Curiously, the more I get to practice PR, the less I get to disclose.

Therefore, you will rarely have me talk or write about the work I do except if it’s for events or CSR. If anything, I feel more than blessed that I get to do a little of everything: PR, advertising, CSR and events.

Maybe saying a “little of everything” is an understatement but it should suffice. I can’t do everything And as workaholic as I think I am, I still very much value my life outside work <3

For my personal life, you can head on over to http://liloulou.tumblr.com

I know how it is to seem to have everything or have done everything (not academically, I guess) yet still feel that space between that so-so feeling and being actually happy. And for that, I apologize to everyone if at one point or another I have failed to be my happy best and in turn have disappointed you as well. I’ve always said that my ultimate goal in life is to be a constant source of pride and joy of the people around me.

Then again, being your happy best doesn’t really have a deadline. Unlike all the other things that have passed this semester. So I will continue trying.

Even through all the tears, the sleepless nights and the mandatory (but occasional!) dose of alcohol and music, we all secretly loved every moment of what seemed like an endless path to hell they have all disguised as academics. Yes.

Even if at one point of what has passed we have come to hate our group mates, our professors or most of the time ourselves, we would still have gone through everything because in between those are the moments we felt most alive. (Yup, even as we were sure we were dying)

So whether we are slaves to the university or to the corporate world, we must always remember that we owe it to ourselves and to the people who love us that we need to be our happy best.

*sigh*

Even if one point in our academic life that we just wanted to put everything to a halt,

now that everything is almost over, (or actually over for OrCom 152)

there is a certain kind of sadness over the relief that it’s over.

Okay, let me contextualize what alone means.
Alone, means living with your college freshie sister who’s only home to sleep, bathe (I’m not gonna go there)
Alone, is having a cleaning and laundry lady (who comes only every so often) whom I don’t really see nor converse with
Alone, is not knowing your neighbors despite living there for more than half your life
Alone, is not having your parents with you. Because your mom’s business is located elsewhere and your dad (as you’d like to believe) is in a better place

It’s been 9 months that I’ve been alone. But I’ve never felt more alone than last 9/26/09.
It wasn’t an ordinary morning, I could tell.
My Saturday morning class got cancelled as early as 5.30am.
But even as it got cancelled, I still had to be in school at 8am for the conference.

I wasn’t feeling very well and still had things to prepare for our event later that evening.
I was still in front of the PC at 11am, eating brunch.
(I was preparing some things for our committee and I was even talking to @orcomsilver too)

tweets from the morning of 9/26

And because I have the habit of putting my feet up to feel cozy ,
imagine my surprise when I put my feet down to an inch deep of water…
Which was quickly (and I mean quickly) rising.

I froze for a millisecond.

And then remembered that water and electricity aren’t very good friends.
I pulled all the plugs (got electrocuted twice) before turning the main switch off.
So, yeah, in the dark, I tried to save what I could.

The living room at 3.36 PM. With the full length mirror floating in knee-deep water.

You know how they say adrenaline helps you in situations like these?
Mine didn’t really help much.
It was a race against time.
And I was bound to lose if I lost myself and didn’t figure out what I really wanted to save.
So, the CPU (with my entire life) was brutally pulled out and taken to higher ground.

I really couldn’t call for help because (1) I could swear the telephone already drowned downstairs
(2) Globe’s signal was already crazy (3) the people I’m gonna call are cities away from me and
(4) besides being a stranger to my neighbors, they were in a more dire situation from what I saw outside the window.

As I’ve said, I’ve been alone for 9 months now but I never really felt it until 9/26/09.
Even more heartbreaking is how 9/26/09 should’ve been a happy day—especially for OrCom.
But now, most people will remember it as the worst day of their lives.

Scared. Helpless. Alone. Tweet.
I know you’re going to think it’s crazy but Twitter helped me stay sane.
It took all the strength I had to not break down after (1) seeing people outside my window swimming (read: LEAVING.) (2) checking downstairs and hearing the water seep in (3) see that what’s happening on TV is happening right outside my window.

