Find Your ONE THING Before Launching in Social Media

Find Your ONE THING Before Launching in Social Media

Written By: Jason Baer

(originally written for MarketingProfs Daily Fix)

The history of marketing has been an unending stream of “biggest sale ever,” “now with extra raisins,” and “easy financing available.” The power of social media is that it allows consumers to peek behind the curtain of brands that have historically been stoic, pushy, and unresponsive.

Successful social media programs cannot be just a digital yellow pages ad for the company. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of these efforts on Facebook and Twitter recently, where the company sets up shop in social media, but just continues sending one-way promotional messages like they always have in old media. This won’t work, and why would it?

Caution, paradox ahead

To really make social media work for your company, your message cannot be ABOUT your company. Unless you’re one of the very few companies that already has a natural community of raving fans (apple, nike etc) people don’t care about your company enough per se to get involved with you online in a meaningful way.

Instead, you have to find the ONE THING in your company that is truly defining and interesting, and build your social media program around that. It could be something operational. Perhaps your customer service program. How people use your product in unique ways. Anything, as long as it isn’t “we’re a good company that makes a good product”

Fiskars used the fact that scrapbookers were crazy about their scissors as their ONE THING when they launched the Fiskateers program with the help of Brains on Fire, and now it’s a definitive social media case study.

For most people, when they think Zappos they don’t necessarily think shoes anymore, they think customer service. That’s their ONE THING and they beat that drum continuously.

A campaign I worked on with Mighty Interactive for Exide Batteries focused on NASCAR fans and Exide’s status as the official battery of NASCAR, not the fact that they make a great car battery.

It’s probably under your nose

Finding the one thing often requires really spending time with the brand and getting a feel for its operations and culture. Agencies can uncover the one thing better than clients can, because for the clients the one thing appears to be no big deal. It’s just routine.

Here’s an example that pre-dates social media by about 15 years. When I was an intern at an agency in Phoenix I worked on communications for car audio maker Rockford Fosgate. We wanted to devise a campaign that was different from most car audio gear, which typically focuses on testosterone, loudness, and detailed specs.

On a factory tour, we came upon a huge guy with a long black ponytail, a white apron, and a giant rubber mallet that looked like something out of “Cooking with the Hell’s Angels.” Standing at the end of the assembly line, he grabbed every amplifier off of the line as it came down, and beat it as hard as he could with the rubber mallet about 9 times. After the thrashing, he hooked the amp up to a testing station and made sure it still worked.

We asked the client tour guide about it, and he said it was indeed a daily occurrence, part of Rockford Fosgate’s quality assurance program.

A campaign was born.

We convinced the company to let us use the actual guy in the campaign, and we created a series of print ads and media outreaches using the “If We Can’t Wail It, We Fail It” tagline, with explanatory copy.

It’s too bad social media wasn’t around then, because we really could have put some legs on that effort. YouTube video. Guest wailers. Twitter campaign. I’m stoked just thinking about it. (Rockford Fosgate if you still wail it, please steal this idea).

What seems boring to you inside your company might seem fascinating to your customers. It could be your ONE THING. And without it, your social media effort will never take flight.

Original Article - http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-marketing/one-thing/

-As I've said before, I love Jason Baer's articles about social media marketing. VERY informative article right here! Great example on the Rockford Fosgate speakers. 

Where to now, Philippine graduates?

Where to now, Philippine graduates?

By Dr. Jose Rene C. Gayo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines--Graduation ceremonies are often given the title “Commencement Exercises.” Webster’s Dictionary defines commencement as “an act, instance or time of commencing.” Commencing for what? Life as a professional.

The diploma that you have received is a guarantee to your future employers that you have passed the minimum requirements to practice the profession you have been trained in the past four or five years. Some will still have to go through and pass a licensure exam that is required in some professions before you actually practice your field of specialization.

Daunting

The challenge for graduates of 2009 is daunting because of a tough economic environment the world is now facing. What is your immediate future for a job prospect? For a great majority of graduates, it would mean months or years of searching for a job opening, hours of waiting in a cue for job interviews, outright rejection of a job application or simply silence from the company you have sent an application.

This situation that I have just described to you is nothing new. Generations of graduates from Philippine universities have experienced this simply because there are not enough jobs in the country for decades past. That is why we have the overseas Filipino worker phenomenon.

We are told that there is a mismatch between what the job market needs and what is actually taught in our universities. They say that graduates are not job-ready after four or five years of study. It is quite disheartening to hear that on your job interview fresh out of college your prospective employer will ask you: “What is your work experience?”

What seems to be the problem in our educational system?

In one forum not too long ago, I talked about agriculture education in our country. Talking from experience, I said that we learned much of our stuff only with a blackboard. After my presentation, one of the guys in the audience told me. You know, I am an engineer. You are not alone. We also learned our engineering through the blackboard. I learned later that he graduated summa cum laude from one of the top universities in the country.

After being exposed to many professionals in this country, I must say that there is something missing in the education that most universities give. We are good in theories but not in practice. That is the reason why when one receives the diploma, he or she is not that confident that he can perform well in the exercise of his profession.

So what needs to be done? Come June, we will open a new program to address a very specific need in our country today—farm managers and farm entrepreneurs. Let me give you a glimpse of what this program is all about.

The MFI Foundation, through our Farm Business Institute and the University of Rizal System, will offer jointly a Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurial Management major in Farm Business. What are the unique features of this program?

Combined effort

First, it is a “twinning” arrangement whereby two educational entities agreed to work together to deliver a degree program. Such arrangement is quite common in Europe but not in the Philippines. This twinning arrangement is also backed up by the Management Association of the Philippines as program partner.

Second, it makes use of “dual training system” where students spend much of their time on actual business operations than just sitting inside the classroom. The dual training system originated in Germany and has been cited as a reason for the competitive edge for many of its industries including car manufacturing.

Third, the program design is “ladderized,” which means that as the students course through each semester he earns a certificate that will allow the student to work here and abroad even after just a semester. Thus, if for one reason that student has to stop schooling; he or she is job-ready. Later on, if the person decides to come back to school, he moves on to the next semester.

