Prepared Remarks for the 2012 Curacao Innovation Event

Prepared Remarks at the 2012 Curacao Innovation Event

Curacao World Trade Center, 20 September 2012

Tamira La Cruz, MBA

Permit me to add a business strategic side to our discussion today. As a business strategist it is my job to look for concrete and sustainable opportunities taking the relative strengths and weaknesses of an organization as a given.  Yes, we can and should endeavor to change, a.o., our educational system. How long would that take? Can we afford to wait? What can we do NOW to get on the innovation train?

I suggest that innovations happen in Curacao organically every day. We need to recognize them as innovations, make them marketable (internationally, if possible). It is when profits are made on innovations (or seem possible) that people get excited about innovation and join the movement.

On another occasion I also used the example of a doctor who argued that he cannot innovate because he works in a small hospital with limited resources. I asked him: “Are your patients still alive?” Of course, but that is because I had to find creative ways to make do with little resources. So he had a ‘necessity’ as Dr.  Peterson mentioned as a prerequisite to innovation. I said: “Then you have innovated. You have found a way to achieve the same result with fewer resources”. Finding solutions with fewer resources is the textbook definition of innovation!

There are about 200 countries in the world.  Holland and the USA, our ‘examples’, are very high-income countries.  Most countries cannot afford the innovations conceived in these markets. They are often too expensive and sometimes too complex for a small market. An innovation conceived in a small middle income country like ours is more likely to be more suitable and affordable for many other countries. In Blue Ocean Strategy, Kim and Mauborgne call these types of innovations ‘value innovations’: more suitable and more efficient.

How big is the market for innovations based on a small economy? Of the 200 countries mentioned before, 56 are small sovereign states. There are also 33 dependent small territories (like Curaco and Aruba)  and 125 small islands with populations smaller than 1.5 million.  So, depending on your innovation you have 211 markets!!  Yes, it does require a shift in the way we think, as you mentioned, Dr. Peterson.

If you are an architect and you have found an innovative way to build energy-efficient houses in the tropical island of Curacao, and there is absolutely NO reason you could not do so. Better yet, you are better positioned to do this than any architect living in Delft or New York, certainly since the advent of the internet. Anyway. If you have found an innovative way to build energy-efficient houses in Curacao, you have found an innovative way to build energy efficient houses in Aruba, in St. Lucia, in Key West Florida, in Mallorca, in Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania, in the Philippines, in Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, etc. etc. You don’t have to go build them all yourself. You can license the technology to others, make some money for yourself and some foreign exchange for the country.

In 2009 I set out to purposely outline the unique opportunities that arise from being a small state, possibly an island, possibly in the tropics. The findings were presented at the international SALISES conference in Trinidad & Tobago in 2010. The focus was knowledge innovations. Basically these are innovations by business and professional service providers: consultants, designers, engineers, translators, doctors, nutritionists, etc.

I wanted to make the same analogy for small countries as the late C.K. Prahalad made for Bottom-of-Pyramid countries, where people live on a dollar a day. He found that  they have come up with unique innovations that can be marketed in other very poor countries, against a profit.  My question was: could innovations in small countries be marketed to other small countries?

I can provide many more examples of small island marketable strengths. But let me conclude: We might take them for granted, but we have some textbook examples of innovation!  Because in a small economy there is a REAL NEEED to be efficient! There is a NECESSITY, the prerequisite for innovation. There is also an unexploited opportunity to export these innovations to other small markets.

I ask the policy makers, supporting agencies here today, fellow panelists, to please support  this sector by:

1.      promoting local  innovations abroad. It helps the local innovator grow.  It also aids in attracting knowledge and medical tourism industries. Potential investors want some evidence that a ‘cluster’ exists locally, where they can get support services and professional exchange. That is the reason Silicon Valley is what it is today. Some promotion would include:

a.      using/suggesting them as speakers at international venues

b.      including their innovations in presentations about Curacao business

2.      providing incentives and support in the broadest sense. Help the innovation leaders lead so that the followers have someone to follow, with best practices and inspiration.  These would include:

a.       The elimination of OB tax (revenue tax) between knowledge workers. We need interdisciplinary teams to produce world-class solutions and effective ‘clusters’.  OB tax between suppliers hampers these.

b.      Easy access to e-zone benefits for the amounts exported. Now the knowledge exporting company would have to move into an E-zone building, or pay double rent (a doctor cannot move there).  Some E-zone buildings do not even accept locally owned companies

c.       Tax credit for the acquisition of knowledge (an asset), same as there is a tax credit for the acquisition of  real estate and fixed assets

Tamira La Cruz, MBA, founder and CEO of MarkStra Caribbean,is a consultant on research, corporate strategy, competitiveness and innovation. A business economist, she has a continuing interest in small state innovations and their monitization. She can be contacted via  www.markstra.com , her blog  Caribbean Research and Strategy  blog or tlacruz@markstra.com.

