The neglected blog is back!

Horrors! I just realized it has been months since I updated this blog. Serves me right for maintaining 4 personal blogs and writing for another advocacy blog as well. Haha!

Well, I hope to rectify this by doing some micro blogging on this site. There are many things to write about from a personal standpoint so it does not need too much effort.

I actually miss personal writing. I have had too many media and advocacy events and they have filled up most of my writing days. Yet so many personal things have been happening around me and I never got around to blogging about some of them.

So here’s crossing my fingers that I get allocate more time from my hectic skeds to write about these. Maybe I should repost some of my microblogs on Facebook. They eventually get buried in my FB timeline and forgotten. At least here, it is saved for posterity.

 

My reflections on 15 years of blogging

This year, I celebrate my 15th year as a blogger. That is almost as long as the amount of time I spent on my first job with a leading accounting firm, much longer than my stint with a bank, and about half the number of years I’ve been married.

I started my blogging journey back in 2005/2006 on the Multiply platform before it transformed into an e-commerce platform then shut down in 2013. I learned to improve my craft through the years by attending annual iBlog summits, organized by internet marketing specialist Janette Toral.  In the last years of iBlog, I had several opportunities to become a speaker or panelist and share my own insights with new batches of bloggers.

Veteran bloggers of iBlog summits at the last iBlog in 2019. (L-R): Me, Mike Abundo, JJ Disini, Tonyo Cruz, Ruben Licera

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Another Chapter in my Life Journey: Speaking and Social Business Consulting

“Life always has different chapters. You just can’t be in the same chapter forever. You’ll get stuck.” ~ @WilzKanadi

This quote jumped out at me as I was checking my Twitter timeline. I did not exactly think of my life in terms of chapters but when I look back, I can indeed see the “chapters” and how they have led me to where I am now and what I will be doing down the road.

Life has no limitations
(photo courtesy of “Inspire Positive Soul Sensations” on Facebook)

Chapter 1 – The Driven Life of a Type A Person

In this article, it says “Type A personalities experience a constant sense of urgency: Type A people seem to be in a constant struggle against the clock.  Often, they quickly become impatient with delays and unproductive time, schedule commitments too tightly, and try to do more than one thing at a time, such as reading while eating or watching television.

That pretty much summed me up during my growing up and early corporate years. I lead a very academic- and career-oriented life. Graduating at the top of my class in high school and college were the fruits of that labor. I was just as driven when I joined SGV (over 15 years) where I was exposed to financial audits, research, lectures and training, computer audits and IT consultancy.

In between projects abroad and local work, I also took a 2-year hiatus and went to Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania where I earned my MBA degree under a scholarship from SGV.

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Celebrate Social Media Day 2011!

June 30 is Social Media Day –  a day when millions of people all over the world celebrate the advent of technological advancements that have shrank the world and allowed people who live on opposite sides of the world, whether they know each other in real life or have met virtually through a common forum, social networking site, or some form of online community.

The world is indeed so small today with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Plurk – the 3 more active sites I am on. On Facebook, I have rediscovered my elementary and high school classmates and touched base again with my closest college friends. On Twitter, I get to engage with celebrities, newspeople, bloggers and ordinary folks like myself in discussions that range from intellectual and political discussions to mundane tweets like ranting about the weather or what one is doing for the day. And Plurk is my haven, my closed community, where I get to share things not meant for Facebook or Twitter. Each of these social media sites have a purpose.

My world now revolves around social media. From the time I get up to the time I sleep, I am almost always online. Even when on the road, I feel uncomfortable when I am unable to check back into the internet to see the latest tweets, check if someone sent me email, or what the latest Facebook messages have been.

But it has not all been just socializing and making virtual friends. I have seen the power of social media in public service and in being an influencer. As part of Blog Watch, a citizen watch group that was formed in the months running up to the 2010 Philippine elections, blogger friends and I harnessed the technology and social media sites to bring voter education closer to the online community. To this day, we continue to use all the social media techniques available to us to continue our advocacy for transparency and good governance in government.

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