Posted by Elena del Valle on January 11, 2013
Entering the Shift Age
Photo: Sourcebooks
In his most recent book David Houle, a self described futurist, examines the historic transformation of humans. He explains that our society has been transformed by a series of eras each with its own characteristics. First, the Agricultural Age brought about organized cultivation and permanent settlements in lieu of the nomadic lifestyle humans had had for thousands of years. He discusses how the Industrial Revolution led to yet other dramatic changes in the world; and most recently the Information Age transformed work and personal environments in the United States and later internationally with record speed. He is convinced that now we are in a new era which is having a dramatic impact on society.
Houle, author, Entering the Shift Age The End of the Information Age and the New Era of Transformation (Sourcebooks, $8.69), a soon to be published e-book of 3,431 tablet length pages, believes we left the Information Age behind in 2006 following the Threshold Decades and transitioned quietly to what he calls the Shift Age which is still being created and defined by three dominant forces: the Flow to Global, the Flow to Individual and Accelerating Electronic Connectedness.
People will arrive at a point where they will consider that they are part of a global community, rather than an international one, he points out in Chapter Three. This is due in part because the speed of communications has shrunk the world, opened borders driving world politics inward and increasing multicultural integration, he explains in the book.
Houle is convinced that during the Shift Age a greater number of people will migrate than during previous ages in part because there are more people and in part because a higher percent of the population will migrate. At the same time, due to the global economy, he says in Chapter Twenty-Seven, “increasingly we will look globally for employment or contract work.” In the future, people will work together in project and then separate.
Millenials he has met have a strong desire to experience the world, planning to spend up to ten years working at various places around the globe. Digital Natives are ever more interconnected into the global community, he says. They are the group with least place-base identity. Africa is poised to enter a golden age in 2020 and such a boom will impact mass migration, he says toward the end of the book.
While the book was legible in a tablet the formatting was riddled with odd line breaks, some words with a random mix of lowercase and uppercase letters that did not follow a standard publishing style, and hard to read figures due to the odd formatting display on the tablet screen.
Houle, a strategist and keynote speaker, won a Speaker of the Year award from Vistage International. According to his biography, he has spoken to or advised more than two thousand chief executive officers and business owners in the past four years.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on January 7, 2013
Sales of smoking cessation products may increase 3 percent from 2011-12 and reach $1 billion and growth is expected through 2017 reaching $1.2 billion in sales, according to Smoke Cessation Products US December 2012, a Mintel report. The odds of kicking the habit may be against the average smoker. According to the Mayo Clinic website, only 5 percent of people who try to quit tobacco succeed on their own without a quit-smoking product. The site indicates more than 30 percent “can succeed when using a quit-smoking product.”
It seems some smokers who want to quit fear gaining weight during the quitting process. Forty one percent of respondents to a Mintel survey, conducted online in English December 2012, who have previously quit or are interested in quitting, said gaining weight was their biggest challenge to quitting smoking; 54 percent of those were women and 31 percent were men.
Hispanic respondents to the survey were more likely to smoke than other respondents. Those who smoked appeared more likely to be trying to stop. Mintel staff believes smoking cessation product marketers might consider Hispanic specific outreach.
Hispanic smokers trying to quit who responded to the survey said they were influenced by their friends in their desire to stop smoking. This led Mintel staff to suggest the possibility of marketing program activities with smokers friends.
Hispanic respondents who had quit or wanted to quit were less likely to say that they look for smoking cessation products that are not expensive. At the same time they were also less likely to say the cost of cigarettes influenced their behavior.
Posted by Elena del Valle on January 1, 2013
As the past year ends and a new one begins we take the opportunity to thank you for following our articles, podcast interviews, emails and Tweets, for sharing your comments, ideas and suggestions, and working with us to make our content interesting and relevant. And to wish you a healthy and prosperous 2013!
Posted by Elena del Valle on December 14, 2012
Unselfish World book cover
For ten years Richard Sasso, chief executive officer, MSC Cruises of Fort Lauderdale, Florida had an idea he wanted to develop. He wanted to encourage others to pay attention to their surroundings. Doing so would help them realize all people share a common bond and lead them to be giving, he thought. Last year he brought his idea to a wide audience with the publication of UnselfishWorld (self published, $27) and the establishment of a non profit foundation and related website.
Sasso believes that although the human instinct is to be selfish it is possible to counter our instinct in order to be unselfish. Becoming unselfish, he says in the Forward of the book, can make a difference in the world “to the protection of our homes, our families, and even reach for the possibility of world peace.”
