Tag: Thoughts and Musings

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SEMCON 2007 follow up and presentation slides

Talk about following up your SEM strategy – it’s been almost a week since I updated. Right after the two day conference, I headed out to Fort Ilocandia for a business conference with EPSON. Though wireless connection was available during the two day show, SmartBRO prohibited me from accessing the Philippine blogoshpere.

So better late than never: I’d like to thank everyone who attended SEMCON 2007. The event was a huge success, as the number of participants apparently exceeded expectations. Thank you to everyone for staying awake at the “unholy hour” after lunch to listen to my non-conventional approach to web copywriting. As I mentioned during the talk, there are so many tips on the Internet describing how exactly you should go about churning your 2,000 words per day.

After my talk, Anton Diaz reaffirmed my stand on developing a sense of rhythm for your copy. He says that rhythm is, more than artistic – a cultural trait. Filipinos are considered to be good writers because of our colorful musical culture, which according to Inigo and Inaki, is attributed to our Iberian Heritage.

Thank you to those who gave me your business cards. Silly me, I forgot to bring my own. But I have emailed everyone who sent me their contact information. Thank you.

It was a pleasure to meet Aaron Wall and his lovely wife. It was a pleasure to mingle with the other speakers as well. I also had the chance to join Marc, his lovely fiancee and the delegates from Malaysia for some clubbing before my flight. Thank you also to Lourd de Veyra for helping me out with his short audio clip. Of course, many thanks to Anton Sheker, Marc Macalua and the other organizers for SEMCON 2007. This conference can very well turn into what Chris Pirillo’s Gnomedex brings over in the Western side of the globe.

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“The New Order” Ad Congress this November

I’m a little disappointed that this year’s advertising congress isn’t getting a lot of buzz in comparison to the past ones that were held in Baguio and Cebu. I’m not quite sure which agency is sponsoring this year’s ad congress PR — the radio and television, as well as the online beat campaigns don’t seem to be very visible, if at all they are being run.

I have a theory why they aren’t very visible. Just check out their website address:

http://www.20thadcongress-theneworder.com/

Oh god. Who can possibly remember that insanely long URL? Ironic as it is, the “New Order” which will be held in Subic this coming November 21 to 24 2007 will touch on such things as new media, social media and emerging trends for advertising. As a guy who’s been in the blog industry for 2 1/2 years, I will be first to say that they should have chosen a friendlier URL.

From what I learned, the “New Order” pitch goes something like this: In the same way that soldiers were sent to Subic for training, so will advertisers and communicators be sent off for different kind of training. Wheee.

So, who’s going to ad congress? 🙂 It would be cool to see new media practitioners and blogtrepreneurs there! If you’re a corporation, it would be a splendid idea to sponsor some interested bloggers and get to know them better.

Tagay!

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Ateneo – La Salle Basketball Rivalry on the New York Times

Raphael Bartholomew writes a piece on Philippine basketball culture for the New York Times. He talks about the rivalry between Ateneo and La Salle, the culture of college basketball, game fixing, and the obtuse difference between the players of each school:

Although Ateneo and La Salle have similar upper-class student bodies, their respective basketball teams are very different.

The Ateneo players have a squeaky-clean image. The team’s prize freshman, Kirk Long, came from Faith Academy, a high school in suburban Manila for the children of foreign missionaries. Guard Eric Salamat’s surname means thank you in Tagalog.

La Salle’s players have a menacing swagger, with tattoos, headbands, shaved heads and chin-strap beards. In 2005, La Salle revealed that two of its players had used phony high school equivalency results in their applications, and the team was suspended for the 2006 season. [Read]

So what do you think? Is this article accurate? I’m from neither school so I can’t really say anything. 🙂 The part about the tattoos and squeaky clean image are a bit blunt though.

Bartholomew is a lecturer at the Ateneo.

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Thought: The impact of Playboy Philippines to the publishing industry

EDIT: Review of first issue here.

EDIT: Read today in the Philippine Start that Playboy Philippines will be launched on April 2 2008 at the Sofitel. The editor in chief is Beting Laygo Dolor. There will be no nudity as being daring is not a mark of success. Playboy Philippines will contain articles in good taste written by at least 5 Palanca award winners and will be very tasteful.

Though I am not updated with the rumor mill on this development, it seems that Playboy Philippines will allegedly make its way to local shores as the buzz in the industry states late this year.

Rumor or not, the scenario puts forward a lot of questions that demands a lot of answers. First, will the overused argument of “free speech” rule over the CBCP? Second, what will happen to leading men’s titles such as FHM, Maxim and UNO? Will that “raise the bar” for explicit nudity in these magazines too? Third, what exactly will Playboy Philippines have to offer? If it is going to be a “toned down” version of what Playboy is everywhere else in the world, then what’s the point of bringing in the franchise?

Was Mark Verzo correct after all when he said that Filipino males are indeed sex addicts?

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Speedlinking 19/9/2007

Today is going to be especially memorable for me as I start my adventure in bikram yoga. While I sweat inside a human-sized toaster, here are some links for you to enjoy:

  • As tradition goes, here is the link to the schedule for Philippine Christmas Bazaars 2007.

  • Royal Elastics, the guys behind the lace-less shoes, is here in the Philippines. What’s interesting about their marketing campaign is that they are making use of the iTunes Store for free music mix downloads. You heard it right – FREE music mixes from the iTunes Store. I was able to download 3 hours worth of mixes via their website. Just click on the downloads button and select one of the albums. The Royal Elastics store is located at the ground floor of Mall of Asia a minute away form Highlands Steak House.

  • Titik Pilipino launches, a podcast series with Filipino artists. The first episode features Christian Bautista.

  • Nostalgic memories point to Kylie Minogue singing “Especially for You” with Kermit the Frog and Rita Moreno singing “Fever” with Animal on drums.

  • Belated happy birthday to the Drive by Shooter!