hey yo!

Dear friends,

I know that this has been a late notice for all of you. Probably some of you already know that I am leaving this coming Monday, October 26, 1230 noontime. But to those who don’t, here, I am saying it now, okay?

Don’t be mad if I haven’t told you before, I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Or are you not surprise?

To my OrCom friends

To my non-OrCom friends

To people

So I am saying goodbye to all of you. I think I don’t have time for a despedida anymore because I am so running out of time, with all the requirements I need to finish for school and for all the yet to be pack clothes, shoes, bags and everything back home. I would rather treat you when I come back after some years. And I don’t want despedida because it is such a lonely word. After some years, I promise to celebrate a welcome back party where I have more time to prepare and more money to spare. I am so going to be rich, I promise to part some with you. Hahaha.

See you again after X years.

Xxxxx,

Siony

edi i-Google mo

I noticed the changes now about the nature of sourcing information. It is not the library anymore. It is not the resident geek anymore whom you sought when you have questions, you check Google. When one asked now about something one does not know about, the reply is as easy as edi i-Google mo.

Here are some sites Google direct me when I have questions like:

• What’s the name of that actor?
• http://www.imdb.com
• What’s the meaning of *insert word*?
• http://www.thefreedictionary.com
• Where to buy cheap finds?
• http://www.sulit.com.ph
• What’s the title of *insert piece of lyrics known*?
• http://www.azlyrics.com
• What are the movies shown in *insert mall name*?
• http://www.clickthecity.com
• How do you cook *insert food name*?
• http://www.allrecipes.com
• Where do I buy cheap gadgets?
• http://tipidpc.com/
• Where do I watch series online?
• http://cucirca.com/
• How to reach *insert place name*?
• http://maps.google.com/
• Where can I order *insert food name*?
• http://www.munchpunch.com/

Got questions? Google them! But do not forget that some of life’s answers are not all found in the online world. Some life’s lessons are taught by actual experience.

Have yourself a good life

I wanna be a supermodel

Part of one of the many career choices of OrCom is events management. Party here and party there. Last October 9 and 10, our batch was one of the organizers of two major events – Cirque and Silver Screen: showcasing 25 years of OrCom.

Cirque was organized by Adhere — UP Manila based organization which is composed  mostly of OrCom people headed by OrCom seniors —  in cooperation with QTV. While Silver Screen was organized by this year’s OrCom seniors with the help of ever fabulous Madame Inton and our debate teacher Sir Burn. And I am just so happy that I didn’t just helped in organizing all of these events but I also perform. In those two events I was one of the lucky students picked to be one of the models. Mantra: I wanna be a supermodel.

In Cirque – October 9

I modeled the design of Ms Camille Liwanag from the Fashion Institute of the Philippines. The event was held at One Esplanade near MoA. It carried out a circus or perya theme. There were photo booths where you and your friends can freely have their photos taken. There were food stalls too which serves popcorns and waffles. And there’s the bar with free-flowing drinks but the catch is they serve only mocktails meaning there is no alcohol in the drinks. And it is so in my favor since I have a very low tolerance for alcohol.

The program highlights were the magic show, the guest appearance of a rock band Pedicab and the fashion show where three OrCom seniors – Jess, Ping and I — were included.

In Silver Screen – October 10

Vintage Glam has been the theme for our homecoming party held Angelo King International Center. There was a dinner buffet. There was a glamorous parade of people wearing their old Hollywood dresses. There was a fashion show featuring the bags made by Yako Reyes. There was the reminiscing part. There was the photo wall where all had the chance to have their pictures taken. There was giving of prices and awards to those who deserve it.

The event became all for a good cause – for the victims of Ondoy and Pepeng. It was a success, not to mention all those postponement – it was twice — because of all those typhoons. It was all possible because of the hard work of everyone.

The events have been telecast and put into newspapers. So … are we celebrities now?

One thing is clear though, that we manage those events well. And that has been events management for you ala OrCom

Work hard, party harder, work (again) the hardest

BUZZ!

