Of jobs, failure and life in general.

Now, I’m the last person you should ever ask about jobs or anything related to it. Not only have I not worked a day in my life, but I also haven’t even applied for a job or even thought of having a part-time job. It’s not that I’m rich or anything, I’m just lazy. Now, seeing as I have to look for a job for my OJT this coming summer, I think I ought to rethink my beliefs about the workplace.

Being a “job virgin” so to speak, I learned a lot from what we have discussed this Saturday. I thought job interviews were easy as pie, they are not. Personally, I can just speak my way through a regular interview, or so I thought until Sir Barry told us about companies who give these so-called “Targeted Selection Interviews” or interviews in which the interviewer specifically wants to hear actual events, not just those stupid Miss Universe questions that most other “lesser” companies have. I was dumbfounded to say the least. Not only do I have to face some random guy I don’t even know drilling me with questions, I also have to answer him honestly and appropriately with a S.T.A.R.* response. What a great idea for someone like me.

Frankly, I don’t think I have a S.T.A.R. under my belt. I’m just being honest. I’m a member in my org, I don’t do anything, I’m not a problem solver, I’m not as smart as those other folks out there. Where the hell is my freakin edge? Then I thought of J.K. Rowling. What the hell? J effing K Rowling? Yes, J.K. Rowling, and her speech for the Harvard graduates I read for our Anthro 185 class. She talked about failure, of all things, and how that failure made her appreciate what she had, and what she can do. I guess, in a way, that is my edge. The fact that i wasted a year of my college life and got dismissed, the way my parents shouted at me for not doing what I’m supposed to do, these things are my advantage. These college graduates graduating on time and having high grades would hardly know what it feels like for everyone of your friends; your batchmates, march on that stage, while you’re in the audience wishing that you could have been there. I know how that would feel. I know how it feels for everyone else to be already starting their research for their respective theses, while I’m just starting to learn what the hell am I supposed to write in a thesis. All these things, are my advantage.

Am I crazy? I don’t think so, but hear me out here. I have felt the stench of failure more than anyone in my batch, and I have realized I am not easily fazed by things like that. If I fall down, I know I can get back up. If there’s a problem I can’t deal with, I know there are people out there who can help me. And I realized there are enough people who still believe that I can do anything so long as I put my mind to it. These things I would not have learned and these experiences I would not have if I weren’t a “failure”. Sure I have regrets, anyone who has failed always has regrets, but what matters is what you’ve learned about yourself and from that experience, what you’ve learned about other people. They say that you learn more from failing that from success, I can attest to that. It taught me more than what other people could give as advice and what I could read from books. Now I don’t advice anyone to fail just so you learn from it, that’s just stupid. What I’m saying is, don’t be afraid of failure, embrace it, accept it as a part of life. If you don’t get that job you want, something else is waiting for you. You had to repeat a big part of your thesis research? Think of it as a way to improve your thesis. You failed to graduate on time? Think of it as more time to understand your course and to learn as much as you can from your professors. The glass is never half-empty, it’s always half-full to those who choose to see it that way.

*Situation/Task, Action, Result – S.T.A.R.

Arr-duino.

Avast ye landlubbers! Never mind, the pirate thing doesn’t suit me. Anyway, this is a long overdue blog post, and I hope it interests you as much as me being a pirate (ARR!).

Arduino. Now, what the hell in the world is an Arduino? An Arduino is basically an open source electronic prototyping platform. Now, what would I do with an Arduino then? You can attach some servos to the Arduino to make a sort of robot, you can use it to make an infrared detector, you can make LED’s dance to music, etc. Anything you can imagine, you can program it into the Arduino. Only thing you need to have are some programming know how and some electrical components and you’d be busy for hours.

Now, what’s so special about the Arduino? It’s open-source. You can edit and change the software programmed into the chip. And not only is the programming software open-source, the plans for making an Arduino platform from scratch can be found on the site (www.arduino.cc). If you’re too lazy to make one, you can also buy one pre- made from the site.

The Arduino is a good example of how Wikinomics works. Everything is open-source, anyone can edit it, anyone can add to it, and anyone can use it. Most electronics companies keep their trade secrets all to themselves, not allowing the basic electronics hobbyist a chance to make something similar of their own. The Arduino makes it easy for either a casual electronics hobbyist or a professional programmer to start making new devices at a low cost (basically none if you already have some parts), and it also makes it easy for someone to customize it to their own preference, or customize it for someone else’s use.

This is vital in a changing world; companies who want to be at the forefront of change should be transparent, and they should be open to sharing their know-how to people because that’s basically what the consumer nowadays wants. They want to know how things work, and customize it as to how they want to use it. Gone are the days of the lone company monopolizing a certain market, what’s happening today is that companies are tapping into the consumers themselves and to an extent; other companies. These make the world a little bit smaller and makes it easier to know what’s happening in order for companies to not only go with the flow, but to influence what’s new and what’s hip, and also predict what will happen in the months to come. Information, when properly used and analyzed, is indeed power.

this is evolution

Things change, people change, communication changes.

