Articles, essays, and talks of Rey Lugtu

(Published in BusinessWorld under the View from Taft Column, October 26, 2011) My 16-year-old daughter, Frances, eagerly attended the Young Entrepreneurs Summit held at the World Trade Center last September. Thousands, including students, converged in this laudable undertaking aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship among the youth. Interestingly, she along with friends also attended the Franchising Expo in SMX Convention Center during the same period. She was one of the few kids who attended that exhibition which was intended for prospective franchisees. Studies have shown that entrepreneurial qualities, such as initiative, autonomy, risk taking, creative problem solving, and high internal motivation to succeed, emerge in children at a young age. I first discovered these qualities in my daughter when she was five years old, when she wanted to buy food in school and she didn’t have money. She got a Vick’s Vaporub ointment accidentally stashed inside her schoolbag by her yaya, and p...

(Published in Manila Standard Today under the Greenlight Column, August 1, 2011) Every time I drive through MdDonald’s or Jollibee to buy my 5-year old son a burger meal, it’s always heartwarming to see the use of paper bags instead of the lowly plastic bag. In Pasig City alone, more than 320 “quick service restaurants” (QSR) including fast food chains such as have started using paper bags for takeout. The new symbol The paper bag has become the symbol of a new environmental revolution that’s sweeping the country and the world over. Conversely, the plastic bag has become the symbol of environmental scourge. In January this year, the city council of Muntinlupa passed an ordinance prohibiting commercial establishments from using plastic bags and styrofoam. Los Banos likewise followed and other municipalities might follow. Several malls owners have implemented a “no plastic bags’ day” once a week to lessens the use of plastic bags, which Malacanang expressedly supported. The De...

(Published in Business Mirror under the Mirror Image Column, June 20, 2011) It’s all over the press. News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch has obviously metamorphosed from a venerable media mogul to a subject of assault from all sides. Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old News of the World last week after it was accused of hacking and eavesdropping on the phones of politicians, murder victims and other famous personalities. There were also reports and revelations of cover-ups and potential bribery of the police, the resignation of top Murdoch executives and the death of a whistle-blower. A scandal of this proportion is rife with invaluable business, management, and leadership lessons that we can learn from. Clearly, ethical conduct is one of them. It’s obvious that eavesdropping on other people to get information and publish it is absolutely unethical, not to mention the reported police bribery to cover up. But what is glaring is the gap between what Murdoch is publicly preach...

(Published in Manila Standard Today under the Greenlight Column, June 20, 2011) More than 360,000 of Citigroup Inc.’s U.S. credit card customers’ data was breached by hackers according to a statement of the bank posted in its website. This is the latest of the string of large-scale hacking and data breach against high-profile companies, and the cost to them is becoming staggering. In April, Sony’s Playstation Network was attacked by hackers which affected more than 100 million online accounts. Sony expects it will cost it ¥14 billion (US$170 million) this financial year. Earlier this month, Google blamed China of trying to hack the accounts of several hundred of Gmail account holders that included U.S. government officials, journalists, and Chinese human rights activists. These statements from Google could seriously hurt its business. In fact last year, the Obama administration took up Google's complaints about hacking and censorship from China. Afterwards, Google partially...

(Published in Manila Standard Today under the Greenlight Column, April 18, 2011) A local bank recently invited me to deliver a talk to its senior executives about managing change and transitions. This is opportune time for the bank as it is undergoing changes and its attendant transition in areas of strategy and organizational structure changes. My talk centered on how to manage transitions in particular as opposed to managing change. There is a distinct difference. Change is situational, an event. It happens when something starts or stops. Transition is psychological. It’s a psychological process that a person goes through to detach from his/her old identity and become directed to a new one. Transition takes longer than changes, and this is where the complication comes in – the roller coaster ride of emotions involved among those affected by the change. These are the wisdom behind the seminal book of William Bridges, “Managing Transitions”. It was an interesting talk because I r...