After each semester of study, he earns another certificate that adds to his portfolio of skills that passes National Certifications. After two years of study, he will earn a Diploma in Entrepreneurship with concentration in Farm Business. And if he or she wants to complete the BS degree, two more years of study will make this happen.

Fourth, the program allows the student to “Earn while you Learn.” For every hour spent on hands-on training, the student will be paid a salary equal to 75 percent of minimum wage. Thus, it is possible for a student to come to us and enrolls in the program even if he doesn’t have the means to pay for his tuition and other incidental expenses.

Through this scheme, we can accommodate a talented student to earn a college degree even if his parents cannot afford to send him to the university.

Fifth, from day one, our students will go through an “internship program.” He or she will be immersed in the life of an entrepreneur because our program prepares our graduates to venture into entrepreneurship. This is the most important element in our program offering.

Lack of training

We believe that the lack of entrepreneurship training in our curricular programs is one major reason why our country has been a laggard economically. I believe that the lack of entrepreneurship training is one major reason for this.

Our graduates will not be one more “job seeker,” one more graduate vying for a position in the labor market. Our graduates after receiving their diploma will be full-fledged entrepreneurs who will be “job creators.” In commencing his career as an “entrepreneur” he had created for himself a job.

Later on, when his business grows, he will employ other people or may even partner with other people in his community to create a business enterprise to be registered as a cooperative. This is the model of an entrepreneur-workers cooperative. Cooperative is another type of business organization.

Our students will live, eat, study and work in our campus at least 24/5 (24 hours a day from Monday to Friday) because to be entrepreneur is not just an eight-hour job.

Career option

Our 60-hectare campus located in Punta, JalaJala, Rizal will be the equivalent to the Philippine Military Academy. In our case, we will prepare these students to become future leaders in the agribusiness sector.

So, here are some pointers I can give you to launch yourself in this uncertain world of work.

First, look into entrepreneurship as a career option. I’m sure some of you had entertained the thought of wanting to be your own boss and to own a business. Pursue that dream soon. One of the reasons why our country today is almost in the bottom from being second to Japan economically in Asia in the early ’60s is that we have lagged behind in business performance.

In those years going up to the ’80s, the Thais, Koreans, Taiwanese came to the Philippines to study agriculture and other courses. When they came back home, they applied their learnings to making their farms and businesses productive and profitable. Today, a great majority of Filipino farmers belong to the statistics that says “below poverty.” If only 10 percent of those of you take up this call to pursue entrepreneurship, then I think my effort to write to you is worth the while.

But you may ask, is this the best time to start a business when the world is in a crisis? I was told that the Chinese character for a problem is the same as that of an opportunity. So the problem itself also presents an opportunity. If your business plan sees the light precisely because of a crisis then there is no stopping you when the situation gets better.

Second, maybe the 90 percent will still opt for the path of “job seekers.” Fine, but while you are still waiting for that illusive job, spend your time productively by gaining some work experience. Work need not be paid work but one can volunteer to get the necessary work experience. I understand today, nursing graduates even pay hospitals just to get a slot for volunteer work so that they can show their future employers that they have some relevant work experience. There are always NGOs of LGUs in need of extra manpower. Volunteer in a job that is relevant to your field. This way you build up your portfolio of skills and work experience.

Third, of the 90 percent who are job seekers tomorrow, some may say that actually I want to have my own business but I still need to get some work experience and save for my capital. Maybe there are another 10 percent of these who will eventually start their own business after five years.

To those who will take this path, my advice is that you choose a job that gives you the tools for entrepreneurship—in marketing, production, finance or human resources. Some may even want to take a sideline by being a dealer for product distributorship in your own neighborhood.

Social enterprise

For example, the Gawad Kalinga recently launched a social enterprise called the Human Heart Nature Co. It is looking for distributors of beauty products that are organically produced. I’m sure some of the ladies would be interested in something like this. This and similar companies will give you training as part of the whole package.

Fourth, start the habit of saving by setting aside 10 percent of your income. This will provide you the needed equity when you decide to go full-time as an entrepreneur. For additional capital requirements, this early be a member of a cooperative in your area because business financing is one of the services they provide the members. Today, there are also a number of microfinance institutions that provide capital for microenterprises and business startups. There are also a number of government agencies that provide assistance to microentrepreneurs.

For example, if you have an interest related to tourism or business, you can look into the Department of Tourism’s GREET Livelihood Grants Program. GREET stands for Grassroots Entrepreneurs for Ecotourism. Ecotourism is one of the sunrise industries in the country today. If your parents have a farm, you may also develop it and open it up to visitors who will pay to see what you are doing. This is also one area that is quite new in the country—Farm Tourism.

Fifth, your best training for entrepreneurship is on-the-job, hands-on training. This is one of the reasons why the Chinese are successful in business. From the time they begin to count, they are already given some chores to help in the store or in their family business. This is internship per excellence.

You can only learn a few things from the business school but much of the learning comes from the school of hard knocks. If you have a hobby or a passion for something, consider making a business out of it. This is where work becomes a pleasure, not a burden.

Great businesses

Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. It is true that some people are born with it as a talent. It is part of their nature. But nature is just one element. One needs to nurture the talent to make it bloom. Why not give entrepreneurship a try? You can start very small as a sideline. Who knows? You may just discover that you have the aptitude for it.

The great businesses of this world started small—The Microsoft, the Hewlett-Packard, Google, Facebook and, closer to home, the SM just to name a few. These businesses were started by people who did not even have formal training in business, much less an MBA.

Your parents have not planned just for a year or even 10 years. Your parents have invested in you so that can make your dreams a reality, not just for you and your family, but for our country as well. Put your university education to good use and make it grow, so that like the strong narra trees, you can withstand the tempest of the storms in life.