Remember all those cartoons you used to watch as a kid? How about all those funny commercials that made you laugh when you were little? How about the comics you used to read in the newspapers or in those twenty peso comic books? Much of what we remember in our youth were either on tv ads, radio ads, or newsprint. Nowadays, we talk about that dress we saw on someone’s blog, that new video of that band we love listening to, and that funny webcomic that we subscribed to. Pretty similar in context, but different in medium. That’s how communication evolved, and that’s what the BIS model talks about.

Broadcast

Companies used to invest a lot of money in print media, radio, and television advertising, even if it costs millions of pesos. Why? because those reach the most number of audiences and those forms of media are the most widely available and are the easiest to tap. Never mind if the company loses quite a bit of money in the process, we’d always get more customers through those mindless people we expose our products and services to. And for the longest time, up until now, it has been the most effective form of advertising available.

Interactive

A few years back, there was something called ARPA, which basically made the predecessor of what we now call the internet. During the internet’s early years, the internet was something like a carnival, more of a novelty than a necessity, something that companies won’t even think about tapping into. Forums mainly talked about what people think about issues, not what they think about a product. Tn a marketplace. Then some bright minds though something novel: Why not use the internet, basically a cheap and sometimes free resource, as a means to get to our audience? By wahe same goes for internet chatrooms, it was more of an opinion swapping place rather thay of forums, chatrooms, websites and the like, companies can not only get themselves out there, but they also knew what people thought of them, and what strategy should be used in order to get ahead of the competitors. People were not mere viewers, more and more people acted as co-creators, companies asked the people what they liked and/or wanted, and the people spoke. It was a great resource to tap into, and companies today generally have a website or forum of some sort where people can talk about their products or services and in turn the company gets feedback, a vital part of communication.

Social Media

Social media is the wave of the future. People are not mere participants or passive viewers, they have the ability to make, change and regulate the content that they put out and the content that comes to them. Gone are the days of people just browsing the internet in anonymity. People can freely share what they’re offering to other people. Control is given to the passive viewers making them into both the consumers and publishers of information. Though, there is an inherent risk involved when everyone is given this much power. Information validity is hard to measure, and you’d be lucky to find a few good sources of accurate information; most are just people trying to get your attention and more often than not, they get it. The advantage to this is that aside from the amount of control given, the information comes to you in real time. It’s information that you get as soon as it comes out, the truth of it may be questionable, but you got it as soon as it came out, and if you got it from a trusted source, that’s as good as social media gets.

BIS Model Of Communication

B-Broadcast “We tell you.”
I-Interactive “Tell us what you think of what we tell you.”
S-Social Media “Tell each other.”

i hate long reads: internet apocalypso

“Internet Apocalypso” is a lengthy read, more so if you’re reading it from a computer and not sniffing that sweet scent of paper that good books seem to always be printed on. A lengthy read it is, but it’s a very interesting one and worth every bit of your attention you silly MTV generation persons with impossibly short attention spans.

people of earth . . .

“Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”

-The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

What a great quote to use to generally summarize what the chapter is all about. The internet is fairly new compared to things like television, newspapers and radio. But in terms of its spread and its ability to influence people’s decisions, it’s a veritable gold mine for corporations seeking new ways on how to do business; and that for the most part, is what Internet Apocalypso says.

Companies HAVE to take advantage of the internet. They can’t act like a bunch of scared puppies looking at a new owner for the first time. They have to embrace the fact that soon, the internet may perhaps be the ONLY media available. Heck, there’s internet radio, there’s online news, there’s also internet radio. What’s next? Holograms of actual products that we can see through our computers? The world’s changing, deal with it.

A good example of what not to do is still relying solely on old-fashioned means in order to get yourself out there. I’m sure there are still a lot of people who think that the internet is not as credible a source as newspapers, tvs and radios. But if you think about it, that’s what people first thought when the radio came out. They questioned wether this thing will be a hit, or a huge miss; it’s the same thing as when the television first came out.

Now, I’m not saying that the internet is as credible as those things, but if you think about it, the internet has some credibility as most news companies have sites where users can easily access the news. And it’s free. As they say, the best things in life are free.

And like how the internet has taken hold of many facets of our lives, I say to all of you who still doubt the internet : ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

the virginal first post.

Now, blogging is aboslutely NOT my strong suit. The main thing I do when I’m online is either chat or look up things on youtube and/or wikis. I firmly believe that blogging is the poison in our society and I don’t like getting poisoned thank you very much. But, this is a requirement in our class, a class that I intend to pass mainly due to the fact that I’ve been wasting my time during my third year in college and now i have to make something of myself otherwise my future gets ruined, yada yada.

So here it is, the first “official” blog post of a non-blogger (tbh, I actually had a blog, though I gave up on it). Kudos to you Sir Barry for making me blog. Only two things in the world can actually make me do something against my will, the first is if it’s a requirement for a class, and second is if my girlfriend says so.

Oh, and btw, I still HATE blogging.