These remarks were made as a panelist at Dr. Ryan Peterson’s keynote speech at the 2012 Curacao Innovation Event, September 20, 2012, based on a 2010 paper Exporting Knowledge Innovations of Small States presented at the 2010 SALISES Conference at the University of the West Indies.

‘Executives are looking for more than technology. They are looking for answers.’

Introduction to Seminar on the occasion of

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day and

UN’s Year of Women and Girls in Technology

by Tamira La Cruz, MBA, Member of Curacao Knowledge Platform on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Curacao

‘Executives are looking for more than technology. They are looking for answers.’  Clara Shih, 29, founder Hearsay Social.

Allow me to show you some more answers

Who are these people?

Soccket was invented by a group of female college students in New York. One of them, Jessica Williams, graduated in 2010 with a degree in psychology and economics. She must be in her early twenties.

Jenny Drinkard, the founder of the crate shown on quirky.com, has a degree in industrial design. She is also in her early twenties. The founder of Quirky.com is Ben Kaufman, also in his early twenties. Depending on how you want to look at it, Quirky.com is a company, a website, or a community where you can submit your design ideas. The community will comment and help you improve it. They will also suggest pricing. When the time comes, Ben Kaufman will make a prototype and manufacture your product. In principle it does not matter where you are located.

Jane McGonigal is 34, developer of the game of Evoke.com. She is Doctor Jane McGonigal with a degree in performance studies. She has received numerous accolades as one of the best game changers, innovators, thinkers, etc. of our current times. Her game Evoke encourages players to submit creative solutions that might solve some of the world’s problems.

These stories and more give me hope for ourselves and girls AND boys in Curacao.  These are the stories that bring to light the opportunities, the level playing field, the flat world, that lies before us in the information society. ANY one in Curacao could also have come up with the ideas we saw and make them global.

We must get the idea of limitless opportunities in our DNA

This sea of opportunities is new to all of us on Curacao. It is not part of our DNA. All we and our forbearers know is that we have a small market which is bad for everything. Kleinschaligheid is our curse. We have limited and expensive access to information. We have no raw materials to speak of. Transportation to and from Curacao is expensive. We have never functioned from a mindset of ‘abundance’ and limitless opportunity.  But that is exactly what the information society offers. We have some catching up to do, to get to a mindset of limitless opportunity.

We already have enough physical infrastructure, broadband and whatnot, to enable everyone to Google and find innovative ideas and be inspired by them, as I was, or to find ways to help make their ideas a reality.

Preliminary results of last year’s census show that 65% of all Curacao households have a pc or laptop at home, and 55%  of all households have internet at home. My company MarkStra Caribbean’s research in 2010 yielded that among people between the ages of 18 and 65, the more relevant segments, 82% have pcs or laptops at home and 78% have internet connection at home. Today much of that connection is broadband, even in schools.

We are working on our security infrastructure. Ms. Martis will speak to that. And I hope we will find steps forward with regard to our data and internet privacy laws, which Ms. Helders will speak to later.

What can you and I do?

1.      Incentivate to participate

For those of us who teach, regardless of the subject, we can use examples in our classes that have ‘information society’ DNA. Sometimes it does require more preparation, but let’s resolve to do so. If needed give incentives and rewards for students to engage in increasingly innovative ways in the information society. By the way, in his work on country competitiveness, Michael Porter, finds that in high income countries the ‘incentive compensation system’ in companies is much better developed than in lower-income countries. All the more reason to give incentives.

In the same spirit, encourage your students, children and perhaps yourselves to participate in global contests of the information society. For its 10^th anniversary a few years ago, Google held a contest ‘Project 10 to the 100^th ’. People could submit ideas that helped solve five (5) global challenges. There are 200 countries in the world. 170 or 85% participated. Has Curacao?  It’s not about winning. It’s about an emotional and intellectual commitment to the future, an immersion, which needs to be near absolute.[1]

In this regard, please allow me a plug for Rotary. For its Rotary Group Study Exchange project (a global project) our Rotary District is seeking professionals aged 25-40 with at least 2 years of experience to go on a one month study exchange to Sweden next February.  Sweden is the 3^rd most competitive country in the world with lots of emphasis on environment and innovation. Let me know at tlacruz@markstra.com .

