Melding The Business World With Hispanic Audiences
By Richie Matthews and Alice Gomez, for PODER Hispanic Magazine.
More businesses are incorporating online communities and social networks within their corporate strategy. As these domains increasingly become a fundamental component for professional success, organizations should look to experts on the forefront of this industry to understand the extent of the benefits Web 2.0 tactics have to offer.
The growing impact of the Hispanic community online is another area requiring enhanced corporate attention. This consumer segment’s purchasing power is expecting to reach $1 trillion this year in the U.S. alone. That is a number worth targeting. The considerably young, up-and-coming Hispanic population has been dubbed media mavens for their avid technology and internet usage and thus can be successfully reached through online strategies.
Entrepreneurs such as Fernando Espuelas have been aware of the vitality of communicating with Latinos through technology for years. Espuelas has built his career around empowering people through media, technology, and information particularly among Hispanics. Recognized as one of the Internet’s pioneers by the New York Times, Harvard University and media across the world, Espuelas has been at the forefront of online communities and social networks.
With a professional portfolio that boasts a number of lucrative tech savvy ventures, Espuelas offers a lot of insight to the intricacies of this developing field. His endeavors include serving as the host and managing editor of Café Espuelas, the number 1 rated Spanish language AM station in Los Angeles, part of the Univision Radio Network.
Espuelas also founded StarMedia, the first multi-platform digital media company for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking people worldwide. StarMedia transcended national barriers, becoming the most recognized pan-Latin new media brand, eventually serving 25 million people per month.
The rise of the company was chronicled in the Harvard University Business School case called “StarMedia: Launching a Latin American Revolution.” StarMedia’s market capitalization reached $3.8 billion dollars and is today France Telecom’s market leading Internet operation in the Spanish-speaking world.
Espuelas’ pioneering development of the Latin Internet earned him worldwide recognition. Time magazine honored him as one of the “Leaders of the Millennium,” and he was named a “2000 All-Star” business leader by Crain’s New York Business magazine. The World Economic Forum includes him among its “Global Leaders of Tomorrow,” and he was also a recipient of Latin Trade Magazine’s Bravo award for CEO of the Year. In 2007, he was named a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute.
Espuelas will be the keynote speaker for the upcoming Hispanic Chamber of E-Commerce’s 2010 Hispanic Business Showcase to be held at the San Diego Convention Center Sept. 10-11. The Hispanic Business Showcase will provide a venue for businesses to enhance their relationships, research the market for leading products and services and learn about the latest best business practices. Espuelas’ expertise will provide attendees with increased competencies for the tapping into the vast potential that exists in communicating with Hispanics through technological innovation.
Hispanics will continue to be an important part of the economic system. Their affinity for technologies that ease communicating across geographic boundaries, allow interaction, build communities for like-minded individuals and provide entertainment will affect the way organizations approach business. Experts with established working models for communicating with Hispanics through technologies can guide the corporate world over the threshold into the new age of technological advancements.
Latinos Taking Charge of Health
An increasing amount of Hispanic communities are working together to positively impact Latino health and wellness.
By Richie and Lucia Matthews for PODER Hispanic Magazine.
The U.S. Latino population suffers disproportionately from a range of health complications including diabetes and heart disease when compared with the overall general market. These dire health circumstances are the result of a complex web of social, cultural and economic conditions.
As the propensity for bad health grows, the issue has become an increasingly salient topic for Hispanic communities. More and more grassroots movements, businesses, and individuals are providing health and wellness information geared towards Hispanics. The philosophy behind these efforts is better, more culturally relevant information will lead to better health and wellness for Hispanics.
Health disparities among minorities are prevalent in the U.S. and across the globe. Diabetes is one of the leading causes the asymmetrical scenario for Hispanics. It has been reported that 21percent of older Hispanics have diabetes compared to 14.3 percent of Caucasians. Cardiovascular disease is another forerunner problem for Latinos. It has been estimated that one out of every four Hispanic male and one of every three Hispanic female will suffer from heart disease or stroke.
Lifestyle changes, prevention and early intervention services such as immunizations, cancer screenings and diabetes testing are solutions that could assist in ensuring a healthier Hispanic population. Diet and inactivity tendencies of Hispanics play a strong role in shaping the problem. Arguably, education and access are the principle barriers in assisting Latinos to revolutionize health patterns.
U.S. Hispanic citizens are increasingly gaining more access to health and wellness resources as individuals, the business community,and grassroots organizations come together to help educate and provide access to health resources.