(This article was lifted from the author’s commencement address before graduates of the University of Rizal System. Dr. Gayo is chair of the MAP AgriBusiness and Countryside Development Committee, and vice president and farm business institute group head of the MFI Foundation. Feedback at map@globelines.com.ph. )

Original Article - http://business.inquirer.net/money/columns/view/20090517-205564/Where-to-now-graduates

-Good question - what do the new grads from the Philippines do now.... great info on here too!!!

The surprising strength of Southeast Asia

The surprising strength of Southeast Asia

KUALA LUMPUR, June 5 — Painful economic slowdowns are nothing new to Southeast Asia. The region went through its own gut-wrenching financial crisis more than a decade ago in what now seems like a dress rehearsal for today's turmoil. Companies defaulted, banks collapsed, stock markets tanked, and economies shrank at double-digit rates as foreign investment slowed to a trickle. But Southeast Asia dutifully swallowed the bitter pill of austerity, devaluing currencies and working off debt while banks restructured and companies patched up balance sheets.

Now Southeast Asia is getting whacked again, a victim of sins on the other side of the globe. Last autumn the region's exports plunged as the US, and then China, slumped. Foreign investment, meanwhile, has plummeted as multinationals rein in spending. "It's frustrating that we are in a crisis that is not of our own making," says Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

Yet this downturn is hardly a full-blown repeat of the Asian crisis. That's testament to the surprising strength of the 10 countries that belong to Asean. The region's banks are virtually free of toxic assets and haven't needed government bailout money. Years of trade surpluses and high savings rates have contributed to record foreign reserves. Debt loads — for governments, corporations, and consumers — are a fraction of those in the US and Europe, and inflation and interest rates have fallen dramatically. "Of course there is a slowdown, but [these countries] are well prepared to weather the storm," says Mark Mobius, president of Templeton Emerging Market Funds. "They have outperformed global markets, which is telling us they are going to do quite well." Asean bourses have led the recovery in emerging-market stocks, with Jakarta's benchmark index up 70 per cent and Vietnam's up 80 per cent from recent lows.

Some companies operating in the region continue to do well, as demand for everything from computers to discount airline tickets remains strong. Unilever Indonesia has sold so much Pepsodent toothpaste, Lifebuoy shampoo, and other goods that its first-quarter revenue jumped 18 per cent, to US$412 million (RM1,442 million), boosting earnings 9 per cent, to US$70 million. "The impact from the global crisis is minimal," says Franky Jamin, Unilever Indonesia's corporate secretary. And London's Standard Chartered Bank, which gets two-thirds of its revenue in Asia, says first-quarter profits were its best ever, indicating that the region's slump will be shallower and shorter than elsewhere. Consumer banking and lending to small companies are strong, while the mortgage business continues to grow, says Ray Ferguson, the bank's CEO for Southeast Asia. Foreclosures, he adds, "are not a feature of the market."

Southeast Asia's strength is an encouraging sign that the region is still a player. Though it may have been half-forgotten by many investors since the crisis, its educated workers, natural resources, and — in some countries, at least — first-class infrastructure make it worth paying attention to. Asean has a total population of 560 million, and its combined gross domestic product of US$1.3 trillion is greater than India's.

Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Singapore — which account for about 95 per cent of the region's economy — attracted nearly US$50 billion in foreign direct investment last year, vs China's US$92 billion.

General Electric, for instance, has committed more than US$1 billion to Southeast Asia in the past 18 months. Those investments include expanded aircraft maintenance facilities in Kuala Lumpur and a water-technology research centre in Singapore. And in May, GE broke ground on its first project in Vietnam, a US$61 million plant in the port city of Haiphong to produce wind turbine generators for export. "We wanted to put the GE footprint into a high-potential country," says Stuart Dean, the company's Southeast Asia president.

That's not to say the region doesn't pose significant challenges for investors. Red tape and corruption are rampant; Indonesia is ranked 126 out of 163 by Transparency International, behind Nigeria and Nepal. Jakarta's opaque laws have prevented a country rich in gold and copper from attracting a single new foreign mining project in a decade. In Vietnam, traffic moves at a snail's pace along roads that can barely handle motorbikes, let alone the growing number of cars. And in Thailand, tourists and investors alike have been spooked by instability as anti-government demonstrators in recent months have forced the cancellation of an Asean summit and closed Bangkok's airport for days.

Those troubles, combined with the global crisis, are weighing on growth. Singapore and Thailand — which depend on exports — are contracting. The Asian Development Bank expects Vietnam to expand 4.5 per cent this year, Indonesia 3.6 per cent, and the Philippines 2.5 per cent — near-recession levels for those countries. And new foreign investment in Malaysia fell 79 per cent, to US$931 million, in the first quarter, while in Vietnam investment inflows dropped 71 per cent, to US$2.8 billion.

Governments are fighting back by formulating stimulus plans. In Thailand, where the economy could shrink as much as 4 per cent, retail sales have held up thanks to US$58 cheques mailed to 10 million low-income workers as part of a three-year, US$45 billion stimulus package. Chipmaker Intel expects stimulus-driven spending on health care and education to boost sales of computers that use its chips. Retail PC sales for the five biggest economies in Asean grew 17 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter, more than twice as fast as in China, research firm GFK Asia estimates.

The region is also growing fast as an outsourcing centre. In the Philippine city of Cebu, nestled between emerald hills and luminous coral reefs, the seven-year-old Asiatown IT Park is home to two dozen call centres and software outsourcing shops. "It's not an easy job, but the salary is pretty good," says 29-year-old Leyland Canoy, who earns US$470 a month at locally owned eTelecare, where he provides tech support to customers of Internet phone company Vonage.

The Philippine outsourcing industry has been operating for years, but now it has big plans to grab as much as 10 per cent of the global IT outsourcing market. Wipro, Accenture, HSBC, and others have opened scores of new back-office and tech-support centres in the country, helping to build an industry that saw US$6 billion in revenue and employed more than 370,000 in 2008. "We are growing like crazy," says Marife Zamora, Philippines chief for Cincinnati-based Convergys, which hopes nearly to double its Philippines staff, to 20,000, this year. By 2010, industry leaders expect the sector to employ 900,000 and generate sales of US$13 billion.