2.      Strategize

In my daily professional life I help companies grow through research strategy, competitiveness and innovative thinking.   I would be amiss if I did not suggest that there must be some system to the madness, some strategy. The same Hamel and the late CK Prahalad that I mentioned before suggest that countries should ask themselves: “Given our unique portfolio of competencies, what opportunities are we uniquely positioned to exploit?” In Curacao we have long considered geography as our unique competence. While that is true, we must realize that in the information society the role of geography is increasingly smaller. So, where else might we find unique competencies? Let me give 3 ideas:

a.      We live and work in a small state. As professionals, consultants we have often had to develop solutions because the available solutions were too complex or expensive for our small markets. As I said before, there are 200 countries in the world. Of these, 56, i.e. almost 30% are sovereign small states with a population of less than 1.5 million people. Could those be your market? Could some thing that you developed for Curacao be sold to another small state? I first mentioned this at a conference at UWI with scholars from around the Caribbean and elsewhere. Then and since, everyone gets excited whenever I mention it. I hope you do too.

b.      There are at least 125 islands with fewer than 1.5 million people. By definition they all lie in a salty sea, and have issues related to shore and beach management, transportation, etc. Certainly they are looking for answers which can be provided in the realm of the information society.

c.       We are an increasingly touristic island. In 2011 we had around 400.000 international stay-over arrivals and an equal amount of cruise arrivals. According to the World Tourism Organization there are some 1 billion international arrivals in the world each year. At least 25 million of those are to Caribbean islands. Certainly there are solutions still to be found for some of the issues facing this industry.

3.      Work together. We hear that every day. But I want to be more specific. I was trying to make a coherent story about this. But I will just spit it out.

a.      I suggest that to get ahead we have to work in interdisciplinary teams. Before a doctor, engineer, marketer could be successful by ‘covering’ all the disciplines herself. Today that is no longer true. Internet and social media have had integrated marketing and technology in ways we could not have foreseen, as Ms. Kleinmoedig will attest to later. To take advantage of the opportunities in the information society, we must work together, across disciplines. It is no longer an option. It is a NECESSITY.

b.      For many reasons these interdisciplinary teams cause tension. But, we must not retreat. That’s the whole idea. Diversity of eyeballs, and the resulting tension, whether because of discipline, gender, age, ethnicity, or religion breeds better answers.

So, on the eve of the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, in UN’s year for women and girls in technology, let me end where I started: Executives are looking for more than technology. They are looking for answers. We must prepare to deliver those answers. The way in which we prepare is a whole new ballgame.

Tamira La Cruz, MBA, is a consultant on research, corporate strategy, competitiveness and innovation. A business economist, she has a continuing interest in monetizing small state innovations. She can be contacted via  www.markstra.com , her blog  Caribbean Research and Strategy  blog or tlacruz@markstra.com.

---

[1] Hamel and CK Prahalad, Competing for the Future

Business and business development in Bonaire

I found my 'home' in Bonaire: Central Hotel Bonaire.


Right in town, new and clean and affordable. Makes it a lot easier to develop business in Bonaire.
Key words: hospitality, tourism, real estate development, nature, heritage, art, research, feasibility study, business plan, strategy and innovation.









The engagement was to do a quick scan of the overall cost-of-living in Bonaire.

Finding innovation and learnings in Africa and the Kilimanjaro

Some time ago I called someone's bluff and ended up in Africa and on top of the Kilimanjaro. 

I learnt of and started paying attention to the opportunities in Africa. I also realized there is a lot we in Curacao and the Caribbean can learn from Africa, in any case from Tanzania:

1. Impressive eco-lodges in Tanzania. One of them was the 'execution' of the artist's impression of a 140-room hotel and retail development in Curacao I had written a business plan for about a month earlier.  The boulders in the picture below are the wall of the restaurant. 

2. Since I am writing a book on innovations in small states and how to monetize those, I was especially interested in Zanzibar, which is also a small state with a population of less than 1.5 milllion. Like Curacao's capital Willemstad, it's capital is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Knowledge workers in small states share the common fact that they have had to found creative solutions because of limited resources. Hence, they have innovated.




3. What a global world! My cousin (an catholic econometrist living in Holland) and our guide Omary (a Tanzanian moslim who had barely finished secondary school), were both 27 years of , fans of Manchester United, Rihanna, some 'Reggaeton artist, who I, of course don't know. Omary also knew the Beach Boy's Kokomo song "Aruba, Jamaica, Bahama... ."
Here Bob Marley's "One Love" greets us when arriving in Zanzibar.

