Thang Nguyen 555
Cultures on Collision Course
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Tag: United States
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When we face a critical juncture on the road, we need to be decisive. A liberal arts training doesn’t hurt either. Even when two people arrived at the same conclusion, liberal art thinkers insist that between A and B, a straight line might not be the best alternative. Just the shortest. As nature would agree, it favors…
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Among Dylan’s many memorable lines is “you don’t need the weatherman to tell you which way the wind is blow-in”. Even without the weatherman, we can feel that things are at a boiling point. Like in the movie “the Network”, people start to open their windows and bell out “I am mad like Hell, and…
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“The crowd call out for more…” Procol Harum’s one-hit wonder, with his indelible organ solo, still mystified many on YouTube. Legacy companies in a mature industry such as HP, have moved too far away from their roots, hence, at great risk of being irrelevant or turning into wax (Icarus paradox). In HP’s early days, Bill and Dave…
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“In restless dream I walked alone” this time, w/ out Garfunkel. Two moments of silence descended upon two reflecting pools. It was so eerie that ten years ago, of all things, Matt Lauer was interviewing a Howard Hughes biographer when the TODAY show got interrupted. I don’t think viewers ever follow up on the bio after…
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It started with interchangeable parts in a gun factory, then “re-engineering” in the auto-assembly plant to full automation (former Secretary of Labor Reich said that if workers lose their sense of optimism, then there is no replacement). In NY, the manufacturing sector employs 40% a century ago, now it stands at mere 4% (conversely, a…
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You would find that I am surprised by the number of employees Google and Apple employed only 75,000 combined (compared that with HP, GM or US Government‘s). You would find that I still remember “the jumpers” on 9/11, and that we lost good men and women on United Flight 93, as well as Peter Jennings of ABC…
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Image of an old guy spread out on his Harley w/ a cigar in his mouth stuck with me. To him, that was it. The end game. Reaping the windfall. In Seven Habits of Effective People, Steven Covey urges his readers to “begin with the end in mind”. I guess, in this case, I better…
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The first advice was from Jobs, a college drop-out, in his commencement speech. The second, recently, was the gist of a NYT op-ed by Brooks. Those are mantels of would-be entrepreneurs. Where else can you find people who are willing to sleep (if at all) in sleeping bags and code for days on end, with no prospect of a pay…
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50 years ago, you would have been chased out of the pub had you painted these scenarios: the US can’t wait to open off-shored manufacturing centers, Gaga as a mermaid on wheelchair, and 90% of the population will shop at Wal-Mart, stocked with 99% Made-in-China merchandise. Dude, in the 60’s, we were living the American…
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“We are ‘creatures of information’”, “in the library of Babel, seeking information past and future”, says James Gleick in the Information. We might look in hardback and paperback, print books and e-books, newspaper and news broadcast, but we are still after the information. It reminds me of a line by St Paul “though now we see…
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