Carnival Cruise Lines and Outsourcing you Virtual Assistant

Let me give you the lead up to this post. About 1 or 2 weeks ago I came across a Podcast from Internet Business Mastery on outsourcing to the Phillipines. Jason and Sterling interviewed Phillipines outsourcing guru John Jonas. The interview centered around the advantages of outsourcing to the Phillipines and the strategy Internet entrepreneurs can use to accomplish this successfully. Well after listening to the two part series I had a whole new outlook in how outsourcing could be leveraged. Basically instead of contracting work task by task i.e. Elance, just hire someone full-time (like a traditional business model) and ensure they are from the Phillipines. That aspect of the John Jonas zeal was the most interesting. Not just to apply the full-time strategy to any Virtual Assistant or skilled worker but only do so with people from the Phillipines.

Jonas makes a heck of a pitch for the people and culture of Phillipines, almost evangelistic. The standout aspects are the loyalty, trustworthiness, integrity, skill level, americanization, and aptitude for the English language. Jonas was also very adomate about Filipinos not being Entrepreneurial on nature, which I immediately thought, how could you know that… Anyhow I eventually went on to sign-up for the free audio at his Replace Myself website and listened to it. More mindblowing information and a call to continue in his program. Before I signed up I had to do some more verifying. I came across another interview of John Jonas by Yaro Starak at Entrepreneurs Journey and the comments about the interview were spirited and even John Jonas himself chimed in on the conversation. It gave me slot of information and varying points of view in the situation, though some must be taken with a grain of salt.

So, fast forward to today. I’m on Carnival cruise lines about to sail to the Bahamas and what do I notice? Filipinos! Filipinos on the ship staff. Not just one here and one there but 5 here and 4 there, 4 in the kitchen, 3 on every deck to give information and direction, 1 at every dining room as hostess and front desk coordinator, baggage deliverer, servers, busers, bartenders, on and on. Of course there are Indians, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Ukraine, and others. But there is another imbalance if nationalities leaninng toward Phillipines.

So here is what I’m going to do while at sea. I am going to do a small case study about why there are so many Filipinos, and if there is some truth to John Jonas theory on Filipinos. Right now I find it interesting that Carnival has so many people of Phillipines nationality on staff. I want to know if it’s intentional or coincidental. Is John Jonas right about the character aspects if the Filipino people?
So check bac soon for my results.