crazy. We got all our assignments turned in on time and then started preparing for the final draft of the report. We split up the section of the paper among the group and worked on it through Google docs. Everyone’s part turned out great except the student from India waited till the night before the paper was due to tell us he had a personal tragedy and couldn’t do his part. We ended up taking care of it and getting it all done and turned in on time.

I thought the project was a good learning experience overall. If I could do it again I would probably get to know my teammates better and try to communicate more often. Also try to start the final report earlier. Other than a few little things the project went well and I would consider doing it again.

The X-Culture project to me, was a very different experience.  I was something I had never done before, and overall was somewhat interesting.  I liked how there were people grouped together from around the world in pursuit of the same thing, but the unfortunate part was how much people started to care after the first few weeks.  It basically turned into everyone caring when the work was only surveys cause they took less than 10 min, but once there wok and research came into play, everyone disappeared.  Luckily there were 2 other people on the team that really cared and were dedicated to doing a good job, otherwise, the project would have been a huge failure.

Another problem that we had to deal with was plagiarism.  I’m not sure what the standards are in other countries, but some of the sections that were submitted for the paper were completely plagiarized.  As if the student went to Wikipedia, copied the entire section they needed, pasted it in a Word document, and submitted it.

This then became a problem for myself because I had to rewrite a section that a student submitted.  The students section was more than 90% plagiarized, and was confronted by another group member that they needed to rewrite their part before submitting it again in order to take care of the plagiarism problem.  However, the student didn’t do what they had to do.

The day the paper was due, I was at our training area for ROTC for our Field Training Exercise.  The group member that was submitting the final paper Facebook messaged me that the student had not rewritten their section.  They told me that I needed to rewrite it and then send it back so we could submit it.  I currently was in the middle of the field with no internet access for a computer and was expected to rewrite this section.

Luckily, another Cadet had the ability to create a hot spot from their phone and I was able to access the internet.  That’s when I opened up my computer during training and took about 45min to completely rewrite this student’s section for the paper.  Finally I completed it, sent it back to the group member and we were able to submit the final paper.

The project overall was pretty decent, but in order for the projects to get better and run smoother, group members that don’t participate should be removed from the group.

We successfully submitted our project in time thanks to the final editing done by our team leader. I think that one’s experience of this project is determined by the team that they are on. Luckily I was in a group of smart and motivated students. I would recommend this project to anyone taking an International Business course because it will help eliminate some of the biases that they may have about people from other parts of the world.  We all have a lot more in common than I thought.

The X culture project is finally over and I must say I couldn’t be happier.  It was an interesting prospect from the start and I wondered how it would work out and how any of us would even communicate with each other.  Turns out, the communication part was pretty easy.  We all had Facebook accounts and had knowledge about Google docs, so getting to know each other and passing along information was surprisingly easy.  The foreign students spoke and wrote in English fairly well and I was impressed with their communication.

The issues I ran into with this project came more from the group members themselves.  We ended up with five total members after all was said and done.  One was really helpful and involved.  One was helpful at times and nonexistent at others and two were useless to the group.  Overall, I think we did a decent job of putting the paper together and I enjoyed the work we did on the project.  While I was unfortunate with two group members, overall it was a good experience.  I think it was a microcosm of today’s work society.  While we may be able to communicate and work virtual across the globe, we still have to deal with differences in individual work ethics, work quality and personalities in general.

Before starting X-Culture, I was pretty nervous about how it was going to go. With my luck, I figured I would wind up with a group of slackers and would wind up having to do everything on my own. If that did not wind up being a problem, I figured that either time zones or language barriers would get in the way of effective communication. I am so relieved to say that none of that was the case! Looking back, I really do not have any real complaints about my X-Culture project or team. We had a few people that either dropped the class or just decided not to do anything, but thankfully the rest of the group picked up the slack, and we created a paper that we are all proud of, all with a minimum amount of stress.

As team leader, my job could not have been any easier. Everyone was quick to respond and offer their help with anything. Everyone’s work was top notch and was all done well before the deadline. Strangely enough, this was actually the easiest group project I have ever done, and it is no doubt because of the great cooperation of my teammates.

I am even more grateful for my team, considering I know that some other groups wound up having issues. I am happy that we were able to avoid all of that.

Even though I was hesitant at the start, I am thankful that I took part in the project because I will more than likely have to work with worldwide virtual teams many times throughout my career, so I am glad that I have some experience under my belt and know that I can successfully tackle such a project without being intimidated.

As our impending project deadline approaches, perhaps the biggest takeaway I have gotten from X-Culture is a taste of the level of difficulty I can expect when working as an expatriate. X-Culture has been a constant juggling act between school, work, and what is left of my personal life since the project first started picking up pace midway through this semester.  Time zone differences and scheduling difficulties have left me sleep deprived and scrambling to complete deadlines at the last minute.  At times, spotty teammate participation has left me worried whether or not I will have to shoulder a heavier burden of the final X-Culture project.  In all, X-Culture has been an invaluable lesson in adversity providing a microcosm of the real life challenges an international businessperson should expect to face in the competitive global market.

I consider myself lucky.  Everyone in my team has excellent English proficiency, ease of access to technology and a relatively free schedule compared to that of an expatriate that spends most of their time between airports, conference rooms, expos, countless meetings and hotel rooms.  Although our meetings have kept me up when I would have preferred to be sleeping, I need not worry about lengthy business trips and jet lag further exacerbating my fatigue and constricting my schedule.  I am fortunate enough not to rely on interpreters or deal with conflicts arising from parties with dissimilar interests, since after all: everyone in my group is working towards the common goal of receiving a good grade.  If anything, this projected has demonstrated what one can expect when working in the ever increasingly complex the global economy.

With greater adversity comes more fulfilling rewards.  I’m sure as this project comes to a conclusion I will look back on this experience in a favorable light.  Besides walking away from this exercise with a good grade, I hope to apply this firsthand experience with collaborative international team building to best poise myself for success if the ever growing global marketplace.  Whether I work internationally or not, X-Culture will leave a lasting impression on me as I apply concepts and experiences from this project to further develop my skills to become a successful business leader in today’s internationally focused economy.

So far the project has been going good. My teammates are really helpful and understanding, if for instance we have a problem with any of the work assigned to us, the teammates are ready to help as much as they can. We all remind each other when our surveys are due and check up on each other to see if the report is going as well as it is supposed to.

We were appointed a mentor who is to guide us as a team and ensure we are making progress. She has done a wonderful job so far, she encourages us and asks us of our opinions on certain parts of the reports. If someone is not contributing as much as he/she should, she will kindly talk to the person and see if there is anything wrong with him/her.

I am confident that my team will do a good job in writing this report!

We successfully submitted a draft of our report today thanks to the help of a student from Eastern Washington University who volunteered to edit our paper as a whole.  It’s hard to find a time that a group of people can meet up when they go to the same school let alone trying to do the same with six people in four separate countries and five different time zones. This being said, I am very impressed with the level of communication and professionalism demonstrated by my group.  We will continue to message each other of Facebook and group video chat as we wrap up the finishing touches to our paper.

After several weeks we built very good relationship between each of our team members, everyone plays important role in this project, except one from UK, he disappeared for two or three weeks because of illness, but before we did the draft of final report he came back and really did some work for us, I feel very lucky because my classmate’s team members are not participate in their project, not like us.

The end is near. The X-Culture project comes to an end next week. I would like to say that this project opened my eyes to new cultures and new friends. Unfortunately, I cannot make that statement. My X-Culture experience was more of an American Culture experience. Only one of my international group members participated. And I use the word participated loosely. The high level of interest I had towards the X-Culture project in the beginning started to wane half way through. And now that the end is near, this project has become uninteresting, and dare I say, just another school project. I am a little disappointed because I truly was ready to meet with and work with the international students that were assigned to my group. Oh well.

