Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

South Korea (as well as China and Vietnam) celebrate two New Years'. One on Jan. 1 and the Lunar New Year celebration, which this year falls on Saturday, January 25. For your Korean colleagues (living and working in Korea), you can wish them Happy Lunar New Year on Wednesday afternoon by phone, text, or email, which is Thursday AM in Korea and their last workday before the holiday.  Koreans this year will have a 4-day weekend starting Friday K time. For expatriate Koreans working outside Korea/ globally, you can wish them a Happy Lunar New Year on the day itself, Saturday, January 25, or at some time prior on Friday.   Here is the formal greeting. Sae hae bok mani ba deu say yo One more thing… The year of the rat opens up a new 12-year cycle of animals in the Chinese zodiac. As the first animal to finish the Great Race of the Chinese zodiac legend, the quick-witted rat represents new beginnings and versatility. ...

With the new year, I thought I’d share some Korea facing updates. First, it's nice to see a Korean film nominated for several Oscar awards. South Korea has a rich history of film production. This is no surprise to me as the film, “Parasite” has gained considerable attention by critics and movie-goers. Me and Toki, the Robot Next, I’m back from CES 2020. South Korea had the 3 rd  largest number of companies at the annual electronics trade show held in Las Vegas. The LG and Hyundai Motor booths were visionary and inspiring.  My work at the Show centered on developing a western facing brand message and PR for the Hancom Group—one of South Korea’s largest information software companies. The booth shared their robotics, AI platforms, Life Blockchain and smart cities technologies.   The brand message and PR were quite successful with considerable traffic to the booth and media attention.  https://w...