Catching up with the news in the corporate sphere, I was interested to read of the recent ‘TweetUp’ meeting, held at London’s snazzy new function venue a while ago– Altitude London 360 Black. Interesting naming for a venue!

This new social seminar of sorts, joins together social media marketing experts, with those like me, an independent business user, for the purposes of enlightening us on the wonders of social networking for business. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s really just a big event designed to generate more interest in social media marketing, therefore driving more business the organiser’s way, but the handy lessons and talks could actually prove useful to newbies entering the business world. It might also prove beneficial to Executive Search firms and Recruiters unsure of how to brand themselves.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to have remarked on this, but I wonder how twitter will stand the test of time as a business marketing tool, since the amount of information thrown at you can be mind boggling.

Obviously the more you communicate about your business, the more people know about you. But whether social media is a natural way to do business in the long term remains to be seen. Yes it can build brands, but also it can become the business norm in consumer marketing to regurgitate snippets of information with adverse effect.

Now don’t get me wrong, if a company has something interesting to say or relays relevant information, thats great. But for example, I subscribed to one business site where I had found an interesting article. Over the next few days I received no less than 10 tweets per day, some of which were interesting, but with many links to other articles, and if I was easily distracted  I could have spent hours doing something else rather than what I was supposed to be doing. So here’s the thing:

• lets suppose I follow 5 business sites, and 20 friends , 25 in total
• The average person/business tweets 15 times per day ( From a TechCrunch article analyzing Twitter stats) Thats 375 tweets per day
• The average words per tweet (based on traditional publishing guidelines of 5 characters per word and an average of 100 characters per tweet): 20. So 375 x 20 =7500 words. At 30 days per month that’s 225000 words per month.
• The average published paperback novel contains around 70000 words, so you’re getting the equivalent of a three and a half novels per month. Just for you to read. Thats  42 books a year. And so on. Phew! Brain still working? Oh but there’s more:
• The average time to type a tweet: 30 seconds
• In a company, if 10 of your employees are twittering 15 times per day that’s 10 x 15 x 30secs = 4500 seconds / 60 seconds =75 minutes per day.
• 260 working days per year per employee =260 x 75 minutes per day =19500 minutes in a year which is 325 hours per year.(eg.32.5 hr per year per employee
• Say the average UK salary of a twittering employee is £20,000 each that’s (37.5 hrs per week)
• That breaks down to £333.33 per employee per year.
• Number of employees in UK 29.12 million.
• If 20% of employees tweet, then the productivity loss in £5.8 million

Now don’t get me started on Facebook updates, not to mention the other social media platforms.

But you can follow me on twitter, I’ll probably tell you what I had for lunch.

This same scenario can be transposed to that of today’s business world. In order to succeed in business one cannot remain insular, hoping that what has always been good for the company will continue to be profitable. One has to go beyond borders and trade with those who produce what we need, while we send them what they want.

This is the basic law of supply and demand and is what makes the world go round. We Brits are known to be foreign tongue phobic, to our detriment. The time has come to broaden our horizons and embrace the lingos of, at least, our neighbours in mainland Europe; although Chinese and Russian would reach billions of people too. This would go a very long way to improving our balance of payment figures and reducing the unemployment numbers. Just think what having a linguist on your staff would do for your business. For a start, having a French or Spanish speaker would not only lighten the load of doing business in Europe, but also as far afield as Canada and South America for starters.

By employing a French or Spanish speaker, one would cut the time of sealing a deal and lessening overheads, because there would be no need to employ translators and endure laborious negotiations where both parties misunderstand the nuances of the transaction.

By incorporating at least one foreign language into the national education curriculum and thus producing a generation of bi-lingual graduates, many more of our school leavers would have the opportunity of becoming gainfully employed, even without the need for further – and very expensive – education.

This is not the language of a forked tongue, it is simply good business sense.

Having, for instance, a Cantonese-speaking executive on one’s staff will give you the opportunity of conducting business negotiations on a one-to-one basis with key contacts in Guangzhou Province and its surrounds in China; as well as in Hong Kong and Macau. There are around 71 million people speaking Cantonese in many parts of the world – and numbers are growing exponentially.