Nearing the end of the project, and thankfully everything is still going well. The group has worked well together and everyone has been communicating and contributing throughout. Our proposal is coming together and we are in a good position with a week to go before the final submission.

Overall I am very happy with the communication we have had as a group. That was the one aspect I was concerned about going in since we were combining people from around the globe. Additionally the group has been interested in completing the project throughout. This was a nice surprise and made the project more fun being able to listen to and debate the various member’s opinions and ideas. This project has been a good experience for me personally being able to learn different ways to set up and manage a team with the added challenge of never actually meeting the people I was working with.

Vernon Kihuguru, an International Business major from Uganda, plans on a career as an analyst for an asset management firm. Gwendolyn Kauffmann is an Accounting major who is also doing the Fast Track MBA program. She plans on becoming a Certified Public Accountant after graduating with her MBA. The third student that was awarded the scholarship is Ernestas Zarskis, an Accountant major who also is on the Florida Tech Rowing team.

Florida Tech also has a graduating MBA student who has won the FEI Medallion. Brian R. Kryszczynski received his degree in Mechanical Engineering and hopes to combine technical interest with his role in business and strategic management.

So far, the X-Culture assignment has been really interesting. I have been communicating with my teammates on a daily basis for last couple months. My team member from Mexico has been doing a great job and has been pushing people to do their parts. There are two people on my team that have not been responding for the last couple weeks. A girl from India has not been responding, but she told us a couple weeks ago that she was going to be in Malaysia for a while and that she would not have internet access. The other person who is not responding is from the United States; we have been having problems with him since the beginning of the project. He appears every couple weeks and acts like he is going to help and then never does. Right now there are four people who are actively participating. The report seems to be coming along pretty well, and the four of us have been getting along very well and working hard. It will be interesting to see if the other two members will show up before the project is over.

Now that the end is closing in on the X culture project, I must say that I am relieved.  I was definitely excited for the opportunity to be a part of this project and meet people from around the world.  Having completed most of the project, I have mixed feelings about my adventure.  Like most group projects, you end up with a mixed bag of teammates.  Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t.  I feel this group fell somewhere in the middle.  Me and another teammate, have been excited throughout the project and working towards the goal along the way, while others have had less enthusiasm towards our goal and have had little influence on the project.  Two teammates have popped in and out doing some work when absolutely necessary and a couple have been either nonexistent or dropped from the team altogether.

So far it has been somewhere between fun and troubling based on the interactions and participation.  I am trying to stay optimistic, because I know college students have a tendency to wait till the end to really get going on a project.  I will keep my fingers crossed for some better results, but at this point we have set up contingency plans just in case.

So far the project is going well. All my team members are working together and everyone is doing the same amount of work. We found the easiest way to communicate is by using the Whats-app. This is quick and efficient My teammates are located all over the world like in Mexico,Thailand, and Miami. This makes it difficult to Skype sometimes because of the time difference. We chose to work with Innospark and are developing a children’s tablet to sell in Thailand. We have the report broken up into sections so everyone is currently working on putting the rough draft together. The project has been great so far and I’m excited to see the finished product.

Almost about to finish X- Culture project, it has been great time interacting with people around the world. My team includes seven people from different parts of the world, but two of them did nothing, one of them never replied after 3 or 4 weeks. Over all, it is a great experience; I learned how to be a good team leader, and how to assign the works that make other teammate comfortable. I would like to do this kind of project in future because it has been much better than expected.

This is the second blog of this X-Culture project and needless to say, it is a more stressful one. At the start of the project, I thought it would be exciting – but still challenging to finish all the tasks asked for. After of few weeks, I have come to realize that communicating with people you have never met is tough.  I think it is important at the start of the project to distribute assignments within the group.

The problem my group was having is everyone knew something had to be done, but nobody wanted to stick their neck out to start the process going. It was as if we all were tired of watching the same channel, but nobody wanted to get up to get the remote. One of my teammates from Europe was giving her all to get the ball rolling. I was very impressed by how she took initiative, so I decided to just take the leader role of the group. I assigned everyone a task. My mindset was if I assign everyone a task, if someone was no longer participating, I could see exactly what part of the project I needed pick up the slack in.

We are getting our second wind now and hopefully the team will pull through and get the preliminary draft finished by the end of the week. I will not let us get a bad grade on this project. If my European team member and I have to do the entire project ourselves, we will. Its halftime, and we are down a few scores. But there is plenty of time left on the clock. We are not out of it yet.

The end is in sight for the X-Culture project, and I must say, I am happy for it. Although a few of the members of my group have not been cooperative or really done anything at all, I lucked out in that I was paired up with a few other dedicated people. The other members not working certainly is frustrating, seeing as that means more work for the rest of us, but, to be honest, I would rather they have not done anything all along than have them be in communication the whole time, only to have them go MIA during these crucial last two weeks. Even though the project has been relatively smooth sailing thus far, I will be happy to have the weight off my shoulders.

As self-appointed leader of the group, I will be the one to compile everyone’s work, assure everything is sourced correctly, and turn it in. I like to be in control of things, so if there are errors, I would rather be the one to find them than to trust someone else half a world away to do so, even though I am sure the other hard working members of the group would have no problem with it. At this point, I am just crossing my fingers that everyone does their jobs to the best of their abilities so that I do not have to crack down on them, although I would have no issue doing that.

As much as this project has been frustrating at times, due to some of my team, I know that I am getting a little glimpse into what I may wind up dealing with on a daily basis in an office setting, although I do hope someone’s salary being on the line would cause them to be more dedicated. I won’t hold my breath for that, though.

As we know technology is quickly shaping the way that we do everything in our lives. The way businesses operate and stay successful and competitive has changed drastically over the past ten to fifteen years. However, they still require the human element.

The traditional way of doing business is changing at what seems a blistering pace and is threatening many businesses way of life. The following three articles are highlighted to convey the impact that technology is having today. The first article “4 Ways in which Technology is transforming business” by Greg Satell follows the research of Clayton Christensen a Professor at Harvard Business. Satell reports that technology is transforming the way traditional business is done globally through many examples. Another article is “Technology seen shaping future of corporate world” by Tina Arceo Dumlao of the Philippine Inquirer. Dumalo makes similar statements in her story as well that technology will drive the CEOs decision making process for several years to come. Dumlao seems to agree with Satell in that she believes if a company doesn’t adapt to the ever changing environment, it will only be a matter of time before it fails. The third article brackets the discussion by taking a bit of a different slant to how technology will shape the ever changing business world. “The future of technology disruption in business” by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by RICOH, believes that it will not be technology alone that will have to change; it will have to be the way the company emplaces and uses technology.

Satell used research by Christensen to look at past businesses that were very successful but ultimately failed. He stated four reasons for these businesses failing to adapt to an ever changing environment. They are,

1. We think in linear (traditional) terms but technology moves at an exceptional pace,
2. Scale advantages have diminished (traditional brick and mortar),
3. Business models no longer last, and
4. The lunatics run the asylum.

All of these imply change (good or bad).

Satell and Dumlao both state that companies will have to adapt and overcome or risk being overtaken by another company who can underbid simply due to technology. Many CEOs of large companies believe that technology will be the greatest factor that will affect the way they conduct business over the next several years. That goes without saying but how will these companies address this problem? The Economist article touches on this. Simply implementing new technology into a company’s business model will not solve the problem. It may in the short term but ultimately it will be the people that will make the difference because they are the ones using and many times helping to develop the technology that will make the company more successful. It simply won’t be enough to upgrade a business to stay in step with the changes of the business world. It will have to be the people who learn, develop, use, adapt, implement and change the way that their company does business. Technological advances make life much easier and economical for the small business all the way up to the international powerhouse but it doesn’t mean anything if the people that you have using it don’t believe in what the company is in business for.

