Gary Fontaine's
home
page
Welcome to my Strange Lands
What I do here
My primary professional interests in research, teaching, training and intervention center on the challenges
presented by encounters with new ecologies--what I call "strange lands." These challenges include coping with ecoshock, getting
the job done by dealing
effectively with diversity, and maintaining the motivation to continue. One
major focus is on helping people and organizations deal with new people,
places, cultures and technologies. I am
particularly interested in the experiences these challenges produce, the
strategies developed to deal with them, and the communication and other skills
required to implement the strategies effectively. Over the years I have applied this focus in
research, teaching and intervention activities to contexts such as global
assignments in business and government, our diverse, rapidly changing
workplaces and communities at home, geographically dispersed teams, distance
learning, knowledge creation and transfer, criminal justice, service delivery,
and close relationships such as marriage.
Most recently my emphases have been on coaching teams, managers and
leaders to deal effectively with intercultural and global diversity and on
self-organization and swarm optimization models of globalization in
multinational enterprises. These and my
other professional interests are illustrated more fully in my vita, training &
intervention programs and clients, academic courses &
seminars, and a selection of abstracts
from--and links to--my recent publications.
But my
life is also travel to
At work
I'm a
Professor in the School of Communications
at the University of Hawaii
at Manoa.
I'm
Principal Consultant of Strange
Lands Global Assignment Specialists in
I'm on
the faculty of the Fielding Graduate University's
international, web-based graduate program on Organization Management &
Development (OMD) headquartered in
On the "road"
Strange lands
everywhere including--Afghanistan, Australia, Barbados, Bulgaria, Burma,
Canada, Dominican Republic, Fiji, France, Great Britain, Guadeloupe, Haiti,
Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Macao, Malaysia,
Martinique, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peoples Republic of China,
Philippines, Puerto Rico, Republic of China, San Martin, Singapore, South
Korea, Sri Lanka, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Switzerland, Tahiti, Thailand,
Turkey, USA, Yugoslavia. And any number of "virtual destinations"
with geographically dispersed teams. With more to come I trust!
You might
want to check out a geographical listing of my clients.
At home
At our house with my family in
At our
cottage Fontaine's
on Boracay on the beach in the Philippines
or diving and shell
collecting off the coral reef out front.
Or hiking
in the Olympic and Cascade mountains back where I was
raised in Washington State,
Where are your strange lands?
If you are
interested in exchanging stories come visit me in
Or email
me at my office fontaine@hawaii.edu or
at home gmfontaine@cs.com.
and …
We are currently
doing research on "Global Swarming"
-- a Self-Organization
and Swarm
Intelligence model of the optimization processes of multinational
enterprises around the globe. If you
have been involved in your career in developing organizational strategies for
getting things done for such enterprises we would very much appreciate your
input. Please visit our Global
Swarming web page and online survey.
and …
Please check out my new ebook
entitled Presence in
Strange Lands. It deals with the experience of global travel--how it impacts our state of
mind, our feelings and our immediate experience of the world around us. If you would like to contribute to our
research program on “presence” please journey to our "Presence in Strange Lands" web page.
To the University of
Hawaii School of Communications Home Page.
To my academic
courses and training & intervention projects.
To a
geographical listing of my past and present organizational clients for whose
personnel I have provided training, program development or consulting services.
To my
ebook entitled Successfully Meeting
the Three Challenges of All International Assignments.
To a bibliography
of intercultural/international books and articles.
To key Organizations
& Forums focusing on intercultural & international education,
training, intervention, and research.
The International Academy of
Intercultural Research (IAIR) a professional association designed to
foster high level research and training.
SIETAR Global
a major professional association dealing with intercultural/international education,
training and research.
To the Asia Pacific Management Forum--a meeting
place for managers, researchers, consultants, trainers, and authors interested
in international business in the Asian Pacific region.
To The Edge --an e-journal
focused on intercultural relations.
To Intercultural
Services --a worldwide guide to intercultural and international
service providers.
To Global Nomads Virtual Village--an
internet-based, virtual village that provides global nomads, third culture
kids, or basically anyone who shares the common bond of growing up in a foreign
land a permanent "place" to keep in touch and find useful information
and resources.
Has provided the following count of "hits" on this page
since January 1, 1996.
(Revised March 2008)