This tickled me. My class is discussing the development and implementation of large-scale IT projects with American and foreign team members and, naturally, somebody implied that everyone needed to learn English for a project to succeed. The counter opinion:

“Language is how we express our intellect, heritage, and culture. To mandate a single language is to deprive a person of the sum of their background, experience and education, so outside of a few special circumstances, I can’t see the advantage of forcing everyone to one language. An international economy means that Project Managers and Information Technology staff have to work harder to build functional teams, and to work harder to develop pathways and workflows where the diversification of ideas is encouraged and rewarded. It would be easier to say “my way or the highway” but it would not be at all fulfilling, in my opinion.”

Edit: Not long after this post, I kicked out another seven miles on the bike and am real pleased with the ride. Today’s route by the freeway used to wipe me out but there was smooth sailing today. It’ll probably be a different story when summertime temps roll in, but things are good right now.