(Published in Business Mirror under Mirror Image column, April 13, 2011) Another round of oil-price increase! The Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed this on Sunday due to the continuing rise in global crude prices from $4 to $5 per barrel. If this pushes through, this would be the 12th time oil companies increase their price since the year started, as the unrest in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East continues to escalate. This is the perennial dilemma of our country as an importer of fuels and oil for our energy needs. It means that when the price of oil increases, Filipinos have to bear the brunt of the upward spiral of fuel and power costs. It is opportune time for the government and the private sector to focus on the development of renewable energy (RE). Using RE means that we use energy sources that are not clean and reliable, but sustainable, such that it addresses our country’s problem on energy security. Since the signing of the Renewable Energy Act of 2008,...

(Published in Business World, under the View from Taft column, April 7, 2011) The Fukushima nuclear disaster and the rising oil prices have highlighted the huge and promising potential of renewable energy (RE) around the world and in the region. A raft of news reports on companies investing in RE fill the national dailies almost every day since the start of the year. Since the signing of the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, we have seen a deluge of investments in hydropower, wind, biomass, ocean energy, and solar power. The latter deserves special attention as we see massive deployments of it this year. According to the Philippine Solar Power Association (PSPA), solar power producers are expected to generate a combined 125 MW this year, 130 MW in 2012, and another 95 MW by 2013. One major player is Lopez-led First Philec Solar Solutions (FPSS), which plans to build a solar power plant in Cavite that is projected to deliver 2 megawatts and is scalable to 5-MW in the coming years. The...

(Published in Business Mirror under the Mirror Image column, March 15, 2011) A few hours after the horrific tsunami in Japan, people all over the world flooded Facebook and Twitter with entries trying to communicate to loved ones affected by the catastrophe. Many postings expressed prayers and concern, along with news about friends and relatives in Japan. The social-networking sites also became an invaluable source of information among relatives of Japan migrants on immediate news and real- time updates about the situation and emergency warnings. Corollary to these, a number of Facebook causes have helped raise huge sums of money for Japan’s tsunami victims. The American National Red Cross, through Facebook Causes, has so far helped raise $75,825, donated by 1,770 people aided by 3,757 promoters. The Northern Japan Earthquake Relief Fund, on the other hand, has so far raised $21,611, through 2,104 members through Facebook Causes. In stark contrast, abject indifference and utmos...

(Published in Manila Standard Today under the Greenlight Column, January 10, 2011) I was recently invited by a Communications Arts class of De La Salle University to talk about the ill effects of Facebook among the youth. “Ill effects among the youth?”, I asked. I have studied the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of Facebook in the workplace. We always see its good side because most of us are active users. But the dark side in the work place is apparently the decline of productivity based on a number of studies. But understanding the ill effects among the youth struck me because I have two teenage daughters who spend hours in the veritable social network site; and I oftentimes ask them to stop and instead concentrate on studying. So this topic interested me as I wanted to understand its potential ill effects to my kids. Surveying Facebook users To put some credence in the talk, I asked the student organizers and my daughter to help me to conduct an exploratory study through a...

(Published in Business Mirror under the Mirror Image Column, January 5, 2011) I attended the silver reunion of Batch ’85 of the Manila Science High School on December 29. The ice-breaker the organizers ran was a rock-paper-scissors (RPS) game. This entailed pairs from the 30-plus who attended the reunion to run one round of RPS, with the loser giving P20 to the winner. The winners in the previous rounds were then pitted against each other, and the winnings were given to the victor of the succeeding rounds, until finally there was just one big winner with over P1,000 in prize money. Being a confessed ex-geek, I knew there was a strategy in this game and not pure chance. I read some studies on RPS that the most likely choice of a player was scissors. So my strategy was to always choose rock in the first round. True enough, during the game, I won several times using the rock strategy, until finally only Jude, a batchmate, and I were left. Unluckily, I succumbed to my opponent’s supe...