Patent Application
20210304635
Using the parts named above, the SYM-Qube has three moves or combinations from the same blocks. These three moves are used in the training session. The fourth move encloses the set of blocks into a composite, packed away, storable version, for which the T-Block becomes usable.
The blocks are shown on
The SYM-Qube is related to the fields of 1) organizational development, 2) intercultural effectiveness, and 3) cultural intelligence, and 4) the next step up from cultural intelligence, known as Symbiotic Intelligence. Symbiotic Intelligence is more commonly known as SYM-Q. Symbiotic Intelligence promotes and makes intentional reciprocal actions between members of an existing environment and newcomers. Foremost, Intelligence recognizes that the quality of the intercultural exchange is wholly dependent upon both parties making the necessary adjustments to create the type of environment in which mutual goals take precedence over individual goals and that these goals must be achieved, symbiotically, hence the name symbiotic intelligence.
The SYM-Qube is a prompt, a device, a manipulative, a kinesthetic tool that makes known and reinforces the types of attributes that help symbiotic exchanges to thrive.
SYM-Qube makes reference to a body of information common to intercultural effectiveness and cultural intelligence research. The common information is contained in the research on cultural intelligence and can be identified as four terms that are used in discussions about intercultural effectiveness and in the research about cultural intelligence and multicultural work settings. The four terms are: 1) environmental or cultural factors, 2) individual attributes, 3) job identity factors and 4) the CQ Exchange. With the exception of the term cultural/cultural factors, which is a term in common use in multiple disciplines, the remaining three aspects first became known to the applicant/inventor during her own doctoral dissertation research, through the work of Gibson and Dibble (n.d.), Ang and VanDyne (2008), Buckley, Gaister, and Husan (2002), and Inkpen and Currall (2004). All of these researchers/authors used one or more of these terms, however, neither of these researchers created a model utilizing the factors, comprehensively (as depicted in
In her departure from CQ and enlargement of her own intercultural research, the inventor addressed the literature gap in cultural intelligence based upon her research participants in the educational arena (2003-2015). Her doctoral dissertation research resulted in the idea to pair the extant job identity factors with Academic Considerations such as academic resources, academic rigor, academic support, academic climate, etc. and to regard and rename both sets as the Collaborative Factors. The applicant/inventor added for consideration a fifth factor or predictor of intercultural success, proposing the Generational Factors as a determinant of intercultural success. Regard for the Generational Factors was made necessary by the rapid rise of technology and an atypical hierarchy in the workplace caused by lingering Boomer and tech-savvy Millennials, who often became their managers. The new currency for collaboration was the ability to use technology. The applicant/inventor later renamed the Generational Factors, coining the term, “Gen-Tech” Factors. The applicant/inventor's research begged the need to foreground the need to spell out intentional reciprocal actions between the newcomer and members of the existing cultural environment. They are shown on the outer rings of the SYM-Q Model, which can be found in the book that the applicant wrote on the subject. To assist others in understanding the interrelationship of these factors, the applicant/inventor created a visual depiction of her research outcomes.
The learner/applicant documented her research in the book, Beyond Bricks and Mortar: 5 Factors that Predict intercultural Success. In the book, the inventor cites and references the contributions of the researchers who preceded her, namely the four factors as described above and journals the enlargement of ideas; a process which led to symbiotic intelligence and the development of the SYM-Qube to explain it and represent it. See
Next, the applicant/inventor created two video lessons to describe the need for Acceptance, Inclusion, and Respectfulness and Support in the set of reciprocal actions (called AIR+Support).
