Tricia V. Morente

My Writing Portfolio

Tricia — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:00:13 +0000

PUBLISHED WORKS

MANILA BULLETIN

BALIKBAYAN MAGAZINE

August-September 2010: “Destination: Hamilo Coast – 365 Days of Summer”

CLICKTHECITY.COM

HIPP (Happy Intelligent Progressive Parenting)

MAVEN MAGAZINE

Maven Magazine November-December 2011: “The Art of Reinvention”
Maven Magazine

METRO MAGAZINE

SME MAGAZINE

SME Magazine December 2010: The Prime Player

STAR STUDIO MAGAZINE

Star Studio Magazine December 2010

WEDDING ESSENTIALS MAGAZINE

WE Discovery 2010: Clear Channels
WE 2010: Mich Dulce
WE 2010: Sweet Inspiration

Netting Big

Tricia — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:22:27 +0000

MANILA, Philippines — With advancements in digital technology now playing a vital factor in most companies’ corporate strategies, The Net Group President and Director Charlie Rufino gives the once-golden rule of business a little tweak.

“It’s no longer ‘location, location, location,’” shared Rufino in the last Asia CEO forum held at the Dusit Thani Manila. “It is now ‘location, bandwidth, location,’” he says, adding that what has happened in the real estate high-rise office industry in the last 10 years has been unbelievable. “Seventy percent of our data now comes from the BPOs, shared services, back office, offshoring, rightshoring—it has been unbelievable growth,” Rufino says.

With over 300,000 square meters projected office take-up in the Philippines versus Singapore’s 115,000, Rufino attributes the growth in numbers to the country’s improving bandwidth. It’s also the reason why his company chose to put up its series of Net buildings in Fort Bonifacio Global City (FBGC).

“We’re concentrating on Bonifacio because the PEZA IT zone is here,” shares Rufino. “It’s the ‘brains’ of Bonifacio. These days we’re not so interested in airports,” he says, “we’re more interested in submarine cable landings because once you get that desired bandwidth, you’re going to be able to compete with anyone in the world.”

Innovative city

When his company won the bid to do the development of Fort Bonifacio Global City from the BCDA in 1995, Rufino shares that it was going to be the size of the city of Boston at eight million square meters. As head of the planning team, “we needed to determine what our vision for Bonifacio was going to be,” he says, “because there are basically four types of cities—a functioning city, and there are a lot of these in China; a systematic city like Seoul, Korea, where everything works efficiently—from the transit system to the people; an innovative city like Vancouver where people love to be there because it really works; and a city like Paris, a visionary city.”

Fort Bonifacio, shares Rufino, was designed to be an innovative city like Vancouver. And in little over a decade, Bonifacio Global City achieved exactly that and has become one of the country’s central business districts.

What most people aren’t aware of, Rufino reveals, “is that right in the heart of Fort Bonifacio—in that ramp area in Burgos Circle—there’s a seven-storey storm detention tank whose circumference is the width of EDSA, and it can take millions of gallons of water.

Fort Bonifacio is 32 meters above sea level—it won’t flood. But all that water absorbed by Bonifacio will go down some places and inundate many places in Makati, so what we’ve done in Bonifacio is put up storm detention tanks so we can store the water in a past storm like Ondoy, keep it there and pump it out the following day to avoid storm surge.

It’s very innovative,” he says, “it’s never been heard of in the Philippines, it’s done in Fort Bonifacio, and all below ground and nobody knows it’s there.”

Trends trump spreadsheets

A business may have the best computation for properties, the best cash flow analysis and financial projections, says Rufino, “but if they miss out on the trend, they miss out on the larger things.”

It’s exactly what happened to the now defunct movie houses of the ’50s. Rufino shares: “Movie houses in the Philippines, like the ones in Avenida, Rizal, were the highest grossing in the world, and at that time everybody wanted to own one.

They used to earn their payback in two years, but now their cash flow is zero. It’s the same if you’re talking about office real estate, The trend is moving away from the port and closing in on the airport. It’s moving away from the historical sites. The property in Makati and FBGC are starting to increase in value tremendously.”

It’s this trend that’s pushed The Net Group to build its series of Net Buildings in Fort Bonifacio. With five buildings already standing and the Net Lima reaching completion in 2012 (“it’s going to be the first of three towers that’s coming out that will make up our 144,000 square meter Net Metropolis,” he says), Rufino’s company is shaping up to be the dominant developer in the FBGC CBD.

“We’re always checking what people think about us,” he says. “We go online and we get into a skyscraper forum where all these architects are always memberscritiquing our building. ‘Another big black box,’ they said. So this is going to be proof that we’re thinking out of the box. We took the mold and broke it, and we’re starting all over again.”

Published in the November 21, 2011 issue of the Manila Bulletin’s Business Agenda section.