Nothing can completely substitute for the human element

Recommend that companies pay just as much if not more attention to their employee’s development, thought processes, and benefits (their Humanware development) as they do to their Hardware and Software development. As stated before, technology is only as good as the people that you have using it. If the people aren’t behind the company and believe in what they’re in business for, the company is not operating to capacity. Employees are the backbone of the business, whether it’s a small business or large company, the people make all the difference in the world. Technology is only a tool that helps us get to where we want to be, it can never be used to completely substitute the human element. The Human Element (the Human Touch) develops the Technology that is used by and for humans.

At Florida Tech we live High Tech with a Human Touch.

My name is Paul Barnhart and when I was first assigned my group I was excited about working with people from Italy and Mexico to see what their view is on products and markets places around the world. I look forward to seeing how this semester goes and also I hope that my team is as excited as I am because I want to make an important proposal that makes a difference.

In an article in the Florida Today, Dr. Walton spoke about his vision and how they go beyond traditional economic development. Dr. Walton said that he wants to focus on small and mid-sized businesses find the support they need to innovate and grow. Dr. Walton is the program chair of the M.S. in Innovation and Entrepreneurship degree and is a world renown scholar on innovation.

Make sure to stay up to date on this exciting appointment and read the whole article at the Florida Today website.

Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to meet my group for the X-Culture assignment. My group has been talking on a daily basis, and I have already learned a lot about cultural diversity. We recently selected a company and product. I am very excited to continue this project and learn more from my teammates.

So the first thing we had to do before we got started with the project was to meet with our group members. I was assigned 5 teammates from all over; one was from Mexico, the other one from Thailand, and the remaining 3 from America, but different states.

We decided to get to know each other by asking a few questions about ourselves, things like hobbies, majors, schools, how many languages we each spoke and how many countries we’ve all visited. I found a lot of interesting things about my group members and also realized that even though we are many miles apart from each other, we still have some similarities. We were able to bond with each other and get to know more about each other’s backgrounds.

After meeting my group members, I am so excited to be working with them on this project! I know that as we begin working, I’ll have the ability to learn from them and by the end of the project I hope to make new friends.

So far everyone seems really cool and eager to do a great job on this project. I’m very thankful to have a team that cares and wants to do well.

From what I have gathered from everyone they are very laid back people, but still have a drive to do what they have to do and makes deadlines. We all can agree very easily so far on topics and everything seems to run smoothly.

The company we chose seems to be a good one due to the fact that the product will be educational tools for children which excites me because I want to become and Elementary/ Middle School teacher one day.

So far the X-Culture project is very interesting. It is nice to communicate with teammates from around the world and so many different cultures. As of now (week one) I have communicated with all five of my teammates and learned a little about them. We are finding that multiple communication methods work. We currently have a Facebook group and we have group text through the phone app called “Whatsapp.” We are having some trouble reaching all team members right now I think mainly because of time difference. Other then that I am really excited to see what this project has in store.

The first couple weeks of my X-Culture experience has been relatively uneventful. I have met all my teammates except for one, and we have great communication with each other. We have picked the Spanish clothing company, Trasluz, for our challenge. I am really excited to start work on this project with my international teammates.

X-Culture. The mother of all group projects. I heard a couple of stories from other students about their experience with the X-Culture project before I became involved with it. Some good, some bad. Always the optimist, I assumed my experience with X-Culture would lean towards the good side. I was wrong.

So many complaints. Where do I begin. Just kidding. So far, the project has been going well. I have been in constant contact with most of my group members and everyone is excited about X-Culture. Or seems to be excited. We have yet to hear from two of our members. But, as they say, the show must go on. Along with setting up a Facebook group, we have been using a video chat once a week to stay in touch with each other. Technology is wonderful. We have a good group of people and I look forward to working with them and getting to know them better in the next couple of months.

My X-Culture group is going great so far. I have successfully made contact with everyone in my group through email. Everybody have been really polite and friendly and seem to be motivated and excited about working on the project. We have set up a Doodle Pool in order to find a time that we could all get together. We have not decided on a business yet but I am looking forward to Skyping my team and picking a business.

This week we finally began our x-culture project, and I met several teammates, I’m very excited, I contact them immediately, and we formed a Facebook group: X- culture friends.

The first one is an undergraduate student in US, he told us he recently married his best friend, see his profile photo! How happy he is!

The second one is a MBA student in Thailand, she has a job now, and she likes doing yoga and baking, I like her because she’s kind and would like to sleep late to have a video meeting with us.

The third girl comes from Malaysia, now living in Miami, FL, she’s outgoing and funny, we exchanged phone number and added friends on WhatsApp, she also have a part time job, that made me feel like I maybe need a part time job too, what makes her amazing is she have been to over 10 countries, that’s awesome!

The forth boy lives in Mexico, he can write poems and short novels, and he likes to play guitar, it’s him who created this group for us.

The fifth is from the UK, he came in our group yesterday, replaced the sixth Indian guy, I don’t know why our team member changed, we don’t have enough time to get to know him, but later we will know each other very well.

The last one is me, contrast to other team members it seems like I don’t have any amazing skills, or any interesting facts, it’s kind of embarrassed, I think I need to learn some skills, and I need a part time job.

I like my team, everyone reply email fast, it’s important, I think we can do this project perfect

At first I was a little hesitant about this whole X-Culture project. Between working full time and pursuing my MBA, my free time has come at a high price and the moment I discovered I would be participating in a group project that spanned multiple time zones and countless borders I was concerned to say the least. After what seemed to be a rocky start of nearly failed deadlines and sporadic group communications my hesitations about the X-Culture project compounded and I came to the assumption that this project would be mediocre at best and a burden on my already busy life.

Fortunately that all changed last night following my team’s first true group meeting. My teammates and I were able to spend a good amount of time discussing the project face to face over Google Hangouts. The experience was an absolute blast, it totally exceeded my expectations and helped solidify my group beyond a congregation of unwitting participants into a collective of friends working towards a common goal.

Although we still have a ways to go before we complete the assignment, last night’s interaction laid the foundation for what should become a productive and successful group project. We quickly overcame language barriers and time zones and unanimously settled on the topic of your project, the first step along a long road to success. Although the meet and greet lasted just under an hour, we have made significant headway getting to know each other personally while gauging each other’s skills and abilities. One of my teammates ecstatically teammate’s summed up the meeting with some optimistic words that certainly resonated well with me. I’m sold. I look forward to what X-Culture has to bring next!

About my Photo: I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the U.S. Army.  Although it wasn’t always the most enjoyable experience at times, my time in the Army as a Paratrooper following my undergraduate studies at Stonehill College shaped me into the person that I am today.  Moreover, I wouldn’t be here participating in this project if it wasn’t for the Army.   My service gave me the opportunity to get my MBA paid for in full by the U.S. Government. There aren’t too many things that I am proud about in my life but given the opportunity I am more than happy to boast about my tenure in one of the Army’s most historical and elite units: the 82nd Airborne Division.  Strike Hold!

After the first 2 weeks of participating in the X-culture project, I am happy to say everything is going smoothly. I have contacted all of the members of my group through email and we have set up a Facebook group to better communicate, which has allowed us to share and find out more about one another. As far as I can tell everyone seems interested in participating in the project and I’m hoping that interest is sustained throughout course of the project.

I’m lucky to have been able to include my own company to be used for this project as we are hoping to find new viable markets for our projected expansion over the next 2-3 years. The product we sell is highly specialized and I am interested in hearing what my group members think about both the product as well as getting their feedback as we work through picking a new market and mode of entry for that market. As a PhD chemistry student this is my first year taking any kind of business courses and I believe this project will be a great way to gain experience.

As I got my list of team members for the semester-long X-Culture project, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. Group projects can make you want to rip your hair out when your fellow members are in your own class, so I could only imagine how hard it might be to work internationally, especially with the added problems of time zones and English not being everyone’s first language.

It took a few days for everyone to finally get in touch with each other, but we’ve set up a Facebook group in order to keep in touch with each other, and I’m happy to say that my entire group seems to be very friendly. While a few of my group members are from the States, some of the others are from places like Scotland, India, and Mexico.

