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: Mark Zuckerberg

  • A sliver of hope

    I still remember the hype surrounding Google IPO ! Now with Facebook, it’s a deja vu. Anything to stir up and to enliven. We need hope when housing is still in the slump! We can do better! Simply because are wired with survival instincts. One man’s success will trigger a chain of similar success. Innovation tend to cluster. Ours…

  • Vietnam goes “social”

    Mark Zuckerberg is here for Christmas vacation. http://english.vietnamnet.vn/en/science-technology/16933/facebook-s-ceo-visits-vietnam.html Perhaps he would find a striking difference between the way people celebrate the Holidays here as opposed to Northern California. In the US, the joke is “if you got tired of the Turkey, you can always order Chinese”. McDonald’ s and KFC‘s are closed. One culture withdraws…

  • Sur le pont

    Oakland Bridge that is. The one got fixed by a China-based sub-contractor. Now, down the dock and downtown, Occupy pledges to stay for the long haul. Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland: “there is no there, there” (hence, no center to be occupied.) When crossing that bridge, I thought of New York City (sprawling California only…

  • Clothes and costumes

    Just about now, we start thinking Halloween costumes. We have tried on cotton, polyester, paper, fur, animal skin (leather) and raw meat. At work, the dress code has changed as well since IBM went “soft” (ware). Gone are the blue suit, white shirt and red tie. Who wants to upstage their CEO’s at Facebook, Google, and…

  • Selling rain gears on sunny day

    I still remember watching “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg“, a French musical film. Of course, more umbrellas are sold when it rains. But when it “never rains in Southern California“, how would marketers manage? The answer: rain making. And yes they did! I was sitting on the top bleacher of Sea World, San Diego. And there they…

  • Trading down: Gap to Goodwill

    You know how good the economy is by seeing how many Hummers are on the street. But we 2.5 per cent growth 1Q 2013, we go from Hummers to Hyundai, from Gap to Goodwill. With 90% debt level, half-a-million debt per man woman and child, trading down is the least of our worries (Patriotic millionaires asked to pay more tax,…

  • Moore’s Law for Tech Giants

    If Rip Van Winkle woke up today, he would be surprised to see Facebook. If he had waken up a decade ago, he would have read about Google.And the decade before that, Microsoft. Except this time, Mark Zuckerberg is much younger than the other founders, dominated the media landscape quicker . And he donated part…