The value to one’s business of having a Cantonese speaker as an employee cannot therefore be underestimated. The same goes for other major languages, such as Spanish and French, which are not limited to being spoken only within the borders of mainland Spain or France.

These linguists have the ability of conducting business discussions and negotiations in the local language, thus eliminating the need for translation services (and their related expenses) and the inherent problems of important points being lost in translation. The positive result is that much time and money is saved – somewhat like one stop shopping. Deals can be sealed before one’s competitors have even had the chance to have the first proof of a contract translated, thus meaning that the profits will be landing in your company’s bank account while others are still floundering with the complexities of the foreign tongue.

The bottom line is that not only will your profits show healthy growth, but such international linguistic acrobatics form a strong bond and promote understanding between companies in a world of diverse economic, cultural and social mores. This surely will lead to a closer understanding of our business partners and influence worldwide thinking so that, with luck, our shrinking world will truly have the friendly interpersonal relations experienced in small villages.

This is all well and good when negotiations and deals are being conducted on the telephone or via e-mails, but what are the consequences of face-to-face meetings when two negotiators meet and the differences of social and cultural mores are put to the test?

Likeability, personality and body language are all important components to the successful outcome of a meeting of minds in the boardroom – in fact, they are just as important as language skills, appropriate dress and personal hygiene. It is estimated that a decision as to whether the meeting will be successful or not is made (by both or all parties) as soon as one actually sees the people for the first time.

Statistics reveal that body language is 90% of communication between people and that it is a sure-fire way of summing up the other party’s thoughts within a few seconds. One’s personal aura comprises your confidence, your posture, looking people directly in the eye, a warm smile and a firm handshake. These all show the other party that you know what you are doing – and that you do it well. It immediately creates a sense of trust and respect and therefore a good base for negotiations.

On the downside, touching the side of one’s nose is perceived to denote dishonesty – remember Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses? The V for Victory hand sign so commonly used in the United States as a sign of winning and success is a total turnoff in other parts of the world, if done with the palm of one’s hand facing towards the body – we all know what that means; and the same goes for the universal thumbs up, except in Bangladesh, where it means the same as the above mentioned V sign.

Thus, having a bi- or multi-lingual executive on your staff to promote your business should not be limited only to that person’s verbal ability in a foreign tongue, but to his knowledge of non-verbal social and cultural skills too.

We musicians are a tough lot, though, and are fighting back tooth and nail with everything at our disposal. It is obviously that sales of our music have declined dramatically due to the fact that almost anyone even marginally computer savvy can download any type of music they desire at will – and at no cost – so we simply have to up our marketing strategies in order to sell more legitimate music to a more honest public.

One way this is being done is by upping our profiles in foreign lands. Live concerts and appearances by megastars such as Christina Aguilera, Shakira and Jennifer Lopez have increased the sale of their recordings in Spanish speaking parts of the world; while, for example, the older offerings of Petula Clark and Sacha Distel in French and Dean Martin in Italian have had seen a resurgence in sales too.

These bi- or multi-lingual singers have simply become business executives who, because of their language skills, have learned how to reshape and reconfigure their roles in the music business in order to protect their rights. The Chinese are also now playing a different tune and learning to produce their music in English too, to boost their sales and become better known outside their own borders.

The business world should take (a musical) note from these success stories and implement the language strategies these musical executives and their managers are taking around the world with them, so that they too will benefit from am upturn in their sales.

N.B. Stirling Austin can sing as well as do business in different languages…..

There are examples where the use of certain words leads to total misunderstanding. Prime Minister Winston Churchill once wrote about an almost disastrous occurrence which took place in a meeting of Allied forces during WWII. Wanting to table an item for discussion which, in British English, meant to put it on the agenda for discussion, he was astounded to learn that the US delegates understood him to mean that he wanted to remove the topic from the agenda, which was the American use of the verb.

