Prior-itis

This morning, I've read a short article in Inc magazine about Maggie Fox, founder, CEO and Chief Marketing Officer of Social Media Group. A quote of hers struck me,

If you have any more than three priorities, then you have no priorities.

It got me thinking--what are my current priorities? I have no idle day for the past weeks, including the weeks after school ended. I have always made conscious effort on filling my schedule up not because I want to die early from stress but because I love being busy. Most of the stuff I do are experiences worth having, especially since they allow me to grow, learn and have fun at the same time. That and another thing--I have a problem saying "No."

I often take on responsibilities I have knowledge of, but have little skill on. I like to take on the challenge, but to an extent I know it sacrifices the quality and time. However, I just really find it hard to say no! Especially when it's a superior who is asking me to do this and that. I never refuse to answer a question when I myself am interested with the answer; same goes with projects when I myself want to be involved with the result. I know I should have a limit but I just couldn't find the strength to pass up on opportunities! (I believe they come my way for a reason)


If I were to weigh my priorities right now and choose the top three (see, I don't have priorities because I have identified five--well, that's including family and God) it would be Full Suite, Jacinto & Lirio, and CAP.*
*until end of May


Beginning June, hopefully I'd have different priorities. I'd like to list them down now: Academics, CAP, ASEANpreneurs. I have P3 lined up after Full Suite internship and Jacinto & Lirio will be something I'd be passionate about (and would want to be more involved in), same goes with co.lab (which I have entirely different plans for, right after I graduate).


Academics is first because I have a goal next semester! I must do all I can for my final year, without compromising my professional work in my organizations. My mantra is: if others could do it, so can I! I tend to slack off a bit in studies when org responsibilities become too hectic; but this semester I plan to balance my time well enough that I may have no time for friends at all :( But I'm surviving so, that's something I could catch up on later.


CAP because well, I've signed up for this and I've been given a huge responsibility--an opportunity to grow and market myself. It's definitely a challenge.


ASEANpreneurs... well this one I just decided on today. I'm going to make AYLE Philippines happen, and if being the country head for ASEANpreneurs Philippines is what it's going to take then I'm up for it! Even if I don't get picked to be country head I'd still participate. AYLE has really changed my life.


But wait, why am I talking about next month's priorities? Focus on the NOW, Kaye!!!


Full Suite: I have exhausted my first two weeks of internship--about 136 hours remaining. Very short period, and I still have a lot to learn. I'm enjoying my internship and the close relationship we interns have with the company partners and managers. That's the good thing about interning at a small company--you really work hand in hand with the bosses and your responsibilities bear larger impact for the company.


Jacinto&Lirio: I am not satisfied with my performance and contributions, but I'm still driven to work really hard to help the company. I have but 21 days to reach $8000, I can't do it alone, but I shouldn't rely on others too. This is the biggest challenge of my summer thus far.


CAP: Marketing will start beginning of May. The responsibility of handling th co-presenter has been passed on to me. Pressure! And of course, being the SAC of Externals Dept whilst being new to the organization is overwhelming, but I accept the challenge. I'm excited to meet the  candidates for Officership tomorrow! And of course the pre-post plan meeting (ugh, this will be one long afternoon).


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If you're free tomorrow at 2PM, you might want to hear @markbantigue, curator of www.p-3.ph, speak at the Spark Series entitled Curating as Branding, happening at co.lab Makati. The event is free (with snacks from Conti's) so don't hesitate to go! If only I could ditch my meeting, I'd definitely be listening to Mark.


Prior-itis: the condition of missing events you really would want to attend because of prior commitments


#whatispilit

Work day and night

I've been exposed to this before. Much like homework (homework ba talaga...), I'm pretty used to doing work-related stuff at night. PS, work-related is synonymous with org-related. It's basically the same experience, and I'm even less-stressed with internship work than with Inner Circle duty last year, haha.

What do I do with my time at night? I'm usually browsing the Twitter feed and reading interesting news and articles about entrepreneurship, leadership, career productivity, and a lot more. Google has also been my favorite companion because I like to search random phrases on my Chrome browser and read up about it. If you only know the amount of white papers and pdf files I have saved in my Downloads folder--too many to read at one time.