TV’s ‘Big 3′ discuss future of media

Tricia — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:21:58 +0000

PILI, Camarines Sur, Philippines — An event of epic proportions aptly describes the gathering of television’s top three network leaders to discuss the future of media on the third day of the 22nd Philippine Advertising Congress (Ad-Congress22) here Friday.

ABS-CBN Chairman & CEO Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III, GMA Network, Inc. Chairman & CEO Felipe L. Gozon, and ABC-TV5 Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan discussed their individual takes on the future of media and its impact on the advertising industry.

“Digital technology has given consumers more opportunity to control their time, with content made for television now available in at least three screens — television, the Internet and mobile. Primetime has become a moveable feast,” said Gozon.

With content consumption through mobile devices increasing, ABC-TV5 Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan added that, “Eventually SMS will slowly be overtaken by over-the-top messaging on your BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), Android’s Google Chat and iMessage amongst others. When you think about it, this could end roaming and your physical SIM cards.”

Even with advancements in digital technology, all three speakers agreed that television will still remain a critical medium to brand loyalty. “No other medium can be as ubiquitous because no other medium can reach more than 90 percent of target audience,” said Gozon.

The GMA Network boss predicted that the entertainment and media market in the Philippines may even be in for modest growth.

Even with the volume of ad spending on the decline due to economic problems experienced in Europe and the US, Gozon said that “the Philippines has been counted among the more dynamic markets in Southeast Asia where demand for TV remains high.”

From 2006 to 2010, a Nielsen survey revealed that the total ad spend in the Philippines averaged 72 percent, with TV remaining the cheapest form of entertainment for about 94 percent of Filipino households. Demand for television will remain high as driven by the economic status of majority of the population.

“Television will thrive in a digital world,” said Lopez. “The future of media will be shaped by the people’s needs, which at its core is emotional. Technology will change everything except the human nature to crave for affirmation, recognition and connection,” he added.

As far as competition goes, all three networks are investing heavily on enabling technologies.

ABS-CBN is currently undergoing test broadcast for its Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT), a service that will give clear digital signals and additional channels to people who cannot afford pay television.

GMA, on the other hand, gives citizen journalists a certain level of participative power in its interactive youscoop.tv where all content is user-generated.

With regard to TV5’s current number three position, Pangilinan said: “We need to spend and invest in the appropriate amounts [to attract advertisers. We intend to be here in the long term and it’s difficult when you have two very strong incumbents. But as a group, we will be an active catalyst in changing the future of Philippine TV. We have to. Otherwise, we would still be number three.”

Published on the front page of The Manila Bulletin, November 18, 2011

Make tourism a people’s campaign, says Jimenez

Tricia — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 08:59:25 +0000

PILI, Camarines Sur, Philippines – Veteran adman and now Department of Tourism (DoT) Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez, Jr. delivered an empowering keynote address to over 2,000 delegates in this year’s 22nd Philippine Advertising Congress (AdCongress22) themed “Change the Game” at the CamSur Watersports Complex (CWC) here last Thursday.

“In my three months as your Tourism Secretary, I learned that it is far easier to be the one to change the way the game is played than to simply be the one who plays the current game well,” said Jimenez.

The mainstream approach to tourism places financially-challenged countries like the Philippines at a tremendous disadvantage.

Jimenez said: “Countries that have money have the resources to build infrastructure that affords tourists seamless movement from the airport to the hotel, to the tourist destination, and back. The relative affluence of these countries and societies allows them to create an image of wonder and spectacle, safety and security – something which tourists value a lot.”

Greater resources also enable competing Asian countries to invest on their key tourist arrival targets by keeping their pricing competitive.

“All these strengths will be extremely difficult for the Philippines to generate in the immediate future. Our pricing strategies are disorganized to say the least,” said Jimenez.

One of the country’s advertising pillars, Jimenez asserts that the key to successful marketing in any endeavor is distinctiveness and uniqueness. Competition may have all the money to spend on advertising above and below the line, but Jimenez said we have something even more potent. “Over 12 million Filipino workers activate the Filipino brand overseas every day of the year; 27 million Pinoys are on Facebook; and 10 million in Twitter. More than any country in Asia, the Philippines has the power of buzz – buzz creation beyond anything our competition can generate even if they tried,” he said.

While traditional tourism involves centrally-controlled and crafted marketing communications, Jimenez said that the game-changer will be “a campaign that will have a central strategy executed and propagated by millions of active and enthusiastic Filipinos who feel they have the power to persuade people to visit their country as tourists.”

He added that, “A genuine tourism campaign is a people’s campaign. People Power at EDSA was but the launch of an era that unfolds before us today – that of millions of Filipinos critically and emotionally connected to each other and the world, expressing their views, causing trends, raising funds, making a difference and doing it in great numbers. We are, therefore, natural game-changers because we cannot play the game the way the world plays it; because we are Filipinos.”

