And the National Artist Award for Blogging goes to …
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at August 3rd, 2009Based on the recent unfolding of events, the saying “everyone’s a critic” can also apparently apply to being an artist. On one end, Bencab thought that adding new categories was silly while Lourd de Veyra proposed his set of nominees which included Bayani Fernando for visual arts, Kuya Germs for Fashion, Ma Mon Luk for culinary arts, GMA for dance, among others:
Now everybody can be a National Artist. They keep adding categories: Landscape Art, Fashion Design, what’s next, hairdressers? They should stick to the seven arts: Music, Dance, Theater, Visual Arts, Literature, Film and Broadcast Arts, and Architecture and Allied Arts. [source]
So in the spirit of adding new categories, I’m proposing the National Artist Award for Blogging. To be eligible for this award, you need to have made significant contributions to the art and science (hindi science, because artists are not scientists) of blogs either through design, development, technique, industry or the very act of blogging itself.
I have the following nominees:
Gail de la Cruz-Villanueva – for being the first Filipina to have her WordPress design template become part of the default templates available with Dreamhost Hosting.
Kring Elenzano – for being the first Filipina to consistently produce, write, and act in her own online video shows.
Mike Abundo – for being the first Filipino to have a phenomenon (known as the “Mike Abundo Effect”) named after him c/o PR specialist Steve Rubel.
Markku Seguerra – for developing the famous iPAP plugin used by many photographers in their blogs globally.
Andrew de la Serna – for developing Ratified.org a blog ranking system.
Who are your choices?
Young Cannes Lions in online conversation
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 28th, 2009Joey once told me that the roots of nation building is all about conversation. The world’s like one big nation now so conversation usually takes place in smaller pockets, like this one, the 48 hour contest on how to change the world.
Two popular local entries are up there (aside from the “Spock Rocks” vid).
Flash Mob or TV Commercial Shoot?
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 17th, 2009
Last week I dropped by Market! Market! after attending an IT Summit. Met up with a few friends to have lunch and witnessed the video you see above.
This next line is important —
What it is: a TV commercial shoot. What it looked like was a flash mob gone wrong.
Okay, okay I know what Mike Abundo would say — you can’t (always) manufacture the viral. In fact you can’t classify something as a “viral video” when it hasn’t even become viral.
There’s a fine line between manufacturing something that aims to be viral and letting something out that just becomes viral. For the more Internet savvy, a shoot like this would have been a flash mob fail — cordoned off area, directors shouting orders to the camera men “hidden” on the different floors, audio cues from all over the place, and actors that both play the flash mob “freeze” and the “victims” who check them out. I certainly felt that way – flash mob fail. But I figured that this wasn’t the objective. It was, for all intents and purposes a TV commercial shoot – and it had all the components necessary for that.
You COULD say that it was one of those more creative productions – as there was some sort of audience participation where the director would shout “OK palakpak!” (OK, clap your hands!) to the entire mall — and everyone obeyed, and did more, with cheers and cat calls. Filipinos are in love with the TV and I guess the hope of being seen, even for a split second in that commercial when it airs is golden. To say that “I was there, and here’s the vid I captured on my phone!” is golden. Having the honor of being part of an experience is definitely golden.
Of course, you can always argue the fact that the mob AND the shoot can be done all at once. Well, what I have to say is that maybe we’re not there, maybe not yet.
Maybe next time, we’ll have a real flash mob. Just maybe. 
It’s all good.
Predictably Irrational: Perceived value with “bottomless” “unlimited” and “cheap”
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 19th, 2008
I’m halfway through Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and I must say that this is my new marketing bible for observing the seemingly irrational behavior of consumers when certain buzz word concepts like “free,” “value added,” “extra” and “unlimited” are brought into the marketing copy. It’s a beautiful book — and if you’re the type who enjoyed other books like Freakonomics, The Long Tail and Tipping Point, this is another must have to your collection.