Frantic Tweets

Seriously, all I could do was tweet. And though my tweets were pretty frantic (borderline insane),
I was really just calmly sitting in front of the television. Hoping for the best and preparing myself for the worst.

The soiled living room. Minus all the water.

I know the aftermath at our house is nothing compared to what happened to the other people in our country.
Except for the soiled furniture and floor, I really didn’t lose anything either. A little spring cleaning and everything would be okay again.
But at that point, I wish I could’ve done something for those who did.

Those, who at this point in their life, may have felt alone as I did in those 12 hours.
Just as I was no longer alone 12nn, September 27, 2009, I could only wish that they weren’t too.

Tweets from the morning of Sept27

Twitter, FB, SMS flood too
Tweets, Retweets, Facebook notes, Facebook status updates and SMS soon flooded in.
At first, I admitted to being confused with how and whom to help.
Still a little shaken, probably.
But I trust that whatever I sent (to whomever I sent it for) actually got to them.
And can actually help them.

For now, I can only be thankful and pray that no further harm will come to us that our resilient Filipino spirits can’t conquer. And for now, I can help “flood” Twitter, Facebook and SMS to help point where HELP is needed.
With the coming weekend, may it be the only flood we let in.

Do visit http://orcombayanihan.tk and http://orcomsilver.tk and see how you can help.

I don’t how this could possibly help or be of relevance to what is currently happening to our country. But if in any way, this can take your mind off the fear–never mind the fear I/we felt as we posted this. If we could spread a nonsensical video as this just to make the grade, maybe we can do the same to spread the promise of hope to those who need it the most.

Oh wait, we’re already doing it.

Do visit http://orcombayanihan.tk and http://orcomsilver.tk and spread it too.

Views and comments are very well appreciated.
REPOSTING the link is a stretch, but we thank you if ever.
Tell your friends. Gossip online or offline.
But spare us a well-meaning smile when you see us.

Anything for the grade, we always say.

With much love (fear, embarrassment, etc),
♥Lou

P.S. Of the many entries that should precede this, I decided to post this first. For obvious reasons. This viral project will only take a week to accomplish. Rebuilding my self-esteem will take a little more than that. If you ask me ‘where is UPM OrCom in this?’ I have the following reasons:

1. It’s one thing to create a video from stock footages, and a whole other thing to star in it, do things you probably swore at one point in your life to never ever do, edit it AND spread it like FAYAH. It just goes to show that we OrCom are up for any challenge. Any seems to be an understatement now. Future employers, fear not what you’re seeing/you will see.

2. Our objective is to turn this video into a viral video. It’s one thing to spam your friends and another to become a youtube sensation. We will spread the FAYAH the OrCom way. To find out if we’re the next to be probably featured in some international talk show, local talk show, tabloid feature, or some online forum… stay tuned for SPREADING THE FAYAH: 2ENI1′s viral video plan.

3. Posting this video compels me to accomplish my pending blog posts. I feel the need to redeem myself through scholarly yet interesting posts. I will trade my hoodie for my OrCom hat very soon.

P.P.S You can almost feel the myriad of emotions I am feeling as I am about to publish this. Albeit the hesitation. But… anything for the grade.

They say sometimes you have to fall apart to get it together.

Thankfully, organizations don’t have to subscribe to a romantic philosophy to adapt. They don’t have to break down and fall apart. Sometimes, all they have to do is loosen up.

Break modes and codes

In truth, it’s not very hard to listen. Did you know that coma patients lose all ability to function but their ability to hear remains? We are physiologically manufactured to listen. But the brain is powerful; it can will a physiological function to appear as though it never happened. It’s not hard to listen but it’s hard to make sense of what you’re hearing, moreso if you don’t believe in it. This difficulty is exponentially increased by the novelty of the idea.