Jimenez ended his speech by congratulating the AdCongress22 organizers in the theme’s selection. “It is, more than people realize, very relevant and timely. It is a theme that commands attention because it provokes thought. By its very implication, ‘Change the Game’ places the Filipino where he is rarely at, most of the year. It places us in a competitive frame of mind,” he said.

Such was the mind-set of the delegates in the first-ever digital ad congress in the history of the Advertising Board of the Philippines (AdBoard). Joining Jimenez in the club of Filipino game-changers present in CWC Thursday were award-winning director Brillante Mendoza, furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue and the Philippine Azkals’ Aly Borromeo, Phil Younghusband and James Younghusband.

Charlene Li, co-author of the best-selling book “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies,” brought the AdCongress22 delegates up to date on the latest trends in social technologies and their business applications.

AdCongress22 is organized by the AdBoard in cooperation with its media members: The United Print Media Group (UPMG), the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP), the Independent Blocktimers Association (IBA), the Cinema Advertisers Association of the Philippines (CAAP) and the Outdoor Advertising Association of the Philippines (OAAP). The Philippine Daily Inquirer president and CEO Sandy Prieto-Romualdez is overall AdCongress22 chairperson.

Published on the front page of the Manila Bulletin on November 17, 2011

AdCongress22: Bracing to change the game

Tricia — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:56:42 +0000

CAMARINES SUR – After months of preparation and anticipation, the 22nd Advertising Congress (AdCongress22) formally opened Wednesday as industry leaders challenged over 2,000 delegates to take on fresher perspectives in their “attack” on the ever-dynamic changes and trends in the advertising world.

Advertising Board of the Philippines (Adboard) Chair Andre S. Khan said in a press conference that with major countries experiencing economic downturns, the advertising industry is gearing for real hardship next year.

“Based on the number of pitches that the industry went through, there were less pitches for new business this year than last year,” Khan said.

“Because of what’s happening in Europe and the US, this coming year may be a little more difficult because major economies are undergoing downturns and this affects the Philippines. But on the other end, we feel there is no better time to invest in your own business and your own country than now because the peso has remained strong,” he added.

The advertising industry has changed and evolved, especially with the advent of digital technology.

AdCongress22 Chair and Philippine Daily Inquirer President Alexandra “Sandy” Prieto Romualdez said, “Our businesses and our jobs have changed dramatically in the last few years along with the rules of consumer engagement. And to stay in the game, we can no longer play by the same rules. So it’s either we let the game change us, or we change the game.”

With quite the thought-provoking theme, “Change the Game,” this year’s Ad Congress hits the ground nary Camarines Sur into one of the primary tourist destinations in the country, CamSur Governor L-Ray Villafuerte said that CamSur is ready to take on the challenge of hosting this year’s Ad Congress.

“When I presented to the AdCongress22 committee a few months ago, I told them that I had planned this event as a personal commitment and vision that someday we would host the Ad Congress. Today is the fruition of our vision. We built two convention centers in five months and CamSur is all set and ready to welcome the delegates,” Villafuerte said.

Meanwhile, the opening of the multimillion peso trade exhibit dubbed as “TRADEX22 RUGAME?” featuring hundreds of booths with the country’s leading brands showcasing their best products and services also opened Wednesday.

This article was published in the November 16 issue of the Manila Bulletin.

From ‘trailer trash’ to trailblazer

Tricia — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:53:28 +0000

Whoever said you couldn’t mix business with pleasure would do well to have a conversation with Sanuk Founder Jeff Kelley.

A former dishwasher at a coffee shop, Kelley counts himself among the lucky few (“I still pinch myself every single day,” he says) who get to build business empires around the things they love the most.

Blending his innate curiosity to invent and innovate with his passion for surfing has enabled Kelley to blaze new trails in the footwear industry by creating sandals—“not shoes”—from just about every material, texture and pattern imaginable. “I’ve always been into really weird footwear as a kid,” shares Kelley. “I used to make sandals out of bicycle tires for my friends when I was in high school,” he says, “I was always the kind of guy who was tinkering with stuff.”

When Kelley found himself in the action-sports world in the ’80s designing “deck pads” used to keep surfers on their boards without having to use surf wax, he realized the benefits of being barefoot after an afternoon running around with his surfboard.

“We were already talking about the benefits of being barefoot and walking on a barefoot motion long before the barefoot running phenomenon became mainstream,” Kelley explains. “Sanuk’s story,” he says, “has always been about how they help strengthen the feet because they’re made on sandal foot beds and they’re very flexible.”

‘Trailer trash’

Sanuk has grown quite extensively since its inception in 1997—thanks, interestingly enough, to a flagship product that Kelley originally branded as a “trailer trash sandal” made out of real indoor-outdoor carpet.

“In the States, if you’re poor and you live in a trailer park, you use indoor-outdoor carpet as your lawn,” he explains. “People were telling me, ‘What the heck were you thinking?’” he relates, “but the funny thing was those green sandals I designed, the people who embraced it the most weren’t the surf shops. It was the upscale boutiques. I was promoting it as trailer trash and folks like Fred Segal and Louis Boston picked it up.”

