I have never been one to travel without any plans. In the past years I’ve always made detailed itineraries and read a gazillion of reviews online before heading off to some place I’ve never been to before.  Not this time.

My initial plan really was to go to Sagada again. Though I’ve lived in this tropical country all my life, I’ve never been a fan of beaches. I don’t like the sun and getting baked in it, so that’s that. Anyway, the Sagada plans didn’t really pan out since my travel buddy got sick. Initially I thought.. heck, I’d go even if I’m by myself.. I can drive and if I get bored or tired (whichever comes first) I’ll just hang out in Baguio. I thought about it for half a day before deciding on looking at other places. I first checked out flights going to Cebu (it is Sinulog after all and I’ve never checked that one out)… the flights were either too late or too expensive so the decision was down to either Caticlan (Bora, woohoo!) or Puerto Princesa (I’ve always wanted to see the underground river).  Why Caticlan? I was going by myself and Bora always has a nightlife and lots of party people so it’ll be fun nonetheless. Puerto Princesa? Well, I’ve never been to Palawan and it’s always been on my To-Visit list.

After an hour deliberating this and that.. I eventually picked Puerto Princesa and decided I’ll go with my mom. A lil bummed out that there’s not going to be any partying or a night life (I am after all with my mom) but what the heck.. I love going to places I’ve never been to. The camera whore in me got excited at the prospect of taking a gazillion photos. A bit bummed out too at the fact that my DSLR battery died so I won’t be bringing that one.. I’ll have my Fuji camera instead.

Four hours before the flight. Oooh giddy. I seriously need this break.

I can’t wait to see this:

Taken from http://jomarlipon.blogspot.com

Love these. Kids will be great decors for your home during Halloween

So cute.

I keep on making a post like this every now and then.. this has to stop sooner or later. (I’m aliiive is a line I’ve used at least 4x in my past blogs)

I almost forgot I even had this blog because I haven’t really had the time to stop and think about what to post. Sure, I have about ten posts that I’ve started.. they’ve all just been put on draft. Today, I #resist(ahem) putting things on hold and resolve to just post this thing.. random ramblings by yours truly.

Why did I come back to log in anyway?
I was reminded by someone that this thing actually exists.
Cut to: me checking my profile info… lo and behold.. yes, that section definitely needs an update. And so here I am.

Anyway, things I’ve been missing out on:

1. Gaming.

I have Assassin’s Creed for xbox360… have yet to play it. I don’t know why I keep getting pre-orders when I don’t even play these games haha.

Skyrim. Game of the Year at the Video Game Awards. Ugh. It looks great, but alas – I haven’t had the time to play it either. I’ve just seen the intro because my brother forced me to. Lol. It looks amazing, the game play wasn’t bad either.

Batman. I started… you know the story after that.

RIFT. I had to cancel my subscription. Good thing I cancelled WoW early in the year.

2. Reading.

I haven’t picked up an easy reading book in ages. Last book read: some WordPress book (I learned how to create / edit some sections.. very basic coding, eek!)

3. Photography.

I pray that my DSLR isn’t broken. I haven’t really checked it for months. Let’s not even talk about my dead LC-A.. one of these days, I’m gonna get you back.

Okay, that’s it. Time’s up. Gotta get back to work.

I had my first BlackBerry about 8 years ago, back when it was this big clunky thing with a monochrome screen. It was an office issued phone so I had no choice but to take it even when deep down I was thinking it was too stuffy.

Fast forward to 2011.

Because of work (again) I got myself a red Blackberry Torch and boy did I love it. I never really understood why people kept gushing about BBM until I got around to using it myself. With over 35 million people actively using the service with an astounding 2,000 new users every hour BBM now ranks as the world’s largest mobile social platform.

Below is a video that spoke to me… and I’m sure, to a lot of BlackBerry owners out there.

Here’s an infographic of how big BB and BBM is becoming… Check it out…

I love BBM, to recap, here’s why:

It tells me if someone has read my message and just chose to ignore me. Hah! No more denials and lies about “oh I didn’t get your message!”. Yeah right. My BBM tells me you’ve actually READ it already.