To add to the two internship work I've brought upon myself this summer, I also have academic requirements to fulfill for BA 199: Business Practice. There's a lot of writing involved, and knowing myself I think I can do well with it--just so I keep reminding myself of the deadlines. It's awful; having to write up reflective journals and being active in the Facebook groups by starting a topic, commenting substantively, etc. I find it ridiculous and fun. I just wish I had more laughs and words to have throughout the day. The office and my laptop glare wears me out I puked this afternoon. Stress.

Use Twitter productively

For someone who is unfiltered in terms of things I talk about online (yes, I'm a gaseous person) (no, I'm not a fan of Kristen and Rob) (unfortunately, I curse), I think I'm a productive user of Twitter. I don't shove my by-the-minute actions and reactions to my followers' throats (although do forgive if I sometimes use it as a chatroom conversing with my friends). I recently changed my bio from "I was penalized for blogging. I am the unknown character of The Four." pertaining to that remarkable incident during high school when I got suspended for one blog post I wrote.

When I first joined Twitter, I was thrilled with the notion of 'tweeting' in not more than 140 characters. Having just deleted my blog, it quickly became a cheap alternative for my blogging habits. Although my sentences got shorter, it was a pretty good exercise that challenged my creativity.


Back then, I scoured twitterverse for all Hollywood and local celebrities I fancied. I followed them and tweeted them in the hopes that out of their thousand followers, they can at least reply back to me (well there was one reply from @DiannaAgron--I think I died for a minute then!).


I lost interest for a while in that site, and focused my time instead on other equally unproductive social networking sites like Facebook. Then I also forgot what made me come back to Twitter, but after that reunion I have always been faithful to keeping myself updated with myself (ha-ha).


I created lists of the people I followed. First there was News. I thought of making one for celebrities too but then that would be boring to go back to. Then I created one for entrepreneurial sources. I had to use a Twitter app to look for other users with similar interests. I also read those "5 people you should follow on Twitter" types of articles and I usually follow them all. Oh, I also created a list for the bands and musicians that I follow. Although right now I only check on my entrep list which became essentially my article reading lists for the day. It's so awesome that I actually start to hate it when I get to the tweet that was the newest one the day before. I just couldn't get enough (I also have Google alerts weekly of those articles with "student entrepreneurs")!


Even on school nights, I prioritize my "ideation" hour/s more than reading a chapter for the next day's lesson. It sucks to a certain extent but I'm comfortable with it. I feel like I'm still productive, even if what I do is just write these topics and ideas down in a notebook--something to look back to when I have more time to brainstorm. What's lacking though is having others to bounce those ideas off. Ironic that only a few (mm, I'm still not sure about that though) members of my entrepreneurial organization are as interested in these same topics as me. (NTS: Engage more people!)


Then I started retweeting all these tweets that I found relevant to what I believed in, or something as basic that says "I just found it interesting and I want to share it to you" type of message. Soon these Twitter accounts followed me and I'm like, "Great!" Being productive in Twitter means your tweets should also be worthy of retweeting, your tweet links are favorited, and the questions you ask are replied to.


Gaining more followers every week boost my confidence. It tells me that I can influence enough people to actually support or care for my cause. When people are willing to listen to what you say, then most likely they love what you're saying. That in itself is good personal marketing. So the next time you tweet something about your dog, do it with a magazine article link. Tweeting about how your day went? Include some insights and ideas you have gathered during the day. Don't worry if it doesn't fit the 140-character rule. Look at it as a training for you to be able to 'pitch' your story in less than 30 words.

#liveastoryworthtelling

How do I #liveastoryworthtelling? I continuously strive to promote entrepreneurship as an alternative career after college. This is why I've funded Jacinto & Lirio in their crowdfunding campaign.

The founders of this social enterprise started Jacinto & Lirio as a feasibility project, before winning the Business in Development (BiD) Challenge Philippines, earning them a grant from the BiD network. It was a blessing in disguise--winning the award meant that Noreen and her colleagues should launch the business since they will only receive the remaining half of the prize money once the organizers see that the venture is on startup phase and running.


They are Management graduates of the John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSOM), Ateneo de Manila University. Who knew that Jacinto & Lirio, which started as a group project they submitted in the Business Accelerator Program of JGSOM, would be helping make a difference to the communities making these plant leatherettes? I've heard about this enterprise a couple of years back and since then I have been inspired by their story. Up to now, I still can't imagine that I'm taking part in it. :)


Know more about Kwaderno by Jacinto & Lirio, and how it is helping the development of water hyacinth livelihoods in the Philippines.