That's an ambitious target, but the country is just starting to move up from call centres. "There's work in finance and accounting, and corporate back offices have yet to be tapped," says Oscar Sanez, CEO of the Business Process Association of the Philippines. Accenture, which employs about 16,000 in the country, is helping clients upgrade IT systems to keep up with financial regulatory changes in the recession-racked US. JPMorgan Chase, S.C. Johnson & Sons, and Siemens are expanding their back-office work there. And Wipro is doubling its Philippine staff, to 1,550, by October. "The talent is really good," says Sanjeev Bhatia, vice-president for international operations at Wipro BPO. "We are really bullish."

Global corporations still come to Southeast Asia-to find manufacturing alternatives to China. First Solar, of Tempe, Arizona, has chosen Kulim, Malaysia, for a US$680 million solar panel manufacturing plant. British motorcycle maker Triumph is building a US$73 million plant in Thailand. And Volkswagen this summer is launching a joint venture to produce Touran minivans in Indonesia.

Vietnam, though, is the primary beneficiary of the move to diversify away from China. Its proximity to the mainland and the low tariffs it enjoys in Southeast Asia thanks to Asean trade agreements are big pluses, as are its productive labour force and entrepreneurial culture. In April, Samsung Electronics opened a US$50 million mobile-phone plant outside Hanoi. Some 700 miles to the south near Ho Chi Minh City, Jabil Circuit is building a US$100 million circuit board plant in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park. Nearby, across former rice paddies muddied by afternoon rains, workers are readying a US$1 billion Intel plant that will open next year. "We expect more high-tech companies to follow," says Rick Howarth, general manager of Intel Products Vietnam. "The global crisis may have dampened companies' desire to invest, but they are also being forced to look at new markets for growth."

One of the region's greatest strengths is also a weakness: a growing reliance on exports, especially to China. The mainland's coastal factories use countless parts made in Southeast Asia for goods that are ultimately destined for the US and Europe. When those Chinese exports get slammed, Asean economies suffer. "The region is excessively dependent on China, which does assembly, while Asean does components," says Charles Adams, a professor at Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. "What's needed is more intraregional trade in final goods."

There are few signs Southeast Asia will wean itself from that dependence anytime soon. Philippine outsourcers work primarily with US customers. Intel plans to export most of its production from Ho Chi Minh City, since Vietnamese will buy just 3 million or so computers this year, while the Intel plant will be able to turn out hundreds of millions of chips annually. And Canon's US$100 million laser printer facility outside Hanoi, its largest anywhere, ships its products overseas.

An Asean agreement that allows free trade in autos around the region may help reduce the importance of China and the West. Ford Motor, for example, ships sport-utility vehicles from Thailand to Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The free trade "gives us enough volume," says David N. Alden, president of Ford's operations in Southeast Asia, where auto sales are about the same as in India. "Thailand's market alone could not have made this a business base."

AirAsia, a scrappy budget airline based in Malaysia, shows the potential of the regional market. In 2001, entrepreneur Datuk Tony Fernandes took a bankrupt carrier and relaunched it with just two planes flying out of Kuala Lumpur. Thanks to liberalisation of air travel in much of the region, Fernandes has ramped up to 81 aircraft and 122 destinations in 16 countries — often smaller cities others had ignored. He expects to carry 24 million passengers in 2009, up 30 per cent from last year. "We focused on building an Asean brand," says Fernandes. "We saw a huge opportunity no one was exploiting." — Forbes

Original article - http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/business/28623-the-surprising-strength-of-southeast-asia

FILIPINO WOMEN OUTPERFORM MEN IN BUSINESS

Is Pilar earning more than Pepe? Is Marsha doing better than John? The answer appears to be yes. The latest statistics and surveys overwhelmingly show that Filipino women have an increasing edge over their male counterparts in business and entrepreneurship.

Women, who comprise more than half of the Philippine population, are becoming a major economic force in the country. For instance, there are now more female executives than ever. New research from Grant Thornton International reveals that the Philippines has the greatest percentage of women in senior management, with 47% compared to the global average of less than a quarter. The International Labor Organization also says the ratio of women to men in executive jobs in the Philippines is the highest in the world.

The Department of Labor and Employment’s Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics Filipino women has echoed this phenomenon, noting that women have steadily been outnumbering men in executive positions over the last several years. There are around 2.3 million Filipinas holding managerial positions, from supervisors to executives. There are also more female than male professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants (69%), as well as more female overseas workers (over 50%).
FILIPINO WOMEN OUTPERFORM MEN IN BUSINESS

As for business owners, while more established businesses are owned by men (66%), there are more budding entrepreneurs (69%) and new business owners (51%) among women, according to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Of the 13 million employed women, 30% are self-employed.

The National Statistics Office has also found out that women outperform men when it comes to income, based on their Gender Equality Ratio (GER) of 1.2299 in 2003 (a GER greater than one signifies an advantage of women over men). The MasterCard MasterIndex of Women’s Advancement, which measures the socioeconomic level of women in relation to men in Asia Pacific, has Filipino women topping the ranking in terms of labor force participation, managerial positions, and above median income.

So with more women heading key positions in corporations and running their own business, does it follow that there are more millionaire women than men in the Philippines? There are no studies on this yet, but the probability is high. It is not surprising if there are a lot of Filipinas who became self-made millionaires.

What makes their accomplishment even more inspiring is that many of them are also mothers who managed to raise their children and manage their household as they were building their career and reaching financial independence.

original article - http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=215519&Itemid=28

-You go pinay!

Pinoy lawyer wins award in US

Pinoy lawyer wins award in US

MANILA, Philippines - Environmental lawyer Tony Oposa will receive the International Environmental Law Award from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) at a luncheon ceremony in Washington on April 21.

Oposa is cited as “one of Asia’s leading voices in the global arena of environmental law.”

