International Communication

Buenos Aires one quiet Sunday morning in 2010Travelling from Australia to take part in meetings with other Marists involved in the Marist tertiary sector, highlights the importance of face to face meetings to be able to relate sufficiently to gain clear understandings of developments.  Online conversations can supplement, but not replace, these face to face meetings. Our technology is not sufficiently sophisticated at this stage to be able to communicate meanings and nuances adequately, particularly across cultures and languages, unless the people involved know each other very well.  International communities are emerging. Yet in Australia, for example, international telephone calls make up only two per cent of our calls. Our working community is primarily our Australian community.