As long as time zones and lack of communication don’t wind up becoming issues, I think that we should have no problems putting together a successful project. I really look forward to getting to know them all better over the next few months.

Cook is a long time local of Brevard County with a in depth knowledge of Space Coast tourism and hospitality. In a study published in 2010, Cook covers the need to be able to track and quantify successful choices related to tourism. She also said that she was interested in local tourism now that the Space Shuttle program has been retired. Since then, Cook has also published another study titled: “New Dawn for the Space Coast: Life After the Shuttle Program.”

Make sure you check out the whole article here!

Last semester, College of Business professors Dr. Deborah Carstens and Dr. Abram Walton team taught in the Masters of Science in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MSIE) program. Dr. Carstens taught a New Product Development course while Dr. Walton taught an Entrepreneurship and Innovation course. There two courses were tied together along the whole semester as students worked towards their final: A presentation to their professors and the College of Business’s Advisory Board members. After their presentations the audience were then invited to ask shark tank type questions to the teams.

This team teaching method is one way the College of Business is staying on the cutting edge in the education of their students. The class’s content was specifically tailored to match each other and provide the MSIE students with the best methods in their future goals.

For more information on the MSIE program contact Dr. Walton at: awalton@fit.edu

Dante, Eduardo & Jenna after their presentation.

The UFC may have a rocky future having lost two of their biggest stars due to retirement and injury at the same time as the sport attempts to introduce a European expansion. The UFC is one of many subjects that Dr. Salaga has written and presented about which led to his interview by The Guardian and The BBC Radio. The fact that Dr. Salaga was one of the experts chosen to comment of the situation is just one way to show the depth of knowledge and real world experience that Florida Tech professors have to share with their students.

In The Guardian article by Allan Woods quotes Dr. Salaga: “I think it’s definitely an issue. He’s arguably their top pay-per-view draw, him and Anderson Silva. If they lose both of those two at the same time, that’s certainly a bigger issue.” Dr. Salaga was also interviewed on the BBC Radio podcast on the December 30th, 2013 on the same topics.

Check out The Guardian article by clicking here!

On Mission at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida – High-Tech with a Human Touch

We are ‘On Mission’ to continue our trajectory to impact our worlds. The Eglin, Extended Studies, Florida Tech Site begins classes on Monday 6 January 2014. This is a new Site and new Classes for the Master of Science in Technology Management for the New Year.

We all know we live in a technology dominated world.

At Florida Tech we know Technology. Technology is the human ability to impact the world by forging or manipulating resources, labor and capital to meet current and future needs.  Technology is more than hardware; it is also software and “humanware.” Education is part of the process of transferring technology from humans and organizations to humans and organizations. Education is therefore the process of developing the human ability to impact the world as humanware. At Florida Tech and in the Master of Science in Technology Management, you will be more than just users of technology, you will learn how to develop and shape technology and hence your world. You will become leaders in your fields. All organizations have some form of Technology. Technology itself implies obsolescence for those that do not push the future. Technology correctly applied makes organizations more competitive. Technology Leaders develop not only hardware and software but more importantly they develop the humanware that develops them.

Our university has a solid history of offering quality degree programs to members of the military, government service employees and other working professionals. Students can study at any one of 11 off-campus sites in five states including distance learning programs that are taught through our Virtual Site.

Quality does matter. Florida Tech is consistently ranked as one of America’s best colleges by U.S. News & World Report, and is listed as a “Best Buy in Education” by Barron’s. Examine our excellent history and the success of our many alumni, including those with notable careers in all branches of the military; public and private sectors. From astronauts, to four star generals, to leaders on Wall Street and beyond. We develop exceptional leaders.

I invite you to join the growing number of Florida Tech students who have chosen a quality university with a respected reputation for excellence in education and technology. I invite you to push your trajectory and develop your Humanware.

Florida Tech Eglin Site
http://es.fit.edu/off-campus/eglin/

Dr. Jeff Cerny
Site Director
Florida Institute of Technology
eglin@fit.edu

When is it a good time to start your own business?  Most people think that the best time is after college, or after working in the industry for a few years.   But what might surprise you is that an increasing number of college students are beginning to use their school resources to develop their idea into a business plan or even a marketable product.  The key for such a shift toward younger entrepreneurs is the Internet.  The Internet is a young sector that offers a low start-up cost and minimum prior business experience.  Look at some inventors that use the internet as their launch pad to success:

Florida Tech has a wide range of tools you can use to develop your idea.  You can begin to shape your idea and determine how feasible it is by visiting the Florida Tech Student Business Incubator which is located at University Plaza. There you can always find students and professors tweaking their ideas and inventions. Once you get that figured out, you can use the multiple labs around school to design your idea. Your idea could be a widget, web widget, service, app—you name it.  Once you get into the prototyping stage, Florida Tech has a very good machine shop and a 3D printer at the Student Business Incubator.  If your idea is online-base, keep in mind that Florida Tech allows every student to set up their own website on the my.fit.edu server.  Remember that you have a wide variety of professionals in just about every field in existence at Florida Tech and most of them are willing to help out here and there.

If you want to make a degree out of it, look at the Master of Science in Innovation and Entrepreneurship offered by the Nathan M. Bisk College of Business. It is an interdisciplinary, three-semester-long program that teaches you how to be a successful entrepreneur and allows you to use your idea as your project.  Throughout your three semesters, you are able to develop your idea into an invention and at the end, if the idea is promising, you will be introduced to several venture and can pitch your idea so that you can get funding and begin your start-up company.

Don’t forget to check out our Facebook page for more photos!

Fourteen brilliant business plans, but only one could win the prize of a renewable $12,000 scholarship to Florida Tech and a $2,500 open scholarship. The teams, made up of local high school students, presented ideas that covered the entire spectrum of businesses from a gourmet bakery that offered a build your own cupcake option to a pen that held a microphone and could transfer audio directly into an earpiece via Bluetooth technology.

The JASC Be Entrepreneurial Business Plan Challenge is in its third year and getting stronger. The event is run by Junior Achievement of the Space Coast and sponsored by Florida Tech, the Women’s Business Center, the Balda Family Foundation, Craig Technologies, Peoples Financial Planning, and Founders Forum.

On the morning of December 6th, 2013 the teams assembled and began presenting their plans to a variety of judges including several Florida Tech staff members such as Tim Muth and Dr. Scott Benjamin of the Nathan M. Bisk College of Business; Beth Gitlin, Director of the Women’s Business Center; and several local businessmen.

The competition was fierce but only four teams advanced to the finals where they presented their plans again, this time in front of a much larger audience. The teams were: Inception of Success, a non-profit early learning service; Run Buddy, a mobile application that controls multiple apps while running; iDJ, a program that allowed DJs at parties to ask audiences to vote on what song to play next; and Go Fitness, a business that offered a mobile gym and personal trainer. After their presentation each team was asked questions by a brand new panel of judges as well as a panel of Florida Tech Business students.

The winners for the competition were as follows:
First Place: Go Fitness
Second Place: Run Buddy
Third Place: iDJ
Fourth Place:  Inception of Success

Even though the first place team walked away with the scholarship and open scholarship, all fourteen of the teams had refined ideas that interested the judges, most offering genuine advice hoping they would go forth with their plan in the future.

Presented at International Academy of Business and Economics, Las Vegas, NV (October, 2013)

Abstract:
This paper investigates the relationship between powerful CEOs and the environment. Using KLD (Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini and Co.) statistics regarding both strengths and concerns about the environment, I test how powerful CEOS as measured by CEO pay disparity compared with top management and duality affect the environment. The OLS regression results are mixed. Duality has a positive effect on overall Environment Strengths and beneficial products. Powerful CEOs, as measured by pay disparity, positively affect management systems and voluntary programs but have a negative effect on clean energy. Regarding Environmental Concerns, both duality and pay disparity negatively impacts hazardous waste and ozone depleting chemicals. However, powerful CEOs, as measured by pay disparity, positively affect climate change.

