Last Saturday we reviewed Financial Information and started looking at another cultural comparison. We did simulation of Financial Analysis at the beginning of the class and then moved onto analyzing income statement of Yahoo! Inc.
It was the first time for me to view financial information of the company and I found it very interesting.
Everyone knows Yahoo! Inc. to be a large internet portal where we can get a lot of information like employment and business opportunities, and investors relations through its search engine.
A lot of people use the portal site everyday for news, blog or emails but not many knows who founded Yahoo! Inc., its size and financial situation. Such information can be easily found if you searched for it on the internet but usually people don't care less about these things.
After that we did a new cultural comparison. It was about Individualism and Collectivism.
People in individualistic cultures focus more on their own personal interests while people in collectivist cultures are more concerned with the interests of the group.
In business, if we launch a product in collectivist cultures, people belonging to the same culture tend to buy the same product family so one can sell many products in that group but if we launched a product in individualistic cultures, such principle will not apply and cannot achieve large sales because people in individualist cultures focus on “I” and people in collectivist cultures focus on “We”.
United States, Switzerland and Australia are individualistic countries and China, Peru, Guatemala and Indonesia are collectivist countries.
Nepal is also in collectivist because there are many ethnic groups and languages and they emphasize belonging to groups, extended family relations, social loyalty, and community harmony. They stress a “we” identity and look after the in-group in exchange for loyalty.
What is the culture of your nation? Is it individualistic or collectivistic?
We also learnt that no culture or society is 100 percent collectivist or individualist.
After looking at culture, we learnt comparison skills. We practiced job interviews in English. There were two characters in an interview and we played both roles in turns.
Then, we had a small talk about the differences between the ways of writing Japanese resumes and English resumes. A lot of details are included in English resumes, such as work experience and other activities, whereas in Japanese, there are no details so you write all that on a different sheet of paper.
English resumes are to be in reverse chronological order (from new to old) but Japanese are usually in chronological order.
To sum up my day, I learnt many new things in Business English which are very important for any business person to be successful.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Graphs and Financial Statements
It was drizzling, mixed with snow outside and it was very cold. I was still playing chess when I realized that it was almost time to go and I hadn't even had my lunch. I quickly had lunch and left the house for UCLA extension Tokyo Center. I could not believe there were so many people wandering around in Shinjyuku in the cold winter rain on a Saturday.
It was our fifth session that day and during the BEC course, I learnt a lot about the customs of Business English. Walking into the class I noticed there were today's agendas on the white board. The first one was to analyze graphs and explain in details what each one meant. We studied bar graphs, line graphs and pie charts first and then continued to look at real-life figures of a company and briefly explained its stock chart.
I'm getting pretty good at this business of analyzing data trends!
In every class we do a little bit of Cultural Studies and that day, we looked at culture in terms of gender and predominancy. It is said we can find out whether your culture of a country or your company is predominantly masculine or feminine by looking at the roles given to men and women in the commune.
In my opinion, most of Asian corporations are predominantly masculine because generally males have authoritative roles and they have power over others there.
Is the culture of your nation or your company predominantly masculine or feminine? I think if you have read my past blog articles, you'll understand that where I come from is the former.
Our next agenda was Financial Information. We were handed out dialogues regarding financial information to read and practice and then we briefly learnt about income statements and balance sheets.
I had the knowledge of financial statements from a management course I enrolled in at the University of Nepal but it's already been 10 years since then and I had forgotten almost everything about them!
After the class my classmates and I decided to go for tea but some of us had prior engagements after the class. Only four of us stayed behind and we began looking for cafés. We went into more than two cafés but none had seats for four. Most of the seats were already taken because it was cold and raining outside and people were trying to stay warm drinking hot tea and coffee.
We decided to go to Renoir Café but the place was also full and we had to wait for a few minutes to be seated. After getting our seats, we discussed about financial statements over hot coffee. Everything seemed clear to me after talking with my classmates.
For me, last Saturday was an amazing day. I got a chance to refresh my memory of my schooling days in Nepal and I feel I got closer to my new friends!
I hope you got to taste a bit of my life in Tokyo after reading this blog.
Thanks!
It was our fifth session that day and during the BEC course, I learnt a lot about the customs of Business English. Walking into the class I noticed there were today's agendas on the white board. The first one was to analyze graphs and explain in details what each one meant. We studied bar graphs, line graphs and pie charts first and then continued to look at real-life figures of a company and briefly explained its stock chart.
I'm getting pretty good at this business of analyzing data trends!
In every class we do a little bit of Cultural Studies and that day, we looked at culture in terms of gender and predominancy. It is said we can find out whether your culture of a country or your company is predominantly masculine or feminine by looking at the roles given to men and women in the commune.
