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: Facebook

  • Stay hungry, stay foolish, keep Searching

    In his 2005 Standford commencement address, Steve Jobs ended with ” Stay hungry. Stay foolish”. Today, we should add “keep searching”. After Google, Bing and Yahoo and Blekko, which promised to keep out spam. Wild Wild West.  More content, more classification, increasing need for trusted recommendation. Part of the reason Facebook is where it is…

  • Third life

    As recent as 60 years ago, a businessman could let his hair down (or hat off) at home, smoke a cigarette or pipe, and watch the news (in black and white). In fact, at the U of TX Austin museum, an exhibition is underway to show you just that: witness to a century. Now, we…

  • 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…

  • Unsung heroes

    I channel surfed last night. C-SPAN 3 covered the Memorial in PA for flight 93, those unsung heroes who diverted terrorist plot 9 years ago. The uncut shot kept panning the vast expanse of Pennsylvanian field, future home of Flight 93 Memorial. Graphically speaking, it was boring. MOS (mid out sound) since the mike did…

  • India + 1 cafeteria

    I ordered an iced coffee with milk, this time not in the to-go cup. I just want to sit down, and take it all in. No I am not in India. But close. I am in formerly known as Saigon. On the  8th floor. REBOOT CAFE. The LogiGear building. Offshore software testing center. Young engineers…

  • the art of showing

    In Impressive First Impressions, author Vu Pham introduces the concept of “reset”.  By that he means, we constantly need to reset our first impressions according to each context and situation:  at work, at play, at home. The same guy.  When he was at the top of his game, generated a different impression than when he…

  • Name Change

    It costs about $800 to change one’s name here in the US e.g. on social security , driver’s license and passport. One might prefer something that has global sounding: Villa, Gaga, Shakira. Between YouTube, Facebook and World Cup, we enjoy an unprecedented confluence of technology and globalization. And the common denominators are football scores and…

  • strip tease

    A Canadian lady, on her insurance-paid leave for mental distress, walked into a bar. Not just any bar, but a male strip tease bar. And she posted her excursion in Facebook to share with “friends”. Among the uninvited  “friends” was the Insurance adjuster. So, her insurance checks stop coming. Reason: “we have joy, we have…

  • Aimy Telephony

    Aimy’s birthday is this Friday. She was born in Burbank, while I was still trying to close a telephony deal (Centrex or “cloud telephony”). Phones get smaller (from brick phone to pocket phone) while Aimy grows bigger. She went with me to many direct sales events, Daddy and daughter singing “We Are the Champions” to…

  • Snapperizing

    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 Facebook and Match.com are direct beneficiaries…