“His work is internationally known for establishing at the highest Philippine Court of Law the principle of inter-generational responsibility – the right to sue governments on behalf of future generations to stop environmental damage,” an announcement from CIEL said.

An activist working on local, national, and international levels, he has worked tirelessly to protect the country’s natural resources. His work includes a decade-long fight with the government to clean up and rehabilitate Manila Bay, curb over-fishing in the Visayan Sea, fight the misappropriation of the country’s forest resources, and establish the School of the Seas, a learning center for sustainable living.

Oposa said the award “belongs to us all – the Filipino… It is my dream that one day, our collective efforts and passions will ‘infect’ the rest of our people and that one day, we – all the Filipinos, with our native genius for Nature and the natural sciences and arts – will be the beacons of light for the rest of the world.”

The CIEL award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the effort to achieve solutions to environmental problems through international law and institutions.

CIEL is a nonprofit organization working to use international law and institutions to protect the environment, promote human health, and ensure a just and sustainable society. It was founded in 1989 and is based in Washington.

Original Article - http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleid=457705

-Great to know we have environmentally conscious Filipinos out there! Go Philippines!

Expert urges Filipinos to explore online biz

Expert urges Filipinos to explore online biz

By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MAKATI CITY, Philippines –Uncertainties brought about by the current economic crisis are causing Filipinos to find new ways to make money.

While some are looking to work abroad despite problems regarding foreign employment, a Filipino online marketing expert said fellow Filipinos can still earn in dollars without having to find work abroad – or leave the comforts of their home.

Dubbed by online entrepreneurs as “Master List Builder,” Joel Christopher Remandaban, said Filipinos can develop their own businesses via the Internet by going beyond using this as a tool but as main business platform.

Remandaban has been using mailing lists to do business on the Internet, thus earning the name of Master List Builder. It is similar to doing direct selling or advertising.

Remandaban, who has written a book on Internet marketing, said Filipinos often lack the spirit of entrepreneurship.

“Graduates tend to think to work for another company first. When they’re used to it, they stick to just being employed instead of being an employer,” he said.

He said Filipinos are now using Internet to generate revenues. Some go for advertising on blogs or websites through services like Google’s Adsense.

He said some of these online tools are slowly giving in to newer tools now used by other online entrepreneurs to differentiate themselves in the market.

“There are many new business models that can be tapped by Filipino online entrepreneurs. Some can be sure fire successes as long as the entrepreneur chooses what market to target first, and then analyze what products and services can be offered online,” Remandaban said.

Another challenge is the negative perception by many Filipinos about the Internet, particularly with risks such as identity theft and online get-rich-quick scams.

He said Filipinos should also be wary but at the same realistic in establishing their goals.

Remandaban currently manages USTE.tv, an online portal for alumni of the University of Santo Tomas.

He said he is using USTE.tv for the upcoming 400th anniversary of the UST. The site is also used to provide online entrepreneurship lessons.

“We’ll be conducting seminars wherein we will do video streaming of real-world online business scenarios,” Remandaban said.

-Original Article - http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view/20090610-209756/Expert-urges-Filipinos-to-explore-online-biz

- Well if this pinoy is called the "Master" then maybe we ought to listen to him and make some money in the Philippines!

Harvesting water lilies into cash

A riverside community on Manila's outskirts is relieving the chronic flooding of Zapote River due to an abundance of water lilies by weaving them into cash.

Garbage-feeding weed-like water lilies clog the river system, causing heavy floods that routinely damage property and cause illness in the Las Pinas district.

Entrepreneur Ophelia So, discovered that instead of disposing the water lilies, the stems could be used as raw materials for handicrafts.

Working with local officials, So hires about 20 workers to make baskets, bags, lamps and other products, which she exports to the U.S. and sells to local buyers. The workers earn about 200 pesos (US$4) each week. The products are for export all over the world.

Manila generates 8,000 tonnes of solid waste each day, and proper disposal facilities are not available in slum areas, many of which lie along rivers. Around 80 families live alongside the Zapote River, which runs 18 kilometers (18 miles) and connects to several tributaries.

The water lilies now provide income for a community of about 200 families, residents no longer curse their presence. Flooding has lessened, with the massive harvesting of lilies and continuous river dredging.

As local leaders work toward a pristine river, there are fears that the water lilies could dwindle and with them, the source of livelihood for dozens of families.

-I love the entrepreneurial spirit of the Filipinos!

Original Article - http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUS12433955606

1st interactive TV proudly Pinoy-made

1st interactive TV proudly Pinoy-made

By Rainier Allan Ronda

MANILA, Philippines - A group of young Filipino engineers and designers bidding to make the world’s first interactive television unveiled the improved prototype of their dream computer-TV the other day.

Brian Quebengco, founder of Inovent Electronics Inc., launched the “beta” version of their Illumina LCD Interactive Television (iTV).

Quebengco presented a 32-inch LCD television enhanced with the functions of a personal computer with interactive Internet capability.

With their production of the beta unit, Quebengco said they are coming close to finishing a final prototype that will be mass-produced in the country and sent on a path toward attempting to be the first Filipino electronic product that can challenge the consumer market dominated by products from Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Calling themselves as “inoventors,” Quebengco said their group is attempting to merge the regular LCD TV and personal computer.

He said their group is now in talks with various manufacturers interested in mass-producing the Illumina.

According to Quebengco, they have already signed non-disclosure agreements with the US’ leading chip maker Intel, and local electronics companies Integrated Microelectronics Inc. (IMI) of the Ayala group and EMS Inc. to discuss possible mass production.

The Inovent Electronics team is composed of Quebengco as its founder and leader; chief marketing “inoventor” Mark Ruiz; senior design “inoventors” Peter Can, Jonas Peralta, and Jaed del Mundo; junior program “inoventor” Ryan Bitanga; and junior “inoventors” Victor Yu and Nikko Garcia, who are undergraduates at the De La Salle University (DLSU) taking up electrical engineering and electronics and communications engineering (ECE), respectively.