Sanuk’s DNA has since expanded to accommodate raw materials that range from bamboo, rain ponchos, furniture upholsteries, wire mesh and yoga mats. “The one thing that’s unique about Sanuk,” Kelley says, “is that when we’re designing a collection, I’ll take my design crew to places where most people won’t go to look for materials. One time we went to a furniture area in China and we found furniture upholsteries we could work with. We try to keep it unique.”

Creative and out of control

Innovating in a lot of new categories has always been what Sanuk is about. The Voodoo, its first big commercial success, was a brightly colored sandal that looked like spaghetti. “Nobody had anything like it because I was able to patent that design,” says Kelley.

Similarly their best-selling Sanuk Sidewalk Surfers, shoes constructed on a sandal foot bed, are also patented such that competitors cannot make knock-offs that feel exactly the same. Their yoga mat sandals also currently rank number one in the women’s sandals category in the United States.

“All these things didn’t exist in footwear prior,” he says. “If we made products that are just like everybody else’s, then it just comes down to a price war—and you can never be successful when you’re competing on price,” he says, “so we constantly innovate.”

Kelley’s out-of-the-box perspective translates to how he runs his company as well. “We’re really out of control,” he says. “It is so fun and I’m so blessed I work with so many talented people. The way I’ve set the office up is we have one big room, no walls, and on one end is the guys that do most of the graphics, in the middle is my viral marketing and media guys, and on the left is my design and development people. We’re all in the same room and they can all see and interact with each other. There are no walls and there’s just a lot of exchange of ideas going around,” he shares.

Such work environment has given way to not only innovation in product design, but also in the way the company retails, promotes and markets its products. “We recently came up with an ad campaign called ‘Cut and Paste,’” shares Kelley. “I sponsor a lot of professional climbers and surfers and they’re constantly traveling and they’re hard to pin down for a photo shoot. Out of necessity, what I’ve done is taken pictures of their faces in pretty much every expression or angle you can imagine and we catalog those. When we wanna do an ad, we just draw the ad and paste the right face for that moment, and it’s been really good for us because we don’t even have to call these guys in for a photo shoot. It also allows us to be beyond creative,” he says, “because anything we dream up, we just draw, and we inject humor into everything we do.”

‘Crazy growth’

Surfing remains a vital part of Kelley—and Sanuk’s—DNA. To kick off the surf break season, Kelley brought professional surfer and musician Donavon Frankenreiter to the Philippines to promote the brand through a series of mini concerts and outdoor events.

“I’ve always been big on supporting the surfing culture,” he says, “and here in the Philippines you have all these perfect waves all over the place and it’s just a matter of getting some guys to find those places. When that happens, there’s going to be a huge population of surfers that’s going to travel here. I give it five years and you’re gonna see a giant boom in the whole culture.”

One of the things that draw people to surfing is the healthy lifestyle, and it’s also that “green” aspect that works well for Sanuk. “We’re one of the few companies that were not affected by the recession in the States,” shares Kelley. “I think it’s because we’re reasonably priced and we’re selling a healthy lifestyle,” he says, “and people are really starting to understand and talk about that, which has been great for us.”

Currently available in over 60 countries and expected to generate $70 million in sales this year, Sanuk has become pretty successful and with so much potential still. With its recent acquisition by the Deckers Outdoor Corporation, the coming years spell “crazy growth for Sanuk,” says Kelley. “The brand has the potential to be $500 million, but it’s going to require a larger infrastructure than the one we have now. Deckers already has that infrastructure in place and they’ll allow us to beef up our marketing budget so we can get the Sanuk message out to a broader audience and then have the back end to be able to make it happen,” he says.

Despite the sale of the company, Kelley still remains with Sanuk heading product development and overall creatives for the brand. Asked if selling Sanuk has always been part of his plan, Kelley shares, “I really didn’t think about selling it until I got to this point. It was always so much fun, it still is so much fun, and things are really going good. But,” he ends in typical Kelley humor and levity, “it’s hard to say no when someone offers you 120 million dollars.”

Published in the Business Agenda section of Manila Bulletin, November 7, 2011

The Business of Social Change

Tricia — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:51:24 +0000

From agrarian reform advocate to diversified agribusiness; from environmental activism to sustainable community-based tourism; from protecting indigenous people’s rights to distributing organic rice—these are just some examples of the growing number of social enterprises mushrooming across the country.

In the recent “Social Enterprise: The Next Business Model” conference organized by five of the country’s biggest civil society and business groups, a new breed of forward-looking local practitioners shared how they were able to achieve financial sustainability while making an impact on the communities they worked with.

