Why ‘Hector from Accounting’ Is Not Your Hispanic Marketing Department

On the Phone with a U.S. Fortune 500 Retailer Last week I was on a client call with an east coast based Fortune 500 retail company that told me they needed a change. They would no longer simply delegate Hispanic marketing work to internal employees that happened to speak Spanish (Yes, this actually...

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Missing the Punchline – The Spanish Language #DadJokesRule Campaign

(Originally published on Nativa.) #ChistesDePapa? What are they Selling? If comedian Jerry Seinfeld filmed an episode of Comedians in Cars in west Phoenix and happened to drive by the corner of 19th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, he might not understand what the giant billboard with the Spanish has...

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Robot-Chasing, BotBoxing, & Screen-bending: My CES 2019 Experience

Always running late to the plane. Why is it that when I head to conferences I always assume there will be no traffic? As I sat in gridlocked traffic in the tunnel below downtown Phoenix, I considered heading home and rescheduling the flight for a later time as my flight was taking off in less than ...

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How Not to Reschedule a Meeting

Its 3:05pm. The meeting started at 3:00 pm. Yet, somehow you are the only one on the conference call line. You check your phone. Strange. No text messages received. Nor any calls. You check your email. Nothing. You resolve to wait another 5 minutes. Surely your colleague would not forget about the m...

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We are not your Tokens

We are not your Tokens I was born and raised in a major Midwestern city. Like any other cold, inland metropolis, the trendiest bars today often have arcade games that consume tokens like an 18-year-old charges his credit card. I found myself at one of these fashionable establishments recently and...

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Diversity in 2018: Now as Important as Ever

Originally published in the Phoenix Business Journal. Photo Credit - Soroush Karimi. While catching up on reading this week, I came upon Robert Backie's 'My View: Here's another take on diversity, inclusion in tech community'. I couldn't help but sigh. Although my own technology company had stac...

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What I Learned from a Lyft Driver

Fully mounted on my 12-speed bicycle, while rounding the corner on a stretch I have done hundreds of times before, I heard that horrible crack and screeched to a stop. Luckily dodging a fall, I reviewed my bike and all seemed fine as I hopped back on. However, upon taking my first pedal forward an...

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Mobile Payment Adoption in the US: Not Yet

As any early-80's baby, I confess to having thought seriously about the legitimacy of my faux-Australian accent. On many a Reagan-era evening, I found myself re-watching Mick Dundee outsmart yet another American criminal group, fantasizing until the day I too could sip a Fosters and audaciously mock...

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What the Light Reveals

I watched the sun rise this morning. I had embarked on a 5-mile lake-loop trail run before dawn and now admiringly observed the cold, dark sky disappear into a swallow of pale yellow light. As I rounded each corner of the long-traversed trail, I began to view more and more of the passage ahead of me...

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