Tweet This article originally appeared on FoxNews. Venture capitalists take note, Latin America’s Internet entrepreneurs are ramping up. A recent panel at SXSW Interactive entitled “Accelerating Killer Latam Startups” featured three digital pioneers and start up investors from the region, each with a roadmap to finding and investing in new companies. Bedy Yang and her colleagues at 500 Startups, a seed fund and startup accelerator, have organized “Geeks on a Plane,” an invite-only tour of Miami, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires May 10-20. Together, they

Tweet This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanics open businesses three times faster than the national average. Once regarded as a minority group, Hispanics now represent the fastest-growing segment of our economy. To make their businesses successful, Latino entrepreneurs in Southern California turn to Eduardo Figueroa, a consultant, author, and workshop leader for almost twenty years. Figueroa reports that many of his clients start their own businesses because they have been laid off and don’t have any other option.

Tweet This post originally appeared on Acento.com How should brands adapt their communications and engage consumers in the age of social media? Surprisingly, a book first published in 1936 best highlights how to “win friends” on social platforms, written long before Al Gore “invented the Internet.” Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” outlines fundamental approaches on how to build long-lasting relationships with friends, colleagues, and consumers. Over the past eight months, our team here at Acento has had the opportunity to

Tweet This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com If you want your company’s brands to make 100,000 “friends” on Facebook, Tatiana Hansell can show you how. As Unilever’s Multicultural Marketing Manager of personal care products, Hansell developed its Vivemejor branded content initiative for Latina women online. First, she launched its Spanish-language website, ViveMejor.com, which provides helpful cooking and beauty tips for Latina moms. Today, with the explosion of social media, Vive Mejor, which means “Live Better” in English, distributes its content across the major social sites:

Tweet This is the first in a series of profiles of entrepreneurs on The Huffington Post, a preview of my forthcoming book, Pursuit of the American Dream: Success Stories of Today’s Immigrant Entrepreneurs. Luis von Ahn’s new company, Duolingo, has set two very large goals: help users learn a language for free while simultaneously translating the Web. The start up may very well transform both the translation and language-learning industries in the process. Needless to say, von Ahn has a stellar track record for Internet

Tweet This post originally appeared on Acento.com Just over one year ago, the hottest device since the laptop – the iPad – first launched. One of the first websites the Acento Team checked (probably like many of you) was our own flash-based agency website – Acento.com. We discovered (as expected) that it appeared as a blank page. Steve Jobs famously attacked Flash, promising that his devices would never accept the Adobe-owned development platform. The Web was in transition (again). Gone were the desktops and even

Tweet This article originally appeared in the Fordham Business Review. I recently re-discovered it and wanted to share it here as I found it very relevant today for executives that work in the Caribbean or Latin America. Click here to read the first and second posts in this series. Cultural Identity: Between the United States and Latin America Mr. Molina feels that Puerto Ricans differentiate themselves from the United States culturally and politically through the term “La nación,” (The Nation). “The nation is a cultural

Tweet This article originally appeared in the Fordham Business Review. I recently re-discovered it and wanted to share it here as I found it very relevant today for executives that work in the Caribbean or Latin America. Click here to read the first post in the series. Cultural Impact: Beyond Language José Molina illustrates that communicating in English goes way beyond language. American business people respect interrupting and getting your point across; whereas, in Latin America they value position power and formal hierarchy. “The higher

Tweet This article originally appeared in the Fordham Business Review. I recently re-discovered it and wanted to share it here as I found it very relevant today for executives that work in the Caribbean or Latin America. In the century since July of 1898 when Puerto Rico became part of the United States, Puerto Rico has experienced incredible changes due to the influx of not only American tourists, but more importantly American business executives and entrepreneurs. They have provided a significant number of jobs to

Tweet This article originally appeared on MediaPost. Does your company’s talent pool reflect the audience segments that will deliver the fastest growth? And have your executives fostered opportunities for a diverse leadership team that can best understand multicultural America? These are great questions to consider as consumers visit your stores, call your 1-800 numbers and buy your products and services. All of us in Hispanic marketing know that Hispanics represent the majority of the population growth. And, in many industries, they represent a substantial portion