Truthfully, change is hard. You cannot expect your organization’s leaders, after listening to a preaching of icky wikinomics to go ahead, jump in, hold their breath and pray desperately to not drown in this new, icky wikinomics world. Ultimately, these organizations know it’s a sink or swim. But some have chosen a third option and that is to wait and see. Some organizations are still looking for that eureka moment and, yes, they are looking at us. So what do we tell them? I say break modes and codes.

And by breaking modes and codes, I simply mean listen to what’s going on in the workplace other than the clicking of keyboards. Marvel at the opportunities as pointed out by self-organization. Try to listen to what people are afraid to tell you because walls and walls of traditional business function tell them, it just isn’t the way things should be done. Do not flinch at the hint of an unorthodox approach to accomplishing a task. Don’t freak out at the sight of multiple windows open in your workers’ desktops. The best ideas don’t always present themselves printed neatly in your office stationery.

Perhaps the problem is that organizations have attached function to tradition. And somehow, that makes sense because for them, it is through their traditions that they are able to know themselves amongst a crowd of competition. But if these traditions have walled functions into the four corners of an office, then we may have to rethink as to whether we are sheltered by it or actually caged in it.

The thing is organizations sometimes get the wrong picture of the wiki workplace. They think of it as kindergarten and letting their guard down is like letting little children run around carrying scissors. In truth, it’s not really about breaking rules but about making new rules or tweaking those that exist, to foster creativity amongst your wiki workers. Stop them from running around like crazy, but don’t take the scissors away.

It’s not sacrilege to your organization’s traditions to come down from the pedestals of centralized authority. Also, it’s not a congeniality contest of organizational leaders. The point here is to nurture their skills, in perhaps what others may deem as unconventional, but ultimately serving the organization’s purpose. Don’t just make them work. Let them work. And they will, and probably accomplish so much more than what you would traditionally expect of them.

What organizations need to be assured of is this: workplace functions remain. Working in the wiki workplace does not necessarily mean working away from work or just metaphorically working. Teaming, Time and Resource allocation, Decision-making and Corporate communication have been made to fit the wikinomics paradigm. But everything’s still there. And more importantly, everyone’s still there. And look, they’re doing it all on their own!

Not hearts

For those wanting to work in the wiki workplace, I have this to say too: break modes and codes. And this to add: but not hearts.

Organizations have this fear: letting their best people loose may also mean letting them walk away. Losing the people that make your organization work is a valid fear.

Don’t let them nurture you only for you to slack off and/or walk away. Show that you deserve the attention that you are given. At least within your work hours let it be work and play, not work or play. Remember they can always listen because their physiological make up says so, but it takes a lot more for them to believe you.

Do it for yourself, for your personal growth. Do it for us, the future wiki workplace workers.

What the concept of the wiki workplace suggests is not abandonment of traditions—but tearing down the walls to help those people living out those traditions to stop working in restraint. I know I’ve mentioned tradition in this entry a couple of times and you can interpret it as age-old business practices, but this time, what I mean by tradition is staying true to what your organization truly is. You are allowed to play, but do not stray. Stay true to the heart of the organization. Don’t break it. Don’t break away from it.

For those rethinking of adapting a wiki workplace, do not fret at a possible exodus of your creative resource. If ever some employees choose to leave and bring the ideas they have created in your playground with them, you will be able to let them walk away. If you have created a way to capture your eureka moments into organizational memories, then you can always look back at these memories and create new, or even better ones.

Maybe modes and codes need to be broken, but spare your hearts, please

NV…was

It’s rather sad how things started really great between us that I thought I actually needed NV. But as fickle as I am, I eventually left NV—as with all the others.

Until three months after, July 18 to be exact, I found myself hearing about NV all over again. I contemplated whether to reveal that I actually knew about NV or to pretend to hear about NV for the first time. And in truth, because I didn’t stay long enough for the engagement to work, it was really the first time that I’d be hearing about it.

