Hasta La Gadget!

Sex assault and rape are huge problems on our campuses in New York and across the country. Indeed, evidence suggests that the information gap in this area adds to the problem and proves to be highly misleading for students and families.

Although all colleges and universities that receive federal funding are already required to publish data on campus crimes pursuant to the federal Clery Act, spotty compliance leads to a distorted snapshot of crime and safety on campuses and results in a limited ability to compare such data across schools.

The truth is, states don’t have to wait for the federal government to act – they have the ability to take this on themselves and, given the enormity of the problem, we cannot wait any longer.

That’s why Governor Andrew Cuomo is tackling this issue head on – he is calling for policy changes in all colleges across the State, making New York a leader in combatting sexual assault and rape on college campuses.

In his Executive Budget, Governor Cuomo presented a comprehensive plan to protect the safety and rights of all students attending college in New York. The proposal codifies a sexual assault prevention and response policy previously adopted by the State University of New York, applying it to all colleges and universities – public and private – in New York State.

He also launched the “Enough is Enough” campaign to highlight the importance of this policy to help ensure all New York’s college and university students are protected from sexual violence while at school.

The policy includes four critical components, which give more power and protections to the victims:

• A statewide definition of affirmative consent;
• A statewide amnesty policy to ensure students who are victims of sexual violence can report them with immunity for certain campus policy violations;
• A Sexual Violence Victim/Survivor Bill of Rights to be distributed to every student, and confidential reporting protocols to ensure colleges use best practices when handling a case of on-campus sexual violence that provides both care and respect to the victim;
• Comprehensive training requirements for administrators, staff, and students, including at new student orientations.

These measures will ensure that all of New York’s college and university students have a very clear understanding of consent, their rights as victims, and the safeguards in place to keep them protected.

By enabling students to complete assessments of their campus life and environment, we are giving them the power to provide more accurate information about what is actually taking place on our campuses during the day and at night. It also will provide better data to make more robust comparisons of all colleges and universities in the State – an extremely helpful tool for current and prospective students and their families.

We all know that drafting and passing a piece of legislation is the first step, but it’s the implementation of the law that is key. With the passage of this proposal, each college and university in New York State will be required to comply with its provisions and submit the anonymous campus surveys as proof of campus happenings, or risk losing State funding. They will also be required to make the policy clear to all students, faculty, administration and the general public.

Sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking affect thousands of college students in New York State and across the nation. In addition to the trauma caused by such violence, many victims drop out of school, experience difficulty working, and see promising opportunities cut short in the aftermath of their incidents.

We must do more to protect our students from on-campus sexual assaults, and providing students with increased protections as well as ensuring more accurate reporting are vital to achieving that goal. Governor Cuomo’s legislation ensures that students and their families have access to important information and helps foster an environment of respect, safety and awareness on our campuses.

Not only will these policies make New York a leader in fighting sex assault, but they will also provide a legislative template for every state in the nation to follow – with this, we can stand up and say that all campuses must and will become places free of sexual violence.

February is American Heart Month – a busy month for our friends at the American Heart Association who are committed to reducing death from heart disease (the number one killer of women and men in the U.S.) We know that certain healthy behaviors can reduce the risk of breast cancer in many women, and of course, the same is true for heart disease. So as American Heart Month winds down, I asked American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown to share her thoughts about women and heart disease, and the importance of healthy lifestyles.

By Nancy Brown
CEO, American Heart Association

I want to thank everyone at Susan G. Komen for this special opportunity to discuss women’s heart health during February, which is American Heart Month, a time when people across the country wear red and show their support for the fight against heart disease, our nation’s leading cause of death in both women and men.

For me, one of the great privileges of being a part of the American Heart Association is the opportunity to work together with fellow health organizations, like Susan G. Komen, to achieve our shared goal of improving and saving lives. Whether we’re focused on heart disease, breast cancer, or any major illness, one priority that every health organization has in common is the importance of healthy lifestyles. A long and ever-growing list of studies have shown that healthy habits – such as physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding tobacco – lower your risk for a wide range of diseases, including heart disease, breast cancer and many other types of cancer, and type 2 diabetes.

For this reason, healthy lifestyles are a cornerstone priority of the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women movement. Up to 80% of cases of heart disease could be prevented if we maintained long-term, healthy lifestyles.

Since we launched Go Red For Women in 2004, more than 1.9 million women have registered, and we’re pleased to learn that after joining, 9 out of 10 go on to make at least one healthy lifestyle change. For example, more than one-third have lost weight, more than 50% have increased their exercise, and 60% have changed their diets.

For both Susan G. Komen and Go Red For Women, the foundation of our success is inspiring women to think about their health every day and to know they are empowered to take action on their own behalf. Taking action means educating ourselves about our personal risk factors, learning the symptoms and warning signs of illnesses that can impact our lives, and visiting our doctors on a regular basis to discuss our health and undergo recommended screenings.

