Let's Join the First e-Commerce Summit in Cebu

What was the first thing I bought online? I think it was a plane ticket and it was named e-ticket.

Apparently, the e- prefix has been attached to almost every conventional noun we have today and not to mention, e-Commerce. With e- being attached to almost every word we could think of, such is a very compelling reason to attend the first e-Commerce Summit in Cebu this March 23, 2013 at Diamond Suites and Residences, 8 Apitong cor. Escario Streets, Cebu City.  

The said event will not be exclusively helpful to business people engaged in online trading but it is going to be equally beneficial to consumers who would like to gain awareness on how the electronic commercial landscape works. With topics ranging from online freelancing to some legal parameters in online trading, every participant will surely gain helpful insights from the prime movers of e-Commerce in the Philippines. If you would like to take a look at the line-up of speakers for the event, simply browse through the e-Commerce Summit 2013 events page HERE.

As thriving online entrepreneur and social media advocate, I am personally interested  with the talks of Jack Madrid and  Atty. JJ Disini. Jack, being the country manager of one of the Philippines' biggest social media platform, Multiply.com, will elaborate the State of e-Commerce and Digital Marketing in the Philippines. I am excited to hear some enlightening words on the current condition of e-Commerce in the country knowing that knowledge of such will help every aspiring digital entrepreneur to gauge strengths and weaknesses (if there are any) of online businesses. Atty. Disini, on the other hand, as technology law expert, will take up Data Privacy and e-Commerce with emphasis on what every merchant should know in the light of legal aspects. I know you have interests of your own so browse through the roster of speakers for you will surely find your niche in this one-day educational event.

For details, join the Facebook events page HERE or direct HERE to register.

  

Wired and Inspired at the Cebu Digital Influencers Marketing Summit 2012

A group picture with the organizers, speakers and participants after the Digital Influencers Marketing
Summit 2012 - Cebu at SM Convention Center. (Photo from www.reneleandropadilla.com)

Earlier this year, I made a commitment to myself that I will end 2012 right by attending several seminars and workshops that will  shed some inspiration to my passion and personal pursuits. I had two seminars in mind -- Digital Influencers Marketing Summit - Cebu and Mathematical Society of the Philippines - Cebu Chapter First Annual Convention. 

Recently, I realized that I made myself closer to my goal through my attendance in the Digital Influencers Marketing Summit 2012 at SM City Cebu Convention Hall AB. I got more than what I was expecting because aside from getting myself inspired by the speakers of the summit, I also had the chance to share my advocacy through a five-minute pitch. I hope I was able to bring my advocacy of utilizing social media in the learning process closer to my audience.

More than the pitch I did during the event, I was loaded with information and inspiring stories during the day as I listened to the talks from the real influencers and experts in the field. I learned better ways to assuring good content and optimization tips. I was also moved by the real stories narrated by real people who are excelling in their chosen field. A day well spent, indeed. Kudos to the organizers, sponsors, speakers, and participants!

After the summit, I got an invitation to speak for the topic "Using Google+ for Education" at the Google+ Workshop to be hosted by the Cebu Google Business Group at the University of the Visayas New School of New Media and Design on December 1, 2012 (that's going to be tomorrow). I am looking forward to meeting new faces, learning new ideas and discussing passion and advocacy again. 

On Discrimination and Plight of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community

image from www.backyardskeptics.com

Recognizing that a significant portion of our society is experiencing treatments detrimental to their holistic well-being, several groups in Cebu City expressed their support for the passage of the Cebu City Anti-Discrimination Ordinance (CCADO) which prohibits discrimination in Cebu City on the basis of disability, age, health status, sexual orientation and gender identity, ethnicity and religion. This ordinance is proposed by Councilor Alvin Dizon and is being backed up by five other members of the Sanguniang Panlalawigan of Cebu City.

Yesterday, I and other comrades from the Philippine Atheists and Agnostics Society (PATAS) Cebu Chapter attended an open forum on the ordinance held at the Moot Court of University of San Carlos' School of Law and Governance. We showed our support for the pending local bill by expressing our statement of support in front of the audience primarily composed of students from the university. I admire the Supreme Student Council of the University of San Carlos for organizing the said event which somehow shed light to the students on what the CCADO is all about. Neil Steve Kinatanar, a clinical psychologist and a member of the Psychological Association of the Philippines (PAP) also gave a talk on the basics of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Psychology which enabled everyone to gain better understanding on LGBT identity and its components. Neil's presentation was similar to the one he presented during the LGBT Forum at the 49th Annual Convention of PAP at the Waterfront Hotel and Casino. 