Indeed, now is the time for the social enterprise, says Bobby Calingo, executive director of the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF). “They’re not new in the field of development,” he says, “but only in the last few years do you see them coming together, moving up, and scaling in terms of their markets. Only now do we see community-based products being sold in department stores; and these are good products with good packaging and competitive prices.”

PEF, a “one-size-fits-all” social investor, has worked closely with various organizations to provide potable water, healthcare and disaster relief to the country’s poorest communities. “But,” Calingo shares, “in the next five years, we’re focusing on developing the social enterprisesector. This is by doing two things— by financing and providing for thefinancial needs of enterprises; andby looking at the technical assistance and support component. How can we help social enterprises be equipped with the skills and infrastructure for them to grow and penetrate new markets?”

The next business model

Coinciding with its 10th year anniversary, the PEF found it fitting to engage thought leaders in a conference that broke new ground locally as the first to publicize successful business models of social enterprise.

Mark Ruiz, co-founder and managing director of MicroVentures, Inc., relates his experience in putting up Hapinoy, a social enterprise that aims to support communities. “The story of Hapinoy is really two worlds coming together,” Ruiz shares. “When my business partner [Bam Aquino] and I decided to put up a business,” he says, “we wanted that at its core it should help people. And what we try to do in Hapinoy is basically empower disadvantaged women in rural areas, particularly sari-sari store owners working with microfinance institutions (MFIs).”

With over 800,000 sari-sari stores nationwide, and with each store owned and run by a micro entrepreneur, Ruiz and Aquino observed how fragmented the industry was. “What we did was work with MFIs to help gather, aggregate and organize these sari-sari store owners,” shares Ruiz, “and as we gathered them, we had a new channel to reach out to the poor community.”

Hapinoy has since become a channel to support communities who had difficulty accessing the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) market. “And we now use this as an alternative channel to distribute products and services to benefit poor communities,” he adds, “because when you go to a rural barangay, you’ll see that while there are soft drinks and noodles being sold in the stores, there is no electricity or drinkable water. So aside from FMCG products, what we really want is to bring in solar products, over-the-counter medicine, and drinkable water as well.”

Issues, challenges

Joan Cua Uy, an agro-enterprise consultant who works with the Catholic Relief Services, points out that one of the challenges for small rural vegetable producers is the presence of the middleman.

There are many actors in the market chain, Uy says, and often “it is the trader—the go-between in the market chain where at one end is the small farmer/producer and the other end is the consumer—that stands to benefit the most.

The challenge for us producers in the wet market,” she says, “is in knowing what innovations to look at, what segments we can move towards that can give us more value.” The oft-common relationship between producers and traders has always been an adversarial one. “Both parties are under the impression that the other is taking advantage,” Uy relates, “but it would be better for social enterprises to collaborate in a way that will be mutually beneficial in terms of creating value to players in the market chain.”

According to Uy, most producers who work in a mass market, such as those selling commodity goods like coffee and rice, respond by competing as a single organized supplier. Consolidating means bringing their products directly to the buyer, without having to go through the middleman. “But in the end what’s really important,” Uy says, “is that we have to be competitive. We need to organize the producers and their production base, move with high volumes, large markets, economies of scale and reduce our costs.”

Some do this using an unconventional approach: product differentiation thru niche markets. “Not all producers can work in a mass market so what they do is shift to an alternative marketing channel,” shares Uy. Such is the case of Kape Isla, a coffee blend promoted by the Philippine Coffee Board as a quality coffee label that can compete in the global market. “Price competition isn’t even the issue here,” Uy says, “but the value is in the product’s uniqueness.”

Teaching producers about retail figures highly into a product’s chances of success as well, adds Jeannie Javelosa, co-founder of EchoStore, a one-stop shop for sustainable lifestyle products. “Almost all social enterprises are producers looking for markets where you try to give them a doorway to the consumer thru a small echo village store,” Javelosa says, “but the challenge is really how to teach them retail, marketing, how to put their brand on the shelf, etc.,and this is something we learn thru experience.”

An untapped competitive advantage

In most industries of any size, the most powerful enabler to succeed in business is the supply chain. “It is that area that will actually determine if your business is going to be profitable, reactive or proactive, if you’re going to be sustainable, have obsolete inventories or if you’re goingto lose the market you’re trying to cater to,” shares Charlie Villasenor, CEO of TransProcure, a supply management company.

According to Villasenor, social enterprises need an end-to-end analysis of where they stand within that particular direction. “What this tells us is one thing,” Villasenor says, “it is easier to gain profitability by managing the cost side of the business than it is getting more customers to sell your products to. Money saved is money added to the bottom line. It’s exactly what the major companies are doing, and for social enterprises to become financially sustainable, they would do well to follow the best practices of existing industry leaders.”

Published in the Business Agenda section of Manila Bulletin, October 31, 2011

Global Reach in a Day

Tricia — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:48:53 +0000

There is no more social culture than in the Philippines—and there is nothing more social than in videos and videos shared,” shares Julian Persaud, managing director of Google Southeast Asia.