Quebengco is a professor of industrial design at the DLSU, aside from being an entrepreneur.

The group had produced the Illumina literally from scratch in the garage and different dorm units of the team members.

The Inovent team had presented an “alpha” unit or rough prototype of the Illumina last Nov. 30.

“We have made it sexier,” Ruiz said in the presentation yesterday at the Magnet Café in Bonifacio High Street mall at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.

The Illumina boasts of a complete multimedia device with access to Google Gadgets, Plasma Widgets, and Mac OS X dock Widgets.

It is said to be the first convergence product made in the Philippines that synthesizes the functions of an LCD television and a personal computer.

Housed in a bold and minimalist curved casing, the iTV is equipped with a High Definition (HD) webcam, a Blue Ray DVD slot drive, VoIP, DVR, Wi-Fi/LAN, 1.5 Terabyte hard drive, wireless keyboard, and a Bluetooth head phone built in the back of the remote control to allow motion gesture base.

The iTV allows the user to watch a local or cable show while browsing the Internet and even communicate interactively through voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and webcam.

Original Post - http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=477446&publicationSubCategoryId=68

- Nice to see Philippine ingenuity! Go Philippines!

Top ten online PR fails

by Graham Charlton

A number of brands have fallen foul of social media over the last few years, either due to lack of understanding of how information spreads online, or by attempting to manipulate the system and getting caught out.

I've listed ten examples of companies who have suffered PR nightmares online, in most cases the bad publicity has come via social media sites...

Ryanair

After a blogger criticised a flaw in the airline's online booking process, staff from the airline left several childish and insulting comments in response to the post. To make matters worse, after the episode was publicised around the web, the company issued a statement saying that 'it is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.'

Domino's

The video showing Domino's employees adding various unsavoury embellishments to the food they were preparing went viral on YouTube, and was a PR nightmare for the company. The company did what it could by posting a video response on YouTube, though some found the delivery by President Patrick Doyle less than perfect.

Belkin

A Belkin employee was caught red handed offering to pay other Amazon Mechanical Turk users to write positive reviews of one of its products on the site. These reviews were especially unconvincing given the fact that the router in question had several bad reviews already, making the positives stick out like a sore thumb. The paid reviews have since been removed.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey left a bunch of anonymous postings about rival company Wild Oats before being rumbled, causing a great deal of embarrassment for him and his company. Mackey apologised to shareholders afterwards, but the damage was done.

Wal-Mart

The company was outed in 2006 after a blog chronicling a duo's travels across America while camping in Wal-Mart car parks turned out to have been the work of PR firm Edelman.

Amazon

After removing books with adult content, including Brokeback Mountain and Lady Chatterly's Lover, from its bestseller lists, Amazon was subjected to a torrent of bad publicity on Twitter and elsewhere. The company blamed a glitch but didn't directly respond on Twitter.

Kodak

Kodak recently decided to charge an annual fee for storing photos in its online Gallery, and though it claimed to have emailed everyone concerned, some were clearly surprised when their photos started to vanish. Cue lots of bad publicity for the company on Twitter.

Target

US retailer Target got itself some bad publicity in the New York Times last year after dismissing a complaint from a blogger about one of its ads with the phrase: 'we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets'.

Just months before, the company was outed for encouraging Facebook users, who were receiving various freebies, to praise the company on the site.

Neal's Yard

The retailer of organic products pulled out of an online debate as part of The Guardian's 'You ask, they answer' feature. It seems the company didn't like the quaestion concerning the withdrawall of one of its products last year; a homeopathic remedy for malaria.

As pointed out here, this refusal to enagage is not the way to deal with criticism online, and represents a PR failure for the firm.

ExxonMobil

An example of why companies should own their social media profiles, and monitor sites like Twitter comes from ExxonMobil. Someone calling herself Janet set up an account on the site in the company's name and managed to fool plenty of people before the account was taken down.

Original Article from econsultancy.com - http://econsultancy.com/blog/3981-top-ten-online-pr-fails

- Now this is just a great post about the power of online networks. Use it wisely people!

Lost Blogs (Blogs that don't make it)

Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest

By DOUGLAS QUENQUA

“HI, I’m Judy Nichols. Welcome to my rant.”

Thus was born Rantings of a Crazed Soccer Mom, the blog of a stay-at-home mother and murder-mystery writer from Wilmington, N.C. Mrs. Nichols, 52, put up her first post in late 2004, serving up a litany of gripes about the Bush administration and people who thought they had “a monopoly on morality.” After urging her readers to vote for John Kerry, she closed with a flourish: “Practice compassionate regime change.”

The post generated no comments.

Today, Mrs. Nichols speaks about her blog as if it were a diet or half-finished novel. “I’m going to get back to it,” she swears. Her last entry, in December of last year, was curt and none too profound. “Books make great gifts,” she began, breaking a silence of nearly a month.

Like Mrs. Nichols, many people start blogs with lofty aspirations — to build an audience and leave their day job, to land a book deal, or simply to share their genius with the world. Getting started is easy, since all it takes to maintain a blog is a little time and inspiration. So why do blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants?

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.

Judging from conversations with retired bloggers, many of the orphans were cast aside by people who had assumed that once they started blogging, the world would beat a path to their digital door.

“I was always hoping more people would read it, and it would get a lot of comments,” Mrs. Nichols said recently by telephone, sounding a little betrayed. “Every once in a while I would see this thing on TV about some mommy blogger making $4,000 a month, and thought, ‘I would like that.’ ”

Not all fallow blogs die from lack of reader interest. Some bloggers find themselves too busy — what with, say, homework and swim practice, or perhaps even housework and parenting. Others graduate to more immediate formats, like Twitter and Facebook. And a few — gasp — actually decide to reclaim some smidgen of personal privacy.

“Before you could be anonymous, and now you can’t,” said Nancy Sun, a 26-year-old New Yorker who abandoned her first blog after experiencing the dark side of minor Internet notoriety. She had started it in 1999, back when blogging was in its infancy and she did not have to worry too hard about posting her raw feelings for a guy she barely knew.