Unlike SMS where you’re billed for every SMS sent, for BBM I don’t have to pay for every message. My data plan is set and I can send a bazillion BBM messages all day and still be billed the same way. I can contact friends and family AROUND THE WORLD and not be charged an arm and a leg. Amaaaaazing.

I can attach pictures and send it to my friends easily. I can’t remember how many times I’ve taken a picture of shopping finds and shared it with my sister. Found an amazing bracelet.. click and send on bbm “hey, you want one of these too?”. Quick, easy, convenient. Attaching MMS or having a video call is too horrendous now… something I used to do all the time. Thank god for BBM.

Other things I love about it?
Groups. Having groups is actually very convenient especially when communicating with friends and family. Need to broadcast something important? Send to the entire group! That way, you don’t even have to worry about missing out on someone. Most of the time I use this when I’m going out on gimmicks with my friends… to send a message to the entire group that I’ll be.. uh.. late. Heh.

I love that there’s a status update as well. Kinda like in all Instant Messengers I suppose. BBM though is very convenient. With BBM, I don’t even log into my IMs anymore.. I use BBM. I update my status on BBM and everyone can see if I’m having a crappy day or an amazing one.

Profile Pics. You can’t do without one. I love updating my tiny little profile pic, it certainly adds charm and personality.

Anyhoo, I’ve been connected online for over 10 years, with so many (if not all) instant messenger accounts. I never thought I’d love anything more than IM but now I do. To me there is no doubt that BBM is one of the great features that keep people holding their BBs amid all the other smartphones out there. I am a believer and an advocate of this very addictive app.

Try it! Once you go black.. you never go back. Seriously.

One of the things I saw today on Facebook.

Mistake #1 – Wrong spelling on the text for ‘crazydeals.ph’

Mistake #2 – Wrong link on the ad itself

So guys, when you have ads, always double check your text and links. Otherwise you’re leaking money out of a faucet. I probably clicked on the ad 5 times to check. Ouch.

Marketing is more than just advertising. It’s more than just Marketing Communications (Marcom). Marketing stretches from the generation of interest to the closing of the sale. It includes Marketing Communications (which includes advertising), Product Marketing, Product Management, Channel Marketing and more. It is the holistic view of how to successfully take products and services to the market. The marketing people are not just the people who put the pretty wrapper around the piece of chocolate.

Now if we can only drive this point across Finance people…

In the olden times, marketing only had to generate leads, improve brand awareness or develop flashy graphics. Now, with the recession (and tighter, more controlled budgets), us marketers must develop programs that turn into revenue at a better return and lower risk than investing the same money into the sales department.

Over the years I have gotten ribbing from my friends in Finance that all we do in Marketing is spend the company’s money. This misconception must be addressed by everyone in Marketing! If you are a marketing professional, aside from planning marketing programs you have to look at measuring its return on investment.

In my past experiences, here are a couple of low risk programs that I recommend that have low investment cost and higher returns:

Online Marketing and Email Marketing

Campaigns using online and email marketing have literally skyrocketed in recent years. The returns can be unbelievable and at times may not even cost you a single penny. Remember to make use of social media and search engine optimization to get found on the web.

Direct Marketing

I started my career creating and managing Direct Marketing programs for multinational companies and firmly believe in its effectivity. When you use the pareto principle and target your highest income-producing segment, nothing goes to waste. These people are your loyal fans and your brand ambassadors, you have to be in their minds all the time.

PR

Not a lot of marketers believe in PR but the effectivity of this can truly be tremendous. You have to remember, you need publicity for your brand or product. You need people to start talking about it positively to build trust and recognition. Adapting a public relations strategy with combined effective tactics will lead to changes in perceptions, shifts in behaviors, and customer satisfaction.

Marketing must always plan and execute to generate revenue. Investments in marketing must always be connected to results in sales, whether it is this quarter, next quarter or beyond. Never forget the question “Why should we spend money on that marketing program?”

Ohemgee. If you’re one of the folks who grew up with this game then you’d be excited. On February 9th, Carmen Sandiego will be on Facebook!

Check out the fantastic trailer below:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tRyFb3a304

Stay tuned by liking the game’s Facebook Page.

Old school games rock!