Indeed, Filipinos have embraced the Internet in a truly remarkable way. With at least 30 million Filipinos regularly accessing the Internet to study, shop, search for ideas and opportunities, create new businesses and connect with each other, the Philippines not only has a large number of people going online; more importantly, its online population is growing quite rapidly compared to the rest of Southeast Asia—“And the west,” adds Persaud.

“North America is growing at only three percent, Europe at eight, but the Philippines is growing at a remarkable 16 percent. In fact,” he says, “the Philippine Internet population is larger than the population of many Southeast Asian countries.”

The rise of citizen journalism

The Philippines’ tight embrace of the Internet is nowhere more apparent than in YouTube, an online video sharing community that allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally created videos.

Launched in 2005 and acquired by Google in 2006, YouTube sees over 3 billion video views every day—a number that has grown over a billion from just 2 billion last year. “We see an incredible amount of video uploaded to YouTube every day, with 48 hours of video uploaded every single minute,” reveals Adam Smith, director for Product Management, Google.

YouTube, shares Smith, is also moving away from being a desktop product. “It is now an essential product for everyone on their mobile phones,” he says, pointing out the site currently attracts 400 million views a day on mobile phones alone.

“And particularly here in Asia,” he adds, “which is an area of focus and real area of growth for us, YouTube has become the ultimate democratic form of media.”

Because anyone with a video cam, a web cam or a mobile phone camera can now upload a video for free on the site and connect with potentially millions of people around the world, YouTube has emerged as an important tool for “citizen journalists.”

“We’re now witnessing regular people who find themselves smack in the middle of historic events able to capture these events and broadcast them on YouTube,” Smith shares. “The end result of all this creation is an unbelievable breadth of content.”

“Filipinos have a particular affinity for being world citizens,” adds Persaud, “and for all these reasons, our investment on the Philippines and in Southeast Asia is a long-term initiative.”

Promoting transparent governance

Last October 13, YouTube made its official debut in the Philippines when it launched a localized version of the website. The brand new YouTube Philippines is the online video sharing community’s first localized platform in Southeast Asia.

“Filipinos have consistently made up a very large audience and community on the YouTube platform,” says Smith, adding that Filipinos account for the highest view counts in the Asia Pacific region. “We see tens of millions of views a day from the Philippines, and Filipinos watch over a million hours of videos every day. Those are just amazing, amazing statistics,” he says.

Every time YouTube launches in a given country, it gives opportunities for local users and partners to showcase local content and service popular geographically relevant content.

One prominent addition to YouTube concurrent with the launch will be two updated Presidential channels from His Excellency Benigno Aquino III, namely RTVM and the Official Gazette, both created to make the government more accessible to the Filipinos.

“Through social media, particularly the new RTVM and Official Gazette channels, Filipinos around the world can see and hear their government in action, and just as importantly, use these channels to make their voices heard,” says Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Secretary of Communications Development, Ricky Carandang.

The RTVM channel will be a free accessible means through which Filipinos, or anyone interested in Philippine culture, can watch the President’s public appearances, as well as view archived government media interviews and events that date as far back as 1987.

The Official Gazette, which will be headed by Undersecretary Manuel L. Quezon III, serves as the main portal for video content for the Philippine government and will feature infomercials and public service announcements from the office of President Aquino.

In addition, President Aquino will also participate in YouTube’s World View, a live interview series that has seen different leaders and luminaries answering questions from people from all over the world.

“Our president will be joining the ranks of U.S. President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, all of whom have participated in the series, when he’s interviewed on November 4 this year,” Carandang shares, urging Filipinos to participate in the event by submitting questions to www.youtube.com/worldview. “President Aquino will be the first Asian head of state to do so,” he adds.

Helping build brands

In addition to the Presidential channels, YouTube also forged partnerships with top Filipino media companies like ABS-CBN, GMA Network, Inc., and TV5. Howie Severino, vice president for Multimedia Journalism of GMA and editor-in-chief of GMANews.tv, says the partnership with YouTube was a no-brainer.

“Our network is expanding very rapidly globally and we know that YouTube is in many places that GMA still isn’t. So primarily for us,” he says, “YouTube is a powerful means of extending our brand. In fact, we’re already using YouTube as a way of pulling content in and pushing content out.”

The online platform also provides new applications for business. Chad Sotelo, country marketing manager for Personal Care and Cleansing at Procter & Gamble—which has been in the Philippines for 76 years and playing in 15 categories in the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) industry—shares that the launch of YouTube Philippines enables the company to find new ways to reach and create quality engagement with consumers over and above traditional media.

“Since the advent of digital, and the launch of YouTube, we’re noticing two things,” Sotelo says.