Go Red For Women surveys have shown us that for decades, many women felt powerless to do anything if they had a family history of heart disease or were diagnosed with key risk factors like hypertension or high cholesterol. Nothing could be further from the truth, and that’s why our work won’t stop until we’ve reached every woman with the message that they have the power to stop their leading cause of death. And this message doesn’t begin and end during American Heart Month. It’s a message that women should keep top of mind every day of the year.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Come summer 2016, when the best of the best athletes climb podiums wearing gold, silver and bronze medals, Las Vegas gamblers could very well be counting their green.

Nevada gambling regulators voted Thursday to allow the state’s sports books to offer bets on the Olympics for the first time in years.

Revised regulations say the Nevada Gaming Control Board chairman can limit the bets at his or her discretion. The wagers have been banned for more than a decade since the state made regulatory changes allowing bets on the state’s own sports teams but specifically barring non-college amateur events.

International sports books in Great Britain, Ireland and Australia and offshore Internet sites already allow such bets. South Point Hotel Casino pushed for the change with the support of other sports-book operators.

Article by Ernan Roman
Featured on Forbes.com

A cataclysmic shift is occurring in BtoB and BtoC marketing. Customers are ignoring generic messaging and demanding personalized and relevant communications based on their individual preferences.

Based on research findings, the good news is that customers and prospects are willing to provide personal or business information in exchange for more personalized offers, communications and experiences.

Marketers must meet these consumer demands by transitioning from impersonal transaction-based marketing to highly personalized, preference-based, experiences.

The Reciprocity of Value Equation

A profound finding has emerged from more than 12,000 hours of Voice of Customer (VoC) research our firm has conducted for companies including MassMutual, IBM, Norton AntiVirus, QVC, NBC, Microsoft and Songza. Notwithstanding privacy concerns, BtoB and BtoC customers are willing to provide detailed information in exchange for increased value and relevance.

To satisfy these demands, marketers must adopt transformational strategies that recognize the value of human data; true personalization of communications, offers and experiences driven by deep opt-in individual preference information provided by customers in exchange for receiving unprecedented levels of preference-driven personalization.

We call this the Reciprocity of Value Equation.

Customer Reciprocity: Recognition by customers that to receive more relevant and personalized communications and offers, they need to provide marketers with personal or business preference information.

Plus

Business Reciprocity: Recognition by marketers that they have to provide significantly more personalized communications and offers. To be truly personalized these have to be based on more than just transactional, overlay and inferential data.

Plus

“Human Data:” BtoB or BtoC opt-in self-profiled information regarding key issues, needs and expectations; decision-making process, messaging and media preferences; self-described personality types/attitudes/life stages.

Equals

Customer Experience Transformation.

But, Marketers Have to Earn the Right to Request Human Data

By earning trust through value propositions that motivate customers to opt-in and provide deep preference information, marketers will create a high quality database of responsive customers who truly want your messages.

Based on the VoC research findings, customers (BtoB and BtoC) confirmed that human data has to be earned by going through specific steps that comprise a Pyramid of Trust:

• Do what you promised: Deliver on your fundamental brand promise.
• Treat me fairly: Fair pricing and customer service policies.
• Protect my information: Explain the reasons for the opt-in information requests and assure me of the privacy and safety of my data.
• Improve my experiences: Use my stated preferences and aversions, to significantly improve my experiences.

Gilt Earns Trust and Engagement

Gilt, a top internet retailer, has used high levels of personalization to deliver relevance and drive engagement for both new and existing customers. Results of these efforts have included increased orders, decreased email and mobile push notification unsubscribe rates and boosted higher repeat-purchase rates.

According to Welington Fonseca, VP of marketing and digital analytics, “Gilt’s commitment to a personalized experience is evident when customers return to the home page of the web site or mobile app. Sales within the store (men, women, kids, home) with the highest affinity to a consumer’s past behavior and preferences (browse, purchase, favorite brands, wish list) are presented at the top of their home page with all other sales ranked according to relevance based on previous shopping behavior and collaborative filtering.”

Another example of personalization is “Your Personal Sale,” which displays the most relevant brands and products based on shopping patterns and self-stated preferences and provide Gilt with another way to interact with the customer to understand preferences in order to further refine their personalization algorithm.

According to Fonseca, “All communication is personalized, with the company sending [more than] 2,500 versions of personalized emails and mobile push notifications on a daily basis, eight times per week. Results have been a double-digit increase in orders and reduction in email and mobile push notification unsubscribes.”