One of the chapters in Ariely’s book talks about a concept known as “anchoring.” The premise is that consumers never make choices based on a product’s price alone, but rather based on the relative price of something else. When you buy a mobile phone for instance, you always compare the affordability based on a previous phone you owned, or with the relative price of similar units. More importantly though, the book talks about how consumers’ anchor price can change. We used to pay P5.00 for a sachet of Blend 45. Now we pay P100.00 for a cup of Starbucks. Ariely explains how “perceived value” raises the anchoring price of things we buy. Starbucks’ ambiance makes you feel like you’re drinking quality coffee and marketing changed “small,” “medium,” and large to “tall,” “venti” and “grande.” It’s like stepping into a different country where the relative price of everything is different.
Sadly, anchoring of prices can work negatively as well for consumers when marketers weave in the concept of “free” “bottomless” or “unlimited” which is a very powerful word in this industry. When we see “bottomless iced tea” in the menu, we go for it, and restaurateurs know we will – that’s why they price it high even if we only finish two or three glasses – still way beyond break even price. The “Unlimited” calls and texts of SUN for instance charge P25.00 per day, which is P750.00 per month. The average prepaid usage for calls is 214 minutes per month based on consumer research and at a buck per minute for “unlimited rates,” that’s really P214.00 per month for calls. On a daily average, calls should cost P7.14 per day, not P25.00 (more less 350% higher?). There’s something that’s also not factored in – dropped call rate, which according to the NTC – SUN has the most alarming drop call rate at almost 20%.
There’s a third example – when you walk into a department store and see three LCD TV’s – a Samsung, SHARP, and a SONY in the showcase all at different prices, you tend to take a look at the weakest link (Samsung usually keeps the lowest priced ones) in comparison to the other two “higher end” and “higher priced” units. The fact is, the salesman built this arrangement on purpose so you can compare the cheaper unit side by side the other much higher priced units. Instinct tells you you’re getting a great deal on the most affordable unit, and so you buy it! The truth? That’s what the salesman wanted to push in the first place to meet his quota. He could have very well lined up the most expensive TV from the set (the SONY) alongside other cheaper or more expensive promos.
That’s why perceived value is always relative to something else. Comments?
Coke Light vs. Coke Zero: A Taste Feedback?
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 23rd, 2008
Coke Zero was launched last week with a really huge event at the Fort. My cousin who was one of the agency guys in charge of the event tells me that it is a way for Coke to compete with Pepsi Max, and to get a larger demographic of male “no sugar” Coke drinkers. Statistics as well say that the impression of Coke Light is more of a “ladies choice” than a men’s thing. I think this was partly realized after the free Coke Light campaign done in malls such as the Greenbelt 3 in many legs last year.
So really, do you notice a taste difference between the two? I’ve been buying BOTH for the past week and as a consumer, I really can’t care less on which one I get. Here are the top five no sugar soft drinks I buy regularly in order from most preferred to least preferred:
Coke Light / Coke Zero
Sarsi Light
A&W Rootbeer Light
Pepsi Light
Pepsi Max
They say that between Coke Light and Coke Zero, the taste difference kicks in when both drinks are consumed at room temperature. Allegedly, you won’t notice the taste difference when both drinks are iced. Of course, doing this is rather gross so I’d rather not experiment on a matter with no great consequence to my current state of affairs
What you think?
In vitae memoriam
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at February 14th, 2008The family has been quite busy with our grandma’s funeral preparations. One thing that my cousins realized is that it was a little difficult finding a lot of stock photos of her. We’d have to segregate everything from the seven children’s families, scan them and then push them all to iPhoto for a themed slideshow.
I was having a conversation with my cousin who’s a film director and we came to agree that if it were our generation, finding photos would be so much easier as our lives are pretty much public in Facebook, Multiply and Friendster. Not to mention our blogs as well. What would it be like, 50 years from now when it came to storing our memories online?
One of the resolutions among the cousins would be to start a centralized photo repository. Maybe on Flickr or Multiply because it is very easy to batch upload. And then maybe link them all to a blog or something. The objective would be to come up with an organized way for anyone in the family to have access to these gems and contribute.
Any suggestions?
