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.

Tag: Beatle

  • 10,000 hours

    How many among us actually put in that many hours pursuing one thing? Yet studies show it takes that much practice to master a skill or a trade. That long to promote ourselves to the rank of outlier : Bill Gates coding skill, the Beatles smooth performance etc… Today marks my first 10,000 views of…

  • Content poor

    Latest study pointed to Vietnam workforce skill deficiencies, particularly in critical and behavioral skills (numerical skill was a given). This study came not as a surprise. For years, kids have adopted a rote learning, picked up from peers and adults, who in turn, had picked up from earlier generations. We are heading toward an era…

  • Music was saved

    When Steve Jobs came up with his 99-cent song idea, he saved musicians from the curse of piracy. It’s all in the ether. But musicians get paid, however long the tail. Better than nothing at all. More people get to hear those beautifully written pieces. I walked by a coffee shop yesterday. On its walls…

  • mass innovation

    We got into this mess (housing bubble and derivative fallacy) en mass. Are we going to suffer in isolation? No way! With crowdsourcing, virtual forum, email, cloud etc.. we got enough in our arsenal to reverse the course. Technology (the way) and the will. That’s all we need. And a little bit of love (courtesy of…

  • Play element

    We seem to have lost touch with the play aspect in life and work. I am thinking of John Lennon and Steve Jobs at the moment. Both pursued their passion, and both were dead. One married interracially, the other just loved all things simple (even foods). They were famous, and still are, although they could not…

  • Strange sounds, familiar shores

    Instead of “I woke up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me…” like Paul McCartney, I woke up to strange sounds these days: peddlers who use “low tech” au parleur (bull horn) mounted on bicycles or tri-cycles (selling boot-legged CD‘s). In fact, it was my first time got chased by pleasant sound from…

  • Time to take stock

    So this is Christmas, what have you done? Year-end review and future projection. Cloud strategy? Hiring and firing decision? Productivity squeeze and cost cutting? (female shoppers said they planned to spend 1% less as compared to last year). Time to take stock, at individual and institutional level. New calendar. Hollywood is going to Detroit (greener…

  • the Me in a changing We

    NYT columnist sums it up and I have nothing to add to it, maybe except the cross-cultural angle about change or perish. I hear Yesterday’s lyric ” I am half a man I used to be”. .. Technological leap forward (surround sound, anyone?). Star Wars itself has to keep up with its own 3-D version.…