X-Culture: A Great Experience

Guest Blogger: Ellis White, Nathan M. Bisk College of Business student

Now that the Xculture experience is done, I am glad to say I have participated. There was a great deal of work and collaboration put into this paper but it was a great experience. The Xculture project was the first time I had ever been assigned to a Global virtual Team (GVT).

At beginning of the semester when the project was announced I panicked, but after the list of teammates contact information was sent out my nerves were clamed. Before I had a chance to read through the list and make a group contact list I had already received a few emails from members of my team. This allowed me to see that the rest of this GVT is thinking that same thing I was thinking at the time (I hope I get a good team).

After talking over a few emails one of the team members set up a Facebook page for the group, that quickly became the hub for collaboration of work and small talk. Once the deadlines started coming up for the final proposal I figured it was a good time to get the work distributed. A Google document was made including all of the sections that were to be covered in the proposal. This made it easy team member to choose which section they wanted to work on. After this the team set up a deadline a few days before the rough draft was due. By then most of the team members had submitted the majority of their work and I knew we were on the home stretch. After everyone submitted their final works it was time for a final revision and submission. After a thorough revision the proposal was then submitted to turnitin.com and team was sent a final copy and conformation of submission.

Xculture was a great experience and allowed me to have first hand experience with a GVT. It also opened my eyes to how easy it can be to collaborate and create a quality paper with team member from all over the world. I feel that this was a great assignment for my international business class and that professor Muth did an excellent job along the way keeping the class informed on deadlines.