Yes, fortunately, NV is an it—a social media dashboard , to be exact. Eerily, my twitter mates and I were tweeting about social media dashboards—particularly Tweetdeck, Seesmic and Twhirl—the night before the Netvibes hype. Haha.

I actually used none of those applications and just happily refreshed my twitter account every now and then. But then I remembered signing up for something similar to those applications. And I remember creating this account out of boredom, frustration and curiosity—in that order. And to prove that I owned such an account before all the hype (HAHA), see my last update that’s about 80 days ago:

Please excuse the drama. Haha.

Now the question is, taking drama out of the picture, what caused me to abandon a perfectly functional social media dashboard that can cater to my social media networking…needs? (And so much more!)

The answer is, I really don’t know. And by this, I mean, at that time, I really didn’t put much thought to its function other than fulfilling an occasional OCD attack. I guess the initial attraction didn’t turn into attention. I guess in a sense, I was looking for a “reference” and couldn’t find any within my online social networks. And so, my NV account died sad and alone.

The following day after twitter night, Sir Barry introduces the wonders of social media dashboards and even showed us his own. I guess that was what was lacking in the previous picture—an image of an opinion leader. While discovery and exploration are exhilarating, we all still look behind our shoulder now and then and see where we are and who we’re with—even online. I will admit to being an online explorer but I never really stay for very long if the people from my real world do not subscribe to it too. I want the closest second-hand information. Fortunately, my friends are generous providers.

Despite my fascination for social media dashboards, I really wouldn’t recommend this to students like me, who, with this packed schedule, should really just stay offline. Unless absolutely necessary—like the need to accomplish a communication blog entry before the deadline! Unfortunately, even with the absence of a social media dashboard, I’ve managed to still preoccupy myself till the wee hours of the morning and completely redefined productivity. An average of 40 tweets a night, 2 quizzes, stalking, with the intermittent accomplishment of research, paper, etc. I (sadly) emphasize the word intermittent.

Bringing social media dashboards into the picture makes me start imagining an organized distraction. Maybe that should be the title of this entry: organized distraction.

But as we always say, we remain masters of our universe. We choose to be distracted by our distractions. And social media dashboards can work to our convenience, if we choose so.

Allow me to digress. (Warning: This is a stretch!)

If I were a viable opinion leader, I really wouldn’t recommend social media dashboards to students like myself, who need self-control before they start organizing their distractions. I would, however, recommend social media dashboards to the PR consultants of the politicians, who are behind the mushrooming advertisements interrupting our helpers’ favorite soap operas. True, while the target audience might not react online, I believe feedback can still leak online. And I believe this feedback can be as intelligible and as valuable. We all know that research costs money and time, but social media dashboards offer a solution that can specifically monitor a specific audience: the fearless and opinionated online world.

If they were just vying for visibility, then buying air time during prime time is the way to go. But the resentment for these advertisements is growing. But if they were looking to engage a voting audience, I hope know they’ve considered a variety of approaches. (I have faith in PR consultants—or at least in the function of PR) Social media dashboards can help monitor these efforts, help them analyze reactions and later on propose a proper action.

I know I’m not an opinion leader in this field, but if politicians would listen to this single voice, here’s what I have to say: In truth, I’ve no interest in what they’ve already done or what they intend to do. At least not yet. Their accomplishments do not necessarily translate into a national scale success and their best intentions are experiments on hold. What interests me now, truly, is what they are doing right now. If they’ve preoccupied themselves with this election hype and left all the job to their staff, then that does translate into something.

Heck, I even recommend the use of social media dashboard to the politicians themselves! Maybe they can actually learn from it, in real-time, rather than wait for the results of their costly, commissioned surveys. They can see first hand where all of their efforts are going—in just one sitting. That, or they can just have a good laugh at themselves.

