Two articles in this month's Sounding Line speak generally to a demographic that many agents have yet to pay much attention to — Hispanics.
Hispanics are now the second largest minority group in the United States — 37 million, or about 13 percent of the population. In a number of states — California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Florida, and several others — the Hispanic population is quite large, approaching 40 to 50 percent in some cases.
From an agency marketing and Web site perspective, Hispanics represent new potential and opportunity. While they once trailed other groups in Internet adoption, Hispanics are now embracing the Web faster than the general population.
If you want to reach Hispanics via the Web, you will need to adjust your site content, says Susan Solomon in a helpful article titled, "Can Your Content Speak Spanish?"
In her article, Solomon mentions an observation that ought to be music to agents' ears if they are trying to appeal to a Hispanic audience, and writes, "In general, the Hispanic market shows more brand loyalty than others, especially to organizations that respect the market's cultural identity."
You'll no doubt be hearing more about Hispanics and the Internet. It's a topic that is gaining attention in media circles. And with an aggregated annual buying power of an estimated $450 billion, some of that will be spent on insurance and financial services.
Wireless Internet (Wi-Fi) is currently one of the hot tech topics. For agents and insurance professionals who are on the road and need Internet access where there is no handy telephone line or cable, Wi-Fi can keep you in touch. Of course, your portable device of choice — laptop, PDA, or whatever — needs to be Wi-Fi enabled, and many of the newer tech tools include it or have an option for it.
As useful and convenient as Wi-Fi might be, there's a catch: you need to be within 300 feet of a signal station, called a "hotspot." Signal stations can be anywhere, but currently many are located in airports, Starbucks, Subway, and MacDonalds, downtown civic center locations, and the like. But if you're new to a city and don't know where the nearest hotspot is, you can easily find out by going to a helpful online locator and directory. Simple, intuitive menus help you find locations by city or state, which lead you to actual hotspot locations and addresses.
You shouldn't have any trouble finding a hotspot in big cities, especially New York. That's because Verizon recently announced the launch of 150 Wi-Fi hotspots as part of a planned 1,000 signal station deployment throughout the city by later this year. The signal stations are located in Verizon phone booths. What's more, the deal is even sweeter if you're a Verizon customer because you will be able to use the service without additional charge. The Verizon announcement is the single-largest Wi-Fi deployment to date by an Internet service provider in a single city.
There's no doubt we all want the best-trained and brightest computer engineers and technicians developing the technology services and tools we depend on. But just where do those people get trained and what do they study? That depends.
Two recent stories about computer training caught my attention. One was about a new course that will be offered this fall at the University of Calgary. The course will train students to develop computer viruses.
The University's news release naturally spins the new "Computer Viruses and Malware" course in a positive and innovate light. It also cites the instructor's justification for the course by saying, "…you first need to know how malicious software works and the mindset of its creators."
But another online news story takes a more cautious, though balanced, view. The story cites a number of expert opinions representing differing viewpoints as well as more commentary and details that were not included in the University's news release.
The other story was about an after school program in which students receive instruction in computer hacking. The story reports that the "free after-school program is intended to teach teenagers the basics of ethical hacking, or protecting a company's computer system from attack by learning how to attack it yourself." The class also includes presentations from computer specialists, lawyers, police officers, and business people who discuss related issues.
While I admit that I was initially skeptical (and remain cautious) of some of the details included in these stories, there does seem to be merit in the concept. Technology security is a growing problem with consequences running into the millions of dollars. Viruses and hacker attacks happen all the time and create costly and sometimes disastrous disruptions. Since the problem isn't going away anytime soon, I suppose we really ought to have people around who understand all that and can prevent security breaches and fix things if they occur.
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