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: Wall Street

  • Wake me when October ends

    Limits to power. Limits to growth. Speed limits. We finally see ourselves in the mirror. Dying, decaying, decomposing. Long live Blue Jeans, T-shirt and Rock “n” Roll. 60 Minutes capitalized on their archive footage to show us the evolution of John Kerry. Our evolution, from idealism to realism. The aging process that takes a toll…

  • No Spring attached

    Having lived in coastal cities for quite some time, I forgot what’s like to wait for Spring. We need Winter as a set up for Spring.  Winter-Spring contrast is more striking than that of Summer-Fall. We also anticipated Spring more than Fall (some even wish for endless summers). Vietnamese literature and lyrics (Gold music) nevertheless, serenade Fall and…

  • Personality as motivator

    Besides fun, fear and need for recognition, each of us is motivated by an unique set of triggers. Some are expressive e.g. talk it out to then realize what they think. Analytical people, however, weigh the pros and cons before opening their mouths. Amiable people just empathize, feely-touchy and are good listeners Social folks love…

  • Unseen hands

    that manipulate interest rates, oil price, appropriate and earmark budgets for the commons. Adam Smith must be talking about the abstract “invisible hand” of a free market, while in reality, we all feel there are levers behind the scene with successive hands, tinkling and adjusting. Some are automated, by self-improving algorithms. One example of the…

  • My Turn

    For years, Newsweek had devoted one-page My Turn for reader’s Op-ed. This move paved the way for crowdsourcing and blogging, which are both technology-enabled (same way the Karaoke machine let the audience to have their turn at the mike). We will come to a point in the future where past practices (museum, musical hall and magazines) criss-cross with…

  • Micro Trend, Macro World

    Economy of scale, strength in numbers, linear growth. Out of the 7 Billion of us, almost half live in the cities (hints: pollution, traffic congestion, high crime rate, time crunch, shrinking quality of life, more opportunities but unsustainable). I read about China’s sewer cooking oil, crocodiles roaming the streets of Bangkok, and tent city on Wall…

  • In the mirror

    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…

  • Whiter shade of HP

    “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…

  • 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…

  • Osmotic effect

    BlackBerry was blamed for London Summer unrest while tech proponents gave it credits for Arab Spring. Tech is just out there, with its incremental and osmotic effect. What society chooses to do with it is entirely different. There will come a time when we do need to switch to energy-efficient light bulbs, paint our roofs white and…