The 83-page hardcover book is divided into 15 chapters where he addresses the main questions of Why, Who, What, When, Where, How and goes on to explain his overall concept. He believes when we do kind things we should not do them seeking a reward but says that “life has some interesting was to reward us, even when we least expect it.”
The mission of Unselfish World, listed as a non profit organization with a Miami address on the website, is “to create an environment for you to become the most unselfish person you can be. Once you change your own behavior, you can also help others do the same.”
Visitors to the website are invited to sign up, share unselfish acts, contribute (two corporate sponsors are listed) to benefit three organizations, purchase the book and related stickers. Sasso, a cruise industry veteran with 40 years of experience including founding and leading cruise lines, believes his life has been nearly perfect. According to the book’s bio, his priorities are his family and friends and his passion to see his new project succeed.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on December 10, 2012
Phil Cooke, author, One Big Thing
Photo: Phil Cooke
A podcast interview with Phil Cooke, author, One Big Thing is available in the Podcast Section of Hispanic Marketing & Public Relations, HispanicMPR.com. During the podcast, he discusses discovering your purpose in life with Elena del Valle, host of the HispanicMPR.com podcast.
Phil has been an agent of change for millions of people through his work in television and the media. He lectures at Yale University, UC Berkeley and UCLA, and spent the past 30 years advising many large organizations. He has appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, CNN and Fox News, and his work has been profiled in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of Jolt! Get the Jump on a World that’s Constantly Changing (Thomas Nelson, 2011). He blogs on change, disruption, culture, and media.
To listen to the interview, scroll down until you see “Podcast” on the right hand side, then select “HMPR Phil Cooke” click on the play button below or download the MP3 file to your iPod or MP3 player to listen on the go, in your car or at home. To download it, click on the arrow of the recording you wish to copy and save it to disk. The podcast will remain listed in the December 2012 section of the podcast archive.
Posted by Elena del Valle on December 7, 2012
Looking for Esperanza book cover
Photos: Benu Press
While watching the news the attention of Adriana Paramo, an author and anthropologist, was drawn to a story about an immigrant mother who had carried her dead daughter’s body with her through a tough desert journey from Mexico with her family. Perhaps because she is an immigrant herself or because the plight of others touches her the woman’s case drew Paramo. She spent 18 months searching for Esperanza, the woman in the news, immersing herself in the world of undocumented workers in the small town where she thought Esperanza might live.
Across Florida, in vegetable fields, citrus groves, ferneries, and packing houses, she encountered “an underground subculture of hungry undocumented women, a hidden world of wage slaves, a microcosm of false names, false Social Security numbers, and false hopes.” During that time, she met many people and heard about many unfortunate women and their sorrow filled stories.
She stopped writing following the death of her mother due to her extended bereavement. Eight years after she began her search for Esperanza Looking for Esperanza: The Story of a Mother, a Child Lost, and Why They Matter to Us (Benu Press, $24.95), a 142-page softcover book about her experience, was published. The book chronicles the plight of undocumented women living in Florida who took great risks hoping for a better life for those they love.
Adriana Paramo, author, Looking for Esperanza
“Although I write almost exclusively about women, I hope my readership is comprised by both men and women. Anyone with a beating heart, anyone with a shred of humanity in them, anyone with hope for a world where justice and equality rule our immigration policies and our relationship with food, is a good target for my book,” said Paramo in response to a question about the target audience for her book.
She believes the book “has brought awareness to the appalling living and working conditions of our undocumented farmworkers” and has also “created a sort or urgency, a need for the reader to say ‘what can we do?’ or ‘how can we change this?’” Two college professors plan to use the book in their classroom.
“My biggest challenge was to accept my limitations as an anthropologist. As a social scientist all I could do was to observe, document and report. With each story told to me, I wanted to do something tangible and immediate; I wanted to have the power to find them better housing, better food, to give them access to the same resources I have access to. It was very hard to realize and accept my own helplessness,” said Paramo when asked about challenges and rewards of writing the book. “To have the book published. Holding the book in my hands makes me feel that I have done something relevant, that Paulina, Laura, Griselda, Rosa, Cristina and Esperanza are no longer faceless, voiceless wetbacks, but women like me.”
Paramo, a non fiction writer born and raised in Colombia, won the 2011 Benu Press Award for Social Justice for this book. She is a resident of Florida.
