What I thought about the outsourcing project

This was a rather unique experience. Class is interesting in itself in that we are so multicultural. I think I am very spoiled having grown up in California, where nobody looks the same and where everybody has some type of different background. It is weird to think that in some places everyone looks the same and does the same thing. Stereotypes...I guess I fall into them myself--NorCal, veggie, eco-friendly, over-educated?
Anyway, after getting beyond the stereotypes and the generalizations is when we really get to learn about individuals. It is hard to learn about people when they are on a different continent nine hours ahead and even harder to work with them. I started out stereotyping the "French" until I realized we weren't working with French people. We were working with a diverse group of people from all over. Communication was the main difficulty and the lack of clarity with the project made it hard to focus. But we overcame and succeeded and now we just have to finish up.
Things I wish we would have done or that I should have thought about in the beginning:
1. Logistics, really engaging the French. I know hindsight is 20/20, but we could have gotten more organized and more cohesive sooner. Also, having contact earlier might have gotten everybody involved.
2. A plan. We were feeling around in the dark, trying to figure things out on the fly. We should have started out with a strategy, and a goal, but we didn't . We put a lot of work and energy into the website before we knew what we were doing. We came up with some good ideas, but they would have been executed so much better if we had planned.