Gone Fishing.

Well planned.

Hanoi, Vietnam – “We don’t do market research,” Mr. Tien said.

“We go fishing – we just put the line in the water and maybe we catch a fish.”

It was the line of the morning, so to speak.

I continued the analogy by explaining how time consuming fishing is, and if you’re lucky to catch one, there’s hardly room for another. If you’re going to successfully market yourself, know your audience and how to reach them.

It’s a message I have been preaching for the past month.

In order to extend the impact of my stay beyond my mandate with BTL, I volunteered to facilitate a three-hour workshop this morning for the Vietnam Association of Community Colleges.

The group of 17 was engaged, active and thoughtful, leading to fruitful brainstorming sessions directed toward improving the reputation of community colleges across the country. We focused on planning, understanding audiences and putting the ‘social’ in social media.

As if to punctuate my point, Mr. Tien came up to me after we had taken a series of group photographs.

“My wife just texted me,” he said. “She told me I had been standing beside the tall foreigner.”

Female intuition?

No. Someone had already posted photos to Facebook.