Ms. Sun’s posts to her blog — www.cromulent.org, named for a fake word from “The Simpsons” — were long and artful. She quickly attracted a large audience and, in 2001, was nominated for the “best online diary” award at the South by Southwest media powwow.

But then she began getting e-mail messages from strangers who had seen her at parties. A journalist from Philadelphia wanted to profile her. Her friends began reading her blog and drawing conclusions — wrong ones — about her feelings toward them. Ms. Sun found it all very unnerving, and by 2004 she stopped blogging altogether.

“The Internet is different now,” she said over a cup of tea in Midtown. “I was too Web 1.0. You want to be anonymous, you want to write, like, long entries, and no one wants to read that stuff.”

Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but “it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.” He added, “There’s a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one.”

That’s a serious letdown from the hype that greeted blogs when they first became popular. No longer would writers toil in anonymity or suffer the indignities of the publishing industry, we were told. Finally the world of ideas would be democratized! This was the catnip that intoxicated Mrs. Nichols. “That was when people were starting to talk about blogs and how anyone could, if not get famous, get their opinions out there and get them read,” she recalled. “I just wanted to post something interesting and get people talking, but mostly it was just my sister commenting.”

Many people who think blogging is a fast path to financial independence also find themselves discouraged. Matt Goodman, an advertising executive in Atlanta, had no trouble attracting an audience to his self-explanatory site, Things My Dog Ate, which included tales of his foxhound, Watson, eating remote controls, a wig and a $400 pair of Prada shoes.

“I did some Craigslist postings to advertise it, and I very quickly got an audience of about 50,000 viewers a month,” he said. That led to some small advertising deals, including one with PetSmart and another with a company that made dog-proof cellphone chargers. Mr. Goodman posted a video of his dog failing to destroy one.

“I guess the charger wasn’t very popular,” he said. “I think I made about $20” from readers clicking on the ads. He last updated the site in November.

Mr. Jalichandra of Technorati — a blogger himself — also points out that some retired bloggers have merely found new platforms. “Some of that activity has gone to Facebook andMySpace, and obviously Twitter is a new phenomenon,” he said.

Others simply tire of telling their stories. “Stephanie,” a semi-anonymous 17-year-old with a precocious knowledge of designers and a sharp sense of humor, abandoned her blog, Fashion Robot, about a week before it got a shoutout in the “blog watch” column of The Wall Street Journal last December. Her final post, simply titled “The End,” said she just didn’t feel like blogging any more. She declined an e-mail request for an interview, saying she was no longer interested in publicity.

As for Ms. Sun of Cromulent.org, she has made peace with being public. She has a new blog,SaladDays.org, where she keeps her posts short and jaunty, not personally revealing; mostly, she offers up health and diet tips, with the occasional quote from Simone de Beauvoir.

What is she after this time around? In person, she was noncommittal, but that night she sent a follow-up e-mail message.

“To be honest, I would love a book deal to come out of my blog,” she wrote. “Or I would love for Salad Days to give me a means to be financially independent to continue pursuing and sharing what I love with the world.”

-Original post on the New York Times -http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/fashion/07blogs.html

-Blogging isn't as easy as people may have thought for it to be.

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live

By STEVEN JOHNSON

The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your "followers," and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It's not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, "If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal."

I, too, was skeptical at first. I had met Evan Williams, Twitter's co-creator, a couple of times in the dotcom '90s when he was launching Blogger.com. Back then, what people worried about was the threat that blogging posed to our attention span, with telegraphic, two-paragraph blog posts replacing long-format articles and books. With Twitter, Williams was launching a communications platform that limited you to a couple of sentences at most. What was next? Software that let you send a single punctuation mark to describe your mood?

And yet as millions of devotees have discovered, Twitter turns out to have unsuspected depth. In part this is because hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds. The technology writer Clive Thompson calls this "ambient awareness": by following these quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines. We don't think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask.

The social warmth of all those stray details shouldn't be taken lightly. But I think there is something even more profound in what has happened to Twitter over the past two years, something that says more about the culture that has embraced and expanded Twitter at such extraordinary speed. Yes, the breakfast-status updates turned out to be more interesting than we thought. But the key development with Twitter is how we've jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of.

In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it.

The Open Conversation
Earlier this year I attended a daylong conference in Manhattan devoted to education reform. Called Hacking Education, it was a small, private affair: 40-odd educators, entrepreneurs, scholars, philanthropists and venture capitalists, all engaged in a sprawling six-hour conversation about the future of schools. Twenty years ago, the ideas exchanged in that conversation would have been confined to the minds of the participants. Ten years ago, a transcript might have been published weeks or months later on the Web. Five years ago, a handful of participants might have blogged about their experiences after the fact.

But this event was happening in 2009, so trailing behind the real-time, real-world conversation was an equally real-time conversation on Twitter. At the outset of the conference, our hosts announced that anyone who wanted to post live commentary about the event via Twitter should include the word #hackedu in his 140 characters. In the room, a large display screen showed a running feed of tweets. Then we all started talking, and as we did, a shadow conversation unfolded on the screen: summaries of someone's argument, the occasional joke, suggested links for further reading. At one point, a brief argument flared up between two participants in the room — a tense back-and-forth that transpired silently on the screen as the rest of us conversed in friendly tones.

At first, all these tweets came from inside the room and were created exclusively by conference participants tapping away on their laptops or BlackBerrys. But within half an hour or so, word began to seep out into the Twittersphere that an interesting conversation about the future of schools was happening at #hackedu. A few tweets appeared on the screen from strangers announcing that they were following the #hackedu thread. Then others joined the conversation, adding their observations or proposing topics for further exploration. A few experts grumbled publicly about how they hadn't been invited to the conference. Back in the room, we pulled interesting ideas and questions from the screen and integrated them into our face-to-face conversation.

When the conference wrapped up at the end of the day, there was a public record of hundreds of tweets documenting the conversation. And the conversation continued — if you search Twitter for #hackedu, you'll find dozens of new comments posted over the past few weeks, even though the conference happened in early March.