With all the progressive discussions happening, one might wonder how, when and in what manner discrimination could happen which could lead one to questioning the relevance of such ordinance in the context of Cebu City. The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines discrimination as prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment. One, therefore, could experience discrimination if he/she is categorically denied human rights on the basis of prejudice. I am positive that such ordinance will soon be passed and implemented in the city of Cebu.

     

BPI Opens Biggest Yet Search for Kids of OFWs on its 160th Year

After the successful search for outstanding Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), the Bank of Philippine Islands opens biggest yet search for kids of OFWs. Here's the press release from Brand Speak Asia's Media Relations Department as forwarded by Marist Nagera.

The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) calls on children of Overseas Filipinos (OF) to join the country’s biggest yet search for Expat Pinoy Children, the 2011 Search for the Ten Outstanding Expat Pinoy Children. This year, BPI brings a bigger and wider search for exemplary OF children as it celebrates its 160th anniversary celebration.

Now on its 5th year, the Search for Ten Outstanding Expat Pinoy children will award students with exceptional achievements in academic and non-academic fields for the Ibang Klaseng Talino, Ibang Klaseng Community Leader, Ibang Klaseng Entrepreneur, and Ibang Klaseng Artist/Athlete categories.

“BPI’s annual search for outstanding Expat Pinoy children reflects our continued thrust to support and help the country build a stronger nation through the empowerment of our country’s modern day heroes, our overseas Filipino workers, ,” says Teresita B. Tan, Executive Vice President and Group Head of Overseas Banking and Channel Services Group of BPI.

First introduced in 2007, BPI’s Search for the Ten Outstanding Expat Pinoy Children empowers the youth and their OFW parents by recognizing their significant contributions in the country as model families and modern day heroes of today’s generation.

This nationwide Search is open to college students not more than 21 years old, with no failing grade and with a parent holding a current work contract abroad. To join, applicants must submit an essay titled “What is the strongest characteristic that you have which you think is unique to an OF Son/Daughter that you believe is beneficial to change the community around you?” or alternatively “Ano sa palagay mo ang natatangi mong katangian bilang anak ng isang Overseas Filipino Worker na makatutulong sa pagpapaunlad ng iyong pamayanan?” in either English or Filipino with at least 1,500 to maximum of 2,000 words. The applicants are judged by a screening committee based on their academic excellence, community contribution, and other non-academic talents or skills such as sports, music, or arts. Seven (7) students will be awarded with the Ibang Klaseng Talino award and three (3) students will be given the Ibang Klaseng Community Leader, Ibang Klaseng Entrepreneur, and Ibang Klaseng Artist/Athlete awards. Application period is until August 15, 2011.

Promo details and application forms are available at http://www.bpiexpressonline.com/.

From the sides of the world to the Pinoy Expats/OFWs Blog Awards 2010

It’s been more than a month already since I scribbled a post for this blog. It’s not that I had nothing to write about or I had no time to do it. Shaking off a topic to write is such an understatement as my euphoric wits and spirits normally make sense of anything and everything in between – even the things not worth thinking about. The truth of the matter is, my psyche was too preoccupied with a bundle of things worth writing and again, I failed to put first things first. I did not fail to think but I failed to do.

Recently, I had thoughts of writing about my recent experiences in my new job as I went in contact with our client’s customers. They were really overwhelming that I thought I should not mind writing about it anymore for they would only cause misery in my mind. But before that, I wanted to write about the glorious and gentle victory of Manny Pacquiao in his recent bout with Margarito but I thought it’s been the talk of the town and my additional comments would only be a cliché.

The boycotting of the Philippine government to this year’s Nobel Peace Prize Award in Norway as a gesture of support to the Chinese government also caught my attention. However, I wanted to spare myself from the issue although I would not deny that I was dismayed for such decision of the Aquino administration. Whatever their reason is, the mean would never justify the end and vice versa.

With all the happenings in the world, what was very frustrating was the fact that there were lots of children who became victims of the transgressions of the adults. The recent celebration on the awareness of violence against children which hopefully opened the eyes of every waking man was a great reminder. I hope that we did not just change our profile pictures for the sake of doing it but we would also live with the essence of doing it. With that, all I hope is we could hand this world out to the next generations for them to enjoy and not to suffer. That one day, birth would still be a joy of humanity and not a pain that every newborn would have to endure.

In the brighter side of the world, beyond those happenings, I was so glad that I was invited to judge this year’s entries for the Pinoy Expats/OFWs Blog Awards wherein I had to rate each blog and pick my top ten from the nominees under the Supporters Category. This category is intended for Philippines-based bloggers who have affinity with Overseas Filipino Workers. Some of them have family members working abroad and so you know how heartwarming their stories are. As former Overseas Filipino Worker, I experienced the difficulty of working and living abroad and as I read the blog of these people who have loved ones working in the other country, I realized that there’s always another side of the story. The pain that they have been going through thinking of the sacrifices of their loved ones abroad has never been easy. With our attention directed to those Filipinos working abroad, we failed to see the even sacrifices of their loved ones left here.

