ROUND-UP: IMPACT OF HURRICANES KATRINA/RITA (continued)
Following are experts who can discuss the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. (While experts were submitted as part of a round-up on the impact of Hurricane Katrina, they most likely will also be able to discuss the impact of Hurricane Rita.)
Additional updates to the round-up will be posted at http://profnet.prnewswire.com/organik/orbital/thewire/lst_leads.jsp?iLRTopicID =10923 You may also find helpful our wiki-based resource of academic experts: http://www.katrinaexperts.com
**1. TRACY THURKOW, Ph.D., senior partner and COO of CLG, a global management consulting firm, can discuss how challenged leaders are leading in times of crisis: "Hurricanes may be natural disasters, but there is nothing natural about the devastation they cause. It is during times like these that leadership creates a lasting legacy. As leaders endeavor to guide their organizations through the challenges of restoring the business, there are some issues to consider. In the early stages of this crisis, leaders have three primary jobs: to deal with the very human needs people have in the wake of a crisis; to re-establish business priorities and help people re-engage with work as it becomes appropriate to do so; and to make sure that your own needs are being met."
**2. BASIL IMBURGIA, senior managing director of FTI CONSULTING: "Companies will be working with their insurance carriers in the next few weeks to try and assess the damage along the Gulf Coast. Frequently, the insurance companies and the damaged companies themselves hire firms with expertise in forensics, construction, data management and storage, insurance adjusting and computers to set the level of damage." FTI will help insurance carriers accurately estimate damages for payouts and work with companies that have suffered damages to double-check the assessments of the insurers. FTI brings expertise from their role in Sept. 11 cleanup in New York to the Gulf Coast.
**3. DR. JOHN BURNETT, professor and former chair of marketing at the UNIVERSITY OF DENVER and author of “Managing Business Crises: From Anticipation to Implementation,� is an expert in crisis management: “As dismaying as it may sound, 50 to 70 percent of the largest profit-making organizations in the world have not made any disaster plans. The successful management of crisis starts well in advance of the event, involves every person in the organization and is not dependent upon individual responses.� Burnett developed a set of matrices to audit a situation and analyze potential crises.
**4. ELLEN MACHT, executive director of THE CLEAN AIR CAMPAIGN, a Georgia- based nonprofit that works with more than 700 employers and hundreds of thousands of commuters to promote alternative commuting and provides financial incentives and program development: "The impact of the hurricanes on gas prices has caused unprecedented interest in carpooling, transit use and teleworking. We continue to see more and more employers and commuters looking for relief. Research shows that once people try an alternative, the majority of them continue, changing the way many Americans get to work."
**5. SIIM SOOT, director emeritus of the UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO's Urban Transportation Center: "Repeating the pattern that developed in the early 1980s, rising gas prices will spur oil exploration just as commuters adopt alternatives to gas-guzzling cars. The resulting glut will reduce prices, although probably not down to a dollar a gallon."
**6. ANDREW FAY, president of THE GETTYS GROUP, an interior design firm in Chicago and Miami, has tips for businesses in the hospitality sector that have recently been affected by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina: "The hospitality industry, especially in New Orleans, has been greatly impacted, and knowing the best ways to rebuild and remodel the damage is key during this time."
**7. SHAWN BURDICK, vice president of debt settlement, and FAMOUS RHODES, executive vice president of DEBTXS, can discuss the effects of Katrina on the debt settlement and debt collection industries. DebtXS was recently ranked 17th on Entrepreneur magazine’s Hot 100 of fastest growing companies in America.
**8. IAN MCDONALD, general manager and vice president of sales at THE ELECTRIC MAIL COMPANY, has over 25 years of diverse business experience, including leadership positions with Unitel Communications (Allstream), Williams Communications and TELUS Mobility. McDonald is a pioneer in his space, and was instrumental in bringing Electric Mail's cost-effective and easy-to-implement E-mail Continuity offering to market. He was the first to recognize the need for "always available" access to a user's regular e-mail account. McDonald joined Electric Mail in 2000 as vice president of sales and managed the business through its 2004 acquisition by j2 Global Communications, the provider of eFax.
**9. WELDON KNAPE, CEO of WORLD COMMUNICATION CENTER (WCC), a provider of satellite phones, is available to talk about the importance of satellite communication in disasters and general telecommunications issues. WCC provided hundreds of phones to different organizations (phone companies, relief organizations, etc.) that would otherwise have no way of communication.
