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

  • low-emission Recession

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: The Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in: we got 25% lower in carbon emission this past year, and maybe lower gas prices toward year-end. Extra cash for Christmas shopping: kids need shoes. Nation leaders are flying in to NY to attend a Summit on the Environment. Big boys (and…

  • A billion bucks!

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: Twittering to the tune of a billion bucks? http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2009/tc20090924_956402.htm?campaign_id=related_AK And the deficit changed slightly to the tune of 1.29 trillion bucks. Since when we are anesthetized to these huge dollar figures? But I must give it to the Lab geeks who came up with new inventions: copying over the…

  • co-ding

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: It’s been an amazing contest. Netflix 1 million dollar prize was awarded to the first team of coders. The second team came in, with equally good stuff, just 20 minutes after the deadline. Data rule. Organized and monetized data, that is. The information age is here to stay. Symbol…

  • Mental Muscle Memory

    In Physical Education, we are taught that our muscles will work themselves back to previous level of endurance. In psychology,  we learned that successful people, serial entrepreneurs for instance, will climb back up to their previous height despite many setbacks (Steve Jobs for one). What made an outlier? Malcom Gladwell studies this phenomenon up close.…

  • Kaizen

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: In the 80’s, we saw many books about Japan e.g. Rising Sun, The Japan That Can Say NO. Now, the Most Admired Country list seems to say NO to Japan, and places it at number 5. Versace closed its door there after having sold to all the old people…

  • Load balancing

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: A few years back, we got headlines like “women made strides with Nobel prizes“. And I remember hearing our shared winner of Economics said she studied ways which societies managed to share work load, from fisheries to farming. I assumed she was trying to crack the “non-zero sum” code,…

  • Snapperizing

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: The Nobel Prize winners this year are being honored for their work on fiber optic (which made possible  data transmission across the globe) and digital photography (pixel-driven process). Put the two inventions together with the rise of crowdsourcing, we got the phenomenon of  iPhoto, Flicker etc.. I am sure…

  • Nano in the wind

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: Kansas didn’t expect its slow number to be a hit, but there it was: Dust in the Wind. I am privy to have met three gentlemen, all Vietnamese nano technology scientists. Through them, I learn about our next frontier, not out there, but right here e.g. coconut shells from…

  • Smart brand

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: Given everything that has been going on, recent news that Ford turned the corner on North American market was quite remarkable. Ford, as American as Coca Cola and apple pie, has done a number of things right: – it cross-pollinated ideas and markets (Smart in US vs Fiesta in…

  • California Dreaming

    Originally posted on Thang Nguyen 555: TIME spotlights California on its cover this week. As a country, California would be with the G8 ( between Italy and Brazil, thus displacing BRIC with CRIC  i.e. California, Russia, India and China). Yet it has no world-class soccer team (despite having in-shored Beckham) just yet. That’s said, it…