It’s never been easy to rank those blogs as I had to toggle my mind from one school of thought to another. Although it placed some pressure in my part, I also had a great time reading and learning from the posts of the nominees. Eight of my top ten picks made it and some of them were adjudged as the best blog in different regions. Indeed, a very good book can be published out of the heartwarming stories I read which never failed to inspire. The winners were announced last night at the Teatrino Promenade in San Juan City, Manila.

My salute to the organizers, nominees and all the other people who did their part for such endeavor. Although I was not able to attend the awarding ceremony and rub elbows with the dedicated people behind PEBA 2010, I know the event was a huge success. Congratulations everyone!

 The full result can be found here. 

Adults should also learn from kids

As adults, we need to understand that we used to live in a generation which is so different from the present generation. Children of today might not act the way we acted before and so instead of getting frustrated on how the societal landscape has changed and how the knowledge society has corrupted the minds of the younger generations, we could take some of our time contemplating on what are those things that we could learn from the new breeds. We could learn from the new generation as much as we could teach them about our own generation.  

We need to accept the fact that change is the only permanent thing in this world and that we need to go with the flow in order to keep ourselves in tune. We could not turn our children into the ideal kind of individuals our society used to have or is having but we need to make them realize that they could be better citizens and that they could create a better community. Recently, a friend of mine who is a father of two wonderful kids, mentioned that what we need to do as adults is do our best to provide a safe environment for our children while we let them explore and become independent. His words are very true and I am not wondering why he got two growing children who would hopefully help make this world a better place.

The following video from a TED Talk by child prodigy Adora Svitak has so many things to tell that I am sure many adults could learn. This video is a must-watch for parents, teachers and all adults especially those who are working with children.  

EARTH HOUR 2010

Vote for the Earth, show your support and join this year's Earth Hour by turning off your lights on March 27, 2010 at 8:30 PM.

It's time to take your stand against climate change. Show to the world that you care. Click the banner on the left sidebar of this blog for more information on how you can cast your support for Earth Hour 2010.

Pinoy Expats Blog Awards 2009

The 2009 Pinoy Expats/OFW Blog Awards has been a very successful event and a remarkable evening for OFW bloggers and all Filipino bloggers in general. The awarding night was graced by different personalities and dazzled by amazing performances from incredible Filipino talents. It was a night full of splendor and extravaganza as awards for the Top 10 Blogs, Best Blogs by Region and Special Awards and Citations were given. Raffle prizes and souvenirs were also given away to the attendees.

I have been so touched by the production number performed by the Philippine Stagers Foundation. The goosebumps were even made more penetrating through the advocacies of Juana Change and the inspiring speeches of former DSWD secretary Dinky Soliman and Susan Ople of Blas F. Ople Policy Center. Rising Pinoy bands plus a dance troupe and a choir were also there to entertain the audience. I really felt like a real hero even before I received the award. :)

The night has almost ended when "Wits and Spirits" was called for a major award. I did not expect that my unfussy blog would land to the top 3 among the 37 blogs of Pinoy Expats/OFWs. Surprisingly, "Wits and Spirits" was also cited as the Best Blog for Asia and the Pacific. I was almost speechless that night but nevertheless, thankfulness was still running through my head moving down to my mouth causing it to utter some words of thanks and dedication. It was a surprise especially that the history of this blog was just a matter of homesickness and hunger for an outlet of expression. My close friends in Bangkok knew exactly how "Wits and Spirits" was coined after a spur-of-the-moment island escapade in Eastern Thailand. Not to mention, this blog has literally evolved until it got its own niche before 2008 ended.

Before I would sound dramatic, I have to notice that I have been mustering too much for this post. Too much because what I only wanted to say is thank you or "Khawb Khoon Khrap" in Thai. To those who have voted and raised this blog to the top 11 by popularity vote, thank you very much. To those who have inspired me to write, a blog entry is not enough to thank you guys. Thank you very much for trusting in my talents and abilities especially when nobody thought I had it. This award is just a simple beginning -- a simple step towards the realization of my little advocacy and mission of inspiring the youths to follow their dreams. I hope that this blog would continue to breath and endure like hope in the midst of dark and misty clouds.

I would also like to congratulate the other winners and of course to those who have participated. Everyone is a winner!

What's NEW?

You might have noticed some changes in this blog. For the followers of Wits and Spirits, you might think that you stumbled in a wrong blog. The content of the blog is almost all the same. However, some widgets have been removed especially those which are related to teaching.