In my opinion, most of Asian corporations are predominantly masculine because generally males have authoritative roles and they have power over others there.
Is the culture of your nation or your company predominantly masculine or feminine? I think if you have read my past blog articles, you'll understand that where I come from is the former.
Our next agenda was Financial Information. We were handed out dialogues regarding financial information to read and practice and then we briefly learnt about income statements and balance sheets.
I had the knowledge of financial statements from a management course I enrolled in at the University of Nepal but it's already been 10 years since then and I had forgotten almost everything about them!
After the class my classmates and I decided to go for tea but some of us had prior engagements after the class. Only four of us stayed behind and we began looking for cafés. We went into more than two cafés but none had seats for four. Most of the seats were already taken because it was cold and raining outside and people were trying to stay warm drinking hot tea and coffee.
We decided to go to Renoir Café but the place was also full and we had to wait for a few minutes to be seated. After getting our seats, we discussed about financial statements over hot coffee. Everything seemed clear to me after talking with my classmates.
For me, last Saturday was an amazing day. I got a chance to refresh my memory of my schooling days in Nepal and I feel I got closer to my new friends!
I hope you got to taste a bit of my life in Tokyo after reading this blog.
Thanks!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Presentation and simulation of dilemma
In the beginning of the fourth class, we went through and revised our presentation materials for “The Dilemma of Northwest Land Company “in our own groups.
After that we had a discussion about simulation of dilemma concerning sexism in Africa. This dilemma was about a woman who was in Kenya for work. When she was there she felt that her clients treated her differently because of her gender. Her boss would say things like, “My lady” and “My cute assistant” in front of other local African clients.
The agenda of the discussion was to imagine that you are a woman in Africa and come up with ways to tackle the problem and discuss the downsides and upsides of your solutions. We were to find the best possible solution and present it in front of the class.
All the other groups did very well but our group didn't get to narrow down our ideas to just one so I don't think we succeeded. There were three people in our group and we didn't decide who was to be the minute taker and the chairperson so everyone just started firing away and no one summed up our ideas.
I would like to talk here more about the gender issues and sexism in my country, Nepal. Are there any problem like that in your country?
In our case, it was very intense. Most of the parents used to only send their sons to school and not their daughters. People thought that women would only be doing house work after getting married so they don't need any education. It'd just be waste of money and time.
As you can see, Nepal was a male predominance country. It was rare for any woman to be given high-ranking positions. Things have changed now and women are educated more but they are still treated differently from men.
As far as I know, this kind of discrimination is still around in many countries, even in highly developed countries.
After the simulation, we went through cultural topics. I already wrote about my culture and culture in general in my past blog articles but we got a chance to learn about terms like Mono Chronic Culture, Poly Chronic Culture, High Context Culture and Low Context Culture.
After that, we learned how to read graphs and data trends. We gave presentations using graphs one by one. Some of my classmates presented the number of hours they studied English per week and number of years they studied English in their lives.
In my turn, I presented the number of hours I spent playing games last week. I calculated the hours of playing chess, Frogger and Stunt Dirt Bike last week and made a line graph. I was a little bit nervous giving the presentation because I don't give presentations even at work. I think a lot of you also feel the same when giving presentation in front of people.
Giving presentations using graphs is a good way to convey information. We can use graphs in many fields like IT, Science , Medical, Agriculture, etc. I realized it is beneficial to learn to use and read graphs and data trends in Business.
Thanks!
After that we had a discussion about simulation of dilemma concerning sexism in Africa. This dilemma was about a woman who was in Kenya for work. When she was there she felt that her clients treated her differently because of her gender. Her boss would say things like, “My lady” and “My cute assistant” in front of other local African clients.
The agenda of the discussion was to imagine that you are a woman in Africa and come up with ways to tackle the problem and discuss the downsides and upsides of your solutions. We were to find the best possible solution and present it in front of the class.
All the other groups did very well but our group didn't get to narrow down our ideas to just one so I don't think we succeeded. There were three people in our group and we didn't decide who was to be the minute taker and the chairperson so everyone just started firing away and no one summed up our ideas.
I would like to talk here more about the gender issues and sexism in my country, Nepal. Are there any problem like that in your country?
In our case, it was very intense. Most of the parents used to only send their sons to school and not their daughters. People thought that women would only be doing house work after getting married so they don't need any education. It'd just be waste of money and time.
As you can see, Nepal was a male predominance country. It was rare for any woman to be given high-ranking positions. Things have changed now and women are educated more but they are still treated differently from men.
As far as I know, this kind of discrimination is still around in many countries, even in highly developed countries.
