Content for ACHOs and AFFLOs

Recently I went to a terrific seminar by Dr Carol Barnum of Southern Polytechnic in Georgia, about cross-cultural communication. Carol is a great facilitator and an international expert in her international field. Yet I was shocked to discover that only a few of the audience were from mainstream organisations. Most had a professional stake in cross-cultural issues—for example, they worked with refugees or lectured in communications.

Why's that shocking? Because the topic is relevant to every web site, not just those for refugees or immigrants.

Maybe it's just been too hard to figure how to communicate successfully to a truly divergent audience.

Some web sites are legally bound to provide multilingual versions of identical online information: for example, those of EU government agencies. This option requires a heavy commitment to revise the content of every site consistently, and with equal attention to detail.

More commonly, a single site is intended for audiences from different cultures. This happens all the time. For instance, your local pizza outlet has customers who hail from Somalia and China as well as people born and bred in your city. Moreover, a fourth-generation local person may hold strong cultural values from a minority culture.

That's the problem web site owners want to run away from. It's all very well for a westerner to learn how to communicate with Chinese people by email or in person—but web sites are for everyone.

For this seminar, I'll generalise coarsely, identifying cultures as either ACHO (achievement oriented, individualistic, anyone-can-be-President, read-my-lips, includes USA, Germany, and Australia) or AFFLO (affiliation-oriented, hierarchical, community-minded, formal, read-between-the-lines, includes most Asian cultures).

Say you come from an ACHO culture. You don't want to alienate AFFLO readers... but obviously, you don't want to lose your ACHO readers either. What can you do? My suggestions follow: four practical steps you can take to improve your communication with people from AFFLO cultures.

1. Style: meet in the middle

ACHO cultures tend to communicate in an informal, conversational style. The web, emails, and especially blogs have accelerated this trend. (We were more formal when we wrote letters on paper, remember?)

AFFLO communications often seem elaborate, flowery, abstract, or ceremonial to an ACHO person. You can almost see the lectern. Formality is valued.

The level of formality of your style need not be a problem: on most web sites, you can safely meet in the middle. On a company or government agency web sites, use plain English, be concise, but use correct grammar and avoid slang.

Feel free to carry on blogging! A blog is a blog, with a style all its own. Just make sure it is clearly distinguishable from authorised content.

2. Pronouns and photographs

AFFLO cultures are collective cultures that value the group over the individual. Individuals subordinate their personal needs to those of their family, village, company, or other group. They approve of people who are self-effacing.

A simple and effective trick is to check the pronouns in your web content: such common little words, but they provide both problems and solutions. "We" and "our" are jolly good words for any culture, and should outnumber "they" and "their". The wrong pronouns are a dead giveaway that you value individuals over groups, or you think of a certain group as outside of your own. It's no great effort to notice and adjust the pronouns.

How about this phrasing, on the home page of www.govt.nz: "Services for Maori people and their communities". Some members of an AFFLO culture would regard "people" and "their communities" as one and the same. And "their" splits New Zealanders strangely, as if Maori are "them" not "us". "Services for Maori" or "Services for Maori communities" would smoothe over the awkwardness.

When using photos on web pages, consider using a group of people instead of individuals. A change that small can make an AFFLO person feel more at home, whereas an ACHO person probably won't care either way.

3. Tweak your "About Us" content

For a brief moment, when the web was new, people commonly believed they could and should mask their identity online. Self-employed people pretended they were companies. Small companies tried to give the impression they were large.

Today, web users are canny, and research has proven that credibility is a very big deal. If I don't know who you are, I won't trust you. And if I don't trust you, I won't do business with you. Therefore, whatever your own culture, you benefit from providing detailed information about your company or organisation. At the very least, you should provide a street address, contact details, names of key staff members, and a brief background of the organisation. Commonly, you will list the outstanding achievements of a company.

Now that is all excellent content for your international audience. But you could go still further. Consider some values shared by many AFFLO cultures...

Authority: feature your top executives, itemising their degrees, university background, and status; if your organisation is established or supported by government, say so.
Affiliation: mention affiliation with partners, other professional organisations, key clients, and government agencies.
The long-term view: state the number of years you have been operating, and the history of your organisation. Provide more than a profile: provide a pedigree.
Social ties: feature the work of groups instead of individuals.

Adding such factual details to a web site is quite a simple matter, and makes the site more acceptable to people in AFFLO cultures. Yet it doesn't offend ACHO people.

On the other hand, some ACHO web sites blow their own trumpets, boasting and burbling about achievements which may in fact be quite modest. (I am putting this as politely as I can.) Inflating personal achievements is not an appropriate way to communicate online, and in particular, it may alienate AFFLO people.

4. Structure: no compromise

The structure of communication in AFFLO cultures tends to be circuitous. A typical letter or email will begin with an introduction, then develop the theme, then signal a transition to the real message, and finally—bingo, the business or action point comes last.

This is the exact opposite of good practice in the west, where all teachers of business communication skills advise starting documents with a summary or the main point. (Exceptions include specific situations such as delivering bad news.) We perceive the classic inverted pyramid structure as a mark of respect for readers: it prepares them for our message, and avoids wasting their time.

In an AFFLO culture, direct, clear, first-things-first documents may be interpreted as aggressive. In a meeting, getting straight down to business can lose the contract: bonding comes first. Actual meaning should not be too obvious: the reader or listener is expected to read between the lines.

When communicating with a specific AFFLO person or group, it is reasonable to adjust (or completely reverse) the western structure of communication.

But as for the structure of web content, stick to the western way.

Am I being arrogant, to deliver such an ultimatum? Never! This is a pragmatic acknowledgement that the web is the web, where technology demands the main message be placed at the top of the page. There are at least three big reasons for applying this rule consistently.

1. Web users, both ACHO or AFFLO, expect the convention of a meaningful headline and summary at the top of the page. Breaking the convention creates confusion.

2. Anyone reading in English reads in an F-pattern first. The first headline and paragraph are almost certain to get some attention. A message lower down on the page is likely to be completely ignored unless the headline and summary have already met with approval.

3. Many sites recycle the page headline and/or summary in other places, for example on the home page and in the search results of an internal search engine. If the writer attempts to be subtle or places the main point elsewhere, this seriously affects usability.

So that's the story: I don't believe it need be too arduous to make a few changes in the name of cross-cultural communication.

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