re-post from 2011. This past year, things are getting heated up with “friend-shoring” chip manufacturing with Biden’s visit.
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If it hadn’t been for the slightly warm temperature, the water bottle that bore “QTSP” (Quang Trung Software Park) and the simulcast headsets, I would have thought I was back in 2005 at a similar conference in Palo Alto. But this was Vietnam. With speakers and delegates from Malaysia, Thailand, India trying to organize into a ICT block. “We competed with one another too much, selling to each other too much”, said a Thai delegate.
Instead, SEA ICT parks were urged to organize and synergize.
A message well worth noting and worthy of praise.
Except, Thailand just went through a century flood (at the tune of 46 Billion)
and Vietnam ICT college enrolment grew at meager pace of 2% (demands are calling for 12 times that).
I kept hearing the word “disconnect”.
Schools weren’t up to task for mobile, gaming and cloud computing.
Consumers just wanted to “use” technology, no matter where it’s from (mostly likely the West, but outsourced to the East and then repackaged and rebranded).
I worked the crowd, and walked the hallway.
I shook hands and met people at the booths.
I was behind those booths many times while at MCI and Teleglobe.
Now, it’s their turns.
Eye contacts, business cards in hand, and promise to keep in touch.
Right!
I said I was into softskills, not softwares.
They understood immediately.
Quid pro quo.
You teach me some, I teach you some.
We can send foreign teachers of every shade of accent for you to be exposed to.
Of course, at a very low price.
Accents are cheap.
Words are cheap.
Human connection: invaluable.
I lifted one guy’s spirit when I mentioned that companies like RightNow could still command a very high price, having been bought by cash-rich Oracle.
So the young and the younger got along, hand shakes without high fives.
Welcome to Vietnam, Welcome to the flat world.
Let the game begin. Somehow I know those guys behind the booths will turn out very OK, more than they now realize.
I have been there and I know.
They will hit singles and one of them will hit a ball way out of the park.
Just a numbers game.
Just a right mix of pressures, opportunities, collaboration and market demand.
Keep pitching
Keep selling.
Keep inventing.
They’ll come, even if it takes a huge flood to “flush” them out.
Currently wages pressure has turned to demonstration in China.
What are we waiting for? Someone else’s crisis, our opportunity.
Ironically, that double-meaning character was originally Chinese, now came in full circle there.
ICT talent in the flat world. ICT talent in Vietnam. I like it.
Thang Nguyen 555 