As business people we are reminded of satisfying our employees because they are people needed to be treated as one. That is, employee satisfaction! And customer satisfaction is as important as employee satisfaction. Café world is a Facebook application which I am currently addicted to. Hi Jhe David, Jona Atienza, Fiona Cruz and Paula Batalla! Hi café neighbors

Every cafe is given a buzz rating which can be equated to customer satisfaction. The higher it is, the more your customers are satisfied with your cafe and the more likely they would come back.

How to satisfy customer in café world:

variety of food you can serve

• Plenty of food – as chef of your own café, you need to prepare foods for your customer. Produce plenty of food for your customer and if you don’t have any just close your cafe temporarily. That way you satisfy your customer because they wont come back if you serve them nothing.

beauty and accessibility

• Proper layout plus presentation – lay out is important cos it is the key to accessibility. If you have a good lay out, most probably your cafe can accommodate more and more customers. If you have a good layout, you can provide enough walkway for customers to walk into, chairs to sit into and tables to eat into.

good customer flow

• Service speed – the customer flow greatly depends on this service because if you provide a crappy slow service tendency is you have a very poor customer flow. No customer, means no profit! An additional of waiters is provided in café world as you progress in level. Because you will be needing more hands to work as your café expands.

be open!

• More doors – more doors allows more customers to enter your café easily. You think single door is enough? Think again, more doors produce a higher buzz rating for you because customers have an easier way of entering your café. Be open!
  

  visit 'em

• Give some love – the bible says love your neighbor as you love yourself. And hell yeah, even in café world, the same rule applies. When you visit your neighbors, not only you gain additional money but you also gain experience points which in turn helps your rating.

But then again, a high profit does not mean high customer satisfaction because you might be earning thousands but your customers are not as much pleased as you. You might be surprised to know that you are earning the wrong way.

Buzz to the right way!

CAUTION: EMO

Yesterday I was able to watch Fame. Fame is about different stories students who got in PA (performing arts) for their high school year.  In PA, there is a mix  of singers, dancers, actors, and musicians, that mix is what I would like to call mass collaboration.

In the ending part of the movie, there is that one grand production where all performed and that is the best showcasing of mass collaboration through their forte. The musicians started playing their different musical instruments. The singers sang, the actors acted and the dancers danced. And they produced mass collaboration of talent by their performance.

In organizations, though they say that Organizational Communication graduates are said to be jack of all trades, there are still specialization one pursue, or forte one already has. Just like in Fame: some are actors, some are dancers, some are musicians and some are singers. In OrCom: some are in Public Relations, some are in Advertising, some are in Corporate Communication, some are in Human Resources and some are even in the Airline and Hotel industry. And all of those careers have mass collaboration that is in the corporate world.

In the movie there are also promising students, average students and the weak students. And there are those who show promise in their first years but never seem to progress. Those are the ones who got stuck and I say that in OrCom, all of these instances are just the same.

Strong ones will finally get the job of their dreams, average ones will continue to be working to be the best and the weak ones would find a job where their craft could still be practiced. Because being weak is never an end, being average is yet to be improved and being strong does not tell you to stop.

Fame gave success a different definition. It is not merely getting and having what you want. But success could be friendship, family and love. And in my years of staying in this course, I can say that I have met success in different forms, styles and sizes. In this course I have built friendship, I have gained family and they surely showed me love. Go OrCom!

Told you this one’s emo!

house&House

There is mass collaboration everywhere!

I just saw yesterday House’s latest episode entitled Epic Fail. The case in this episode involves a video-game designer named Vince. Vince believed in House as diagnostician but when he found out that he had been taken over by someone else he started posting his symptoms online. He then of course receives online responses and from there he takes in treatment suggestions. That is mass collaboration treatment for you via online!

Ending: Vince got treated of course through one diagnostic suggestion, by none other than, House — resident online diagnostician.

You see how helpful that is. That even if House wasn’t there with his team physically he had helped. But the point is they arrived at a solution by collaborating all that they have to say.

And in connection to that here’s another mass collaboration aka bayanihan for you from the Philippines!