Injecting Twitter into that conversation fundamentally changed the rules of engagement. It added a second layer of discussion and brought a wider audience into what would have been a private exchange. And it gave the event an afterlife on the Web. Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of those tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles.

Original Artcle from Time Magazine -http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html

-Wow! Truely AMAZING stuff... how do you do that thing with the #twitter or whatever to contribute to a twitter conversation?

Ignite Show: Veronica Belmont - " The Do's & Don'ts of Making Your Business a Meme"

Ignite Show: Veronica Belmont - " The Do's & Don'ts of Making Your Business a Meme", Ep 16

- I am now in love with Veronica Belmont! Funny, sexy, geeky and smart! Following her on Twitter now! 

Original video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IuOgpZdnF0

Website Marketing Turnoffs - 13 things not to do when adapting your product to an online model

Website Marketing Turnoffs

13 things not to do when adapting your product to an online model. 

By Guy Kawasaki  

Here's a compilation of 13 silly and even stupid ways some companies are hindering adoption of their products and services. So if you are doing any of them, don't.

1. Forcing immediate registration: Requiring a new user to register is a reasonable request—after you've sucked him in. The sites that require registration as the first step are putting a barrier in front of adoption.
   
2. The long URL: Say a site generates a URL that's 70 characters long or more. When you copy, paste and e-mail this URL, a line break is added. Then, people can't click on the link or it only links to the first part of the URL.
   
3. Windows that don't generate URLs: Have you ever wanted to point people to a page, but the page has no URL? Did the company decide it didn't want referrals, links and additional traffic?
   
4. The unsearchable website: Some sites don't offer a search option. If your site goes deeper than one level, it needs a search box.
   
5. Sites without Delicious, Digg and Fark bookmarks: There's no reason why a company wouldn't want its fans to bookmark its pages. When my blog hits the front page of Digg, page views typically increase six or seven times.
   
6. Limiting contact to e-mail: Don't get me wrong; I live and die by e-mail. But sometimes I want to call or even snail-mail a company. Many companies only let you send an e-mail via their "Contact Us" page. Why can't companies be honest and just call it "Don't Contact Us"?
   
7. Lack of feeds and e-mail lists: Make getting information about your products and services easy by providing e-mail and RSS feeds for content and PR newsletters.
   
8. Making users retype e-mail addresses: How about the patent-pending, curve-jumping Web 2.0 company that wants you to share content but requires you to retype your friends' e-mail addresses? I have 7,703 e-mail addresses in Microsoft Entourage. I'm not going to retype them into some done-as-an-afterthought address book.
   
9. No e-mail addresses as usernames: I'm a member of hundreds of sites. I can't remember my usernames, but I can remember my e-mail address. So why not let me use that?
   
10. Case-sensitive usernames and passwords: I know; these are more secure. But then I'm more likely to type in my user name and password incorrectly.
    
11. Friction-full commenting: "Moderated comments" is an oxymoron. If your company is trying to be a hip, myth-busting, hypocrisy-outing joint, it should let anyone comment. Also, many times I've started to leave a comment on a blog but stopped when I realized I'd have to register.
    
12. Unreadable confirmation codes: A visual confirmation graphic system is a good thing, but many are too difficult to read. All you have to prove is that you're not a robot. So if the code is "ghj1lK," entering "ghj11K" should be good enough.
    
13. E-mails without signatures: Communication would be so much easier if everyone included a complete e-mail signature with their name, company, address, phone and e-mail address.

Original Article - http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2009/june/201614.html

-Can't go wrong with reading Guy Kawasaki! I'll make sure to let me web designer read this before he makes my new site.... www.WhenInManila.com

Google Wave Could Redefine Email and Web Communication

Could Google Wave Redefine Email and Web Communication?

by Ben Parr33 Comments

Google promised to deliver something spectacular on the second day of the Google I/O conference, and they did not disappoint. Google has just announced Google Wave, a new in-browser communication and collaboration tool that is already being hailed by some as the next evolution of email. Yes, Google Wave is potentially that disruptive.

Created by two of the guys behind Google Maps with a small team in Sydney, the concept behind Google Wave is to “unify” communication on the web. It’s a hybrid of email, web chat, IM, and project management software. It features the ability to replay conversations because it records the entire sequence of communication, character by character. Because of this, discussions are

 also live in Google Wave: you will see your friends type character-by-character.

The features don’t stop there, either. Google Wave also supports the ability to drag attachments from your desktop into Google Wave. It loads that file and sends it immediately to anyone in the conversation. It’s also embeddable, so you can embed Google Wave conversations on any blog.

As you can see, it looks very similar to a Gmail inbox, except it’s more focused on your contacts, whose faces you can see in your contacts sidebar on the left. As for conversations, well, it’s a bit different than anything we’ve seen before. You can reply and add your thoughts anywhere within a message. Communication within Google Wave is completely shared.

The key to it all is the faster line of communication. Attaching documents, like you do in email, is unnecessary in Google Wave. Real-time conversations and collaboration make it an ideal tool for business teams as well. Imagine an entire office having Google Wave open to quickly share and receive files. It combines some of people’s favorite aspects of many different web communication tools.

You’re going to have to wait a while though: Google Wave will not be available to the public until later this year. Right now it’s only available to a select group of developers, who will be able to create their own Wave servers. It’s also an open-source project with a lot of API integrations, so we can expect a lot of user-driven innovations and extensions for the platform as well.

So, back to the big question: could Google Wave really redefine web communication? Clearly it’s too early to tell, but we’re already very impressed with the client and its potential. We’ll be testing out its sandbox soon and giving you our assessment, as well as updating you with any more information coming out of Google I/O today.

Original Mashable article - http://mashable.com/2009/05/28/google-wave/

Another cool article from Techcrunch- http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-drips-with-ambition-can-it-fulfill-googles-grand-web-vision/

-WOW!!!! We'll be "waving" at each other soon.