The Mystery of the Undeletable Draft Mail on Leopard
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 6th, 2008
Have any of you encountered this problem? I’ve had a ghost draft mail sitting on my mailbox for several days and it just wouldn’t want to go away. Here are two ways to solve the issue:
The first is to simply highlight the email and click on the REBUILD option. The mail will disappear. If this still does not happen, you can check out this post of onkeljonas from Ars Technica that shows you how to do it:
Poking around ~/Library/Mail/ showed that while Mail still showed the 1 unread message, it didn’t actually exist – it turns out that Mail needs a file to delete to be able to properly update the messagecounts and lists, and for some reason a mail file had disappeared by itself.
Here is a fix:1) Navigate to ~/Library/Mail/
2) Open BackupTOC.plist, and figure out which of the entries under Root/messages is the borked one
3) Look at the kMDItemPath and make a note of the last part (xxx.emlx)
4) Open Mail, make a new draft, quit Mail
5) Navigate to ~/Library/Mail/[account]/Drafts.mbox/Messages/, make a copy of the draft you just created (don’t just rename it, or you’ll have to redo the process). Make sure the copy is in the correct mbox (in my case that was Drafts, so I didn’t have to move it) and name the copy using the note from step 3.
6) Open Mail, delete the offending email, profit!The real problem here is how a mailfile went missing in the first place, but I’ll attribute it to some rare Mail bug involving empty messages.
Ho-hum. These are Leopard blues. I must admit, in terms of stability Leopard isn’t what Tiger used to be.
Scoble gets face off’ed on Facebook: another justification for OpenSocial?
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 4th, 2008So the year in tech has begun with Robert Scoble getting canned from Facebook for violating part of the company’s terms of service. We have interesting coverage from the Canadians Tris Hussey and Mark Evans – Tris hints a boycott of Facebook (well not really):
Why does this matter in Canada? Why am I writing about this here instead of on my personal blog you wonder? Simply this, Canada has probably the highest percentage of Facebook users of any country. Toronto has a million (that’s a third of the population people) and half of Canadians online are on Facebook. So if there is any country where this should be a hot button issue-it’s here!
Christmas Geek Gift Ideas that aren’t Geeky
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at December 5th, 2007
So I started Christmas shopping last week.
It’s a misnomer that geeks seems to always want gadgets, peripherals for their computers. If someone asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I’d make it convenient for him or her to choose from the following gift ideas. Note that I have attached a PayPal button below in case you feel generous
Yay! PayPal Donate a Gift:
Read on for some great gift ideas for your geeky friends and maybe even for me
Code Monkey Unplugged Lyrics Chords and Tabs
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at December 3rd, 2007Songwriter Jonathan Coulton dedicates this song to anyone who has served as a code monkey in a software corporation. The song is great stuff but what really struck a chord was when he performed an unplugged version that turned the entire thing into a ballad.
So yeah it struck a chord, so I decided to transcribe bits and pieces of the song into tabs for all your guitar folks to try out. For reference, this is the plugged in version of the song and this is the unplugged version. He also has a YouTube video up for the acoustic version of Code Monkey.
Philippine Blogosphere Pitch: Why not aim for the Anvil Awards?
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 26th, 2007Every year, the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) gives out a set of Anvil Awards for remarkable public relations campaigns done in the Philippines.
The ANVIL is a symbol of excellence in public relations in the Philippines awarded by a distinguished multi-sectoral jury for outstanding public relations programs and tools designed and implemented in the past year. The Anvil Awards competition is conducted annually by the Public Relations Society of the Philippines.
The Anvil symbolizes excellence and quality. The standards for winning are high. No award is given unless the standards are met.
There are four award categories:
The Anvil Award of Merit
The Anvil Award of Excellence
The Bronze Anvil Award
THE GRAND ANVIL AWARD
What exactly am I pitching? Why can’t we pitch the ongoing Filipinas Campaign as an entry in the 44th Anvil Awards happening in February 2009. This February 2008 is the awarding for the Anvil for campaigns done between October 31 2006 to October 31 2007. Though it would be too late to include the Filipinas Campaign as an entry to the 43rd Anvil Awards, it can still very well make it into the 44th.
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