4. In Zanzibar we went to a street festival. Soup and sugar cane juice were served in a regular plastic bowl and glass glass, which you had to return afterwards. Green and sustainable!

4. The Tanzanian guides were excellent. This is our safarai guide Omary, who besides Swahili, speaks English and had learnt himself French. His book was a few handwritten pages of French words and sentences he once learnt.

5. Most of all I am impressed that someone had such good marketing skills to get so many people to want to summit the Kilimanjaro. In our case, we were neither hikers, had never slept in a sleeping bag, let alone a tent, for seven days, out in the middle of nowhere.

I plan to go back to Africa, not as a tourist, but as a volunteer or a consultant. Volunteer, that was the bluff.

Find your innovation!

‘How COULD I innovate?’, he shouts. ‘I work in a small country, in a terrible hospital, where there is no money for anything. I can’t finance any research myself because the government pays me late for my services. On the other hand, my colleagues in Holland……..’

‘But, I bet that BECAUSE you live in a small country and work in a terrible hospital, you have found creative ways to keep your patients alive with limited resources.’, I suggest.

 ‘Sure thing’, he says, still mad. ‘I HAVE to.’ 

‘So, you have innovated,’ I respond. ‘If you have found a way to produce the same results with fewer resources, i.e. more efficiently, that’s an innovation.

His face lit up. ‘We must talk about this further.’

This introduction is the continuation of that discussion. Then I will ask you to stay after the key note speaker’s talk. We will then open the floor for interaction and ask how the Chamber of Commerce or others can help you monetize, capitalize on your innovation.

By the way, the notion that ‘you have innovated if you have found a way to produce the same results with fewer resources, i.e. more efficiently’ is from a theory called Blue OceanStrategy. The authors also assert that it is even better ‘If that efficient solution is also better suited to the needs of your client (because of market size, complexity, climate, gender, ethnicity, etc.).’

So, the question is not whether you have you innovated, but where.  Please allow me to share some thoughts that might inspire you:

• I did not tell the doctor that there are 200 countries in the world. Holland and the US are among the 10 richest. Simplified: 190 countries, 95% of all countries cannot financially afford many of the Dutch or American innovations in health care, or many other areas.

•  Even if they can afford it, for a great many countries these innovations are unsuitable, because they are too complex, because there is not enough local talent to implement them, etc. Sounds familiar?

•  A few weeks ago someone told me. ‘My health-related service is targeted to older people, of the average age and income of cruise tourists. I can do the whole thing before they leave the island. I promote it online.’…Of course. Last year 400,000 cruise tourists visited Curacao. 

• Then there is “One Laptop per Child”. Up to now the program is mostly available in large low income countries. If we can develop a good program to introduce this in Curacao, we would be the first middle income, small country to do so. Don’t you think other small middle income countries would be interested? ‘Scale’ is a challenge for them too.

• CHUKKACaribbean, from Jamaica. They have zip lines and other adventure travel tours (ATV’s) in three countries. Do YOU have an innovative touristic attraction that can be implemented in another island? There are some 30 Caribbean islands receiving over 20 million stay-over tourists each year. On the other side of the world, there are yet more touristic tropical islands…

•   Fresh Water. You know that fresh water will be a challenge everywhere. If you Google (in English) about gardening in dry climates or harvesting rainwater, most solutions, websites, blogs, come from Australia and New Zealand. We ALSO live in a dry climate. If you are an engineer, landscape designer, etc. have you discovered a marketable solution to deal with this? 

• I have a friend who is a nutritionist. She specializes in weight loss and has her own ‘program’. She said: “I am at a loss when I get clients who eat traditional local food. Because, I don’t have a lot of ideas with guiambo, yuka, chayote, etc. My education included regular potatoes, strawberries, brussel sprouts, etc. I ask you: Have you seen ANY weight loss program based on tropical fruits and vegetables? By the way:  40% of the world lives in the tropics! By 2060, 60% will because older people like warmer climates. 

• Black women spend 5 times more on hair care than White women. Most of our products come from the US. Is there any large global brand for Black women living in hot climates? There are 800 million people living in ‘tropical’ Africa. Yes, some people laugh when I mention Africa. It IS the one undiscovered continent in the world, full of opportunities. The Trini’s are laying a major oil pipeline there, funded by an international organization.

• Of course you can choose an innovation that covers the whole world. But what would be your competitive advantage in knowledge and experience?  Some years ago, when the Jazz Festival was still at Brievengat, an American music entrepreneur told me: ‘Yes, she is a great singer. But, she should sing another genre. There are thousands of equally great voices in the world that sing popular tunes. Breaking through will be impossible.’ Izaline Calister and Emphrem J’s success are not a just luck.

