Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

  One Year Later, Visa Gap     New reporting marking the first anniversary of the September 2025 immigration raid at the Hyundai-LG Energy Solution battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia , finds the underlying visa problem unresolved. The raid detained 475 workers, mostly South Korean nationals , in what was described as the largest single-site enforcement action in Homeland Security Investigations ' history. Korean nationals were released within eight days under a negotiated deal and returned home.   The episode remains a live risk factor as Seoul and Korean chaebols scale up the roughly $350 billion US investment pledge, since large buildouts depend on short-term technical labor that current visa categories do not clearly cover.   Korea Daily 's  anniversary retrospective drew on immigration lawyers, former diplomats, business professors, and consultants, including Don Southerton , to assess what changed and what did not. Southerton's read: the core failu...

  Labor Day 2026   The long weekend has me editing my newest manuscript, “ Connected ,” snacking at Whole Foods , organizing for the busy consulting week ahead, and reading  Romp!  by Heidi Island, PhD , a relative from my South Dakota Larsen side of the family.    Heidi blends scientific research with an engaging look at otters and the story they tell.    Check it out    https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593855035?lv

  Connected Series, Part 2 of 6  |  Smart Manufacturing and Logistics   Headline:  The car taught the industry how to build this architecture. The factory is now an application of the same lesson, and the supply chain is the same architecture one layer out.   This week, we are sharing Connected: A Case Study in Six Sections 1. Connected Vehicles 2. Smart Manufacturing and Logistics (today) 3. Semiconductors 4. Robotics 5. Digital Twins 6. Energy and Storage   The Setup A connected vehicle and a modern plant are the same architecture at different scales. Both are software-defined systems built from networked subsystems that sense, decide, act, and update. Read the mapping and the rest follows.   The Architecture: Subsystem Parallels   Electronic control units and domain controllers map to programmable logic controllers, edge controllers, and cell controllers. Both moved from many small distributed brains toward fewer consolidated ones. CAN bus...

  Headline:  The car is where this architecture was proven. Everything that follows this week, the plant, the fab, the robot, the battery, is the same pattern moved to a different asset. This week we are sharing Connected: A Case Study in Six Sections 1. Connected Vehicles (today) 2. Smart Manufacturing and Logistics 3. Semiconductors 4. Robotics 5. Digital Twins 6. Energy and Storage The Setup A connected car is any vehicle with a network link to outside systems: the OEM cloud, mobile apps, other vehicles, and road infrastructure. Every one of those connection points is also an attack surface. The threats look like any networked IT system. The consequences are physical. The Architecture Five parts carry the load. The Telematics Control Unit is the vehicle's cellular modem and gateway out. The in-vehicle network, CAN bus plus automotive Ethernet, lets the control units talk to each other. The over-the-air update system pushes software and firmware remotely. The backend cloud h...

  Sinyong gwa Uiri: What Actually Drives Hanwha Hanwha Group : Core Values and Workplace Culture For decades, my consultancy has engaged with Korean chaebol. My work has been uncovering and sharing company cultures, for example my Hyundai Way book series . I've also done deep dives into SK and LG plus dozens of other companies. I am now turning to Hanwha. Hanwha lists three core values: Challenge, Dedication, and Integrity. Those are cited on the website and in the onboarding deck. Like the other chaebol, it is not what drives the company. More telling is the founding philosophy of Kim Jong-hee , who formed Korea Explosives in 1952. His core values, their corporate motto ( sahoon ) was sinyong gwa uiri , trust and loyalty. I see these as core Hanwha values. Sinyong 신용 and Uiri 의리 Sinyong is in the moral sense, trust. Uiri is a strong sense of honor and duty within a relationship, not corporate loyalty in the HR sense. I see both as grounded in Korea's Neo-Confucian roots . The...

  American Samoa has the resource, the harbor, and now the federal runway. What it does not have is the operator willing to move first. By Don Southerton, Founder and CEO, Bridging Culture Worldwide, and Managing Director, Critical Mineral Ventures, and Strategic Advisor ASEDC. Start with a number that does not get enough attention. The polymetallic nodules in the American Samoa exclusive economic zone run at roughly 28 percent manganese by weight . That is the highest natural concentration of any known commercial deposit anywhere in the world . Manganese is the quiet bottleneck in the battery supply chain . LFP and LMFP chemistry is scaling fast for grid storage and lower cost EVs, and both need battery grade manganese in volume. Processing capacity outside China is critically thin. The same nodule fields also carry nickel, cobalt, and copper , the exact four metals inside every EV battery cathode. Deposits closest to the territory are estimated at 10 billion tons of high grade o...