Where is this awesome place you might ask yourself?  Located on the second floor of University Plaza, a plaza where local haunt Old School Pizzeria calls home, the incubator is a two-room suite filled with shear awesomeness.  The student business incubator is a collaboration of several faculty members including Dr. Benjamin, Dr. Carstens, Mr. Hylton, Dr. Perez and Dr. Walton.  This space is the main classroom for students in the innovation and entrepreneurship master’s program (MSIE). At any time of day, you can walk in and check out what MSIE students are innovating on. They are active entrepreneurs that will change the world. And if you think I am done bragging about the student business incubator, you are wrong.  The Nathan M. Bisk College of Business will be the first Florida Tech department to own a 3D printer for quick prototyping and product development for student projects.  How cool is that?

So if you have an idea, whether you are in the MSIE program or not, come on over to see if we can help you with it. Some of our services include how to set your pitch or how to do efficient market research. I have only been here for two months and this program has already been more valuable to me than any of my other degrees.

I dealt with a great amount of diversity since my last blog. The feeling of camaraderie and teamwork had disappeared during the last few weeks until the final submission. My group had a new member from Malaysia, and from the start he and I were unable to work as a united duo. I ended up being the person that put together the draft, which was something I did not mind. It was not until I realized the draft was missing at least 30 percent of the assigned sections that I began to become frustrated with my group. I realized it was not the groups fault, it was the person who assigned the sections. I looked back and found that team member from India had taken to the initiative to assign everyone different sections, but she failed to assign three of sections. She had written a message that stated, “Whoever wants to do the other three sections can just volunteer.” It was not until I looked back to see the message that I noticed this. The outcome was me trying to put together a draft with a lot of missing information. I managed to put together a decent draft, which the group would be able build off of. The Turn-It in results stated 30% of the draft was plagiarized by one person. (Highest % in Mr. Muth’s Class)

This caused a great deal of frustration and arguments within the group. It is during this time, a face to face meeting would have benefited my team. Dealing with people via email, on different time zones was probably the most difficult issue of the X Culture project. A majority of the emails were between myself and the newest member from Malaysia, Asad. We were emailing each other back and forth like immature 3rd 30% of the draft was plagiarized, however it was only one section that had been plagiarized. The team member from India was responsible for the entire section of plagiarism and unsuccessfully assignment of the sections. Instead of arguing over who was responsible for the huge dilemma, the group needed to reassign the missing sections and finish the project. Asad managed to contact me via the WhatsUp App on my iPhone. It was during this time, we were able to talk to each other and work out our underlying issues. It is amazing how a few minutes of verbal communication can sort out a weeks’ worth of disagreements via email.

Unfortunately, the Indian team member had not been responding to any of the emails regarding her entire section and the plagiarism. Asad wanted would rework the plagiarized section, and I would be responsible for editing the rest of the proposal. In the end, Asad and I had a great deal of conflict, because we both wanted to ensure the success of the group. It was not until, we were able to talk via telephone that we could move past our petty arguments and finish the project as a team. The project ended up looking awesome, and had no plagiarism. Asad managed to write my favorite section, the firing of our Indian group member for high amounts of plagiarism. The X Culture project was a lot of late nights, a lesson on the importance of communication. I ended up making three new friends on Facebook, and one of them was Asad.

X-Culture has been a fun, enlightening, and challenging experience for me and I am somewhat relieved that is it over. This project has helped my growth further in regards to the way I relate to people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

The biggest challenge in this project for me was communication and complete dedication. Don’t get me wrong, I was devoted to completing this project but with so much work going on for me in other classes and me joining into the group late, I feel I that I wasn’t completely engaged in the entire process. However, if the situation was different and I was to do X-Culture over again, I would undertake more of an informal leadership position. I felt the need to hold back a little during this project because I didn’t want to cause any division or friction between the group being the “new girl” and all, so I decided to work on my part to the best of my ability and get on well with all my team members. When I absolutely felt the need to confront one of my team mates about the project, I did through a private Facebook message because I didn’t want him to feel attacked or that I put him on the spot. This way the issue was resolved peacefully and it made our group stronger.

In all honesty, I couldn’t ask for a better team to work with. Each team member was fully dedicated to their duties and pulled through till the end of the project. They were kind, welcoming and, most importantly, respectful to each other and from what I know, there were no arguments or disagreements related to the project that weren’t resolved. From the sharing the workload, to having each individual sections completed by the set deadline, to submitting the final report, everyone was on board and very committed.

X-Culture to me was like a quest and I feel greatly rewarded after accomplishing the challenge. I feel that I have actually learned skills that I would put to use in my near future because after I graduate, I would be dealing with suppliers and manufacturers from different countries in my line of work as a fashion designer. I am proud to have been a participant in X-Culture and now I look forward to my endeavors in the international business world.

Dr. Perez with his daughter Lily at the Strollathon

In between grading papers and instructing Panthers at the College of Business Dr. Henry Perez also spends his time coordinating and participating in the annual Florida Strollathon. The Strollathon is a fundraiser for research of Rett syndrome, a rare disorder that affects mainly young girls. It is the signature event of the International Rett Syndrome Foundation (IRSF). As of November 1st, 2013 the Florida Strollathons has raised over $100,000 this year alone and $490,000 in the last four years for research of Rett syndrome.

Many girls who are diagnosed with Rett syndrome struggle with everyday life, but with rising awareness of Rett syndrome more research is being conducted to find treatments. The syndrome is part of the autism spectrum and affects as many as 1 in every 10,000 girls. First identified in 1950s, it wasn’t until 1999 until the gene that, when mutated, causes Rett syndrome was identified. The symptoms usually appear early in a young girls life with slowing of skills learning. There have been multiple clinical trials of treatments which are improving at all times, but currently there is no cure for Rett syndrome.

“Research and a deeper understanding of Rett syndrome will not only help those affected by it but everyone.” Dr. Perez said. The money raised during the Strollathons go directly to research and clinical trials via the IRSF. Dr. Perez has been coordinating the event for four years and is looking forward to expanding it to reach an even broader audience. He is also an active participant of the event every year. This year his family’s team has raised over $10,000, one of the highest amounts in Florida.

For more information about the Strollathon, email Dr. Henry Perez at eperez@fit.edu or visit the Florida Strollathon website. More information about Rett Syndrome can be found at the International Rett Syndrome Foundation website or by calling 1-800-818-7388.

The participants of the 2013 Florida Strollathon (Click to enlarge)

X Culture project will be one of the best experiences of my college life. Our project ended up well and a very successful one. I was happy with the overall project, since all team members contributed and worked on it efficiently. I got to learn a lot in the last eight weeks such as team effort, communication, and research. It was amazing to work with people from various backgrounds and cultures. This project was fun, but also challenge at the same time. I mean working with people situated in different parts of the world, with different time zones can be very challenging. But I am glad it all worked out fine, and ended up being a successful project. Also, it was great meeting all my team members, this was just a start; I would be honored to work with all of them in future.

Finally done! I didn’t think I would manage finishing the X-Culture project. It was a challenging project. It pushed me out of my comfort zone because I don’t like talking to strangers and in this project I was assigned to work with people from other countries that I never thought of meeting nor talking to them. Now that I have my X-Culture certificate, I look back at how everything started and how it finished. Mrs. Muth had me scared at the beginning of the semester when he was explaining our International Business class all about this project and what percentage was going to our final grade. First thing that popped in my mind was “This is too much for me.”

I was nervous the first time we had to introduce ourselves by email to our teammates. I was worried about the possibility of not being able to understand some of my teammates because of the different languages. At the same time, I was so excited that I had someone to talk Spanish to. It took me by surprised how polite and welcoming my teammates were to me and to the rest of the team. It made feel more comfortable talking to new people.

Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better team. They were all willing to work for the benefit of the team, rather than themselves. Our communication was key to our success in completing the report. We stayed communicating with each other mostly everyday and pushed each other to do well and complete the individuals tasks assigned. They were two people in specific that did an incredible job for the team, Hengzhi and Daniela. Hengzhi was very good at coordinating tasks deadline and dividing the workload. Daniela was always checking on the team and making sure that we were on track with our tasks.

This project has definitely help to work on my shyness with new people. It has also helped strength my time management skills, leadership, and communication skills. It was a pleasure working with people that had common goal, and it was to finish the project together and do the best work possible. After all, I was able to take with me great experience and hopefully a good grade. Now, that the project is done I can’t tell Mr. Muth that I’m talking to my X-Culture team in class when he catches me texting. X-Culture has been real. Now is time to move on. I will always remember the X-Culture Project.

The entire experience with the X-Culture project not only taught me how to become a leader but also how to better communicate and relate to others of different cultures. Overall, I believe that the X-Culture project was a beneficial and rewarding process for all those involved. That being said however, with every project, there is bound to be a few issues that arise, especially when working in a group of individuals with different backgrounds and different work ethic. Our different locations proved to create some minor setbacks amongst our team, as we were only able to communicate through means of technology (e.g., whatsapp, facebook, skype, etc). As a group, we were able to push through these obstacles together, set aside our differences, and find a common ground. In doing so, we grew into an even better team than ever before. At the start of the project, however, I am the first to admit that I was extremely nervous about creating such a big project that counted for a huge portion of our grade—even more so that I had to work with a group of people that I was not able to meet with in person. It was my responsibility for submitting the final paper to our instructor, so all of my teammates sent me their portions of the paper to edit. After reviewing and correcting each of their sections, I gathered all the sections together and formatted it into one final paper for submission into Turnitin.com. Our paper only received a 2% plagiarism score, meaning that our paper was almost 100% original. In the end, my teammates proved me wrong, as we were all able to come together and equally contribute to the final project as a whole. I would enjoy doing this project again, it was a lot of work but it was great meeting other people from different cultures. I really enjoyed it!

Now that the x-culture project is over, I am able to look back and reflect on my experiences over the past couple of months. I am very proud of my team for overcoming any and all issues that we encountered and I think that we all learned more about different cultures and how to act professionally working with a global virtual team. I think that our team was able to effectively handle any communication problems quickly and come to an understanding without getting angry or assigning blame.

I am also proud of the project that we turned in. We established deadlines early on and consistently stuck to schedule. We were able to make revisions in a timely manner and all contributed to the project. As with any team, there were some members that were more invested in the project, but all team members were a pleasure to work with.

I think that the x-culture project is a great experience for all students and I am happy that all undergraduate business students will have the opportunity to learn to practically apply their classroom knowledge in the real world.

It seems like just yesterday I was introduced to my fellow teammates from all over the globe and yet here I am at the end of October worry free with our final product in review. Over the last eight weeks or so, I am honored to say I had the opportunity to meet and work with my teammates. It is sad to say our time with X-Culture has come to end, but yet every ending has a new beginning and this is one experience I will carry with me for my entire life. I will continue to further my relationship with all of my teammates in the future as well as expand the knowledge that I have learned through working with X-Culture for my future aspirations.

I must say that it is a relief that we have finished out X-Culture Project! We worked hard and put in maximum effort into the final report. Six out of the seven teammates in my group, counting myself, discussed, researched, and typed like it was the end of times.

I was assigned to do one one section of the report, proofreading and submitting all of it. I must say that I thought that it would be easier to proofread but it was not. Proofreading 5 people’s work and making it sound congruent is a quite challenging. You need to not only check their grammar but make sure that we are all on the same topic and that we are using the same wording. Checking the grammar was very time consuming since not all of us speak English as out first language.

Overall, I consider that out group did a great job. We did an amazing job doing research and not just writing repetitive sentences to fill in the paper. The final draft was submitted last week just within minutes of the deadline. About 6 professors will be grading our business proposals and the score will be averaged between those scores. Now we are all just waiting in suspense for a couple of weeks to pass by and be given our scores to know how we did.

By Carlo Mencarelli, Information Systems 2015

Downtown Melbourne: 244 runners, 5 kilometers, 1 university. The summer heat finally broke into a cool mid-70s just in time for the Nathan M. Bisk College of Business’s annual Homecoming 5k run. The race kicked off at 6:00 PM on October 24th and lasted about two hours over all. This year’s event was sponsored by Meg O’Malley’s in Downtown Melbourne. Additional sponsors were the Florida Tech Alumni Association, and the SGA. The proceeds from the race benefited the Florida Tech Cross Country teams.

Just before the race started the runners gathered at the start point. In the crowd of people were several wearing the crimson College of Business’s IDEAL sweatshirt showing the pride they take in supporting their college. Dr. Scott Benjamin was one of the earlier runners to finish enjoyed the run. “It was a good course. Very fun.” Other faculty of the CoB that took part in the event included: The College of Business Dean Dr. Ann Becker, Tim Muth, Dr. Deborah Carstens, Lyn Chilcote, Patti Macy, and Dr. Martha Sale among others.

It wasn’t just CoB employees that were out there running for a good cause, multiple undergraduates and graduate students of the CoB ran as well. Brock Bontrager, a senior pursing a  B.A. in Accounting, enjoyed the run immensely. “I ran at a faster pace this run, it went really good.” Bontrager said after finishing with a time of 19:44, second place in his bracket. Another group of CoB students well represented were students focusing on receiving a MS in Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

President Catanese with College of Business faculty and students after the race. (Click to enlarge)

Students from all groups and disciplines came out to support Florida Tech. From ROTC to the Tennis team; business undergraduates to biological science graduate students; Even Florida Tech faculty and staff participated in the run. President Catanese could be seen running the track as well as other higher staff of the University.

The track was three laps around scenic Downtown Melbourne’s Main Street and the surrounding area. The run was facilitated by The Running Zone of Melbourne and used RFID trackers to keep time. The race was supported enormously by the surrounding community with many coming out to watch the run while others took part in it. Even children as young as 10 years old enjoyed themselves during the race.

The final standings for the race can be found at the Running Zone website. The top three are: Chris Cacciapaglia with a time of 15:52. Chris is a Biological Science graduate student at Florida Tech. Second place was awarded to Ahmad Naqi with a time of 17:15. And Ken Kandefer came in third with a time of 18:05

With our final draft submitted, X-culture is officially completed. I am impressed my team and I could create a 35 page document with substantial ideas and supporting information about our company and a plan for them to enter a new market.

Looking back on the project, I am glad I did it. I found it fun meeting the new students and collaborating on various topics. I am also impressed at how fluid my team worked in the sense that there were almost no issues regarding completing work on time or getting in touch with people when necessary. I am glad I had such a hard working team. I feel this helped my view on the overall project.

Would I do it again? Only if our group was able to meet up in person at the completion of the report. I feel it would be fun to actually meet the teammates I worked with over the last few months.

I found it to be a good learning experience in collaboration and working with people from different cultures and can easily see how situations like this will arise once I enter the business working world. Hopefully this will provide me with a competitive advantage over my peers once I head out on the job hunt.

Over the course of these couple weeks, communication has been the key to the success of my team and me. About two weeks ago, we completed the task of choosing which team members were going to do what sections of the project. Thankfully, there was no argument or confusion because everyone was satisfied with their decision. Instead of the team leader assigning the sections, each team member got to choose for themselves and I’m positive it them feel empowered as it did to me.

Also, trust has been a very important factor because there is only so much we can do for each other in terms of making sure the work gets done. So we have to entrust each other to complete their parts so that the project comes together.

I’m in charge of writing the Executive Summary for my team and this means that I especially rely on my teammates to get their parts done before I can begin. So far, all except one team member have submitted their part but I’m confident that we will have everything together before the deadline. I look forward and I’m excited to see the completion of this project!

