The Book

Intercultural Collaboration by Design: Drawing from Differences, Distances, and Disciplines through Visual Thinking

Intercultural Collaboration by Design, by Kelly M. Murdoch-Kitt and Denielle J. Emans at CAA Conference

Authors Kelly M. Murdoch-Kitt and Denielle J. Emans

Intercultural Collaboration by Design introduces a framework for collaborating across cultures and learning to use multicultural perspectives to address pressing global issues.

With over 30 hands-on visual thinking activities, this book will be of great interest to diverse teams from a variety of disciplines who want to enhance intercultural learning and co-working. Diverse teams will find a practical route for initiating and sustaining productive work across disciplinary and social barriers. Whether in the classroom or workplace, the activities are appropriate for a variety of collaboration contexts.

Teams can craft a plan to achieve their goals by selecting the activities that best meet their needs and interests. Anecdotes from the authors demonstrate how the activities encourage teams to embrace diverse perspectives in order to create innovative solutions.

Based on the book, ORBIT: Online Resource for Intercultural Teams, makes the most of individuals' unique characteristics to help you find new collaborators. By bringing together individuals with similar interests but from different cultural backgrounds or disciplines, ORBIT will help you innovatively approach teaching and reasearch by bringing diverse perspectives to global issues.

GET STARTED BELOW!

About ORBIT

ORBIT: Online Resource for Building Intercultural Teams

Find new collaborators, partners, and friends for your 21st-century teaching & research


ORBIT Platform Login Screen

Create a profile to get started, and tell us what disciplines, projects, problems, or interests resonate with you most. The ORBIT platform will then list potential collaborators that you can contact.

ORBIT currently helps higher education faculty and researchers find collaboration opportunities across classrooms, disciplines, or continents.

In future phases, ORBIT will also provide an interactive platform to help your team learn how to work better together.

Highlights

  • Work more creatively: Diverse teams challenge each other to see problems differently, which boosts thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.
  • Expand your abilities: Opportunities to collaborate across disciplinary and cultural boundaries to improve essential workplace skills such as communication and teamwork.
  • Launch collaborations: Beta users will have a chance to submit collaboration case studies for publication in future editions of the book and website.

Potential Applications

  • Higher Education: Students, Faculty, Staff, Academics, Athletics
  • Creative Industries: Marketing, Design, Advertising
  • Non-profit or community organizations
  • Business strategists, corporations, startups, and policymakers

Join our friends-and-family beta launch: Sign up for early access to this groundbreaking resource

* indicates required
I want to
Show Love

Thank your favorite collaborator. Download a postcard below, share with them via social media and tag us, too!
@TheORBITproject #collab #collaborationappreciation

The Team

We believe in bringing diverse perspectives together to creatively address challenges that affect humankind and our shared world.


See our full research team here.

Kelly M. Murdoch-Kitt

ORBIT Project Lead & Co-Author, Intercultural Collaboration by Design

Assistant Professor, University of Michigan, Penny W. Stamps School Of Art & Design

Kelly’s work and teaching integrate visual communication, interaction, user experience, and service design with behavior change and social engagement, drawing on her professional experience as a UX strategist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her research explores intersections of virtual and physical communities, and the development of methods and tools to promote effective long-distance intercultural collaboration.

Dr. Denielle Emans, PhD

Co-Author, Intercultural Collaboration by Design

Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts Qatar

Denielle is enthusiastic about the power of design to change the way people see each other and the world. Her research bridges design-based methods with intercultural learning to bring about this change at the group and individual level. While teaching at VCUarts Qatar, she has developed courses in design for social innovation, sustainability, and activism to encourage students to engage with creative action through the various modes and mediums of visual communication.