It’s All About the Kids Foundation organizes monthly activities for children from a coalition of charities. They have recently joined forces with the Hispanic Chamber of E-Commerce, a national business association, and with business executive leaders such as Ramon Toledo, CEO Busca Corp, a leading Hispanic digital entertainment network. Providing access to resources, these private and public alliances are an emerging trend within the Hispanic health and wellness community.
Focusing on education, The Association of Junior League’s Kids in the Kitchen initiative has partnered with Texas chef Michael Flores to help reverse the growth of childhood obesity and its associated health issues. Chef Flores has taken his own childhood passion for cooking and turned it into an evolving lifelong profession in the culinary arts. Despite his formal training at the Culinary Institute of America, Michael Flores focuses on providing simple solutions for encouraging families to get back to the table. Through the Kids in the Kitchen and other education initiatives he heads, Michael teaches children how to prepare practical healthy meals, through his bilingual recipes.
Communicating with Latinos is more than a translation issue. Not to negate the importance or the use of the Spanish language, but studies suggest U.S. Hispanics, as a majority, speak English. Findings from the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization dedicated to improving understandings of the U.S. Hispanic population, suggest 88percent of second generation U.S. Hispanic adults and 94 percent third generation are fluent English speakers.
The key to communicating relevantly with Latinos is to understand the significance of messages founded in cultural nuance. When speaking with Latinos, health programs, education, and other resources should move away from translating mainstream content into Spanish and towards resonating culturally. This will improve minority groups’ affinity towards and navigation within the U.S. health system.
Various online communities have developed over the years that seek to empower and enable Latinos to improve health conditions. Sana Health Group, Inc. is one such company with this goal in mind. They specialize in offering Hispanics manageable, trusted sources and resources that make staying healthy easier.
Sana Health Group recently launched HispanoSano.com to provide applications that offer access to bilingual information on everything from diabetes and cancer to fitness and diet. Latinos can seek out applicable information based on their particular needs or join community groups to interact with others in similar situations.
The Internet is an excellent platform to provide health information to Hispanics. Hispanics are technology mavens and savvy in accessing information and utilizing social networks online. Internet-based,tailored health information is an effective way to engage Hispanics both relevantly and culturally.
The current health status of U.S. Hispanics may appear glum, but the tides may turn as more organizations and individuals come together to provide access to relevant health education to the community.
Americano Exceptionalism
By Richie Matthews and Lucía Matthews, for The Americano.
American Exceptionalism refers to the conventionally held belief that the United States occupies a special position among the nations of the world in terms of its unique origins, national credo, historical evolution and institutions. The genesis of the idea is attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, who asserted that the U.S. was special because it is a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy.
Indeed, immigrants significantly contribute to our economy by working in jobs most Americans do not want. They, in turn, help by buying homes, cars, and provisions. America’s exceptional quality and our wonderful cultural diversity have become secondary to the willingness of the newly arrived to work hard and become part of today’s exceptional America.
Through his classic, Democracy in America, Tocqueville asserted that merit and conformity to righteous principles leads to success. Work is the great equalizer, “In America most of the rich men were formerly poor; most of those who now enjoy leisure were absorbed in business during their youth. “
Modern-day immigration is as important to this country’s exceptional quality as our unique origins and historical evolution. However, our diversity is just a part of America’s exceptionalism. Our constitutional democracy is based upon the basic principles of assimilation and rooted in the rule of law.
Most U.S. residents today are the descendants of immigrants who arrived in the U.S. during the past 150 years. There were no substantial restrictions on immigration into the U.S. until the passage of the Quota Law of 1921.
Today, Hispanics are absorbing into society using the classic American pattern; much like past Europeans and Asians did when they arrived en-mass, according to a recent Pew Hispanics Center Study. That is to say Hispanics are assimilating.
Because humanity is flawed nations are flawed, American virtue is mixed with vices; therefore, we must make certain the newly arrived conform to our ideals. Championing immigration and assimilation means pushing for legal immigration.
America’s achievements owe a large debt to the belief in the exceptional character of its democratic culture.
One of the biggest fallacies of America’s critics is to emphasize John Winthrop’s pure and bright biblical “city on a hill”. America’s democratic example does not shine like the puritan biblical “city on a hill”—ever pure, steady, and bright. Despite its flaws, it is evident and beautiful nonetheless. The dire flaw of this logic is to scorn this light and to confuse it with darkness.
Tocqueville believed that hope was the motivating force behind all democratic institutions. And as such, whenever this all-encompassing hope is pulled away from the people, liberal democracy fails.
Why have so many people been so eager to leave their homelands and their families for this country?
Tocqueville’s concept and America’s sense of its unique democratic identity and mission are exactly why so many people risk their lives for just a chance to live in this country. There is something uniquely exceptional that draws so many people into America.
Richie
Lucia