Cisco Blog > Inclusion and Diversity
April 25, 2011 at 5:20 pm PST
“If your VP asks you to draw your idea on the board, I want you to acquit yourself favorably.” This was one of the goals of a half-day Visual Communications class I took recently. Our teacher, Greg Twiss, is a Design & Engineering Operations Director here at Cisco, and also a former IDEO Client Manager and Product Design Consultant.
We had a whirlwind tour of drawing perspective, shadowing and creating visual tension. Greg talked about how strong visuals combined with great story tellling creates a lasting message. No more bullet point lists for us!
He also talked about our adult hang-ups. All kids say they can draw. He then asked our class how many people could draw and 2 people raised their hands. The constant self critique while drawing really gets in our way. Read More »
Tags: art, communications, diversity, drawing, Inclusion and Diversity
Two nights ago, I had the pleasure of attending Opportunity Now’s 2011 Awards Gala Dinner at the Brewery, Chiswell St London. Over 500 guests came together to recognise excellent practices within organisations that are creating equal, diverse and inclusive workplaces, with a particular focus on gender.
Cisco came home with two awards that night:
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Tags: awards, Blue Goose, Cisco, Europe, gender, Inclusion and Diversity, Inclusive Culture Award, John Donovan, More Together, Opportunity Now, organisations
At Cisco, working in a multicultural and multigenerational environment is something we do every day. With colleagues, customers and partners located all around the world, understanding how to work with a global and diverse set of cultures is important to our success.
That is why my team decided to work with Aperian Global, creator of GlobeSmart™, an online tool that provides organizations with access to information on conducting business with people globally, to co-develop a limited mobile version of the tool, called “Cisco Cultural Advisor.” It is available for free on the Apple iTunes store today.
Cultural Advisor will help you to unlock the secrets to success for conducting business around the world. Whether you are meeting with customers in Tokyo or having a video conference with colleagues in Brazil, this application provides instant, customized information to help bridge communication and work-style differences between you and your global counterparts.
To get started, simply answer a few short questions to assess your communication style.
You will be shown:
• Your communication profile plotted along three cultural dimensions
• An explanation of what your profile says about your own work styles and preferences
• A comparison of your profile with the average profiles of people from more than 30 different countries
You will then be prompted to invite individuals anywhere in the world to compare profiles with you and get tips on how to communicate more effectively with one another.
I leave you today with a challenge. Complete your personal communication profile in Cultural Advisor, then invite three of your colleagues to do the same. Put to work the information that you learned from the assessment and see if it makes a difference in how you all work together. Post your experience to this blog. I look forward to reading them.
Cultural Advisor is powered by GlobeSmart™ a tool developed by Aperian Global.
Tags: Cisco, CulturalAdvisor, Inclusion and Diversity, MarilynNagel
April 10, 2011 at 10:50 am PST
“You, who represent two worlds, should use both to move forward.” This year’s Richard Tapia Diversity in Computing conference started off with thoughts from the founder. Richard Tapia is a mathematician and professor in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is, among other honors, the first Hispanic elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
The conference focus was to bring forth traditionally underrepresented students in computer technology and create a welcoming environment to have technical discussions as well as to provide networking opportunities.
We were pleased to have Mei Wang represent Cisco at the Doctoral Consortium on Sunday. There were several of us at Cisco who attended to recruit students and listen in on some of the sessions.
- This year’s booth giveaway. You know you’re talking to computer scientists when the first thing they ask is: is the fan reprogrammable?
The panel and speaker topics ranged broadly. I heard that the speakers were asked Read More »
Tags: computer science, diversity, Inclusion and Diversity, tapia
Last week, I shared with you some of the great work Cisco is doing in Europe to drive our Early in Career Network (ECN) -- one of our employee resource group that focuses on Cisco’s new hires and people who are early in their career at Cisco. Initiatives like ECN are vital in helping us promote a more inclusive work environment and diverse work force worldwide.
Another initiative that Cisco’s Inclusion and Diversity Ambassador Network is helping to drive is Reverse Mentoring. This is a formalised program where an executive or senior manager is mentored by an individual contributor in the company. In other words, our individual contributor (the Mentor) is mentoring an executive (the Mentee).
Read More »
Tags: Ambassador Network, diversity, Early in Career Network, Employee Resource Group, Executive, Inclusion and Diversity, Individual Contributor, Reverse Mentoring, TelePresence
