Mango Languages

Meet Our Newest Mango!

Happy Friday Everyone!

We would like to introduce our newest Mango, Tiffany Neumeyer. She will be working as our project coordinator here at the Mango grove.

At Mango she’s mainly going to be assisting our Product Development Manager in the processing and management of all things audio when it comes to our courses.  That includes communicating with the studios to source and select new talent, working with them to schedule script readings, generating scripts to send the studios, and contacting our course developers once the audio is ready to be proofed.

Tiffany studied Communications and German at the University of Michigan and spent the last few years in various marketing and PR roles, both here in Michigan and in Chicago.  Most recently she worked as a Marketing Associate for a financial company. Her hobbies include skiing, running, shopping, and spending any leftover money she has to travel (our kinda gal).

Fun travel story?

“While studying abroad in Germany, my train from Salzburg broke down just minutes outside the city, so all the passengers ended up having to take a minivan to get back to Munich.  What started out as a stressful experience, ended up being a great opportunity to see all the little towns of Southern Bavaria.”

Other random facts:

o   “I was born in England and my husband is from Germany, so every four years during the World Cup we have to ‘draw the battlelines’ in our household”

o   “I’ve lived in 6 different homes during the past 3 years, so I’m excited to settle down here in Michigan.”

o  ”I’m a huge animal lover, especially dogs.”

Thank you, Tiffany, for sharing all these cool facts.

Welcome Tiffany to the Mango Family!

"Wai" is Product Development So Fun?

Product Development at Mango, with all its varied duties typical of the department, is naturally intriguing.  From working with our tech team and their newest technologies to dealing with team members in distant countries (which sometimes requires unusual middle-of-the-night meetings), the constant demands that keep you on your toes is characteristically fun for us.  And the good times continue during those moments of inspiration, wherever they may occur, when those seemingly good ideas for new features come suddenly and make you scramble to jot them down before they float away beyond your reach.  But, most fun in the product development department, at least for me, is coming across the cultural notes found in the Mango chapters.  I think it is so amazing how the different cultures from all over the world do things.  For example, the “wai” was so cool that I was doing it over and over again in front of my computer.  This explanation of “wai” comes straight from the Mango software:
 
The “wai” is the Thai greeting and shows respect.  Just press your palms together near your chest and bow.
 
This “wai” is such a nice break from the usual handshake that incorporating it into my day and experiencing the occasional reciprocation is extremely enjoyable.  It is discovering cultural information like the Thai “wai” that is extremely fascinating about developing the Mango product.