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 the

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 of

Are you (or do you know) an immigrant entrepreneur or immigrant executive that has a great success story to tell? If so, I would love to hear it. I am collecting stories for my forthcoming book, Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Pursuit of the American Dream. Please leave a comment on this post or email me at joe {at} kutchera.net with your contact information and the details about your company. Immigrants have moved to the U.S. for centuries to escape persecution, create economic opportunity, and pursue the

This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post. Immigrants have sailed to American shores for centuries to escape persecution, create economic opportunity, and pursue the “American Dream.” They bring an extraordinary hunger to succeed and a strong belief in our flexible economic system. Some of our country’s largest companies were founded by immigrants including Proctor & Gamble, Intel, Pfizer, eBay, Yahoo! and Google. Collectively, these businesses generated over $235 billion in 2010 revenues and employed 375,800 people globally. Who are today’s immigrant entrepreneurs and how

This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post. A recent post on WhiteHouse.gov outlines some discouraging statistics on Latinos getting the education they need to succeed later in life: • Less than half of Latino children enroll in any early learning program. • Only half of Latino children earn their high school diploma on time • Those who do finish high school are only half as likely as their peers to be prepared for college. • Only 13 percent of Latinos hold a bachelor’s degree

This article originally appeared on MediaPost. How should marketers customize a Facebook initiative for the U.S. Hispanic market? State Farm’s Aymee Zubizarreta answered that question during our recent conversation about how the insurance giant found its voice and connected to its Latino audience with content about music, family and culture on the leading social network. Q: This past April, State Farm became the first national insurance company to create a bilingual (English, Spanish) social networking site for Latinos. Why did State Farm launch a Facebook

This post originally appeared on MediaPost Engage:Hispanics. As the English speaking Latino audience grows in size and importance, how can marketers develop culturally relevant promotions for Hispanics? Bernardo Meza, Brand Manager for Wrigley Multicultural Marketing answered that question for me by describing his company’s Vive tu Música with 5 program, which aims to build awareness for 5 gum among bi-cultural Hispanic consumers. Following is our conversation about his work developing the online Latin rock and pop music talent competition. Why a music promotion? This music

How can you build and maintain a creative culture within your organization? In the February issue of Change This, Josh Linkner answers that question by offering the following seven key principles for How to Build Your Organization’s Creativity Mojo. The downloadable manifesto is an excerpt from Linkner’s new book Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity. In addition to being an author, he also serves as CEO and managing partner at Detroit Venture Partners. Visit ChangeThis.com to download their monthly manifestos on persuasion,

“Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent,” Steve Martin said, who recently released his 8th book – An Object of Beauty. Writing a book requires a great deal of persistence. But what about promoting it? I was surprised by how much persistence and work was needed after my book was completed. That’s what this third post in a series is about: how to promote your book. The first post discussed how to find a publisher or self-publish. The second post discussed how to plan,

According to Winston Churchill, “Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.” And it is indeed an adventure, like any long-term goal. In my second in a series about how to write a book, this