The project is going very well. We have been communicating with each other mainly through Facebook and Whatsapp. Everyone has contributed a bit of what they want to accomplish, and at the end our goal is to win the competition. We have had some issues regarding what we were going to do because at first we wanted to do something completely different than what we are doing now. Home Depot is our target and we are helping them do a better job with their online display. As a team we have distributed the project into seven equal parts and no one has had any issues with any of their parts. I believe that the biggest issue for us is the time difference and trying to get everyone together at a certain time. Facebook has helped a lot in that we are able to better communicate through wall posts, messages, and group discussion boards. When one of the members posts something, we are all able to view it and have a general discussion to figure out our next move. We are very excited to turn in our draft and see what recommendations we get back from the professors.

It seems like yesterday I was in my International Business Class discussing how I was the only person doing any work, and I was determined to find my teammate’s professor’s names and emails. The reason for doing so was to inform my teammate’s professor I would like to hold a cyber-board room, state the evidence of why I felt the teammate needed to be removed from our team. Around week two, I created folders of each teammate’s contributions or lack thereof, so I could use them in the cyber boardroom if necessary. The teammate would be able to defend himself, but given the fact I have every piece of evidence, I did not see how he or she would win. Most importantly I was hoping to do my very best Donald Trump impression, and say you are FIRED! I think it seemed a little more exciting in my head.

Nevertheless, I was animate about communication and how we were failing as a group, and it is was just as much my fault as Timmy Muth from Congo. Going back to the group theme. I do not know if it was my motivational emails or fear of the cyber-board room. Everyone emailed me back with inspirational words. Now just as fate would have it, I could feel the International X-Culture Dream Team coming together, until I suffered a serious arm injury, which left me unable to type for few days. I let the group know by typing an email using the one finger method, and what we needed to accomplish by the next due date. I went to the doctors and informed it was going to be a while until I could even get an appointment see an Army doctor. (a while meaning 3 weeks)

I returned from the Emergency Room last Sunday, and to my astonishment two of the team members had taken charge and assigned each of us a different task in order to complete the draft. I was absolutely thrilled, and then it dawned on me that I might going to the cyber-board room! Did my team accept me as their leader and due to inability to communicate, finally decided work as one team as I had stated from day one? I did not care, but teamwork had arrived. There never was supposed to be a leader, I wanted everyone to have an opportunity to give suggestions. To pick our company, on Facebook a team member listed our final two choices, and the one with the most votes is how we decided to us.

Since my injury, I have really stepped back from the aggressive leadership style I felt was needed in the beginning. I make comments and suggestions, for example, everyone should have the draft done by Wednesday. We are only halfway through and what a difference a few weeks makes, unfortunately it does not look Team 8 will be having any cyber board rooms!

student

I am sad to say that with only a couple weeks left in the X-Culture, our wonderful time spent with our teammates from all over the world is slowly but surely coming to an end in regards to our project. As expected there are always ups and down within any project or business when working with others. As hard as it is to admit, our team did go through a period of non communication, but this wasn’t until after we have all assigned ourselves sections of the research. As any issues or concerns came up, my team or myself took immediate action becoming that helping hand get the team back on track.

With only less than  a week before our first draft is due, I am eager to show the world all the beautiful ideas my team and myself have been brainstorming these past couple of weeks. As I have heard many good things and bad about handing in rough drafts, I am more than confident that my team and I are taking the proper steps to put ourselves in the best possible position to succeed come October 21st.

The X-Culture project is now almost two-thirds done and our draft reports are due in a couple of days. Most of the teams that my classmates and I are in have decided to divide the work equally. Each person is responsible for their own section and one person will be putting it all together and submitting it.

I can say that my team is organized and we agree easily. We do not have difficulty expressing our thoughts and contributing to each others ideas. Out of the 7 teammates only 6 have been fully participating, so we still have that one teammate that we have not heard of since the first e-mail we all exchanged in the first two days we were assigned our groups.

As of now we have established one video chat session and will probably make use of it again in the next days. I find it very interesting that we all make an effort to contribute with each other although we are in very different time zones and do not know as much about our lifestyles as we would now about a classmate’s. I have confidence as a team will accomplish our tasks in due time and that this experience is still exciting if you can count on your teammates support.

The closer it gets to the due date for the X-Culture report, the more motivated I get to work on it and finish it. It’s been a really challenging project. Trying to get everybody on the same page it has been tough. I’ve been able to get along with the majority of my team members. There are two team members that I communicate constantly with. It seems we three are on the same page and work together very well. They are great teammates and I’m very happy of the work they have constantly put in the project.

When it came down to inform my teammates about the report sections and the format of it, I posted a status on Facebook and my teammates got involved right away. One member divided the workload evenly and each teammate ended up picking the section they were interested in. Because three of three sections were a lot of work, I ended up working with another teammate to complete it . I wasn’t very happy about it, because this teammate hasn’t done anything during in the project. I was willing to give it a chance and work together so we can finish our part. One day she texted me through WhatsApp to ask me if she can use short terms like wat for what and etc in the report. I was so shocked and mad about it. I just couldn’t believe that a person that is in college and that I’m pretty sure has written papers in class would even try to write like that on a project like this one. Even though I was mad, I made sure I didn’t disrespect her and I told her that the best way to write on this report was using the complete words.

I started on the sections that I’m suppose to do with another teammate. Since my teammate hasn’t really been involved throughout the project, I want to go ahead and start to make sure that the job gets done and my other teammates grades don’t suffer at the end of the project. It has been challenging to work on this project but at the same time it has been cool to see how other people from other countries think and work together. I’m ready to finish the project and be able to achieve a good grade on the report. This project have required me to be on my phone more than I already I’m, but I’ve been able to develop good communication skills, time management, be aware of deadlines and teamwork.

So far interacting with my teammates has been a very positive experience. I’m happy that we have a very dedicated, hard-working team. We’ve worked through some translation misunderstandings and other issues that are inherent to this kind of project, but I believe that we have a very strong team.

Over the last week we’ve assigned the work and been working to build a draft of the report to turn in by this Friday. So far most of the sections are completed, and we’re starting to put them together.

Working on this project has forced us all to think a little differently than we did before X-Culture. We have learned how to deal with different cultures, time zones and personalities and I think that we will be able to apply these skills in the real business world after graduation. This project forces us to abandon any remnant of ethnocentrism that may remain in us, forcing us to realize the words of Mahatma Ghandi , “no culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.” This project shows us that we are all better when we work together and collaborate on a project.

I’m excited to see this project to completion and to see our final result. I have a lot of confidence that we will end up with a very solid report.

I am now almost halfway through my X-Culture experience, and I can say I have been enjoying my time working with my international teammates. As expected, there was a period of a few weeks where a couple of my teammates were not communicating with the group, but luckily for my team, the two members popped back up and were eager to help.

In roughly a week, our first draft of the assignment is due. This will be an interesting week because it is the true test of how our team has been coordinating and working over the previous weeks. Although I have heard horror stories about plagiarism, poor work quality, or members simply not completing their tasks, I have confidence my group will be able to submit a solid first draft.

Since my last blog, my group has decided on who needs to complete what tasks and a rough outline of when the work needs to be completed by. I have been impressed about how diligent my team members, as a whole, have been about staying in contact with each other. I am optimistic that this will continue throughout the remainder of our project.

After we submit our first draft next week, all we will have remaining to complete is our final draft and finishing touches on the project.

Being involved in the X-Culture project is giving me substantial insight and awareness of what the future holds in terms of the integration and togetherness of different cultures in a working environment.

Coming into this project a couple weeks late, I was concerned of the reaction I would receive from my teammates. However, their kindness and reception exceeded my expectations. They got me up to speed with all the work I had missed and made me feel I was part of the team in no time by asking for my opinions and checking in with before any further decisions were made. So far, my team members and I have met all the required deadlines and completed the tasks that were assigned to us with all the members being involved and contributing to the ideas and discussions through a Facebook Group Page. Although sometimes, communication appeared to be an issue due to the time differences and the language barriers, I believe that we handled the situation respectfully and patiently, understanding the views each team member brought to the table.

