La importancia de anticiparse a los hechos

Second article in Hosteltur on Turnaround Management in hotels (see: Turnaround Management o como armarse contra la crisis). The original article was written bij Jean-Pierre van der Rest and Jan Adriaanse, and has been edited by Frans van den Broek and myself.

In memoriam, José Ángel Ezcurra, director of Triunfo magazine

In 1990 or 1991, when I was preparing my dissertation on Indice, press and censorship under the Franco-regime, I interviewed the former director of Triunfo, maybe the most unequivocal exponent of the opposition to the Franco-regime during its last two decades. José Ángel Ezcurra provided me with a wealth of data, not only memories about the history of his own magazine, but also insights into how censorship functioned and into social life in press circles in the 60s and 70s.

The website http://www.triunfodigital.es/ contains a large collection of Triunfo issues, as well as documents of interest for the history of this magazine. Jose Ángel Ezcurra tells his history of Triunfo in "Triunfo en su época" (269 pages, PDF-document).

José Ángel Ezcurra died on October 1, 2010 in Madrid (Obituary: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/Jose/Angel/Ezcurra/director/Triunfo/elpepucul/20101001elpepucul_5/Tes).

“Look out for that big ant just north of your foot.”

Does Your Language Shape How You Think? Interesting article by Guy Deutscher in the New York Times (summary of his forthcoming book Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages), discussing teories that relate language with ways of thinking.

Deutscher distantiates himself from the Whorf theory giving language absolute supremacy over thinking and quotes Roman Jakobson stating that “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” Gender difference is an example: while French and German oblige their speakers to explicitly distinguish male and female friends, English doesn't; but on the other hand it does not stop its speakers from making that distinction if they wish to do so. Research even hints at the possibility that linguistic gender distinctions determine emotional connotations: Spanish speakers deemed bridges, clocks and violins to have more “manly properties” like strength, but Germans tended to think of them as more slender or elegant.

The most surprising examples relate to how languages refer to space: whereas most languages use both egocentric coordinates (left, right of where I am standing), and geographic directions (north, south, east, west), there are languages that only use the latter type of directions. Speakers of the aboriginal Australian Guugu Yimithirr will therefore say, for instance: “I left it on the southern edge of the western table,” or “Look out for that big ant just north of your foot.” Such references are a clear sign of a different awareness of space.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html.

City Marketing Conference (Eurhodip 2010)

From July 10-14, 2010, we organized the 17th yearly Eurhodip Conference in Zaragoza. Eurhodip is the association of vocational and university level hotel and tourism schools in Europe. At the last two conferences, Casablanca 2008 and Bologna 2009, the social aspects of the congress had outweighed considerations of content, and it was our intention to strengthen the academic perspective of the meeting. The topic of City Marketing was chosen, for two reasons: the current development and relevance of discussions in this field, on the one hand, and our city's recent projects as a perfect justification for the subject choice.



For the conference venue and image we chose the 2008 Expo area with a more contemporary city skyline, as opposed to more traditional landmarks in the city center such as the Pilar Basilique. We therefore used a wonderful picture of the Night Skyline that was made available by Zaragoza Turismo (Daniel Marcos and Félix Bernad), which had also been the inspiration for our new logo.

Bureaucratic / Political deadlock

Initiating an (official) University degree in Spain requires permission at three levels, once all internal barriers (the universities' own committees and boards) have been dealt with: the regional autonomous government which ratifies the economic and educational justification, the University quality board at national level and finally a verification, again by the local government, where compliance with all regulations is checked.

What are the advantages of an official title? You will get a document signed by the King of Spain, normally not earlier than two years after completing your studies because of a centralized process. Holders will have access to State exams to enter into the Civil Service. Besides that, an official title gives prestige, and is frequently displayed on office walls, a custom in other countries only known in barber shops.

Earlier this year we applied for authorization of an official Degree in "Management of Hospitality Businesses". We went past step 1, but at step 2 this denomination was not approved since it was too similar to "Business Management". There are no legal grounds for this objection, for the denomination of university titles has been liberalized with Bologna.

We were obliged to call the degree "Tourist and Hotel Management". It is likely that this new denomination will lead to objections or a veto from the local Government. The reason will be the use of the word "Tourism"; they are reluctant to allow titles that may compete with their own Tourist schools.

