Most people believe, that when you’re competing globally, it’s not enough to be good, you have to be great.  But it’s interesting that sometimes people don’t think you should have to compete beyond your local borders.  We’ve seen some controversies about construction work in Trinidad & Tobago being done by Chinese companies and one of the biggest controversies surrounding globalization and free trade has always been the potential detrimental impact of foreign competition.

Well, it’s not a black and white issue by any means, but honestly, if you can’t compete with the best in the world, it’s not a matter of IF, but WHEN someone’s going to come along and eat your lunch.  And let me tell you, while I don’t mind sharing with my peeps, i don’t want anyone i don’t know coming out and eating my food!

All that is to say, that one of the core values and tenets of the Caribbean Ideas team, is to set ourselves apart in the Caribbean business and media market by being global-class.   We see it as critical that we build a company that brings the best of the exposure our team has had to doing business around the world as well as in the Caribbean.  This is really important to us for a couple of reasons.

1. We want to put the Caribbean and Caribbean businesses firmly on the global business map. That means doing what we can to change the perception that island folk are just about being laid back, and easy go lucky.  We’re out to play with the big boys and that means you have to be just as good as or better than they are.
2. Our audience is global. I mean Caribbean people are like ants I like to say, because we’re everywhere. So we want to bring a level of sophistication to the online experience that appeals to the Caribbean audience wherever they are. Pratically that means simple navigation and UI, global-class services and features and an ongoing focus on tackling big meaty problems.

Well i’ll leave it there for now, you can hear and see more in this video. Click here to check it out.

Hey folks, am back on track with the blogging and video blogging after a bit of a hiatus.  I’ve put up a few new videos on youtube.  In this first one, I explore the challenge of building a brand as a small company, and how we’re thinking about and working to attack this particular challenge. As always comments welcome from fellow entrepreneurs, supporters, or anyone with a perspective.  You can check out the video here.

Greetings from the Caribbean Ideas Team! 
On behalf of the team, I would like to thank you all of you who have visited the site, given us feedback, suggestions, etc. Our team is fully committed to delivering quality solutions for our members.  Since our public beta launch just over 2 months ago it’s been amazing to see the growth while we work on making the site better, and we wanted to keep you in the loop.  During this time we added some great people to our team and continued to build out our content story.  It’s still early in the game but we are happy to have you on board! Here are some of the quick Highlights for July 2008
 
1. Growth
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Over the last two months caribbeanaxis.com has had over 2,400 unique visitors generating over 51,000 page views and of course with your help we can continue growing.

2. New ways for you to Get Involved
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Speaking about growing with your help, we have refreshed the ‘Join In’ page to make it easier for you to become an Insider or Contributor, keep up with community news and share with your friends. Click here to get started.
 
3. Facebook Application
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On July 9th, we released the Caribbean Connection Facebook Application to the world and in a few days we had over 250 users add the application.  This app brings together top content from the caribbeanaxis.com website as well as introduces a Caribbean Knowledge Trivia Game and a Caribbean Lexicon.  We would love to get feedback from you on ways we can improve the app as well as features we can consider in v2.  Click here to add this app and feel free to share with your friends.
 
4. Collective Good
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At Caribbean Ideas Ltd, we strongly believe that the Caribbean Community can come together to do good, to assist brothers/sisters in need.  This was very evident when a friend of the CI Family, needed assistance and we created an avenue for the community to contribute.  We were touched by people’s willingness to support, and we are happy to report we’ve helped raise over US$5,500 in 3 weeks.  If you’re interested in learning more click here to visit the Zuri Donation page.
 
What’s Next?
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Here is a peek at what’s coming up in August:
Roll out of new features to make it easier for Caribbean Professionals to network
Content from new content partners and a network of now over 85 contributors or ’scribes’
Of course we will keep you in the loop as we go along and as we continue to make improvements, we also look out for your feedback.

Thanks,
Brevard
On behalf of the Caribbean Axis Team. 
 

Hey everyone,

This is Brevard, chiming in here.  In this space we will also be exploring some topics that may be burning issues for Marketing and communications Professional globally, but more importantly in the Region.  We look forward to your comment/feedback and if there is something that you would like us to touch one or research, feel free to drop us a line and let us know.

