Thang Nguyen 555

Cultures on Collision Course

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about

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: tech and multi-cultural marketing

  • Crossed markets

    Forbes kept praising the success of luxury brands in China while web sites in Vietnam and China mentioned “Pepper Spray on Black Friday”. Chinese-made goods, sold as lost leaders, to the first 100-early-bird shoppers. Planned scarcity. Hype-creation. Sensational, sizzling headline-grabbing video op for YouTube. We need attention. The media need it even more. (For some counter-intuitive…

  • Pattern recognition

    As the saying goes, “those who don’t know history tend to repeat it”. I should have titled this blog, “the art of reinventing the wheel” as I saw familiar patterns reemerge everyday. Avatar for instance. For a moment there, I thought I was watching Jurassic Park and Never-Ending Story put together. Lady Gaga takes Madonna’s…

  • Reflections of mom’s life

    Not by the Marmalade. But by everyone on this busiest calling day. It’s the one number you don’t need to use the White Pages to look up. BTW, Verizon no longer publishes those door-stoppers. Save a tree. The DIY movement kept men busy, and kept moms everywhere at work: cut your own grass, install your…

  • Media shock

    When I was working weekends at the School of Journalism at Penn State, journalist-wannabes would check out Advertising Age, Christian Science Monitor, and of course, the New York Times. And everyone read the campus paper. They even showed Deep Throat on campus (organized by the Student Association). Such was the time. We all lined up…

  • Vietnamese boat in La

    Her name is on the boat in the background of a BBC reportage. It spells THUY TRANG. And I wonder if this is the second or third time the owner faced hardship (Vietnam evacuation, Katrina and now oil spill). Three strikes. At least they are hired to help with the clean up instead of fishing.…

  • E-memoir

    Mark your calendar. Summer 2010 will be a bookend event. It will be Gutenberg-like. It’s the beginning of the disappearance of Revised Print Edition. It’s Google e-book store, where you can download the latest version of any book. Gone are the paper backs. Or Large Print for that matter. Select your own font. http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-features/49631-google-plans-summer-opening-for-e-book-store Our…

  • Prominent display

    If you want your brand to stick , you got to plaster it on Times Square billboards. Yahoo did. I bet they spent a fortune for that property. Build, and they will come. Not bad for a company started out in a Standford dorm room. Companies are competing for Continuous Partial Attention (CPA). This time…

  • Shanghai re-debutant

    With 70 million expected to visit the World Expo there, Shanghai is braced to rake in 1.6 Billion just in admission ($23 per entrant). Strength in numbers. We had a taste for numbers back in the days when President Nixon first made his visit to China. That state dinner was rumored to be a royal…

  • UA (unemployed anonymous)

    Who in the Western world would want to admit that he or she is out of work, or worse off, underemployed (MBA grass-cutting day laborer? mind you, I don’t look down on manual chores, it’s just that I am allergic to fresh-cut grass). But 23 million in the US have said the prayer of serenity…

  • French ties

    Vietnam’s Viettel invests in rebuilding Haiti’s telecom infrastructure http://www.cellular-news.com/story/43111.php After all, they can communicate in French during the project. Just like New Orleans and Hanoi, both have French architect resemblance. When I was in Cote D’Ivoire, I was struck at how similar it was to Saigon (the police post at the intersection, boulevard with tree…