ROUND-UP: FUTURE OF ORGANIZED LABOR (continued)
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**1. CHARLES LECONCHE, executive director of the CONNECTICUT FIRST COALITION, has been involved with unions and negotiations for over 30 years, and believes that unions still have a viable role in the local, state and federal process, and that their role will actually become increasingly more important: "This is a temporary rift with two specific groups. If anything, these latest actions have mobilized the overall labor movement. In general, it's a wake-up call for the membership and leadership as well."
ROUND-UP: HOUSING MARKET (continued)
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**1. JIM NABORS, broker and president of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MORTGAGE BROKERS (27,000 broker members nationwide), is well qualified to speak on the current housing market and has done interviews with media of all levels.
ROUND-UP: 'EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE' IN THE WORKPLACE (continued)
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**1. MICHAEL WAKEFIELD and KERRY BUNKER, senior faculty members of the CENTER FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP, whose clients include Xerox, the Canadian government, Syngenta and the U.S. Postal Service, is co-author of "Leading with Authenticity In Times of Transition�: "In today’s fast-paced workplace, managers who find a way to work through the structural side of change without taking into account the human dynamics do so at their peril. Failing to address the human aspects of change can result in insufficient buy-in from employees, which can stall or ruin perfectly good strategies and change initiatives."
_____LEADS
**1. BUSINESS: THE HIP-HOP BUSINESS REVOLUTION. KEVIN LILES, executive vice president of WARNER MUSIC GROUP and author of "Make it Happen: The Hip-Hop Generation Guide to Success": "The hip-hop industry has created many revolutions in the business workforce. The word 'hustle' has been changed from something you do to people in a negative way to working harder and longer than everybody else. Because of hip-hop, people work harder, they try harder and I believe today’s kids -- today’s hip-hop generation -- will create a tremendous amount of entrepreneurs who will engender entirely new products, categories, and attitude to enable continued success as hip-hop continues to evolve and continues to be big business."
**2. BUSINESS: MANAGING CORPORATE REPUTATION. ALAN SCOTT, CMO of FACTIVA, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company and provider of business and knowledge management solutions: "Reputation is a critical component of company success and shareholder value, yet the ability to measure reputation and manage outcomes is extremely elusive. The factors that influence reputation are found everywhere â€" - in the mainstream media, on Web sites and, increasingly, in blogs. Many companies now have independent voices tracking their every move and reporting it to the world via their blogs. As a hybrid model combining the precision of searching with the serendipity of discovery, text mining helps detect the complex signals of emerging trends over billions of pieces of information. It all adds up to tremendous competitive advantage."
**3. BUSINESS: INFORMATION INTEGRATION STRATEGY. DENNIS CAHILL, vice president of product at FACTIVA, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company and provider of business and knowledge management solutions: “Disconnected departmental knowledge systems make it difficult for employees to find information they need to make critical decisions. Marketing portals, CRMs, financial tracking systems and collaboration solutions are important tools, yet if they cannot act in concert, valuable information relationships remain undiscovered. How can a workforce share, collaborate and find accurate information that is relevant to employee functions? The solution is to synthesize, categorize and deliver meaningful content to people who need it without abandoning existing investments. A proper information integration strategy makes this end state a reality." News
**4. BUSINESS: THE MBA ADMISSION CONSULTANT BUSINESS IS BOOMING. STACY BLACKMAN, president of Los Angeles-based STACY BLACKMAN CONSULTING: "Admissions to top MBA programs remain extremely competitive -- in some cases, acceptance rates are as low as 10 percent, and as a result, the MBA admission consultant business is booming. Post-Sept. 11, some of the brightest and most talented candidates were laid off from their jobs and competing all at once to get into business school. As an MBA graduate myself, I realized that widespread rejection for top candidates was simply an issue of candidates not marketing themselves effectively to the schools. These candidates have the talent and would excel in the programs, but they need guidance on how to differentiate themselves from the competition and appeal to the schools' interests or how to communicate with the schools if they have been wait listed, etc.�
**5. E-COMMERCE: MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS BOND WHILE SHOPPING TOGETHER ONLINE. JOANNE STONER, CEO of EDRESSME.COM, an Internet retailer: "Mothers are using the Internet as a bonding experience more and more with their daughters. We are receiving a high call volume from women who are worried about their daughter’s safety at malls. They prefer to shop with their daughters online, where they can have a safe shopping experience. For teenage girls, it’s OK for mom to shop online with them, but not OK to show up at the mall with them. Moms are taking advantage of this new opportunity. Moms are calling to review the styles that their daughters’ select online, asking our personal shoppers for any additional information they need, such as, 'Is this dress to low-cut?’ or ‘Is it too revealing?' before they authorize their teen’s purchase." Stoner observes that this is “a new bonding experience for moms and daughters."
