A touch of humanity in a sensitive-geeky sort of way

I remember seeing the first video he did. He is a software engineer who got an idea to take time off from his job and travel the world. He started a website called “Where the hell is Matt?” to document his travels. He made a video doing his dance at unique locations around the world. It was so successful he did it again. This time he invited folks from the web to come out and join in the dance when he was in their area. You can see me dancing in the Seattle one in the upper left corner.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Ha, made you look. Regardless, it is touching (at least I think it is) and reflects how when it comes down to it, people are just people where ever you go and we can share a moment together. One world, many faces.

Sean

Cultural differences

I frequently work with developers in Taiwan. One interesting thing I have noticed is that there is an expectation to be told what to do. Where as my developers in the US tend to act and explore things independently, I find myself constantly being asked by the Taiwanese developers to give them detailed instructions. Arguably, some of this is the language barrier and is to be expected. But there is this underlying layer of, how do I phrase, ‘boss man’ attitude. Just to give you an example, we had some engineers from Taiwan visit last summer and one of their managers gave them a request to test feature X. However, they first needed to understand how to build the software and learn how it works. So they went back and forth with myself and one of my team leaders. They literally brought the print out of the email requesting the information into the office. You see their team leader’s manager requested it. I finally told them to ‘look, you need to do your homework first. This question is meaningless if you do not know yet how it works.’ Only when their team leader said, ‘okay’, did they stop asking.

Another thing that strikes me is the hesitancy to ask questions when things don’t work. I once asked an engineer from Taiwan why in the heat of an email debate over a manufacturing issue he remained silent. He replied:

Better to lie in the ditch, than to stand up and get shot

I can appreciate that certainly. But it means that I also have to understand these cultural differences to ensure a fruitful relationship…Now if I only could understand women better I would be on a streak.