In the Britain and Europe of today, the role of the recruiter and interviewer is made that much more difficult because of these language differences. They now have to ensure that a candidate for a specific position in a company understands all the peculiarities of both languages needed and, to a lesser degree, they also have to establish that the interviewee is au fait with the social norms and practices of their foreign counterpart. Without this knowledge, serious damage could be done to the company, even if the English speaking candidate reads, writes and speaks the foreign language at a very high level.

The tables are reversed when the situation arises where a foreigner is looking for work in Britain. In this case, an interviewer will be able to assess the level of the candidate’s English skills very easily and will then be able to focus on the applicant’s education, personal skills, talents and abilities – and therefore his suitability with regard to the position to be filled.

So, who is the real foreigner in an interview situation with an English speaking recruiter and a European language applicant? This all depends on whether the recruiter has a working knowledge of the foreign language or not. C’est la vie in today’s multilingual and multicultural workplace.

This economic rat race is fuelled largely by multitalented and multilingual executives who sit at their large corporate desks, day in and day out, trying to figure out how or which next big eats small deal will evolve. There is, however, one aspect of this mergers and acquisitions business where enormous attention should be paid; and that is to one tiny detail which is all too often overlooked – that of the culture of the parties involved. The value of having multilingual executives on one’s staff is limitless, but these high ranking members of staff also need to know how to address and behave in the company of foreigners. Take the Japanese, for example, who prefer to bow rather than to shake hands, as is customary in the west.

A bow in the Land of the Rising Sun can mean anything from good morning to sorry to thank you; and the depth and length of time one is bent over also has significance. One should bow low and long if your business contact is senior to you or is older, whereas a simple greeting to his secretary should be a short and less deep action.

For the business executive who speaks Japanese to also know that he has to bow from the waist and look at this shoes with his hands at his sides in order to gain his opposite number’s respect and to show humility, will go a very long way to seal a deal. This one small aspect of international deal making will not only show your company’s commitment to and respect of the foreign party, but will go a long way towards opening many other doors in the future when further expansion is envisaged.

Could this be just another result of the constant budget cuts afflicting the education system year on year and, indeed, the entire fabric of the country; or could it be our national preoccupation with keeping all things British? Let us face it, we did not take on the Euro either – which, in light of recent economic trends, was probably a very good decision, even with the decline of our beloved pound.

As the world shrinks to the size of a tiny village because of all the new communication innovations, the time is now ripe for us Brits to abandon our English “ness” and get on the international bandwagon by learning at least one foreign language. This will go some way to prop up our flagging economy, as it has been proven that executives who speak more than one language have a higher success rate in the business community than those who do not.  Europeans all learn English as a second language from a very young age and most of them speak it admirably; and the Chinese will accost any English speaking visitor to their country just to get an opportunity to practice their English language skills, so why do the English not get it?

In most of the developed (& non-native English speaking) countries, it’s considered a no-brainer for the government to implement a policy of language lessons in the school curriculum with at least English and one other choice. Simply put, if you want to succeed internationally, it’s understood that you need to speak another language.

Ah yes says the unilingual Brit, but everyone speaks English in business. Well mon ami, there is a Yiddish proverb that says, ‘To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish.  This is very true, since  the worm only knows horseradish. The worm eats it and is filled by it. It knows what to expect from horseradish. It is easy for the worm to be convinced that the horseradish completes it. The worm knows no better. Anyway, I digress, so back to people.

Just imagine the benefits of having executives in your employ who are able to directly and effectively communicate with your business partners in foreign lands – no exorbitant translation fees and no problems with words being lost in translation.

Transactions will take a fraction of the time normally spent on deciphering garbled English, your business will profit and so will your standing in the business community.

Parlez vous Francais, Mein Herr?

In addition to the internationally accepted English, French and Spanish, seventeen other official tongues including the minority languages of Gaelic, Galician, Catalan and Basque have been added to the official list, over and above the ten Eastern European languages which were accepted in 2004. The result is translation bills totalling well over a billion US dollars.

