Thang Nguyen 555

Cultures on Collision Course

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With some short-term relief work in Asia/Africa and long stint in Telecom, Thang also earned a B.A. at Pennsylvania State University. M.A. in Communication at Wheaton Graduate School, M.A. in Cross-Cultural Communication at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Boston. In addition, he earned a CELTA – classes taken in Hanoi for cultural re-immersion.

Author: Thang Nguyen 555

  • The race to be Pho number 1

    Ms Yang, a blogger from Dallas, tried out Vietnamese Pho, and quoted her friend from Vietnam, that Pho in the US tastes better due to better beef (from Texan cow?). http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/cityofate/2010/10/pho.php Other people speculated the reason McDonald has yet entered the Vietnamese market (beef barrier to entry?) was because of the price of imported beef…

  • My machine vs yours

    When Henry Ford put together two motor cycles side by side to invent the automobile, he wasn’t interested in pleasing his customers, “you can have any color you want, as long as it’s black”.  Now, car turns commodity, the Chinese came up with Cherry, the pink car designed to please its female customers  Bye bye…

  • Machine of the year

    We put a five-dollar bill in, and got a quarter back. Green. Go. No toll booth collector. Just a machine. Just like you would find at laundromat, or car wash. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Its video rental machines don’t seem to catch up with Red Box and Netflix. Netflix doesn’t seem to catch up with…

  • Under-utilized imagination

    The-girl-with-a-dragon-tatoo series got me hooked. I know it’s cold  in Stockholm. And I know he did not produce tangible products from the factory, such as sweet or swatch. But he offered readers an emotional experience (getting out of mundane existence, stepping into character and experiencing triumph and tragedy unavailable to us otherwise).  The author did not live…

  • The Elder role in Vietnamese society

    I often interact with nephews, one in particular is even older than I, but all call me Uncle. To them, I belong to the previous batch. Last of the line. In the old Vietnam, once you made past 50, you are moved up to the “elder” circle (“chieu tren”) when feasting. I had an occasion to do…

  • Juxtaposing

    It just so happens that I am reading Matterhorn and Love Like Hate one after another. The former depicts the Vietnam War from a GI‘s perspective, the later from a Vietnamese viewpoint. Coincidentally, people depicted in both novels came across as victims of an uncalled-for conflict and whose lives were disrupted and devastated. I found glimpses…

  • Tech rules again

    We all saw Google’s numbers surge. I remember the last time I feel this way was a decade ago. Something is in the works. The market responds. New apps, new ways of accomplishing things. This might be it. Just like a line in “It Might Be You“, a theme song in Tootsie. Maybe it didn’t…

  • Palm Beach to Palm Springs

    I blogged once about “Dakao vs Dalat”. Today, it’s about Palm Beach to Palm Springs. Mirror image of each other, and located on the opposite side of the country: palm trees, professional golf and private resorts. Places exclusive. Unlike Dakao where even after a relief bridge was finished, traffic and flooding still present a nightmare for…

  • Where have all the salesmen gone?

    Algorithm rules. Pop-up ads and SEO. Sales automation. Who needs a firm handshake, the smell of splash perfume and sincere eye contact! Users know everything about the product and the industry anyway. There is no need for more information. Only the recommendation part, which they rely on friends and families. Strangers knocking on doors and…

  • The only advocate you need

    Hillary Clinton once campaigned on “It takes a village” theme. Within a village, you need to find the Chief  Influence Officer. Our village CIO . The technology broker who can diffuse the innovation you seek to introduce. Two-step flow. 80/20 rule. One example is to “diffuse” EMR which helps clinics take better control of their…