racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

These past few days I’ve been thinking how I can give back to society. I have been immersed in development work for most of my life (my mother worked at the Asian Dev’t Bank, and my dad runs a USDA-sponsored school feeding program in one of the poorest regions in the Philippines; I worked at the National Economic and Dev’t Authority for three years). Now, while I’m also helping some people become better bloggers (and earn from blog-related activities as well), I have been hoping I could help contribute to the bigger picture.

Some of my ideas include raising funds to sponsor some equipment or materials for a local public school. If I get lucky whatever I raise could even help finance a classroom, library, or even a school building (you’d be surprised how cheap it is to build here in the Philippines compared to western standards).

So inspired by Lorelle’s post on the Blog Herald, I’m seriously considering participating in the July 2007 Blogathon.

Each participant must update every 30 minutes for the 24-hour period beginning on July 29, 2006, at 6:00 AM Pacific Time. Everyone blogs during the same 24-hour period. For example, if you are blogging from Paris, France, you would begin at 4:00 pm (1600). In Sydney, Australia, you would begin at 11:00 pm (2300). You need not update right on the half-hour, so don’t panic about exactitude. Just be sure you’re updating once about every 30 minutes.

I don’t have a specific charity in mind yet, as I’ve been getting in touch with my contacts in the Education field (the Pinoy Teachers Network) to see how they can help. So maybe they can serve as the “charity” or the recipient of whatever funds raised.

What do you think? Will you sponsor me if I participate?

And even if I don’t, I’m still set on raising funds to help local schools.

Here’s a compelling reason why celebrities–entertainers, politicians, and other well-known individuals–should start their own blogs.

About three years back, I was checking out the ‘Net for information on Marieton Pacheco. She was then an up-and-coming media personality, having covered the Malacañang (the Philippine equivalent of the White House) beat as a rookie TV reporter, then the Erap Estrada impeachment trial, and then moving on to host a youth-oriented morning show. What’s interesting is that instead of her studio profiles and company links appearing on the search engines, there was this one blog that was consistenty on top. And if I were Ms. Pacheco, I might not like the contents of the blog much.

While the author of the Elephant Still Missing blog has long stopped updating the site, his fictional encounters with Marieton Pacheco still tops Google search. Let me quote a few lines.

Marieton Pacheco and I are neighbours in Kamias, and I bump into her occasionally in the most public places. The most recent one was in the Kamias Lavandera Ko branch, the one beside the video rental place in the Korean building. I was lugging my laundry in a large black plastic bag that people normally use for bringing-out garbage. My laundry’s at least two weeks old, and must’ve been six kilos heavy, possibly eight, even. The bag was heavy and too big for me to look over. I couldn’t see Marieton so I bumped into her and her basket of undies.

The laundry attendants were giggling like catholic schoolgirls when I dropped my bag and helped Marieton pick up her undies from the floor. Apparently, she just walked in before I did, about to hand her basket of undies to one of the attendants, when I bumped into her from nowhere and spilled her undies on the floor by accident. All this I figured from the unwashed-look that her undies had. They were still rolled-around and curled-up along the sides, like she had just used them four hours ago, still looking like they did the last time she tossed them into the basket.

Is It For Real?

When I first read the article, I thought this was a real-world encounter. But then upon further reading (and judging from the nature of the site), I realized it was a literary site. In fact, it was part 2 of the author’s account, where he claimed to be Ms. Pacheco’s boyfriend, that made me start to look twice into the nature of the site.

Marieton Pacheco and I are on an air-conditioned bus to Novaliches, to meet her parents who financed her way through four years in MassComm. It is a sunny Saturday afternoon outside the window, the sort that invites bearded street preachers to bring the Word of the Lord into air-conditioned bus aisles. Our bus is parked near where People’s Park used to be. Marieton is holding my hand, and I hers. Her grip is firm, like a little girl holding her brother’s hand as they make their way inside a Star City funhouse. I’m contemplating about tickling the inside of her palm with my middle-finger when she asks me about my relationship with my father. “Are the two of you close?” she asks me. She waits for my answer with a pout.

Readers who are not as inquisitive, though, might not realize this.