This project is going to be a great experience for me and I look forward to completing it, facing the many challenges that comes with it and in a few years be able to use the skills I have learnt.

Last spring semester, I recall sitting in my Financial Management class and overhearing a student talking about his frustration with his X-Culture team members.  He continued to complain about the lack of communication and the stress of being the only member capable of meeting the projects deadlines.  The conversation peeked my interest and I asked what course this project was for?  He stated it was for International Business, and explained reasons for the X-Culture project.  I laughed and joked with him about the infuriating issue, however thought the class sounded like an exciting opportunity.

I enrolled in International Business excited to begin the X-Culture Project, and enthusiastic to interact with college students from around the world.  I immediately contacted all my team members via email with my background information and suggestions to effectively communicate.  My diverse group has members from the Netherlands, India, New Zealand, Colombia, Brazil, and Malaysia.  The first assignment for the team was to create a charter, which would serve as a foundation for future projects.  The group experienced a shaky start.  I was unable to get any feedback from the most of the team and ended up writing the entire charter.

Moving forward, our team needs to learn to collaborate and communicate.  There are so many different social media platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Dropbox, GoogleDocs, Skype, and email.  I have noticed through working on the Team Charter that each member is still not using the platform in which the group initially agreed upon.  My team has a lot of work to do in order to overcome our current hurdles.  I received an Army Scholarship to complete my MBA, prior to that I was a deployed active duty soldier. This project will benefit my ability to communicate, manage effectively, be more considerate, and learn to be more patient when dealing with groups.

Just like in the real world many of us are or will be exposed to socializing or doing business with different cultures. In our International Business course through the X-Culture project we are learning how to confront one life’s many challenges. In my group we have people who live in Malaysia, Brazil, Colombia, New Zealand, India, and Netherlands, but that does not mean they are natives of the country; like myself since I was born in Honduras but I am an American citizen.

I consider that it is a great experience because we need to learn how to work ahead of time because of the difference in time zones and our own schedules. As of now 6 out 7 teammates are actively contributing. We hope that the does not continue to be the case. A great detail about this project is that we are able to infom the teachers who is and not contributing to the work. Regardless of the ups and downs we will be facing it is challenge that each of us will either embrace or avoid.

So far, so good, that’s the best way for me to describe my experience working with my team. Since Mr. Muth talked to our class about the X-Culture project, I must admit I was concern about how I was going to be able to work with people that I’ve never seen  or talked to before. I’m not really the person to talk to strangers, so I knew right then that it was going to be a challenge for me and that I had to push myself out of my comfort zone.

Here I was getting an email with the names, emails, and countries of my teammates. I was shocked to see the variety of people from different countries, but I was more amazed to see that some them were from other countries than the ones listed. It was time for me to send an email introducing myself to the team. I didn’t know what to say about me but I just went ahead I told them what makes who I am, basketball and Puerto Rico.

My teammates were outstanding and open introducing themselves. As a team, we were all ready to work together and to achieve the highest grade possible.  We began right away letting each other know our Skype names and requesting each other on Facebook. One team member created a X-Culture team 1 page so everybody can communicate easily and faster. We all have done a good job communicating with each other daily on Facebook. Sometimes I get a little aggravated because I’m constantly receiving notifications on Facebook about the project and I’m either in class or sleeping. When it comes time to making decisions some of us volunteer for it but sometimes it gets challenging to distribute the tasks.

Right now we are trying to pick our company but we can’t agree on one. . We are working to come up with a decision as soon as possible and start working  deeply into the project. This projects hasn’t been easy for me. I have to constantly check my phone to communicate with my team. Hopefully as the days go by, I can find some love  for this project and instead of stressing I can actually enjoy it. I’m going to continue working with team regardless and get a good grade in this project.

The second after being introduced to the X-Culture project, I immediately saw an opportunity to expand my network of friends throughout the world. Now only two weeks in, my teammates and I have all contacted each other expressing our thoughts on the best way we felt possible to accomplish our goals by the end of the semester.

My team consists of undergraduate and graduate students from the Netherlands, India, New Zealand, Colombia, Brazil and Malaysia. And to be honest I am very impressed with their commitment and excitement that they bring each and everyday. We have contacted each other through e-mail, WhatsApp, facebook and skype. Having a facebook group allows us all to write on the same page and express any thoughts or concerns on daily activities or assignments that may come up throughout the semester.

With not having much international experience, I am excited to continue to learn about my teammates as well as their culture to expand my knowledge and experience for future opportunities.

The x- culture project will probably become one of the best experiences of my school life. It’s all about working together with people of various backgrounds and cultures. It’s been three weeks since the school started and its going much better than expected. Our team consists of 5 people from various countries such as Netherlands, Brazil, India, New Zealand, Columbia, and Malaysia. It has been great to know people from such various backgrounds. We have been successful in introducing to each other. It is going to be challenging, since we all have different native languages and different time zones, but challenge is what we are here for.

We started emailing each other in the first two weeks and came up with some common means for contact. We started by creating a Facebook group for usual file sharing and posting links. Moving on we started a Whatsapp group, whatsapp is a messaging application for all the smartphone and it’s a great way to remind people on the upcoming events and deadlines. Our group is very efficient and we are always working to get things done on time. Also last week we submitted our team charter which included the tasks done by everyone, out contact details, and various means of communication. In overall, it’s a fantastic start to the project and I hope it gets better and more enjoyable during the semester.

Hello, my name is Randy Stockman and I am a senior in Information Systems at Florida Tech. This semester for my International Business class I will be taking part in the X-Culture project. This project includes 7 students (including myself) from 5 different continents. I think that the most important thing for our team will be to establish effective communication. This is extremely important since we all come from different languages and cultural backgrounds. I think that over this semester we will learn more about each other’s cultures and learn to think with a better global mindset. So far communication has been going very well and we are getting a very high level of cooperation. I’m very excited to work on this project with my teammates, and I think we will have a lot of fun while learning a lot!

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Hello, my name is Nicolas Clerc and I am a native from Buenos Aires, Argentina.  I am a senior at Florida Institute of Technology, and currently, I am participating in The X-Culture Project for my International Business class. I am also a member of the men’s tennis team at Florida Tech. I have a strong interest in this project because we are given the opportunity to learn and understand different cultures around the world and are able to interact with many successful individuals and their companies. As part of this project, I am a member of a group of seven other classmates. My team members consist of people from around the world, such as; The Netherlands, India, New Zealand, Colombia, Brazil, and Malaysia. Spending time with them has allowed me to gain an insight to their cultures as well. Having many international team members as a part of my group will prove to be beneficial as we continue with this project. My favorite part of this project is being able to learn everyone’s background—where they come from, their way of living, their traditions and hobbies, etc. Our first communication came about via email. We exchanged email with each other and then decided to use Facebook and Whatsapp groups as our primary means of communication. In our first meeting, we discussed our team name ideas and compromised on ‘The Concept Crew’. For our second meeting, we reviewed our weekly availability and discussed potential meeting times that would best fit into each of our schedules to work on and complete the assigned tasks for our project. This class is inspiring me to work hard on all aspects of this project and effectively communicate and collaborate with the all the members of my team to produce a high quality final product. This project will take a lot of time, but I believe that my team will come together and reach our goal of winning this X-Culture Project. X-Culture Project is a great way to not only gain experience for the near future, but to learn about other cultures from all parts of the world. The only problem we are having is the time difference. For example: When it is 8 a.m. in NY, it is the middle of the day in India, or near 6 p.m. in Malaysia. Even though this is a huge challenge for our group, I do believe that we will succeed and make it together. So far we have communicated very well and we plan to keep making steady progress.