Ways on how people helped victims of Ondoy without leaving house – not the character person:

NOTE: These are only SOME of the people WITHIN my network who helped using new social media but I am sure there are many more out there who did the same.

via Personal blogs:

Bianca Gonzalez

Alvina Antonio

Lea Salonga

via Twitter:

Chris Tiu

Drew Arellano

Saab Magalona

Bubbles Paraiso

MagnetHiStreet

Pia Magalona

MYX Philippines

via Facebook:

Lea Calderon

Marla Yap

Janina Mercado

Jorron Monroy

Paula Batalla

Lileth Lobederio

after Ondoy

Surely they are not everyone because my network is not that big enough to mention all.

Filipinos are indeed good collaborators, put in mind People Power. Filipinos unite when needed it is just sad that it took an Ondoy to make us see this unity. But still, good to know that in a country as poor as ours, people still care. Bayanihan is not yet dead. But let us pray against yet another one, Pepeng.

From House MD to Philippines, mass collaboration it is, indeed.

(*%#$&(9 60650 &^)*

ALERT! VIRUS! ALERT!

Virus spread almost easily. It infects the victim. Some virus stays longer than the others. Let us take AH1N1 and SARS as examples. The common thing about them is they did not stay for long on the spotlight. They stayed on top but not forever. As they say, no one stays at the top forever. But they are easily spread. They are viral.

That’s viral for you in the biological sense but in marketing world, viral maybe a video, an image or text spread by word of mouth. See they are not that different. They are CONTAGIOUS. Go spread the virus! Go viral!

Our own infections!!!

FAYAH - 2ne1 parody

wanna be korean

kung ikaw ang presidente

wag ka na mag aral

mind your own noodles!

talk like a kid

Viral Marketing is a new way of promoting products, services or what have you in the online world through word of mouth. It produces less expensive campaigns because viral marketing is cheap since it maximizes promotion via new social media. And if virus infects, so does viral marketing and its victims –> the consumers.

Why does it infect?

Easy-peasy: you create viral content, you click click click, you send send send!

Moolah cost: you pay no more to replication since people will do it for you, you pay only for the initial sending of the material with the viral content

Bull’s eye: it is targetive because people share the message to people whom they think can relate to your campaign

You can hear them: you know — by comments — what consumers think about your product. knowing it then responding to it equals PROFIT!

SOURCE: SQUIDOO

Others who got infected

Hotmail, Burger King, Watchmen, Jack in the Box, Dark Knight, Transport for London, Smirnoff, Dove, Peerflix, Bob Dylan, Simpsons

SOURCE: DIGITAL LABZ

Everything has its own purpose. You see, even viruses helped us in the marketing world. Now that’s one beauty of life

O, my love

This entry wouldn’t provide a shop list of what I can do for you. Rather the things I did and ‘til the present doing for you, O, so please know the extent of my love for you.

Exhibit #1

you know I'd walk a thousand miles

This is to symbolize the miles I would take and hours I would travel for you. Cold and heat can’t make me stop riding that Baliwag transit bus then getting that ticket from Manong Konduktor just to be with you, O, every waking day of my life, except Sundays of course.

Exhibit #2

let's sit, let's talk

I knew we would be celebrating our anniversary together. Its Silver, baby! I knew the importance of our talk – OrCom is communication after all. I didn’t think the little droplets of rain would turn our country down later that day — 092609. But see, I came still and didn’t miss what you have prepared for me. (@shifting paradigms, new mindsets)

Exhibit #3

shoe ritual -- from dryness to wetness

O, you are not the only O who affected my life so much because last September 26 when we are about to celebrate Silver, this other O – Ondoy – came in my life too. He was uninvited but he came anyway. He literally and figuratively crashed and crushed the party. And he destroyed one of my favorite flats! Oh how rude of him! I braved the almost-knee-high flood. Look, we all rocked the flood while in our corporate attire! Woah to that!

But never mind there’s always a next time and next week – October 3 at CSB hotel – I know we are to continue the celebration. It would be our night solely for you, O, the other O would be gone by then.

Exhibit # 4

wouldn't trade it for home

And because of this uninvited guest, I was stranded, love. Celebration cancelled, talk shortened, shoes dampened, new slippers bought, and rooms rented. Alvina, Noemi and I got nowhere else to go. The mall was closing, the streets were flooded, and electricity was crashing down. So when we saw that tiny spec of light – Cherry Blossom – from a hotel we never knew we would enter, we took the opportunity and stayed for the night. We were all away from home that night – not to mention all the years I spent dorming – all for the love of you.