Search Engine Benefits and Being Part of the Discussion

So why should celebrities blog? Simple. Search engine optimization. If I were a respectable young lady who is a media personality, I would certainly not want for-mature-audiences-only stories involving me to be topping search engine results (though I think the Marieton Pacheco stories are well-written and still in good taste, except probably if readers have very playful minds)–more especially so if these were true stories. If I were an incumbent politician looking into re-election, I wouldn’t want claims of my being corrupt being spread online and making it to the number one spots in the search engines.

Or worse, some individual with malicious intent could just set up a blog under another’s name (even signing up for an appropriate domain name) pretending to be that person, but writing material that’s potentially harmful.

The same goes for just about any person who wants to maintain his or her integrity online. While you cannot control what material about you gets published online, you can at least show the people who you really are and what you really think by writing your own blog. And if ever people publish stuff about you that you don’t like, you can always comment on their sites/blogs, and you can always publish your response on your own blog.

This is why big companies like Microsoft and IBM have let their employees blog. Blogs give a sense of honesty and transparency. Readers would rather read accounts and opinions from a real person rather than a press release, which while well thought-of, would not feel as honest.

So why should celebrities blog? To protect their identities online, that’s why.

Oh, and it can be quite fun, too.

Wow! I didn’t realize this until I tried looking for our new apartment via satellite imagery. Previously, only the client-version of Google’s geo service, “Google Earth”:http://earth.google.com , had higher res aerial imagery of Metro Manila. now, even the online version, “Google Maps”:http://maps.google.com does! I say “higher” because this is definitely better than what Maps had to offer before. Still, it’s not as good as Google Earth, and it’s definitely not up to par with the aerial photos or “Ikonos”:http://spaceimaging.com / “Quickbird”:http://digitalglobe.com satellite images that the surveying companies will give you for a few million Pesos.

Some Snapshots

Here are some screencaps of imagery of my beloved Quezon City.

Both our old and new apartments “are in this area.”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=quezon+city+philippines&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=14.647047,121.057706&spn=0.002263,0.004576&t=k&om=1

Here’s the “University of the Philippines Admin building, where the Oblation is located.”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=quezon+city+philippines&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=14.654821,121.064937&spn=0.002263,0.004576&t=k&om=1

“Here’s the Gateway Mall and the Araneta Colliseum in Cubao.”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=quezon+city+philippines&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=14.621224,121.053023&spn=0.002263,0.004576&t=k&om=1

“Here’s SM North EDSA, sans the new ‘Block’ mall.”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=quezon+city+philippines&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=14.656518,121.031892&spn=0.002263,0.004576&t=k&om=1 This means the aerial photos were probably taken pre-2006, when SM was still using the area as a parking lot.

This could open up a lot of new business opportunities for people who do web apps! This was exactly what I was looking for back when I worked with i.PH–location-based services and geotagging were the hot thing back then. I wonder if it’s still a good idea to do this today. Joel was right. Google’s going to put those aerial photo and satellite imagery companies out of business (at least for the consumer/low-end market, and not those requiring millimiter-level accuracy). Google is giving this stuff away for free!

Web apps, anyone? I hope we beat you guys to it!

Chris Pirillo did it with his chest–his rent my chest idea seemed quite novel (probably would’ve been better if Chris were a girl ). Andrew Fischer rented out his forehead for ad space. Now Sacha Chua is tempted to sell ad space on her laptop lid, just as Stowe Boyd did with his T-shirts. Apparently, Stowe likes the idea.

There’s actually a business plan in there somewhere. People register with the company, get sent a new sticker every month that covers the lid, and take pictures to show they’ve put in on at the start and that its still there at the end of the month, and they get sent a small check. Fun!

I think it’s quite cool, too. Companies should be sure, though, to target people who frequently use their laptops in public, and not just laptop owners who usually leave their machines at home or on their desk at the office.

I think it doesn’t even have to be revenue-based, but it could be in-kind.

Hey, if someone will sponsor my coffee, snacks, WiFi connection and fare/gas every day just to get me to spend a few hours at Starbucks or Seattle’s Best, I would be all right with slapping some stickers on my V2000. I’ll be able to get some work done, get my daily caffeine fix, satisfy my sweet tooth, and probably get some extra dough.

Imagine if I spent three hours in Starbucks every day with a large “Seattle’s Best” sticker.

At any rate, revenue model or not, I think Sacha got it right that stickers on laptop lids–especially large stickers that shout out a statement–would definitely help in getting people’s attention. Who knows? You can even make friends along the way.