**6. ENTREPRENEURSHIP: ‘TAPPING YOUR ENTREPRENEURIAL DNA.’ THOMAS HARRISON, chairman and CEO of DIVERSIFIED AGENCY SERVICES, OMNICOM GROUP INC., and author of just-published "Instinct: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial DNA to Achieve Your Business Goals," can speak on how we can understand our genetic legacy and make the most of it in the business world by leveraging the “entrepreneurial DNA� we've inherited; the top five things every person should know about being a successful entrepreneur; whether or not you're born with the “entrepreneurial DNA�; and the 'personality attributes' that determine the entrepreneurial potential of every individual: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, among other things: "Everyone has certain innate advantages, but it's essential to know how to unlock them and compensate for what you may lack. Just because you may not feel you were born an entrepreneur doesn't mean you can't think like one."
**7. FINANCE: THE SMALL BALANCE COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE MARKET HAS COME ALIVE. WILLIAM KOMPERDA, chairman and CEO of CBA COMMERCIAL, LLC, a provider of small balance commercial mortgage loans in the nation, has seen steady growth in the small balance commercial mortgage market over the last year: "We've shown the banking and mortgage retail channel how revenues can finally be generated for all parties involved. Loans from $300,000 to $3 million are increasingly being written for these future commercial and mixed-use owners. There are also less risks as these loans are securitized and invested."
**8. HUMAN RESOURCES: H-1B LIMITS ALREADY REACHED FOR NEW YEAR. IRINA PLUMLEE, attorney at GARDERE WYNNE SEWELL: "The H-1B program has again fallen on hard times. The allowance of 65,000 visas for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, 2005, was exhausted as of Aug. 10. Consequently, no new H-1Bs that are subject to the 65,000 cap will be available until Oct. 1, 2006. This is a heavy blow to U.S. employers interested in hiring foreign talent. Due to severe H-1B shortages, employers are forced to plan their hiring needs more than a year in advance -- the H-1B filing pipeline will open in April 2006 for the Oct. 1, 2006, H-1B employment start date and H-1B visa numbers will likely be exhausted even faster than they were this year."
**9. MANAGEMENT: THE REVOLUTION OF THE WORKSPACE. SCOTT MONTGOMERY, CEO of Indianapolis-based advertising agency BRADLEY AND MONTGOMERY, known as BaM: "With video teleconferencing, the Internet and all the other technology tools available, the notion of fixed office staffing just may be obsolete. We have a New York office and don’t need separate, designated copywriters, art directors and client reps for designated cities. We believe the best way is to rotate account teams in and out of the offices, not unlike military tours of duty. The team rotation concept may be likened to the international space station -- they can't come home until we send a new group. High-bandwidth technology has allowed us not to think of it as separate offices, but as extensions of the same office, as if they're only in the next room.�
**10. MARKETING: SMALLER STUDIOS CAN NOW MANAGE ALL CHANNELS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES. WILF SHORROCKS, chairman and CEO of PEAK ENTERTAINMENT HOLDINGS INC., a fully integrated multimedia company dedicated to quality children's television entertainment: "In the last decade, it became possible to create a world-class commercial success in just a year or two by coordinating a fully integrated multi-media marketing campaign around the release of shows with merchandising. What makes this so exciting is when you consider that only a few years ago, only larger studios equipped with considerable coffers had the capacity to manage all channels of intellectual properties. Smaller independent companies were relegated to specific skill sets." Peak has three lines of business -- entertainment, consumer products and licensing -- with an in-house design studio to support all.
**11. PERSONAL FINANCE: DONORS SHOULD GIVE WITH AN INVESTMENT MINDSET. ERIC THURMAN, CEO of GENEVA GLOBAL: "With the fourth quarter coming up -- a time of active charitable giving -- donors should give with an investment mindset, to make sure their money will go to work immediately and effectively." Thurman can discuss how donors can exercise due diligence prior to giving. Geneva Global has 500 investigators stationed around the Third World, seeking the best-performing local grassroots charitable projects. The company's strategy is based on a principle called "Performance Philanthropy," giving to charities based not only on "need" but on "proven results."
**12. SALES: DIRECT SALES OF PET PRODUCTS ARE BOOMING. ANDREW SHURE, CEO of Chicago-based SHURE PETS, a direct seller of pet products: "Estimates abound of approximately $36 billion spent per year on pet products. It's only natural that as the pet business grows, so too will the direct selling of pet products boom. Pet consultants sell and make money because they make primary sales via a Pupperware party, a pooch version of that old direct marketing tool that's been around for decades, Tupperware parties. And as consumers enjoy their pets, direct sales works because they allow the pets to try products during the parties, and all sales are made with the dogs next to them.�
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