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: tech and multi-cultural marketing

  • Read my signals!

    Former Secretary of State Albright came out with a new book. This time, it’s entitled “Read My Pins”. Her first pin was a serpent, all due to Saddam Hussein who “pinned” her with this biblical insignia. Ever since, she figured pins can be put to diplomatic services i.e. to send out signals, to encode her…

  • Lucky 7

    Mark this date. October 22nd. It’s the planned release date for Win 7 O/S. http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107925/a-windows-to-help-you-forget?mod=career-worklife_balance The author said, “in the high-tech world, an 8-year-old operating system is like a 20-year-old car”. I hope they have “cash for (Vista) clunker” program to stimulate my purchase. Tech hasn’t ruled in a while. I hope this month marks…

  • Kaizen

    In the 80’s, we saw many books about Japan e.g. Rising Sun, The Japan That Can Say NO. Now, the Most Admired Country list seems to say NO to Japan, and places it at number 5. Versace closed its door there after having sold to all the old people of the laggard group. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5e6a886-b325-11de-ac13-00144feab49a.html (in…

  • 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…

  • Loss

    That one word sums up what’s been happening this week: the Olympic bid, September job figures , David Letterman’s confession (loss of face) and automotive sales numbers . By all indications, the US economy has just pulled through and is perhaps breaking out of the red (.73%  during Q2). Just in time to celebrate Harvest…

  • K-atastrophe

    Whether it’s Ketsana or Katrina, human suffering are the same: things and people once so attached are now gone. Loss. Grief. Anger (at governmental slow responses). After Katrina, I went to the refugee shelters in Houston to hand out free calling cards. I remember the cover of TIME showing lines of cars leaving Houston of…

  • Left, Right, Gone!

    Jody Powell, Press Secretary under the Carter Administration, died a few years ago. William Safire, speech writer for President Nixon, also passed away soon afterwards. These two men left a legacy of words. Mr Safire was remembered more than his B/W iconic PR photo of the Cold War: He left us with a Dictionary of…

  • NY-Pittsburgh

    Those who made it to the table (G-20) took the train, plane or automobile from NY to Pittsburgh. Those who didn’t went on talk show (Iranian P.M. on Larry King, Gaddafi on Zakaria). Again, 24/7 cable news delivers out of desperate need to fill up the air time, and this week, there are plenty of…

  • A billion bucks!

    Twittering to the tune of a billion bucks? http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2009/tc20090924_956402.htm?campaign_id=related_AK And the deficit changed slightly to the tune of 1.29 trillion bucks. Since when we are anesthetized to these huge dollar figures? But I must give it to the Lab geeks who came up with new inventions: copying over the distance (fax), texting over the phone…

  • Pittsburgh Brainers

    Newsweek gets it again. It publishes the top ranking Green companies, just like TIME magazine Person of the Year, or US News & World Report Best Universities ranking. There is also a piece about Pittsburgh, a bounced back city, where the G-20 meeting is going to be held. http://www.newsweek.com/id/215984 Pittsburgh was to a lot of…