You can learn a great deal about yourself and have some real fun at the same time working on cross-national projects or working in a foreign country. I have had the opportunity to work on projects all over the world. My first engagement was an internship I held at British Railways while a student at Cambridge University in Cambridge, England. I developed a real passion for International Business because of my time there.

I maintain my longtime home in Florida. This has allowed me to work on a number of Latin America-based projects. I have also completed technology and consulting projects in England, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Uruguay, Ecuador, The Bahamas and Canada. The projects I have managed include participants in Japan, India, the Middle East, Israel, and Germany.

Over the last several years I have worked on increasingly large and long projects involving off shore developers. Most of these projects, not surprisingly include development and QA in India. At Ecometry I have done a series of projects using Indian resources. The largest included 25 off-shore developers rounding our a team of 80 people at our corporate headquarters to complete a major release of our UNIX, Windows and GUI products over the course of 9 months.

If you really want to become a better manager and hone your technology skills then you have to do some international work. I have always sought out projects with an international flavor to them. When mentoring people on career development I always stress the importance of working across cultural and physical boundaries. The cultural and communication challenges alone will teach you a great deal. Exposure to other work environments, talent pools and infrastructure is another matter all together.

Language skills are important to be sure. I have been able to muddle through with some passable Spanish and Italian. I flipped through a Hindi book at a store once but did not pursue it. If you think learning Italian is hard for a native English speaker, then take a look at Hindi.