Tara Kistler

In nature, it is a game of survival -  competition -  like sharks fighting over that last morsel of food. What is left? A bloodied ocean. Such is the case in today’s job market – head-to-head competition over a shrinking pool of resources. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And LSU is planning a seminar to show people just how easy it is to make competition out of your business. It’s called the blue ocean strategy, a strategy that LSU Executive Education Director, Robin Kistler, is putting into gear.

The Blue Ocean Strategy, developed by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, delves into the idea that in order to create profitable growth in the future, you have to make the competition irrelevant. How can such a thing be accomplished? According to the strategy, finding new market spaces, offering low-cost, in-demand solutions that no one else is delivering is essential.

This idea of “making the competition irrelevant” is the new gossip on the lips of all of the world’s business elite … articles of it being featured in BusinessWeek, Leadership Excellence and even in The Advocate.

Kistler was first acquainted with BOS about three years ago when the E. J. Ourso College of Business hosted an event featuring Kim and Mauborne, the authors of the best selling book, Blue Ocean Strategy.

Because the BOS techniques have remained popular and widespread, so widespread that Louisiana recently announced its decision to undergo a Blue Ocean strategy, Kistler, along with the help of the LSU Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute, decided to form a workshop focused on the subject. The workshop, What is Blue Ocean Strategy and How to Make It Work For You, will take place Thursday, October 15, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in room 1240 of Pleasant Hall on the LSU campus.

H.R. “Pent” Penton, president of Innovation Insights L.L.C. – and a testament to making BOS work for him and his business – will be teaching the workshop.

“We [LSU Executive Education] are always searching for business topics and workshops that can teach companies new strategies and tactics for their business.  When Louisiana business is doing well, then it means progress for the state and the degree-earning students who want to remain in Louisiana,” Kistler said.

According to Jarett Rodriguez, associate director at the Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute, the workshop will not only benefit those wishing to expand or grow their business, but also the recently graduated students who wish to differentiate themselves from their peers.

With the BOS initiative making its way into Louisiana, more importantly, into Baton Rouge, what are its benefits to the community? What makes it so important? Carol Carter of the LSU Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute says that it is somewhat of a competitive advantage to us.

“Blue Ocean Strategy is necessary in Louisiana in order to set ourselves apart from the other states – it lets us offer prospective industries that are thinking of moving to Louisiana something they can’t get from anywhere else. We can also develop an entrepreneurially friendly atmosphere that encourages those with ideas for starting their own businesses to stay (or come to) Louisiana versus moving somewhere else.”

A Growing Organization

“I kept screaming, ‘stop, please don’t do this. Leave me alone!’ But I was so weak … I couldn’t fight them off. I blacked out a few times, and I kept coming back to. And I was still being raped every time I woke up.”

This is merely a glimpse into what then 16-year-old Shauna Newell encountered in her three terrifying days enslaved.

Newell, a typical teenage girl in a middle-class Pensacola, Fla. suburb, didn’t imagine an innocent sleepover with a new friend would end up a nightmare. But that was exactly the case. Her new high school “friend” turned out to be a prostitute and her friend’s “father” a convicted felon. With a glass of water laced with a drug, Newell blacked out and woke up to her own personal nightmare.

She, like so many other victims of sex trafficking, was abducted, beaten, degraded, raped multiple times and mislabeled as a runaway and child prostitute.

We know that sex trafficking exists, but we often mistake it as a crime that only exists in foreign countries. However, the home to the “American Dream” holds the title of second highest destination for trafficking women.

If that is shocking, then imagine the prospect that this crime … the second largest smuggling industry in the world next to the drug trade … is taking place in your own backyard.

Defining the Sex Trafficking Industry

The U.S. Department of State defines sex trafficking in two ways: [a] sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or [b] the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

Traffickers prey on the most vulnerable members of society – women and children. The most recent information released by the U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking In Persons Report shows that 1.39 million are victims of commercial sexual servitude – 56% of those are women and children – and roughly two million are children forced into prostitution.

The average victim is between the ages 12 and 14. Linda Smith, founder and president of Shared Hope International, says, “Her [the victim] greatest vulnerability is her age.” Why is this the case? Because children are still naïve to the world. That, combined with the possible insecurity and unstable home life, makes them easy prey.

All youth can fall victim to the trafficking industry. Traffickers target key locations such as malls, schools, shelters and parks … places they know children are. After the initial contact takes place, traffickers invest time in producing a binding relationship with the victim. Then, as the “romance” phase ends, the girl is subjected to a life of prostitution and servitude. And although this is not the life they want or would ever choose for themselves, the allegiance to their pimp keeps them from talking and escaping.

Dr. Bobby Gaston, director of special programs for the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association, has first-hand experience in dealing with victims who are reluctant to talk. “These girls are scared … beaten down. I had one case in Jefferson Parish. The girl agreed to testify against her captors, but when it came down to it, she backed out.”

In Our own Backyard

New Orleans, famous for its uniquely beautiful architecture and partying atmosphere – home to many industries like tourism, port and boat building – now harbors an industry unlike any other in the area.

Since Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans area, sex trafficking has become a growing problem. In a recent case study conducted by Shared Hope International, the influx is attributed to an increase in buyers or “Johns” that moved to the area to begin rebuilding the city. Since 2006, state and nonprofit agencies have offered services to roughly 100 victims, and the number continues to grow.

Just this year, Ricky Womack, a 41-year-old Orleans Parish man, was found guilty for trafficking a 15-year-old runaway girl who he had lured from Arkansas to New Orleans. The girl was prostituted for $100. In the pimp’s motel room, cops found a hand written contract signed by the 15-year-old declaring, “I solemnly swear to give Ricky Womack the next five years of my life. I promise never to cheat, lie, or betray him.” Womack is now serving 18 years in prison.

Are They Really Paying for the Crime?

The United States is still far from perfect in developing methods in preventing sex trafficking. For instance, Louisiana is one of 10 states to have a human trafficking task force, which focuses solely on preventing sex trafficking in the local area.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act 2008 is a federal law that was passed by former President George W. Bush. This law imposes tougher criminal penalties for traffickers while increasing protection and services for victims of trafficking. This is an extension to the original Trafficking Protection Victims Act that was passed in 2000.

An important segment in this law says that victims of human trafficking cannot be held accountable for the crimes committed while they were victimized. The law also removes the requirement to prove fraud or coercion when the victim is a minor. However, these key factors are left out of many state anti-trafficking laws … including Louisiana’s.

Passed in 2005, the Louisiana Anti-Trafficking Law [HB 56] establishes the crime of human trafficking, which is punishable by a maximum fine of $10,000 and a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. If the trafficking is committed for the purposes of commercial sexual activity, the maximum fine is $15,000 and the maximum prison sentence is 20 years. Trafficking of a minor carries a maximum fine of $25,000 and a prison sentence of five to 25 years.

With the two key components of the federal law left out, the Louisiana law subjects victims to the possibility of being mislabeled as child delinquents, prostitutes, runaways, etc.

However, this alone is not responsible for the rapid growth and consistency of the sex industry. Natalie Laborde, one of the three founders of Tigers Against Trafficking, says, “People don’t understand the magnitude and scope of the trafficking industry and how their daily economic transactions contribute to it. The modern slave trade is a business fueled by demand. Consequently, to some degree we are all part of the problem or part of the solution.”