“One is that Filipinos love to talk, and they love to talk back. One of the things we like to say in office is that in the past 76 years, bulk of that time we’ve been speaking to consumers and only in the past four years did we start listening. And for a 76-year relationship where you’ve been speaking 97 percent of the time, the other party would have a lot to say,” he says.

As more and more businesses reach out and engage with Filipinos over YouTube, Sotelo says that companies are finding that consumers have a lot of opinion not only about what a company stands for, but also about its products and what it tries to talk about.

“With the advent of YouTube Philippines, we are simply amazed by the creativity this brings to life. We’re very excited to see what Athings we can do with YouTube for all our brands in this country, and how else we can further create an engaged relationship with our consumers,” Sotelo shares.

YouTube’s localized launch also means revenue for local content providers, spelling income opportunities for local musicians, independent filmmakers and artists on top of global exposure. Revenue will be generated when advertisements are displayed against YouTube’s partner’s videos.

“Reaching an agreement with YouTube is a step forward that creates opportunities for artists, one of which is receiving fair payment for the use of their works on YouTube,” affirms Debbie Gaite, general manager of the Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

Francis “Brew” Reyes, co-founder of PinoyTuner.com shares Gaite’s enthusiasm. “I don’t think I have to explain how massive an impact partnering with YouTube will have on our community,” says Reyes.

Published in the Business Agenda section of Manila Bulletin, October 24, 2011

Where nothing goes to waste

Tricia — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:46:02 +0000

While politicians bicker over act ion on global warming, a growing number of businesses—from start-ups to multinationals—are taking action and cutting greenhouse gas emissions on their own. These environmentally minded companies have started implementing ideas that range from as simple as nearly waterless washing and using energy saving devices, to as complex as a “greening” of entire supply chains by multinationals and big retailers.

In the hospitality industry, while the response is still not equal to the challenge, things are moving in the right direction. “One of the most pressing challenges of businesses today is really in how they are able to sustainably manage their waste,” shares Susana “Annie” Guerrero, president of The Cravings Group and a staunch advocate of Zero Waste Management. “This is especially true in the hospitality industry because we handle a lot of waste. At Cravings,” Guerrero states, “nothing goes to waste. We want to show everyone in the hospitality industry that it’s really possible to go ‘Zero Waste.’”

Zero Waste

The Cravings Group started its operations in 1988 when Guerrero and her eldest daughter Badjie opened a bakeshop counter along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City. What started as a humble bakeshop has since grown into a chain of full-service restaurants (Cravings a n d C 2 C l a s s i c Cuisine), coffee shops (TCB), schools (CCA Manila and the Asian School for Hospitality Arts), hotels (Seven Suites Hotels and The Orange Place), the C3 events place, and a CSR arm called the Culinary Education Foundation.

Even before corporate social responsibility became mains t ream, The Cravings Group had already spearheaded a n Environment Management System (EMS) Committee five years after the business was set up. Comprised of four sub-committees divided according to the Four Es of Waste Management ( E d u c a t i o n , E n f o r c eme n t , Engineering and Entrepreneurship), the EMS Committee eventually evolved into the Cravings Group Goes Green (CG3), which was launched Earth Day, April 22, 2010.

“Environmentalism has been a personal mission since I was a kid,” Guerrero shares. “I come from a very self-sustaining family,” she says, “and everything we needed was in our backyard. We had a fish pond, a vegetable garden…sinanay kaming plant-based ang diet, and to minimize waste as much as possible.”

The Zero Waste philosophy, which encourages the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused, is felt across the entire organization. “We have a list of environmental programs that we encourage our employees to be involved in,” Guerrero shares. “Our story has always been about our struggle to be green, greener. And we believe that the more information and technologies are shared and exchanged, the faster we can move towards becoming both an environmentally and economically sound company,” she adds.

Economic Impact

The Cravings Group’s EMS Program was set up in compliance to the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003), says Guerrero. While the company has reached zero waste status, Guerrero laments that nationwide, the RA 9003 is still a failure in terms of compliance. “That law has been in place for 11 years now, but it hasn’t been properly implemented. In the last data I got from the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources), progress in terms of implementing this law is only 12 percent,” she states, “and that’s already for the entire 11 years.”

Guerrero, who acts as interim president of Zero Waste Philippines, further shares that an important way to encourage the practice of zero waste management is by making people realize its economic value. It was this idea that propelled the development of the Cravings Kaingin Eco Center, a 4,000-sqm site of permaculture development that serves as the Group’s source of organic vegetable and herbs, grown with the help of compost made from the Group’s recycled food waste. “The eco center also serves as a training center for composting, vermiculture, permaculture and creative recycling practices that provide sustainable livelihood for locals living in the area,” Guerrero shares.

The company also implemented the Green Chefmanship Training Program, in collaboration with the late environmentalist Odette Alcantara. The course aims to instill principles of a “green” kitchen to help lessen the chef’s carbon footprint. Other financially sustainable environmental programs include vinegar production, which recycles coconut water to produce naturally fermented vinegar for selling; composting and organic fertilizer production, which generates income from the sale of compost soil; and the publication of Guerrero’s book, “A-Z Green Guide for a Green Pinoy,” whose income helps support community outreach projects of the group.