Five Takeaways:

1. Differentiate your business by providing highly personalized communications, offers and experiences.
2. True personalization must be based on preference-based “human data,” not just traditional inferred or transactional data.
3. The right to ask for increasingly deep levels of preference-based information is not a “given.” It must be earned.
4. Deliver clear and obvious value based on preference information.
5. Customers see reciprocity as a valuable exchange of information that improves their experience.

Ernan Roman is president of ERDM.
ERDM conducts Voice of Customer (VoC) research to identify high impact Customer Experience strategies.
Inducted into the DMA Marketing Hall of Fame due to results clients achieve with ERDM’s VoC research driven strategies.
Clients include IBM, MassMutual, Microsoft, NortonAntivirus, QVC and NBC.
Roman is the author of Voice of the Customer Marketing and of the Huffington Post published blog, Ernan’s Insights on Marketing Best Practices.

Named by the Online Marketing Institute as one of the “2014 Top 40 Digital Luminaries” and by Crain’s BtoB Magazine as one of the “100 most influential people in Business Marketing”.
www.erdm.com
ernan@erdm.com

According to data from Smith Travel Research (STR), via CNN, hotels in the United States had the highest level of rooms booked ever in 2014. And, the outlook looks positive moving forward for the global hotel industry. Statista is predicting the hotel industry worldwide will generate $550 billion in 2016.

While that is certainly excellent news for brands like Intercontinental and Marriott, it also means great things for a number of other industries. After all, if there are more hotel rooms being booked, then that means more laundry to do, food to be made and accountants/bookkeepers to handle all of these transactions — such as paying vendors and employees.

Keeping that in mind, here are some of the other businesses that are making money from the hotel industry.

Housekeeping
As Starwood Hotels & Resorts notes, “the Housekeeping department is typically the largest in the hotel in terms of both the number of associates and annual operating budget.” This department includes room attendants (the individuals who clean and restock rooms) and laundry associates.

Between all of the cleaning supplies and equipment (vacuums, washers and dryers) needed to keep hotels clean and welcoming, it’s not surprising that this department would profit off of hotels. If residential house cleaners, such as 30 percent of franchises from Molly Maids, can earn $1 million annually, just imagine how much money hotels spend on housekeeping?

Amenities
Whether it’s bars of soap, bed linens or mattresses, companies involved with hotel amenities are also profiting heavily from hotels.

For example, Marriott informs Forbes that it spends approximately $20 million per year on Thann products. Thann is a Bangkok-based company that makes a line of natural skin and hair care products.

Besides hygiene products, the bedding industry is also booming.The IRS noted that Marriott spent $190 million when it replaced old bedding with ones that contained higher thread count sheets, down comforters and duvet covers. Starwood Hotels invested $13 million for The Four Comfort Bed.

Food & Beverage
The Dow Hotel Company states “between 25 percent and 45 percent of a hotel’s revenue can come from its food and beverage sales.” Lakshmi Narasimhan, Founder of Ignite Insight LLC, states on Hotel Business Review, however, that “the Food and Beverage department contributes between 10 percent and 20 percent of Total Revenues.” Regardless of the exact figures, the food and beverage department make up a solid portion of a hotel’s revenue — which means a hefty profit for vendors dealing with hotels.

Telecommunications
“According to PKF Hospitality Research, LLC (PKF-HR), telecommunications revenue at the average U.S. hotel in its annual Trends® in the Hotel Industry survey sample has declined from a peak of $1,274 per available room (PAR) in 2000 to $269 PAR in 2011.” However, as Robert Mandelbaum is Director of Research Information Services for PKF Hospitality Research, LLC, notes, the recovery from the 2009 recession has helped improve customer spending for hotel telecommunications.

“Telecommunications revenue has increased from $178 PAR in 2009 to $269 PAR in 2011, an increase of 51 percent.”  Also, “guest spending on phone service and the internet has increased from $0.77 POR in 2009 to $1.07 POR in 2011.”

This may not be a large revenue for the hotel itself, but this is great news for telecommunications providers.

Booking Sites
Online booking sites, such as Priceline, Booking.com, Expedia and Orbitz are also profiting off of hotels. According to Forbes, hotel bookings accounted for of 97 percent of Priceline’s revenue, as well as “contributing around 83 percent to its total gross booking” in 2013. This makes hotels the most profitable division for Priceline. Something interesting to note is that most of these companies are using the backbone of Duetto to manage all the data and help large hotels make better strategic decisions..

Transportation
Whether it is public transportation, taxis or shuttles, the transportation industry also benefits from hotels. Take for example SuperShuttle. The company has “approximately 1,200 distinctive blue and yellow vans on the road” that provides travelers in more than 40 airports and over 50 cities transportation from the airport to their hotel. .

Not only does that benefit transportation companies, like SuperShuttle, transportation to and from hotels is profitable for the energy and maintenance companies who keep these vehicles running.