China and the rest of the world will just have to move

Because of the recent disputes between China and Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal, the idea of patronizing Philippine-made Brands (Pmb) have intensified, however, there is hardly any concrete actions taken to support the idea. I, for one, as a consumer would like to patronize more products that are made in the Philippines. Unfortunately, I am oblivious to such brand names.

Courtesy of Colourbox.com

Thus, I have come up with presumably an unbaked solution. Why don’t we have a shelf or shelves in supermarkets, groceries, and convenience stores that is/are dedicated to Pmb, and is/are labeled as such. This way, the consumers can be aware of  brands that are made in the Philippines – which can actually be profitable for the supermarkets too. In fact, a research done by Reader’s digest Asia revealed that 94 percent of the Filipinos believe that supporting local brands will help the local economy to grow, and of this number, 68 percent will likely purchase a local one, over its international counterpart (which is good news, right?)

So if this is implemented, each section in the supermarket which currently holds brands that are made in the Philippines will have a shelf labeled as such. For example, in the coffee section, there would be a shelf for Pmb which may be filled with Cafe Puro, San Mig coffee, or Nescafe. Likewise, the chocolate section would hold Pmb such as Goya, Choquick, Flat tops, and curly tops. Furthermore, the toothpaste section might hold Pmb such as Happee, Gumtech, Beam, Kutitap, and Unique. If a certain section in the supermarket currently have no Pmb products, then it’s fine, no need to hassle the supermarkets to find themselves ones. 

I am not saying that because of this, I will suddenly throw my habit of buying combos, hickory-smoked spam, and meiji’s chocolates just like that, but what I’m saying is that this would somehow give the Filipino consumers a bigger chance to make an informed decision in buying their household needs. Sure, I might still choose the more affordable alternatives when it comes down to it, but at least I know my choices well.

So I guess, when it comes to product placement, products that are made in China and the rest of the world will just have to move for the Philippines. What do you think? Is it really beneficial as I think it would be? Or did I forgot to think of some serious repercussions it might cause? Come on, tell me about it.

Depressing and disturbing: El Empleo

Santiago Grasso is an Argentina based animator. I follow him on blogger despite the fact that his posts aren’t written in a language that I understand. But that’s okay, his works transcends through the language barrier that is brought about by our different culture. One of his works is entitled “El Empleo”. A stop motion animation that I find really disturbing, not to mention, depressing.

RIP Comm blog

If you read the page “define me”, you’ll see that I made this blog in partial fulfillment for my subject, Communication Trends and Styles. The requirement was to make a commblog with at least 10 posts about organizational communication or social media.

I’m not sure if you noticed but this is my 10th post already. With that, this will be the death of my academic communication blog. BUT…

Pecha Kucha!

I don’t know what Pecha Kucha is until I saw the facebook event page of IMMAP Open Mic Night. Open Mic night is a networking event following the Pecha Kucha format.

What is Pecha Kucha?

• It’s the 20×20 format wherein the speakers will have 20 seconds to discuss a 20 slide presentation.
• It was devised as a way for young designers to meet, network, and share their works in public.
• The name came from the Japanese term “the sound of chit-chat”. It sounds fun right?

So what about Pecha Kucha?

Now actually I was thinking of attending the event, mainly because of the format of the conference. HAHAHA well, if you think about it, if a speaker can deliver his or her thoughts in 20 seconds (per slide), then that would mean that he or she is brilliant. Well, it comes from my belief that if you cannot explain what you want in a simple manner, then you do not know enough about the topic.

*eeep, tweaked the event poster a little since it was unreadable (I can’t read the text on the black part so I didn’t edit it)

Naked online

“I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and types of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason, and you too.  - Brian Selznick, The invention of Hugo Cabret

Last Saturday, we had a seminar lecture for my class in Communication Trends and Styles. One of the speakers was Ms. Janette Toral. She mentioned the recent changes that Facebook had. She complimented how it was becoming so easy to share things about yourself.

