Sudden Dream


If you dropped everything and listened to all the casual remarks, you would be paralyzed.

The current economy is like an elephant, perceived by four blind men: it’s going to get better, it’s like a wave form, a V-shape, a downward cyclical.

They could illustrate and demonstrate. They could even persuade. But who is to hold their feet to the fire months from now.

When the going gets rough, the tough takes a vacation. A long one. They said comes January, the electoral body will be in the same state it was at the beginning.

Just reflective of the country as a whole, i.e. divided we stand.

I don’t know where this is going. I have blogged mostly about technology and cultures.

I don’t see much choices in tech trending, nor about how cultures express themselves.

Yet I  live within the Red and Blue States, where Asian and Hispanic demographics are growing more than 150%.

Do we have equal representation who look after our interests up on the Hill?

Are companies putting in place a plan to capture and service this growing trend?

Culture groups know it when you reach out to them. Localization, as they call it, nowadays.

A banner here, a face there, in-language.

I can never forget my first exposure to advertisement. It was the face of a African man, smiling. The product: toothpaste. Hynos. Making and keeping your smile white. My second was about a rice cooker. A 60-second spot, before the movie starts. It’s branded National. So I was introduced to white smile and white rice.

Hynos and National. Brands that reached out to folks like me. Caring for my teeth and my taste.

They understood a thing or two about CLV (Customer Lifetime Value). They were there early, in your face.

They care, or at least, pretend that they do.

If only politicians learned a thing or two from marketers. Both try to serve the public goods. One regulates the other.

But only after the fact. Only when it’s too late (food poisoning, or automobile recall).

We need leaders that can rally, unite and inspire.

We need role models that can take us to new heights, to sacrifice the here and now for a better tomorrow.

We need someone to show us the road ahead, that future generation will benefit from our today’s sacrifice.

Yes. We need to move beyond the pragmatic, to the romantic. Again, Ask Not.

Again, Be all you can be. One more time, Stand up. It’s mind-blogging how we have fought two wars out there, and all along, got into a quagmire here at home. The only cease-fire is when Congress take off for 5 weeks. At least there is some quiet, though not peace, on the Hill.No news is good news even at Chick–fil-A on any given Sunday.

Published by

Thang Nguyen 555

Decades-long Excellence in Marketing, International Relations, Operations Management and Team Leadership at Pac Tel, MCI, ATT, Teleglobe, Power Net Global besides Relief- Work in Asia/ Africa. Thang earned a B.A. at Pennsylvania State University, M.A. in Communication at Wheaton Graduate School, Wheaton, IL and M.A. in Cross-Cultural Communication at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, North of Boston. He is further accredited with a Cambridge English Language Teaching Award (CELTA). Leveraging an in-depth cultures and communication experience, he writes his own blog since 2009.

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