• There is one BIG exception, that perhaps confirms the rule. Technology!  Today’s keynote speaker, Clark Russel, is the CEO of an IT company. There are global opportunities for internet games, all kinds of apps, etc.,  IF we focus on using the internet productively, rather than consumptively. Last Sunday, a saw Jane McGonical, a games developer, speak on CNN’s The Next List  about the games she is making to improve health… She had a serious brain injury and developed games that have helped her. 

That was the first part. Find your innovation! In the next post, how do you monetize your innovation, i.e. capitalize on it?

In case you are wondering, there are about 200 countries in the world. Of these, 56 are small states with fewer than 1.5 million people. There are 33 small dependent territories and 125 islands with a population smaller than 1.5 million. Only 240 cities in the world have more than 1.5 million people.




Speech delivered at the Curacao Chamber of Commerce's Services Lunch Seminar, April 17, 2012.

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Featured Speakers

Born and raised on Curaçao, Tamira La Cruz, MBA, CEO of MarkStra Caribbean, started her career as a marketing executive with a leading banking group in the Netherlands Antilles, working throughout the Dutch Caribbean. As a consultant, she has completed research, corporate strategy, marketing,   trade development and internet/e-commerce assignments for both domestic and global firms throughout the Caribbean, in the U.S., Belgium, Spain and Chile. 

She has lectured and published extensively on strategy, marketing, management and global business issues, both locally and elsewhere in the region. Selling knowledge services and innovation across borders holds her particular interest.


Ms. La Cruz holds an MBA degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BSBA degree from Boston University. Ms. La Cruz is a Burke Certified focus group moderator, a board member of the Curacao Chamber of Commerce and Industry, former president of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International Curacao. 

Mirto Murray, esq., has practiced law in the Dutch Caribbean and Surinam for the past 15 years, using Curacao as base, most recently as partner of SMS Attorneys. Early in his career he served  as Vice-President and then President of the Curacao Bar Association. His law degree is from the University of Amsterdam.

He has served on numerous important committees and board, often related to legal issues in the Dutch Caribbean and Surinam. He has been the trustee for the bankruptcy for  the Dutch Caribbean Airlines N.V. and an observer on behalf of the Curacao Minister of Justice to the trials related to the "Decembermoorden" in Surinam.

He is a prolific writer, whose work has often been published in legal and scientific publications, as well as local newspapers. His most recent publication is the "Two Masters" written with Karel Frielink, esq.  

Mr. Murray, who hails from Surinam, has also lectured law to numerous full-and part-time students in Curacao and has made many media appearances to speak on legal issues.

Clark Russel is the CEO of IBIS Management Associates Inc. the leading international banking consulting and technology company in the Caribbean and Americas.  IBIS Management helps major banks in more than 25 countries to become "profitably efficient" in their operations.

Clark founded IBIS Management Associates Inc. back in 2001, as an advisor and provider of Straight Through Processing solutions for the international banking sector. IBIS Management is the creator of the award winning Alchemy Payment Processing suite of products that provide Internet Banking, Mobile Banking and a back office payment processing infrastructure for banks. Banks that use the Alchemy solution transform their manually driven back-office departments into highly efficient and fast paced operations with increased profitability.

After completing his Engineering studies, Clark began his career in the Netherlands where he joined the international systems department of the ABN AMRO Bank in Amsterdam.  In this role, he laid down the initial blue prints for the Global Access Network of the Bank, a proprietary integrated communications network connecting all world wide ABN AMRO Branches. He went on to hold Sr. positions in the Bank where he played leading roles in the creation of regional ATM and POS payment processing networks for the Bank in the Caribbean region over a six year period.

In 1998 Clark continued his career at PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a Sr. Management Consultant, where he was involved in implementing cost management models at major national telecommunication companies in countries such as the UK, Israel, Holland and his native Dutch Antilles.

Clark and IBIS Management associates are members of the International Financial Services Association (IFSA), the Caribbean Association of Indigenous Banks (CAIB), SWIFT, and actively provide thought leadership and best practice to leading Central, Private and Commercial Banks.  Clark and IBIS Management are constantly at the forefront of leading innovative projects in banking technology while at the same time making contributions to the local and regional community through the Banks-4-kids charity foundation.

Clark is a native of the lovely island of Curacao in the Dutch Caribbean, is married and the father of three sons and a passionate sailor.