Exhibit # 5

let me carry those

This is another metaphor of the weight I am willing to carry for you. No luggage is enough for me to stop taking all those weight on my shoulders, no readings is thick enough to carry; no laptop is heavy enough to say no to a presentation, nothing is heavy indeed if it is for O.

These are only the few of the things for you, Organizational Communication. And as Jasper would put it, these are all for the love of Orcom!

Happy 25^th anniversary to you my love!

(@Organizational Communication – UP Manila)

Rise from the grave … or shall I say Net

Before we used to love N because it connects us to our friends but with all the advances it is having now, we learn how to maximize further its use. We buy and sell using social sites. We convert money — virtual to real. We create a fashion look. We choose a hairstyle that would fit us. All these we do without actually spending a dime – except of course the money for electricity & connection. Just sign up and there you have it!

We buy and we sell

During class there was this remark about how we Filipinos are so different from other cultures. Because we are one of the few who thought of selling in social sites. This, for me, is very evident in multiply. You all see those for sale *insert product here* followed by a promo or something. It only shows how we turn all those sources into good use instead of only socializing or meeting people online, we Filipinos see things differently.

We convert money

I didn’t know that you can earn real money while playing Ragnarok Online. Ragnarok sounds so old to me but apparently many people are still playing it. And how do I say that you can earn while you’re at it? Here: when you log on to Ragnarok Online and you create a character you earn zeny (their term for money) and when you actually have many of those zeny, you can trade them for real peso. Sounds good huh?

We create a fashion look

Yesterday while I was tweeting my day away, Bianca Gonzalez, yes, who I have been following on twitter tweeted something about a site looklet. Of course I got curious and I started clicking the link she provided. It got the better of me since OrCom Silver Anniversary with theme vintage glam is nearing and I have been busy looking for the right clothes for it. In the site, there are thousands and hundreds and millions of fashion selects. One can also mix and match clothes. I saw a lot of vintage inspired outfit and it would be sort of like a guide when I go shop for real. Cool!

We choose a hairstyle

Hairstyling is critical to one’s look and thehairstyler.com helps people to choose among the many cuts, colors and styles our hair could have. There’s the part virtual makeover. From the title itself I think it is understandable. Before you make a decision of cutting it short or letting it stay long, coloring it red or brown, you can have the preview and you can do it free online. Now when you want something you can test if it would suit you.

We are both the consumers and the producers. We buy. We sell. We convert. We create. We choose. We learn how to rise above and sometimes even beyond. Now that’s collaboration

Where do we go from here? (music)

Funny how even our other classes are being affected by the New Social Media trend, sometimes I wonder if it is only me or is it really the trend now — everyone goes online. Advertising online, shopping online, news online, delivery online and meeting online. And yes, meeting online. Now, more than ever because of the cheap offers of companies for internet use, people get more and more dependent on it causing us to just go online instead of actually meeting physically.

So is it in the lobby or would you rather the cyber?

in the lobby

You see your group mate’s reaction towards a suggestion/statement

You can settle any misunderstandings immediately

Easier to share immediate sources like readings from library

There can be physical distractions like loud people near your area

You need to look for a place to conduct the meeting

It costs more time and effort

OR

in cyber

No need to find a place where you can conduct the meeting

Save yourself from travel time — esp when you came all the way home just to attend a meeting, say at school

Just connect to the Net and click click click then you are off to meet your group mates

Easier to share links related to your topic of discussion

Easy fit for schedule since you connect from your home

 

There can be many distractions because other sites can be accessed while having the meeting

Needs to install the application to connect with group mates ie YM, Skype, MSN,& others.

There can be problems with regards to connection

Can be source of miscommunication due to its very nature – mediated

—- Meetings are one of the first steps but almost always it is up to the team “where they would go” after the “meeting”. Meetings are necessary for the team to survive. There you brainstorm, you plan, you strategize, you delineate tasks and more! And the New Social Media provides us an alternative to make things work even if it is not physically possible for us to meet. You go NSM!