Negotiations are currently in progress. The results are unknown, except for one certainty bureaucracies always give: delays.

Daniel Pink on How the the 21st Century Brain Affects Creativity

Harvard Business Review, June 4, 2010.

Research Interests

My research interests in a broad sense are related to understanding the development of social theory in a historical context. In my studies of Spanish history, I have been especially interested in the censorship phenomenon, not only by analyzing censorship criteria and mechanisms, but also its repercussions in the development of political and social theory.

More recently my attention has shifted to Intercultural Communication. I found that the explanation of cultural differences in this new discipline is weak or non-existent (“historically eclectic”, as Hofstede states). I am interested in understanding whether observing and measuring cultural behaviour lead to valid conclusions, and to what extent these observations are determined by cultural perspective.

At the same time, my professional interest in the development of higher education curricula has led me to explore the relation between academic learning and professional performance. I especially seek to understand the development of managerial expertise and to apply these findings in the design of hospitality programs.

Dostoyevski Murals too grim

Pictures of the new Dostoyevski murals in the new Moscow metro station. As many other stations, it looks impressive and somewhat intimidating. I hope we actually get to see the greyscale marbles, in spite of the fear of side-effects.

According to the Moscow Times, the opening of the new Dostoyevskaya station in the Moscow metro was cancelled over fears that the grim murals may lead to suicides. The controversy started after pictures of the construction site (including the murals) were published on a blog at http://d0cent.livejournal.com/124730.html:

I-Shou University

Last May 6 and 7 I visited I-Shou University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I gave two guest lectures on "Intercultural Communication" and "Learning Management and Becoming a Manager: Two Different Things".

I-Shou University is part of a large complex on the outskirts of Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second city, with the University (15,000 students), an international school, a hospital, a 4 and a 5 star hotel, a mall and a theme park (both to be opened soon), all owned by the same investor. I understand that the "E" in E-Da World (name of the theme park and mall) refers to the owner, "Da" standing for "big". As all (167!) Taiwanese universities, I-Shou faces the problem of adverse demographics and has opted for an active internationalization policy. Our cooperation is the result of this, and I hope this experience will be extended to the international school and ours in Madrid.

My visit was to the International College of the university. Hard to tell, from a short visit, how good a university really is; facilities are hardly an indicator. I was impressed by the I-Shou students, who not only showed up in large numbers on their (lecture-free) Friday, right before the Mothers' Day weekend, but also asked serious questions. The first thing, almost unthinkable in Europe, the latter very rare; one should expect this to be even harder for more introverted students.

We have two students now doing their internship at the Crowne Plaza during its (sometimes chaotic) opening stage. "After this", they confided me, "we can face any challenge in the world".

Come on, kids, there is the garbage truck!

A cross-cultural experience in Taiwan.

A happy melody sounds through the streets, kids come running out of their houses. In stead of coins for the ice-cream vendor they hold garbage bags.

A Sampling of Chinglish

For the last two years, the Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use has been trying to clean up English-language signs and menus to rid them of their malapropisms, like these examples.

Source: New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/03/world/asia/20100503_CHINGLISH.html

Working Internationally: the W-Curve

Reflection on the W-Curve of students during exchanges and traineeships abroad

The so-called W-curve is a known phenomenon in literature on expat experiences. Originally it was thought of as a V, reflecting the deep crisis people may go through at the start of their international experience. It turned into a double-U when researchers realised that this crisis would repeat when expats went home after a prolonged stay abroad.

That the W is a reality is something that I have not only experienced for myself; I have tutored many Ws over the years, mainly with Dutch students. The last few years, working with Spanish students, I have noticed a differently shaped, assymetric W though. The homesickness crisis being more profound, home (family) support will not seek to help the individual overcome the crisis, but will exercise pressure to avoid it alltogether by cancelling the international experience.

This can be interpreted as a consequence of the Individualism-Collectivism dimension. Education is not the start of an individual venture, but a socialization aimed at providing the community member with a set of commonly recognizable experiences, and the documents to prove it.

This may be an element that seriously affects both the individual's and the community's competitiveness. I believe we as educators should insist on the development of personal autonomy through international experiences.