After the simulation, we went through cultural topics. I already wrote about my culture and culture in general in my past blog articles but we got a chance to learn about terms like Mono Chronic Culture, Poly Chronic Culture, High Context Culture and Low Context Culture.
After that, we learned how to read graphs and data trends. We gave presentations using graphs one by one. Some of my classmates presented the number of hours they studied English per week and number of years they studied English in their lives.
In my turn, I presented the number of hours I spent playing games last week. I calculated the hours of playing chess, Frogger and Stunt Dirt Bike last week and made a line graph. I was a little bit nervous giving the presentation because I don't give presentations even at work. I think a lot of you also feel the same when giving presentation in front of people.
Giving presentations using graphs is a good way to convey information. We can use graphs in many fields like IT, Science , Medical, Agriculture, etc. I realized it is beneficial to learn to use and read graphs and data trends in Business.
Thanks!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Brainstorming
Hi all.
I hope that you are all still enjoying reading my blog :)
Let me tell you about my last week and my activities in BEC class.
I usually get up around 8 o'clock in the morning on Saturdays. Don’t think that I am lazy because I have to work until 10p.m. every day so I try to get as much sleep on the weekend.
If you have been in Japan for some time, you'd probably have notice that a lot of people on the train read newspapers or magazines, or do homework if you are a student. Like all the other stereotypical Japanese people, I tried doing my homework; I read a book about dilemma of an American company, practiced some phrases which were mainly used in business meetings. That's how I usually make use of my time on the train. Prep on the train = more sleep!
To get to J.F Oberlin University where my BEC classes are held, I need to go through Shinjuku station. Shinjuku is one of the busiest cities in Tokyo and there are a lot of areas for entertainment, business and shopping. Shinjuku station has 8 railways and 3 metros running through it.
When I first arrived in Japan I was astonished to see so many people in Shinjuku but having lived in Japan for some time it's already become everyday scenery for me.
In my third lesson we discussed about a video we watched. It was about the woman who has a fear of the unknown and she becomes very nervous during a business meeting. Fear of the unknown is not very uncommon and our teacher told us 99% of the people feel nervous when encountering someone new.
I am sure a lot of you feel uneasy around strangers. I know I do!
After discussing about the video we practiced “Business in Action – debating and solving an issue”. I think it is important to exchange conflicting ideas when trying to come up with a solution. Another approach is to brainstorm. We started listing ideas which turned out to be quite exciting! My classmates came up with many good ideas.
After brainstorming, we practiced looking at advantages and disadvantages of things, such as life in town vs. city, and working for a company vs. running your own business.
In this class I got to learn that in English business scenes, brainstorming can be a very useful way of tackling a problem.
Thanks everyone for reading my blog!
I hope that you are all still enjoying reading my blog :)
Let me tell you about my last week and my activities in BEC class.
I usually get up around 8 o'clock in the morning on Saturdays. Don’t think that I am lazy because I have to work until 10p.m. every day so I try to get as much sleep on the weekend.
If you have been in Japan for some time, you'd probably have notice that a lot of people on the train read newspapers or magazines, or do homework if you are a student. Like all the other stereotypical Japanese people, I tried doing my homework; I read a book about dilemma of an American company, practiced some phrases which were mainly used in business meetings. That's how I usually make use of my time on the train. Prep on the train = more sleep!
To get to J.F Oberlin University where my BEC classes are held, I need to go through Shinjuku station. Shinjuku is one of the busiest cities in Tokyo and there are a lot of areas for entertainment, business and shopping. Shinjuku station has 8 railways and 3 metros running through it.
When I first arrived in Japan I was astonished to see so many people in Shinjuku but having lived in Japan for some time it's already become everyday scenery for me.
In my third lesson we discussed about a video we watched. It was about the woman who has a fear of the unknown and she becomes very nervous during a business meeting. Fear of the unknown is not very uncommon and our teacher told us 99% of the people feel nervous when encountering someone new.
I am sure a lot of you feel uneasy around strangers. I know I do!
After discussing about the video we practiced “Business in Action – debating and solving an issue”. I think it is important to exchange conflicting ideas when trying to come up with a solution. Another approach is to brainstorm. We started listing ideas which turned out to be quite exciting! My classmates came up with many good ideas.
After brainstorming, we practiced looking at advantages and disadvantages of things, such as life in town vs. city, and working for a company vs. running your own business.
In this class I got to learn that in English business scenes, brainstorming can be a very useful way of tackling a problem.
Thanks everyone for reading my blog!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Attending an English Business Meeting and know about the cultures
On Friday we had a small drinking party with my colleagues so I could not sleep much that night. It was already about 2o'clock when I got back home.