Click to buy Looking for Esperanza
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Posted by Elena del Valle on December 3, 2012
U.S. GDP Growth 2013-14 – click to enlarge
Assuming fiscal cliff issues are overcome the economy will continue a steady recovery over the coming two years, according to researchers at Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Our GDP is projected to grow 2 percent next year and 2.8 percent in 2014. Compared to Europe, estimated to remain in a recession and contract through the end of 2012 and into 2013 before reaching a GDP growth of 1.3 percent, the projections for the United States seem positive. Even when compared with GDP growth across the OECD of 1.4 percent for 2013 and 2.3 percent for 2014, the expectations of the United States appear promising.
“The world economy is far from being out of the woods,” said Angel Gurría, secretary-general, OECD during the Economic Outlook launch in Paris last week. “The US ‘fiscal cliff’, if it materialises, could tip an already weak economy into recession, while failure to solve the euro area crisis could lead to a major financial shock and global downturn. Governments must act decisively, using all the tools at their disposal to turn confidence around and boost growth and jobs, in the United States, in Europe, and elsewhere.”
With 50 million jobless people in the OECD area, according to the Outlook it’s no wonder the OECD head expressed concern. The report indicated continued high in employment with a possible rise in many countries “unless structural measures are used to boost near-term employment growth.”
Some developing countries, on the other hand, show desirable growth for the coming twenty four months. China is expected to grow at 8.5 percent next year and 8.9 percent the year after that. Other countries expected to grow at healthy rates are Brazil, India, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa.
Slides of the presentation are available at http://www.slideshare.net/OECD/oecd-economicoutlook92%20 on the OECD website. The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 30, 2012
Ethics of Big Data book cover
Photos: O’Reilly Media
Big Data, the gathering of enormous sets of information on individuals, has become part of doing business. Retailers rely on it to offer products their customers have browsed or purchased in the past based on individual profiles and detailed information they keep on their customers activities on and offline in proprietary websites, social media sites and from other sources. In some cases retailers have developed the ability to guess a customer’s interests based on certain behaviors. This was the case earlier this year when it became known that a chain store was able to guess when a customer was likely to be pregnant causing a wave of controversy.
A recent The Washington Post article (Who are the doctors most trusted by doctors? Big data can tell you.) by Ki Mae Heussner explored what doctors think of their peers in a big picture way. According to that article, an activist is examining referral information gathered from government sources through a Freedom of Information Act request and creating a DocGraph designed to outline the relationships between physicians. The graph seeks to chart, relying on Big Data, how doctors interact with each other, refer patients and select doctors for themselves.
In Ethics of Big Data Balancing Risk and Innovation (O’Reilly Media, $19.99) Kord Davis and and Doug Patterson, ask readers about their organization’s policies for gathering and using huge datasets of personal information. In the 82-page softcover book the authors examine Big Data ethical questions and propose to readers that businesses should take into account issues of privacy and identity when making policy decisions about data gathering and storage.
They believe a company’s use of data can directly affect brand quality and revenue. As examples they point to Target, Apple, and Netflix. They suggest companies should align their behaviors with company values in order to preserve the trust of customers, partners, and stakeholders. The book is divided into four chapters: Big Data, Big Impact; Values and Actions; Current Practices; and Aligning Values and Actions
Davis, former principal consultant with Cap Gemini, has spent nearly 20 years providing business strategy, analysis, and technical consulting to 100 organizations including Autotask, Microsoft, Intel, Sisters of Mercy Healthcare, Nike, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Northwest Energy Alliance (NEEA), and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Patterson has experience teaching business ethics and as a facilitator of conceptual topics.
Click to by Ethics of Big Data
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Posted by Elena del Valle on November 26, 2012
Denise Larson, cofounder, NewMediaMetrics
Photo: NewMediaMetrics
A podcast interview with Denise Larson, cofounder, NewMediaMetrics is available in the Podcast Section of Hispanic Marketing & Public Relations, HispanicMPR.com. During the podcast, she discusses brand attachment of Hispanic consumers with Elena del Valle, host of the HispanicMPR.com podcast.
Denise developed the Emotional Attachment approach and metric in 1997 and acquired patent pending status in 2002. She founded Thinking Right, LLC where she applied Emotional Attachment to clients such as Kraft and P&G. In 2004, Denise partnered with Gary Reisman to found NewMediaMetrics.
To listen to the interview, scroll down until you see “Podcast” on the right hand side, then select “HMPR Denise Larson” click on the play button below or download the MP3 file to your iPod or MP3 player to listen on the go, in your car or at home. To download it, click on the arrow of the recording you wish to copy and save it to disk. The podcast will remain listed in the November 2012 section of the podcast archive.
