Seeing the world from a unique perspective
Books are a way we can travel the world without leaving our living room. But what if you flip this on its head and travel the world to bring back books?
Children's books
Ryan Liebengood, Corporate Director IP & Licensing, shares with us how his travels with ASM resulted in an idea. An idea that has brought him closer to colleagues worldwide and given him a chance to explore other cultures, not through a traditional guidebook but with children's books.
When I joined ASM over 12 years ago, one of the most interesting things for me was traveling to Europe and Asia. Being based out of Phoenix, my most extravagant travel before joining ASM was visiting the United Kingdom.
Within a few months of joining, I was on my first work trip on a long 24-hour flight to Singapore. Alongside the travel and the new places, the IP team's geographic and cultural diversity has given me a unique chance to learn from my colleagues in Belgium, Finland, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, and Singapore.
We regularly talk about ASM being a global company, not just regional offices around the world, but 40+ nationalities in 14 countries, even our R&D is spread across three continents. The IP team is no exception, with people in six countries supporting IP creation, preparation, protection, and monetization.
Like most of us, my spouse strongly encourages me to bring home chocolates from Belgium, rye bread from Finland, stroopwafels from the Netherlands, KitKat's from Japan, cosmetics from Korea, and dried durian from Singapore (because you cannot travel with chili crab).
When my son (Walter) was born about seven years ago, I was still traveling regularly, and I would bring back small gifts such as chopsticks, a xylophone, or wind-up toys for him. Eventually, I saw a Miffy (Nijntje) book in Schiphol and thought it would be fun to buy him a book in each country and ask some ASM locals to translate it for him.
Over the years, our collection of translated books has expanded from Miffy to Larva, Anpanman, and the Moomins, amongst others. These books illustrate the cultural and linguistic diversity within ASM's global R&D and manufacturing teams, covering Dutch, Korean, Japanese, Finnish, Chinese, and English. During a recent trip to Milan to support our recent acquisition of LPE, I picked up a book in Italian as well. These books remind us how unique ASM is and how much we all have in common.
A special thank you to all my ASM colleagues who have translated a page or more!