That was my second day in the class room and everybody was in the class room already in groups. May be they were waiting for me. I felt a bit uneasy in the class room because of the hangover but I was not so nervous compared to my first class because I got to know everyone. After I entered the class room the teacher started teaching right away. Firstly, we reviewed the first session which was about comparing cultures.
What is culture for you?
Culture means different lifestyles, traditions, languages, food we eat, business practices, social life, etc. Everywhere in the world, we can see different cultures. If you are in Nepal you can see there are many different cultures and different ethnic groups. In Nepal there are 61 ethnic groups and 70 spoken languages and dialects. Now you can imagine that how many different cultures there are in a single country. When it comes to religion there are mainly two religions in Nepal: Hinduism and Buddhism. And when you think about how many different cultures there are in this world, you'll begin to see how diverse the meaning of the word “Culture” really is.
After the revision of the first lesson, we learned about business meetings. It was a role-play lesson and there were 4 characters and we took turns playing all 4 roles.
Why do we have business meetings, anyway?
Is it really necessary for business? In my own opinion business meetings are important to run one's business properly. There are many things that have to be decided in a set amount of time and not only one person can decide everything. There are rules, customers, employees, etc in business so when we are making important decisions such as a launch of a product or when we are trying to close a deal we have to call a business meeting.
In my case I have experienced Japanese business meetings before but participating in an English business meeting was new to me. We learned that everyone should speak and provide ideas concerning the agenda within a given amount of time and I found it difficult to summarize everyone's opinions and come up with a consensus. Being a chairperson was a difficult task because it was tough to provide alternatives and draw a conclusion at the end. When I was the chairperson it was really difficult for me to reach a conclusion. Maybe I didn't fully understanding the importance of that role.
In that lesson we also learned about the high and low context cultures. We also learned about the person who came up with the high and low context cultures concept. Implicit and explicit communication was new to me. I learnt that low-context is implicit and high-context is explicit communication.
After the class, my classmates and I went to a restaurant for a chitchat. It was a chance for me to make new friends in Japan. I love making new friends and socializing with them. They were really friendly and an active listeners. I think we can find out more about other people through casual conversation.
The conclusion of my Saturday was that it was one of the most wonderful days of my life. I enjoyed having new experiences. Everybody learns something new everyday and for me, it was a day of great discoveries.
Thanks everyone for reading my blog!
That was my second day in the class room and everybody was in the class room already in groups. May be they were waiting for me. I felt a bit uneasy in the class room because of the hangover but I was not so nervous compared to my first class because I got to know everyone. After I entered the class room the teacher started teaching right away. Firstly, we reviewed the first session which was about comparing cultures.
What is culture for you?
Culture means different lifestyles, traditions, languages, food we eat, business practices, social life, etc. Everywhere in the world, we can see different cultures. If you are in Nepal you can see there are many different cultures and different ethnic groups. In Nepal there are 61 ethnic groups and 70 spoken languages and dialects. Now you can imagine that how many different cultures there are in a single country. When it comes to religion there are mainly two religions in Nepal: Hinduism and Buddhism. And when you think about how many different cultures there are in this world, you'll begin to see how diverse the meaning of the word “Culture” really is.
After the revision of the first lesson, we learned about business meetings. It was a role-play lesson and there were 4 characters and we took turns playing all 4 roles.
Why do we have business meetings, anyway?
Is it really necessary for business? In my own opinion business meetings are important to run one's business properly. There are many things that have to be decided in a set amount of time and not only one person can decide everything. There are rules, customers, employees, etc in business so when we are making important decisions such as a launch of a product or when we are trying to close a deal we have to call a business meeting.
In my case I have experienced Japanese business meetings before but participating in an English business meeting was new to me. We learned that everyone should speak and provide ideas concerning the agenda within a given amount of time and I found it difficult to summarize everyone's opinions and come up with a consensus. Being a chairperson was a difficult task because it was tough to provide alternatives and draw a conclusion at the end. When I was the chairperson it was really difficult for me to reach a conclusion. Maybe I didn't fully understanding the importance of that role.
In that lesson we also learned about the high and low context cultures. We also learned about the person who came up with the high and low context cultures concept. Implicit and explicit communication was new to me. I learnt that low-context is implicit and high-context is explicit communication.
After the class, my classmates and I went to a restaurant for a chitchat. It was a chance for me to make new friends in Japan. I love making new friends and socializing with them. They were really friendly and an active listeners. I think we can find out more about other people through casual conversation.
The conclusion of my Saturday was that it was one of the most wonderful days of my life. I enjoyed having new experiences. Everybody learns something new everyday and for me, it was a day of great discoveries.
Thanks everyone for reading my blog!
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