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: IBM

  • Attending my funeral

    The paper announced “a A student committed suicide for not passing Vietnam‘s first IBM-graded SAT“. So, my classmates showed up at my house the next morning for condolences. True story. Not having seen the column the day before, I was completely taken aback. Hence, my first exposure to bad journalism, and Vietnam’s first trial run…

  • Encoded memories

    In a fictional tale of modern madness, the author of “the Remains of the Day” brought to us “Never let Me Go”. A famous quote from the school principal (where students were raised and taught to become “donors” since they were genetic copies made from real people to someday called on to offer their body parts…

  • Twice, it’s alright

    I did everything twice. It’s become a pattern. It’s become a pattern, 6th grade found me fumble from a French-system to then Vietnamese system, so I ended up repeating my 6th grade at two different Middle Schools. Then, my freshman year got interrupted (by the White Christmas song that was played on US Arms Force radio, the…

  • Heterogeneous country, homogeneous thought

    Google CEO blurted out what we all know (that tech moves at 3 times faster than other business sectors, who in turn, are 3X than the government). We are analog-built e.g. eating,  buying and thinking habits, while techies thought processing power is on a different plane e.g. Cold-War B53 bomb in TX is finally being disassembled and junked. A…

  • I want my Skype call!

    By now, we all know about our right to make a phone call when being arrested. That phone call usually is placed from a pay phone (soon to be a museum piece). Skype has been down (and slowly back up to full speed), and 26 million users worldwide felt the pinch. VoIP. Conversation chopped into…

  • Here they come!

    Chinese buyers, that is. Not a bid for 76 gas station, or IBM hardware (now Lenovo). A GM unit then Symentech. On seeing David Stockman on TV. I thought I were back to the early 80’s. This time, just one just needs to replace the word Japanese, for Chinese (remember Michael Keaton and his gold fish?).…

  • Forgetfulness is necessary

    In clinical terms: selective memory. Speak ill not of the dead, for instance. Auto-biography is another version of selective memory (before actual amnesia). For me, to see Dow Chemical opens a polymer and acrylic factory in Vietnam, roughly 40 years after Agent Orange got sprayed over the same landscape, is a great example of collective…

  • Against the tide of commoditization

    In Selling Professional Services to the Fortune 500, Gary Luefschuetz warns against mix and match people and rates of various service tiers, which will compromise the rate structure. In short, swim against the tide. IBM got it. Cisco follows suit. And HP is moving in that direction. The Economist takes an in-depth look at IT…

  • 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…

  • Rare Earth beats

    If you want to set the tone for the whole day, pop in Rare Earth collection which opens with a 22-minute long Get Ready followed by I Just Want to Celebrate. The name has nothing to do with current dispute between China and Japan for those planned-scarcity elements. Get ready to celebrate. Dream, dream, dream.…