Want to meet interesting but don’t want to have to make the first move? Use the back of your laptop to get people to talk to you. Stickers are a great way to do that. My laptop reads “The geek shall inherit the earth.” I can’t count the smiles, chuckles, and conversations I’ve gotten out of it–and all I have to do is open my laptop!

I used to do this with my old ThinkPad, but I would probably have second thoughts about slapping on a sticker on my new Presario. Okay, it’s more than a month old. Still, the the likelihood of leaving sticky residue on my laptop lid is quite a worrisome thought. Someone should develop laptop-friendly stickers!

Hey, maybe K2 Interactive can do this, along with their regular marketing via blog ads. Or, I’ll probably work on the idea myself!

There comes a time in your life as a blogger when you can’t write s#!t. You want to be productive. You want to have some interesting output, whether on your personal blogs or other blogs (if you blog for network or team blogs). But you’ve squeezed out every ounce of creativity into your last masterpiece. You’ve tried and tried to outdo yourself this time, but to no avail.

Well, yes, there is always the temptation to just put up one-liners with links and blockquotes like those “hey, this is cool, check this out,” posts. Lately, though, I’ve been avoiding doing this, or else I would probably just be echoing everyone else on the blogosphere without adding value to the conversation (i.e., at least my unequivocal, principled personal opinion on something). You can do the citations from other sources, too, with some added commentary, but hey, isn’t something substantial and original better (at least in terms of the style and point of view, but maybe not always the content)? Don’t we aim to be different from the rest?

Stop and smell the flowers

In our desire to be more productive, we end up over-exerting ourselves.

This is probably the anathema of creativity. Forcing yourself to be creative would only push you to come up with crap and then you’d feel bad about it later on. Yes, pressure is good at times. But when your motivation for doing something is because you have to do it, rather than want to, it would sure be less fun. And that takes the kick out of doing anything, doesn’t it? And it’s one way to ensure that whatever you come up with would be far from the beautiful oeuvre you would’ve been able to create had you been the inspired, passionate little fellow.

You get things done, but do you get them done right?

Sometimes you have to pause awhile and experience life to recharge.

Go read a book. Go watch a movie. Go visit an art gallery. Go out and play with your kids, date your wife, walk your dog, chat with your cute next-door-neighbor, execute that excellent practical joke you’ve been dying to try on your gullible sister.

Go and do anything worthwhile. Let life happen. Live life.

This is when your next big idea will likely pop up in your mind. Don’t forget to write it down. Better yet, start conceptualizing, start working on it as soon as you can (not in the middle of that date, mind you). Life’s made up of many small interesting streams of thought, and only a few big ideas worth losing sleep on. Capitalize on that big idea. Work on that idea. Be passionate about that big idea.

The small ideas–your everyday stuff–are okay, but it’s the great, big ideas that change the world.

Hey, Archimedes was taking a bath when he had that Eureka! moment (or so legend says).

Read, read, read

Fellow blogger Clair reads and reads.

Writing for a living has trained me to write anything – no matter what. But of course. it is tougher. Writing three blog entries a day and editing other people’s entries (grammar, etc) could be quite painful too.
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I read and talk about things that got me interested. If not about the article itself but maybe the circumstances around it, the person who wrote it, how I could relate, etc.

I try to read a lot, too, and I try my best to learn from what I read. My readings don’t necessarily have to be about the topics that I write about (mostly tech). In fact, I prefer reading literary pieces because this is where I learn about style, usage, context, and exposition. Most of the time, the way I write is influenced by what I’m currently reading at a given time.

I read juvenile books (e.g., Lois Lowry), light American classics (e.g., Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn series), heavy novels with morality issues (e.g., Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo), and even Dan Brown stuff (not much for good narrative and exposition, but storylines are more or less OK). Oh yes, I’ve been fond of reading up on my newest favorite writer of late (though I’m in want of more, more, more!).

My mood and style of writing are usually influenced by what I’m into at any given time. For instance, I’m now midway into Monte Cristo, and you may be sensing dark undertones in my postings. Or perhaps it’s because I’m currently feeling low and moody, anyway. Or maybe I’m feeling low because of the book in the first place.

At any rate, reading is good. It expands your vocabulary. It takes up your horizon to new heights. It brings you closer to worlds (and words) previously-unknown. You’re likely to also get into the groove of writing, and even get that big idea you’ve been wanting to come up with to have for the longest time.

Live life. Read up.

So here’s to that Eureka! moment!