Posts from — July 2010

Our village is now the globe and even with communication capabilities that shrink our planet, and jet travel that can get most of us back to Jamaica in hours, but we have done little to eliminate the emotional distance we feel when mom or dad need our support as they enter their golden age.


There are few life challenges as demanding as this one.


Here are some of the elements of this challenge:
Parents do not want to be a burden in any way.
Parents are still kicking and want to remained engaged in life.
Parents like most of us still want control of their lives.
Parents may not want to come live indoors in a part-time icebox.


How do we honor our parents by crafting a game plan that will balance all these elements and remain sane?


This issue is pregnant with emotion and will need much tender care to give birth to a plurality of solutions.


Please share your stories and questions that we can begin a dialog, we can solicit some expert consultant, and provide a road map to piece of mind .


We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.
Henry Ward Beecher

The overhang of the Dudus extradition and the shower of bullets from Tivoli Gardens manhunt have inflicted significant collateral damage on the tourist industry.


The subsequent travel advisories from North America and England has made the reservation lines at the enchanting vacation meccas , as active as the bodies at the Kingston morgue.


If that was not enough, the British Government is set to double its air passenger tax to the Caribbean.
In light of this tax, there is also increased competition from an increasingly attractive and close Mediterranean region!
In the US, the travel ban to Cuba maybe lifted before the winter season by the US congress!
The devastating summary comes from the IMF which estimates a 10-15 per cent decline in tourist arrivals in the Caribbean region.


Well, some would have closed up shop batten down for the fury of another economic hurricane, but then there are innovators like Diana McIntyre-Pike.



Diana has been pioneering community tourism.


Community Tourism is an integrated approach and collaborative tool for the socio-economic empowerment of communities through the assessment, development and marketing of natural and cultural community resources which seeks to add value to the experience of local and foreign visitors and simultaneously improve the quality of communities.



This is a method to provide a sustainable tourism model.


Community Tourism gives local people wishing to participate more fully in the tourism industry a means of doing so. This may range from establishing bed & breakfast accommodation in a rural home to creating income-generating tourism opportunities for an entire village.


Community Tourism embraces eco-tourism, cultural tourism, adventure tourism, recreational tourism, geo-tourism, heritage tourism, health tourism, farm tourism et al.


We had an opportunity to take the pulse of the tourist industry in an interview with Diana.


Take a listen.


Michael Porter a famed business consultant stated it well “Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity”.


Tourism represents $4BUS . This is 28% of the Jamaica’s GDP and 25% of the jobs created!


We will need a choir of innovators, folks such as Diana to extract the full value
of Jamaica’s resources in a sustainable manner.



What would you do to ensure that tourism in Jamaica continues to be the engine of this fragile economy?


Diana has a short term challenge that we can easily solve for her.
She is hosting the first service providers convention but need some help to get several communities there. The price tag is $1KUS.


Contact Diana at iiptcaribbean@yahoo.com for further detail how you can help.


In the subject line, write I want to support local tourism providers learn & shine


Join the chorus folks! Let’s hear from you.

In the World Cup of ingenuity, the Jamaican team XORMIS took first place ahead of Brazil, and Indonesia!


The ‘Imagine Cup’ is a world-wide technology competition created to reward students for their inspirational and technological innovations. The theme of this year’s competition is “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems“.


Yes, team Xormis World Champions in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Competition 2010!
Team Xormis, comprised of Shawn McLean, Dwayne Samuels, Derron Brown and Markel Mairs, outclassed several Information Technology teams around the world.


This team is the top student technologists out of 300,000 thousand competitors from 124 different countries.


For you who want to know the technical details of the winning project, here is the nerd analysis:


The winning project is “eXtensible Opportunity and Resource Matching Information System,” – a match maker that couples significant and pervasive problems with the appropriate solution providers by employing multiple technologies to connect people, data, or diverse systems in a new way.


Now that’s a brainfull! For us less technically inclined, this is like Bolt doing 9.59 in the 100 meters.


Let us congratulate them, and Northern Caribbean University for their tradition of excellence!

This week, the Caricom group meets in Montego Bay for its 31st. annual meeting.

Jamaica serves as host country and Prime Minister Golding serves as chairperson.
His opening speech was quite on target in capturing the essence of the challenges that face the region.

click to get a copy of speech.

The biggest test intrinsic challenge was captured in this portion of Hon. Golding’s speech.
“Of all our failings, perhaps our greatest is to believe that we can unite the Caribbean without first uniting the Caribbean people.That is an issue this Conference must take up in the context of the governance structure that we must address. Let Montego Bay, as it has done in the past, be a turning point, a new beginning”.


I just recently attended a series of meetings in the celebration of Caribbean American heritage month. The folks involved in these meetings were leaders of various civic and business groups. However, in each of these meetings some wisecrack about Jamaicans seem to surface. Jamaicans are perceived as a people who are strangers to humility and reflective thinking (my summary). We always want to be in charge and ignore input from the small Islander. Am I stirring up a wasp nest here or is it reality we need to work through. How can we allow the issues of our collective good trump our personal differences?


I know the Air Jamaica and the cement issue with our Trinnie friends still sting.
We need to develop a more sustainable cooperation/competition model.
Think for instance if the BP spill start to do damage to any of our beaches. The brightest legal mind on this issue happens to be from the Bahamas. He has shared a grave concern the the Islands have no legal claim to the BP $20B escrow given the present international maritime laws!
This is an issue we better collectively make lots of noise about and take preemptive steps to protect ourselves.
We have lots to do to unite our Caribbean peoples.


We will need to enlist a regional trust, engage all minds, empower all people, enforce a policy of mutual respect, and enthuse our people with a greater symbiotic vision.


Emerson captured the essence of the type of leadership we need to practice in these challenging times.
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.


What will you and I do to advance this cause?