Yes, you read it right – and these costs are set to spiral completely out of control if we do not do something to stop these huge budget chomping ambassadors in their tracks. Fair enough, the Spanish Government agreed to pay the translation costs for their Galician, Catalan and Basque dialects, but where will these exorbitant multilingual costs end without some drastic action being taken?

Perhaps the answer is to elect multilingual executives to these institutions of power. In the world of private international business, no self-respecting company would hire employees who are not capable of communicating with their colleagues in another country in their own language – so why should we be coughing up mountains of tax dollars – or Euros – for a bunch of politicians and ambassadors who represent our countries but who never went to language school?

Look at the facts. No European government would bail out a failing company because it did not have the foresight to employ multilingual workers in order to get the work done; but all the governments represented in the European Union and the European Commission are shovelling their hard earned tax revenues down the black hole of translation costs simply because these revered institutions do not have servants of their causes who speak multiple languages.

I wonder how much the translation costs would be to have a new law promulgated at both these two commissions demanding that their members have to speak, say, at least three languages – and what savings could then be made on the overall translation costs of these esteemed (but totally lacking in business acumen) institutions of power.

All those in favour, raise your hands. Oh dear, how do you say that in Gaelic?

Speaking more than one language is expected in mainland Europe. The image of the tongue-tied UK executive abroad must be consigned to history, says Steve Coomber.

WHEN it comes to languages, a popular perception of the US or UK executive is that getting by abroad is less a question of linguistics and more a question of volume. If you are not understood, speak more loudly until you are. Fortunately for the cultural sensibilities of the rest of the global economy, times are changing.

In the linguistic melting pot of mainland Europe, speaking more than one language has long been commonplace. The European Union (EU) is home to more than 450 million people. There are over 25 member states and 20 official languages.

The cultural diversity of continental Europe is reflected in the way that business schools there include language requirements. “If you are interested in pursuing a truly international career, where you might be working at different locations for extended periods of time, then you are really limiting yourself if you only speak English,” says Caroline Diarte Edwards, director of marketing, admissions and external relations for the MBA program at INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France.

At INSEAD, MBA applicants must have business proficiency in two languages, including English, plus proficiency in an additional language to graduate level. The school believes in the competitive advantages that language skills confer.

“Our experience suggests recruiters like the fact that INSEAD MBA students speak at least three languages,” Diarte Edwards says. “It demonstrates that people are open to international mobility — they have a certain cultural sensitivity.”

The Community of European Management Schools (CEMS) offers masters in international management through an alliance of 17 leading European business schools. The programs curriculum is partly driven by more than 50 partner companies, which include such major multinationals as GlaxoSmithKline, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé and Shell. As a result, the course is highly responsive to the recruitment market and it is a pre-condition that the students are trilingual.

“Being multilingual is a necessity rather than a competence for today’s young international managers,” says François Collin, executive director of CEMS.

In the UK, however, business schools have traditionally placed less emphasis on languages as an entrance requirement for postgraduate business programs. Many require proficiency only in English. There are indications, however, that UK schools are changing their attitude.

“At Cranfield we recognise the importance of language skills for today’s managers,” says Sean Rickard, director of MBA recruitment. “We encourage our students to improve their language skills while studying for their MBA. We offer French, German, Spanish and Chinese. We also make it a requirement of graduation that they are proficient in a second language.”

It is an encouraging sign. Where one business school ventures, others inevitably follow. Maybe the notion of the tongue-tied UK executive abroad will soon be replaced by that of the UK executive polyglot. Ou peut-être pas.

A business alliance

THE Community of European Management Schools (CEMS) is an alliance between business and business schools. Current members of the consortium include 17 leading business schools, such as HEC in France, Smurfit in Ireland and ESADE in Spain, as well as a prestigious line-up of more than 50 major multinationals.

CEMS offers a unique masters in management program. It is taught at each of the participating academic institutions. Students take two semesters in two countries and may take an internship in a third. They can also take workshops in a range of countries.

Currently 3,400 CEMS graduates, from 35 nations, hold management positions in a variety of industry sectors across Europe and beyond.