According to research by the Washington-based Marketing Leadership Council, 63% of their blue chip members are dissatisfied with their marketing performance measurement systems. They reckoned that, on average, they were wasting 26% of their marketing budgets. And it’s true. Most firms do not have a clear picture of their overall marketing performance which may be why they cannot assess it. They prefer to fumble around in the dark. It’s easy to see why: fumbling has a lot going for it. More adventure, more creativity, more surprises and more fantasies are possible. But you may not like what you see when the lights do go on.

Clarity of goals and metrics separate the professional from the amateur. Professional marketers quantify results against intentions to keep raising the bar. Professional athletes do the same.

A key issue arising from this list is the alignment of metrics with strategy. Few businesses have explicit strategy with quantified milestones (metrics) to indicate progress. More often, strategy simply emerges and can only be seen after the event. In this case, identifying the metrics that really matter also indicates what the implicit strategy must be. Explicit or implicit, strategy should be aligned with metrics to indicate the progress the firm is seeking. Simply rocking up to a metrics warehouse to buy the fashionable data is counter-productive and yet that is what managers mostly ask. ”Just give me the top metrics“.

To evaluate marketing performance, we first have to clarify what marketing is.

Marketing is viewed in so many ways. The popular views are: 1) marketing is what a firm does to secure customer preference and achieve higher returns for the shareholder, 2) marketing is what marketing professionals do and 3) marketing is an expenditure necessary for your brand or product to be known in the marketplace. I personally believe the first definition is the most important – the aim is to really get the market and encourage conversions.

John Hooper, Director General of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers said that:

Everyone accepts that measuring the performance of marketing communication programs is vitally important, but the reality today is that this issue does not feature in most marketing directors’ top ten priorities

This is true, few firms pay advertising or promotion agencies by results. However, this is changing fast especially when marketing budgets are tight due to the economic crisis. The challenge for us marketers is to put metrics in our campaigns and measure each dollar spent. For us marketers this is quite difficult because financial returns are more difficult if not impossible to determine for marketing campaigns.

One must understand the role of marketing in the organization to be able to gauge its performance. With the internet, it has been a lot easier for marketers to measure online campaigns – there’s a lot of analytics systems available. However, remember that there are still several things to measure – engagement, lead generation, brand recognition, interest etc.

Understand what your role is and what is important for your organization to determine your goals and be able to set metrics to track performance.

If you haven’t noticed, Facebook recently introduced Photostream; a set of the five most recent photos in which you’ve been tagged, displayed at the top of your profile. A lot of folks moaned and groaned didn’t like it but creative folks certainly embraced it.

A good 30 minutes and I got mine hacked up. Check out pics below.

This is my first stab in personalizing my Profile Page:

But then I decided I wanted to include my profile image in the design, so now I got this:

Want to hack your own profile page? Follow the instructions below:

1. Open up your image editor and paste a screenshot of what your profile page looks like. I used Adobe Photoshop to edit mine.

2. Load a picture that you like, preferably a picture with a wide rectangular image.

3. Create a file with the dimension: 485×69 pixels and drag the picture that you have on #2 to the new layer and save that file.

4. The long rectangular image needs to be cut to smaller individual images – 5 pieces of 97×68 pixels each.

What I did to achieve this is create another file that’s 97×68 pixels then dragged the image saved on #3 on to the layer.

I moved the image along while cutting and saving the image that shows on screen. At the end of this process, I got 5 equally cut images!

5. Upload the five pieces to a Facebook album and start tagging yourself in reverse order. That means that the image that’s supposed to appear first should be tagged last. Start with the right end of the cut images.

I’ve learned that its more accurate to tag yourself while viewing the album normally instead of editing the Album itself.

If you wanna see more awesome profiles, check out some of them here.

Questions? Leave a comment and I’ll try to help you guys out.

Google and Yahoo recently came out with their list of ‘Top Rising Keyword Searches for 2010″ and other social networks followed suit.

A great way to think outside the box is to jump on rising social trends, so what better way to expand your campaign portfolio by branching out into new trends like these.

Take a look at some of the charts and infographics on What the World Searched for this year.

Yahoo

Google

Twitter