In a skit done at a conference recently, hosted by the IABC T&T Chapter, a character joked about this guy called ‘ROI’ and his measurements, but this topic has been a major point in the minds of Marketing and Corporate Communication Professionals for a while and it is really coming to the fore now.  

I recall a discussion at a Board meeting at IABCTT, about ROI and that a lot more Practitioners are being asked to measure the return on the investment across each medium and there is less margin for error. In some cases they have to do so as a subset of a business case for an increased budget. Traditional media (TV, Radio, Press, magazines) offer a wide reach but one may argue can we really measure accurately the number of people who are exposed to an ad, a campaign, a jingle, that ultimately purchase a product or service.  Of course there are some techniques that offer a dip stick method for measurement around which you may certain assumptions.

I have seen some formulas that do a calculation based on a composite index comprising all the expected touch points for the consumer, with appropriate weightings for each reflecting frequency. Certainly these are a lot more accurate but there are still some elements of subjectivity in applying the weighting.   To some degree ‘New Media’ presents some avenues where measurement can be a bit more accurate.

In this blog, over the next few weeks we will be looking at the issue of Measurement particularly of marketing efforts online and ways to leverage techniques from traditional media to maximise your return in the online space.

Later,

Brevard

Hey everyone.

Over the coming weeks, I want to not only take time to introduce our team to you in my own words, but also have them introduce themselves to you as well right here on the blog.  A couple posts back I talked about the importance of and excitement around building a great team.

Now I want to make that a little less abstract with real examples based on the team that we’re building at Caribbean Axis.  So right off the bat, anyone who “gets” our business understands that aggregating high quality content from around the Caribbean region is a really important part of the challenge we’re taking on.

Many have tried it before without exactly knocking it out of the park, so for us it’s not a challenge we take on lightly. We knew that to achieve that we would need a really strong addition to the team with the willingness to understand what Caribbean people with various interests want in a one-stop shop, but also as importantly what they want in more depth within the various topic areas we plan to cover. 

That person would also need to understand the role the web can play in bringing it all together and have the smarts to go out and work with partners, contributors and a range of other folks around the region and the world.

Well we’re en route to building out the team to do just that!  In a future post I’ll talk about how broadly we tend to define “team”, but in terms of the people who are working full time on Caribbean Ideas, I have to mention Ingrid Riley, our new VP of Content and Media.  Her profile is going up our corporate site soon but here are the cliff notes.

• Award-winning investigative journalist out of Jamaica
• Got bitten by the tech bug and switched to all things digital, ranging from web development, to Internet Strategy consulting and other web-based entrepreneurial ventures
• Currently runs what she hopes to build into the “Caribbean TechCrunch”. It’s called Siliconcaribe.com and is the way we met
• Prior relevant experience as Chief Content Officer for a Caribbean-focused startup.

Of course all that’s cool, but as I mentioned before, in a team like ours energy, vision and a willingess to hustle are critical and she’s got all that and more. Welcome Ingrid, we’re excited to have you.

Check out this video to see just how excited I am about Ingrid and to get a sneak peek of one of our upcoming topics, the Importance of Social Media to new web businesses. Keep watching this space to meet the rest of our team.

Adios,

Chike

Hey folks,

Just jotting down a couple thoughts on how all of you Caribbean professionals out there can give back to help drive Caribbean development.  When our team first got together and spec’d out stuff we wanted to build, one of the first things on the list was the professional section.  It’s probably topical now because we’re making some improvements to this section in the next month before we really start to push it.

Our objective with this section has always been to become the premier way for Caribbean people connect professionally so they can help each other advance their career ambitions, and this is from students all the way to seasoned professionals.

For a culture where limin’ and who you know is very important, we don’t always do a great job at connecting each other and sharing our wisdom broadly, beyond our immediate networks of friends and family. 

Whether it’s jobs, business partners, mentors, you name it, there’s a gap there that we think can be filled. And filling that gap isn’t about commercial gain only. It’s about helping a Guyanese or Jamaican high school student better understand opportunities for further education, it’s about helping a Grenadian or a Trinidadian university student increase their odds of landing that dream job at home or abroad.