I have been planning to put my personal and teaching blog together in Wits and Spirits but as I thought of my plans for putting up these blogs, I realized that they existed for two different reasons. Originally, my personal blog was intentionally made to be an outlet of my personal thoughts and opinions towards life's amusements and perplexities. On the other hand, my teaching blog has been established to express my passion for teaching and education (as a whole) with a hope to inspire fellow educators and education practitioners. Although keeping these blogs updated is not that easy especially during the times wherein I need to work with my students on my extra hours and catch up with different reports and learning evaluation criteria and tools, I understand that there are still ways to update these blogs on regular basis (although not that frequent).

At first, my worry was on maintaining traffic in these blogs because I was thinking that I really need to update them on regular basis especially if I would like visitors to keep on coming. However, as I analyzed the live traffic feed I have installed in each blog, I noticed that my teaching blog has been generating a good amount of traffic although I was not able to update it regularly. Moreover, I am starting to realize that my mission for starting my teaching blog has been achieved little by little so why should I stop? After all, everything boils down to the advocacy of the blog and the blogger.

So for those who would like to read my articles on teaching, you may visit my teaching blog. See you there! On the other hand, I would still be posting my teaching reflections here from time to time as my focus in my teaching blog is more of "professional articles".

NO SENSE FOR ADSENSE

I have been blogging for quite sometime now and I have been thinking how to turn this hobby into an income-generating chore which would somehow help me in increasing my cash flow to support my future plans. I have been reading plenty of articles on how to earn from blogging and of all the recommendations given, adding Google Adsense tops the lists.

I was very convinced by most of the writers who placed Google Adsense on the top of their list that's why I started to create my Google Adsense account. However, my application has been rejected by the management of Google for various reasons. Several times, my application was not approved because the address which I provided was invalid. I tried my address in Thailand and then in the Philippines -- they were both rejected. I decided not to re-submit my application anymore for I have been rejected for many times until, lately, I re-submitted my application and took extra care not to commit the same mistake again. At last, my address was accepted but still my application for Google Adsense was rejected!

This time, the management found problem on the content of my blog. According to them, they could not approve my application for the contents of my blog do not qualify for Adsense. I have reviewed their policy and I don't know which of the policies I violated. Well, I guess my blog is too personal to be visited by people from different walks of life. I accept, my life is not that interesting as Barack Obama, Leonardo da Vinci, James Bond and other celebrated icons in the industry. However, I am still hopeful that I could still find other ways to earn some pennies through my blog.

BLOGGING PROBLEM

I got a feedback yesterday from a fellow blogger that it took time for her to view the contents of my blog and, unfortunately, I experienced the same thing about two weeks ago. I encountered similar problem for a couple of times but since I was too busy to wait for it to upload, I closed my blog and did other chores instead thinking that it was brought by poor internet connection.

However, as a tried to scroll down my blog few days ago, I discovered that the problem was not just an internet connection failure. It was a blog malfunction brought by the generated blog banner. As I logged in, I found out that the script went wrong and so to fix the problem I did not hesitate to erase the script and I immediately made a new banner which is so simple. I felt bad at first because I invested time just to generate that blog banner and only to find out that it would only cause trouble in my blog.

So right now, you could see a very simple blog banner which I instantly created days ago to make sure that my blog would go back to its normal running condition (like a utility vehicle). It might be very simple but still I saw to it that its simplicity would not fail to communicate the expressions and information I posted and will be posting in here.

My apology to everyone for such problem and I hope everything will be back to normal although I have been so busy these days for the second semester has just started and I just came back from my three weeks vacation in the Philippines.

On Philippine Blog Awards and My Teaching Blog

CONFIRMATION

I just received an e-mail from the organizers of Philippine Blog Awards 2009 confirming that my blog has been reviewed already and it's now an official nominee to the Philippine Blog Awards 2009 under Personal Blogs category. If my blog would be chosen as one of the lucky winners this year, my excitement to go home this coming October would be added for sure.

I know there are lots of good personal blogs in the list of nominees but I am still hopeful that I would win. Should I start preparing my speech for the awarding night? hahaha!

MERGING WITS AND SPIRITS AND MEANINGFUL EDUCATION

I am afraid that I would not have enough time to update my blogs these days so I am planning that instead of separating my personal and teaching blogs, I would just merge them. For that, starting next week or any time this week, I would be lifting the articles that have been posted at my teaching blog and post them here.

Since this blog, Wits and Spirits, is more general and easier to update as I have been posting random thoughts here, I decided that I would keep this blog and would just add a section dedicated to teaching. If you have been following my blog, you might find the sidebars different in the following days because I would be adding other widgets to be lifted from my teaching blog.

The only problem that I foresee right now is my blog lay out. Any suggestion about easy blog layout customization?