2025 ASCI Business Protocol Trainings

Join Austin Sister Cities International (ASCI) for Business Protocol Workshops. High level overview of business etiquette and multicultural manners with a focus on Austin’s Sister Cities across the world. Presented in partnership with Austin Community College by Kevin A. Clark, Ph.D., Ph.D. (AM Thesis).

Discussion includes expectations around gift giving, dining, exchanging business cards, and more. This session is for persons who are thinking about doing business abroad, working with international companies , or have interactions with persons from other cultures. Opportunity for Q&A. These sessions are open to the public.

Key Dates and Schedule:

All training are conducted from 11:30 am to 1:00pm

Welcome to Austin, Texas, USA (SXSW Edition):

Monday, March 10, 11:15 am-1:00 pm

Asia Training
Module 1: Japan & S.Korea - May 16th
Module2: China & Taiwan - June 6
Module 3: India, Thailand - June 13
Module 4: Turkey & Lesotho - June 20

Europe & Australia Training
Module 1 : France, Germany, & Italy - July 25th
Module 2: Ireland and Australia - Aug 1st

Latin American:
Peru & Mexico - Sept 26

Classes are free with registration and will be held via Zoom. Donations Welcome to support ASCI 501(c)3 and programs.

Zoom link will be emailed to registered attendees 48 hours prior to the workshop date.

For any questions, please contact communications@austinsistercities.com

About Austin Sister Cities International (ASCI):

ASCI cultivates global relationships with Austin's sister cities that engage our communities in citizen diplomacy while offering educational, cultural, and economic benefits to all - one individual, one community at a time. Austin has 13 sister cities across the world. Learn more about our programs and getting involved at www.austinsistercities.com.

Austin Sister Cities International is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

About the Trainer:

Kevin Clark is a communication consultant and professor of Communication Studies at Austin Community College who helps students and professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds become more proficient and comfortable with communication on a daily basis.

Before teaching and advising in communication, Kevin graduated magna cum laude in Mathematics from North Carolina State University, and, with the Alexander International Scholarship, he studied Philosophy with ancient friends of Jean-Paul Sartre at the Institut Supérieur de Philosophie at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. While in Belgium, he traveled extensively throughout Europe, including a brief stint with the Belgo-USSR Friendship Force, which met its Soviet counterpart in the Kremlin to discuss the issues of the day.

As a doctoral fellow at the University of Illinois, Kevin then pursued a degree in Linguistics, where he identified a phoneme in Southern American English and applied it to a speech synthesis program. This way, visitors could be welcomed, say, to the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta with automated loudspeakers announcing flights in a pleasing regional accent. As a doctoral fellow in Communication Studies at the University of Texas, Kevin examined through a rhetorical critique of popular culture how people meet and interact in urban environments to form unique, niche relationships. He is currently a consultant for a major educational publisher and has worked as a translator, proofreader, editor, hotline information specialist, software trainer, and university course developer. He has taught a wide range of courses in communication at Rhode Island College, Oregon State University, and Texas State University.

In his current projects, Kevin is fascinated by the ways that older Modern and Midcentury design and typography may apply to his own formulation of EBIxD, or Empathy-Based Interaction Design, which seeks to create more human-friendly digital products and environments. He is also exploring the intersection of genius, creativity, and culture to predict the boundaries of design. Traveling to islands around the world with his husband, Mark, a composer and music librarian, as he maps out a topology of tourism, he is currently working on a trade-press book on intercultural versions of the Danish hygge, or “coziness,” a concept so vital to the comfort of society that it was a “word of the year” in 2016. He is also completing a book on public speaking and manners titled In a Manner of Speaking that he hopes will bring back the word nice to its proper place as a means to living daily life.