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: San Francisco

  • message in the bottle

    Cast away. Sending an SOS. an SMS. I hope that someone will get my message. We are born to connect (our belly button testifies to this) with nature and others. Yet marketers are telling us that in Retirement Ville, cruise ship (with sauna sound that reminds us of incubator) and virtual existence can substitute for the…

  • Listening across the cultures

    Listening is hard to begin with (just ask a psychiatrist). Listening across the cultures is doubly hard. It requires an extensive grasp of the others’ frame of reference. As technology enables the world to shrink, more groups join the globalized market. (The PM of Malaysia was on GPS telling Fareed that in the 60’s, Malaysia…

  • 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…

  • My list of Influencers

    Despite their flaws (who doesn’t have one please cast the first stone), these are the people I look up to: – President Carter with his commitment to build housing for the poor – President Clinton out of that place called Hope – Jim Elliot, the late great missionary who died for his cause – Danny…

  • cyclo in the time of google

    By now, you can still see a few weather-beaten cyclos around albeit restricted to tourist quarters. I still remember the sound of horse carriage in the streets of  old Saigon. My kid will be lucky if she knows what a cyclo is. She knows Google though. Paperless and painless search. Now with semantic search. My…