“We have over 30 projects that not only help in saving the environment, but are also generating income to help sustain CG3,” Guerrero shares. “Our EMS fund continues to grow and we are already using it to finance new programs. We hope to show the hospitality industry and the government that saving the environment doesn’t necessarily mean all dole-outs,” she concludes, “because there really are job multipliers in just protecting the environment.”

Published in the Business Agenda section of Manila Bulletin, October 17, 2011

Making Filipino graduates more employable

Tricia — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:44:27 +0000

When the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011, it painted a picture of the global economy at a time characterized by significant uncertainty.

According to the WEF, “Economies are advancing at different speeds and there is still a risk of a ‘double dip’ in a number of countries.”

It then went on to highlight 12 pillars that determine a country’s level of competitiveness, one of which is Higher Education and Training. “Quality higher education and training,” the report states, “is crucial for economies that want to move up the value chain beyond simple production processes and products.

Today’s globalizing economy requires countries to nurture pools of well-educated workers who are able to adapt rapidly to their changing environment and the evolving needs of the production system.”

The report further revealed that the Philippines ranked a poor seventh among nine Southeast Asian nations in the area of education, science and technology, and innovation. Such a shame because in a recent media roundtable discussion with Jobstreet.com, Marketing Director Yoda Buyco revealed that there is actually a surplus of jobs available in the country.

Mismatch between education and actual employment

In the recent Jobstreet.com JobGantic Career Fair 2011 last August, Buyco reports that over 158,000 job opportunities were made available to 25,000 jobseekers that came to SMX during the two-day event. “Ang daming trabaho available, both local and overseas,” Buyco shares, adding that this year, 242 employers participated in the event. The IT-BPO sector, in particular, has been the most active in hiring.

“They represent 40 percent of the postings in our website,” says Buyco. “If you visit our website today,” she adds, “you will see close to 45,000 job postings in the website. That’s just the number of postings, because if you multiply the number of job openings per posting—and some of them can range as high as 25 openings per posting—you’ll see that the total number of jobs available amount to around 250,000.”

Given the number of job opportunities available in the country, why then do we still find ourselves facing a high unemployment rate? According to Jobstreet.com Campus Specialist Maricar Estrabo, it isn’t for a lack of jobseekers or jobs available.

“One job posting in our website would actually generate over a hundred candidates, but walang nakukuhang candidate because they lack skills,” she shares, “and this is especially true for the fresh graduates segment, the ones with only one to four years of experience.”

It’s the reason why pirating employees remains a widespread trend in the BPO sector. “The common complaint among employers is that if they bank on the talents of our fresh graduates now, they end up spending a lot on training because most of our fresh graduates are not really equipped and prepared for the workforce. There are gaps from becoming a student to an employee,” reports Estrabo.

The National Internship Movement

In line with Jobstreet.com’s mission of “improving lives through better careers,” the company recently launched the National Internship Movement, with the goal to institutionalize a formal internship program in the Philippines.

“There is no national agenda on internship,” shares Estrabo, “so this is really for us to engage different sectors to help create a sustainable internship program for the youth. Our goal is to connect 1,000 employers and schools in three years.”

According to Estrabo, different sectors have already pledged their support for the movement. “The academe is putting up internship programs for schools, but they want a stronger linkage program with different employers,” she says, adding that over 100 employers have also pledged support by establishing internship programs in their respective companies.

“We also wanted to provide students the linkages with them for monitoring and assessment. We want a 360-degree monitoring and assessment for employers, students and schools,” Estrabo says.

For its part, Jobstreet.com will be providing a rendezvous for all sectors to meet by way of a micro-site where internship opportunities will be posted. “This is really our CSR (corporate social responsibility),” injects Buyco.

“Usually when an employer posts an ad about a job opening in our website, we charge them because that’s our core revenue stream. But for all internships,” she says, “we will waive the charge and give it for free. So for all of those wanting to participate in the National Internship Movement, they can post their internship programs in our website for free.”

The company also spearheaded a campus career event themed “Leadership plus the Power of Three” last September 20, and it gathered thousands of student leaders from over 100 participating colleges and universities.

Esteemed speakers and trainers discussed how student leaders should practice and maximize their leadership skills while honing the three most sought-after skills by employers: communication skills, critical thinking skills and initiative.

It’s a long journey to institutionalize a formal internship program in the Philippines, especially because “we are dealing with the national government. It’s not going to happen overnight, but we hope that when we send out a report to DOLE about the good and bad internship practices we will be able to gather from our initial run, the government will realize the value of standardizing the process,” concludes Buyco.

Published in the Business Agenda section of Manila Bulletin, October 10, 2011