Fortunately, distractions for me turn out to be, perhaps, the best invention for others. If they do get engaged with NV, or with any other social media dashboard for that matter, I have this to say:

I wish them well ♥

This series/category “Comments for the Week” will document the LoudUser’s loud mouth. To put it in more acceptable (and more me) terms, these are my comments on my OrComates blogs. Basically, I’m doing this so I can keep track of my comments.

Here’s my take on:

Sir Barry’s Mirroring Iran

Nash Albacea’s Second Stop Wikinomics

Jeanne Rivera’s They Say Sex, I say Intercourse

Paula Batalla’s More. More. And more.

Jona Atienza’s The Ride

Dasi Guevara’s On Internet Apocalypso

Jena Lariza’s Confessions of an Ugly Duckling

Bianca Cruz’s Identity

Ace Acosta’s My Question on Stigma and Communication

Wynne Valenciano’s Rethink, Redo, Restart

Kervi Maximo’s Globally But Not Locally

Arven Eusebio’s Aleck Bovick vs Twitter

P.S. Some of my comments are still “awaiting moderation.”

And by down and dirty, I mean doing the dirty work. True, for quite a while, I enjoyed watching on the sidelines how anything and everything worked. I liked the fact that I was comfortably seated on the receiving end of the conceptualizing universe. I liked the fact that I wake up and the world has already invented all that I think I will ever need.

Let me tell you a secret: being born this generation makes me feel special. Dear reader, if you’re reading this and consider yourself to be part of my generation, don’t you feel a little lucky? Like everything was prepared for you–a sense of democracy, technology for your convenience and entertainment, a world seemingly without boundaries? That you never got your hair messy, your shirt wrinkly or your hands dirty in the process? Because someone else’s generation did it for you?

But isn’t it about time to get dirty?

And by dirty, I mean icky wikinomics–the art and science of collaboration. Wikinomics follows simple principles, nothing new, yet it’s still treated as some sort of risky experiment: openness, peering, sharing and acting globally. It basically asks us to be aware of each other’s existence and each other’s capabilities. It offers an open stage wherein we can be the front act. Forget being in the front row. It asks us to dig in, dive in, get involved, become co-creators–get dirty.

It asks us to peer above the walls of personal inhibitions, strict business rules, economic and cultural boundaries and dares us to imagine what could be–if we came together. Icky wikinomics is not a religion but it has some sort of calling. And it should’ve reached us by now.

I would like to point out the scariest yet most ambitious line in the text: collaboration on a mass scale is set to change every institution in society.

Following that excerpt and the picture’s logic, assuming it to be flawless, imagine if smart people came together. And, dear reader, if you’re just starting to imagine that possibility, please come out of your rabbit hole. That was yesterday. But I post this question: Seriously? Every institution? I hope to live to see that day. Or at least bear witness to its beginnings. Or to stretch it to a challenge–be a part of the change that can change everything?

What do you say my fellow future OrCom practitioners?

………………………………..

I’m not a rain person. I don’t like storms because I don’t get to come out and play. And it makes me lazy and unproductive. And my shoes get dirty. Yes, I’m one of those few people who sing to make the rain go away. But I digress.

If icky wiknomics prescribes a perfect storm that’s from a global platform for collaboration:: the internet, a collaborating population:: that’s hopefully everyone and a global economy:: hopefully better than what we have today–then let’s get down and icky with the wiki…nomics.

This series/category “Comments for the Week” will document the LoudUser’s loud mouth. To put it in more acceptable (and more me) terms, these are my comments on my OrComates blogs. Basically, I’m doing this so I can keep track of my comments.

Here’s my take on:

Sir Barry’s OrCom Seniors, Exposed!

Nash Albacea’s License

Kervi Maximo’s My Experience of The Apocalypse

Paula Batalla’s To die or To Live–That is the question!

Arven Eusebio’s How To Get Into The Internet

Arvin Razon’s Who Are You Christopher Locke