What the heck is globalization??

So we had to read this article about globalization in class....easy right? wrong! I thought I knew what golbalization was, but now I'm not so sure. I think the most irritating phrase to read when you are trying to learn something is...."there really is no exact definition..." But then a funny thing happened that made me understand a bit better just one of the definitions of globalization. In the reading there were several people who had their definition of what the term globalization describes. One of those people was Robertson and he said, "Rather than beign about unity, globalization woudl appear to be increasing diversity at the same time on a number of levels." This was a thought that popped into my head in another class a few days later. We were discussing copyright and trademark law and all other sorts of media law, and our intructor was telling us about a few times when she had almost gotten in trouble because of a word or two that were used in a company name that was also in another country. The first was "conglomerate" that was part of some company name that was had an office in Germany, and apparently that is a very bad word in their country and the man was outraged. Unfortunately we still don't knwo what that bad word is. The next was in relation to SC Johnson Wax. They wanted to change the name to SC Johnson - a family company in some of their companies overseas. Well see, the problem there was that in Italy "a family company" is associated with mafia, and some how I don't see that being very good for business. In Latin communities it also held some sort of crime related meaning as well. Lastly, "Chilly Willy." The yummy frozen slushie drink. All very well and good, except that in Canada, "chilly willy" refers to a certain part of the male genetailia in a not so warm climate. So the point here I guess is that it is amazing how all of our cultures seem to be bleeding over into one another, yet there are still simple words and phrases that remind us just how far apart we can still be.