You may not directly state that you like the band Incubus, but by liking or sharing their music video, you are already suggesting it. She said that this “seamless sharing” capability of facebook is good because you can leverage on it by “actively and continuously” promoting yourself or your services in a subtle manner. This way, when consumers have the need for the kind of service that you offer, he/she will immediately think of you. Voila, everybody happy!

Yes, that’s the ideal scenario, and that’s quite easy for marketers too, especially if you always have your eye on the goal. Despite that, it’s not the same for the general public, who seem to share everything online.

The general public is lured into sharing everything about them without consciously knowing it.

Of social media killings and anonymity

When social media disrupts, it’s normally because of the wrong use of it. But what if it doesn’t just disrupt? What if it tortures and kills?

In Mexico, drug gangs have started killing people whom they accuse of sharing information about their activities by using social media. A month ago, two bodies were discovered from the city of Nuevo Laredo, a border that is heavily linked with drug wars. There was a misspelled threatening message beside the dead bodies that read “this will happen to all the gossips in the internet”. The manner in which they choose their targets is still unknown because these websites, where people share information about drug trafficking is supposedly protected by anonymity choices. But whatever the case is, this news is depressing.

Mexico is considered as the most dangerous country to practice journalism, so with the advent of social media, I thought that it could somehow be changed and the journalists could anonymously voice out what they feared to write in newspapers (and finally be safe while doing so), but I was apparently wrong. When anonymity was difficult to rely on, protection is blurred, and priorities are hard to determine. This is generally not an issue of social media, but drug war.

I do not want to aggravate the issue (nor sound insensitive), but I believe that these drug gangs are threatened by social media, that is why they are, in turn, threatening the people who use it, to cripple its effects. After all, social media played a big role in the Arab Spring, it might be able to put a stop to Mexico’s drug war or at least mitigate the dangers of reporting for the journalists.

Google bus: Democratizing knowledge

“I don’t know what the internet is, but I heard it can make my life easier” says a man from India.

When I read that India’s internet penetration is only 6-7% (based on a 2009 census), I was baffled because I clearly remember having some chat mates from India when I was still in High School, trying to understand how yahoo messenger works. HAHAHA, yes I used to enter chat rooms back then, eeep. Anyway, the major reasons why India is mostly “offline” are because of issues on: (1) access, (2) high costs, and (3) lack of Indian-language-relevant contents, but Google says otherwise:

 

So hooray for Google bus!

A mobile cybercafe by google seems fun right? Yep, I thought so. Furthermore, the advocacy to deliver knowledge and make India online by touring the whole country via fully equipped and cool bus that looks like an ice cream store is something to be proud of.

Introducing iMak: now, it’s personal

No guys, I am NOT, in any way, trying to insult the invention of the late Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs. Well, this post will not be about him, at the very least. If you remember, the morning that Steve Jobs’s death was announced to the public, an internet photo spread like wildfire.

The design symbolizes the missing piece, yet the lingering spirit of Mr. Jobs on apple 

Woot on buzz! (The Oxford way)

Just recently, almost 2000 words were added to the new edition of Oxford’s English dictionary. This includes a variety of lingo that is commonly used in the web. It serves as a form of recognition that shows how digital and social media is deeply embedded in our culture to the point that it can permeate even the ancient Oxford dictionary.

Some of the “social” words that buzzed it’s way into Oxford’s English Dictionary are:

Hypersensitive to hyperspecialization

Here is a summary and analysis of Harvard Business Review’s article on hyperspecialization. All italicized statements are my opinions and take on the topic.

Hyperspecialization  is the breaking of work previously done by one person into more specialized pieces done by several people.

Parameters (when is hyperspecialization effective)

• when dealing with intangible/knowledge-based goods only
• when a global standard similar to free trade is set in each country regarding hyperspecialization practices (A global standard is impossible to manage especially because there is no governing body that is powerful enough to make every country comply; chances are the workers would be exploited)