We all can play a role in helping advance this kind of objective just by sharing our wisdom. Our team is constantly struck by the calibre of people we have met in the course of this project. Caribbean people are all over the world doing BIG TINGS.  So why not share those things with each other for collective gain and advancement? Just a thought..

If you’d like, you can check out this video of a random late night ramble by me on why I personally have been doing this for the past 2 years, and though it’s from me you’d hear the team say essentially the same things.  For us all it’s about creating sustainable and positive IMPACT on Caribbean development. You can view the video here.

Hey folks, thought I’d post a few quick thoughts on the power of a great team.  Caribbean Ideas is very much a startup but we can say that for a fairly young team we are fortunate to have a bunch of folks who have a strong mix of experience in both large companies and small.

I just heard a great quote from Will Smith on a talk show that is definitely worth repeating. He said “The maximum amount of good people you can surround yourself with, the better your life’s going to be”

Powerful stuff, but what strikes me about it is that in addition to being a great way to live life, it’s a great way to think about team building.  For all of you entepreneurs or soon to be entrepeneurs out there, the importance of people and the team you build is one of those cliches, often repeated but sooooo true.

At Caribbean Ideas, we’ve always tried to think about the concept of the “team” really broadly. In our business and as a new startup, our team is way more than the people who work at the company. It’s all the people who have signed on to be contributors, the people who give feedback and suggestions, its our advisors and the people who have helped us move from a prototype to a public beta the world can see.

Our guiding principle with many of the people that we get involved with is typically energy and enthusiasm.  Looking at our team and the hires we’ve recently made, the one thing that stands out is a passion for the opportunity to do something for Caribbean people worldwide, and an energy that reflects itself in a constant stream of ideas, animated discussions and lots of opinions. 

Over time, we may get more rigorous and structured in our approach to hiring, but the one thing we’ll always look for is energy.   I’m curious what’s that one thing that really matters to those of you out there who also have to build teams whether in companies or as entrepreneurs? Talk back, we’re interested to hear from you all!

Chike, on behalf of the Caribbean Ideas Team

Hey folks, welcome!

This is Chike, (pronounced chee-kay) Farrell, CEO of Caribbean Ideas Ltd. We’ve just gotten going with our very own blog on Caribbean Ideas.com so I figured why not start with a deeper introduction of Caribbean Ideas and our objectives since we sometimes get asked for a bit more detail.

We’re here with the ambition to do a couple things really well and hopefully in the process make a splash in the Caribbean emerging media space and on the world wide web. So when you think about Caribbean Ideas you can really think about 2 effective divisions as explained below. For those of you who are a little more visual, you can check out the introductory video to learn more. 

1. Caribbean Ideas Online: 

This part of our business is all about leveraging the web to connect Caribbean people or people of any nationality who have Caribbean interests around information and communities.

It’s about creating global-class online destinations with relevant content for anyone of Caribbean descent worldwide, or with Caribbean interests regardless of their nationality, and showcasing the best of the Caribbean.

Our first venture, (Caribbeanaxis.com) will be our flagship property, and our vision for caribaxis is that it can become a centralized place for a broad range of high quality Caribbean content and services.

Over time, we aim to build out a broader portfolio of relevant sites, since from time to time certain topics or services will require specialization and dedication to a particular audience.

Caribbean Ideas Emerging Media Solutions

Our team’s backgrounds span journalism, marketing, strategy consulting, Internet Media and Online advertising. It’s a combination that is well suited to our second major objective, helping Caribbean businesses leverage technology and new media to achieve their marketing objectives with greater efficiency. 

This part of our business will focus on providing customized new media advertising and marketing solutions for partners that can include but are rarely limited to advertising on properties we own as part of our Online division. 

So that’s it in a nutshell, hopefully that helps provide more clarity on who we are as a business. 

In this blog moving forward we will spend the majority of time sharing our own entrepreneurial experience while it’s happening, talking about the Caribbean emerging media space, and discussing ways to advance Caribbean economic and social development which is an area near and dear to all our hearts.

We encourage you to be active, tell us what you think, submit ideas and be right there with us.

If there’s any one thing we understand in all of our ventures, it’s that this is not about us, it’s about being a platform for the broader Caribbean community and we’re really excited about the impact we can all make together.

Chike on behalf of the CI team