Enternship: internship at an enterprise

Very few people in my University are interested in this sort of thing: entrepreneurship. In my organization, we have 100 members, but I'm pretty sure that not even half of this number are really into starting an enterprise, let alone understand what it really is. The mindset and passion is something we want to instill--although not really a prerequisite--to each applicant before becoming part of our society.


It's more disappointing to note that even in my college, the College of Business Administration, entrepreneurship is not really that encouraged. Although there are a couple of subjects that we can take if we want to pursue it, I don't think it's enough to actually convince the graduates to start a business of their own or even to join a startup.


Fortunately, a new term has been coined. It's understandable why most graduates will look for an office job and take the corporate track--there is easy money there. Whereas in building your own startup, you have to start from having nothing at all and maybe even rely on a few investors, but not until your first or second year. It's a challenge to take on the path to entrepreneurship, that's why doing it in the summer seems like a very attractive idea to Junior college students. (But not in UP, CBA.)


Enternship is not a typographical error. It is an internship at an enterprise which differs from the usual internship programs offered by corporations in the sense that an enternship lets you work with the CEO of that small company. The environment is much more dynamic and there are a lot of new people to meet and build relationships with.


This summer, I'm enterning at Jacinto & Lirio (J&L), a brand by EcoIngenuity, Inc. I have challenging tasks as well that are more relevant to keeping the business, such as fundraising and awareness campaigns, most especially since J&L is a social enterprise that aims to deevelop the use of water hyacinth into plant leather used for bags and journals.


In fact, I didn't know there was such a word-- enternship. I can pretty much say that I'm an entern, and I'm happy I chose to be one. It's a blessing to be in a line of work that you like and that you're passionate about. It brings out all the positive energy and strengths. This summer is exciting! Not only do I get to work under a Full Suite internship, J&L enternship is also doing me well.


I want more people to understand how important social entrepreneurship is in this generation and make use of the opportunity. I really need to make Career: Entrepreneurship happen soon.

Summer Internship

Definition: An internship is an opportunity to integrate career related experience into an undergraduate education by participating in planned, supervised work

I've been applying to various internship positions (mostly marketing) for two months now, and so far I have already gathered a few feedback. No, these aren't from multinational corporations like P&G, Unilever, or Nestle. These are from small enterprises that directly help other enterprises or communities, which I find more attractive since they are the ones who need more marketing help. They don't earn millions every month so they can't really afford to hire their own "brand manager"--not that I consider myself one (not yet).


My student society, UP Circle of Entrepreneurs, influenced me largely on pursuing an alternative track besides corporate, and it's really refreshing to not be competing with others aside from yourself. In this marketing industry, you are your own corporation, and I think what most students think about is what the company they will be working for can do for them. I say, why not think about what you can do for the company? I mean, if I got into P&G, they would be marketing my name, in a sense. People will know me because I work in P&G, not because I am me. Okay I admit, who wouldn't want that, right? It's a win-win situation actually, but with this track you'll have to wait two to three years before you can sever and start building your name. It's an attractive path--if you have the luxury of time.


One thing I learned from the ASEANpreneurs conference is to not wait a long time to execute your idea. It is true that there is a right environment for something and a right time for everything, but the important lesson is what you do with the situation. Wait for it to be right or you make it right? I say, do it already! Sure it will hurt, especially the lack of financial support in launching the business idea, but it will be fulfilling. It is part of the challenge anyway.

Full Suite: Minding your business

Now that I'm in my penultimate year, I'm looking for an internship at a company that will teach me the ropes--stuff that an entrepreneur needs to know. Thankfully, I came across Full Suite Inc. and they were looking for a marketing intern this summer. I applied right before I left for the AYLE conference in Singapore and I've been told 2-3 weeks ago that they're expecting me on April 10. I chose this company because they're focused on providing business solutions (e.g. start up, financial, human resources services) to SMEs and in a way, I'll be exposed to all parts of the business, not just marketing. It's a new environment for me and I'm pretty much excited about the tasks I'll be doing not just in this field but also in the whole enterprise activities as well.


It's difficult to make people understand about my internship though, especially when all they want to hear are names of banks and FMCG companies.


I need to make Career: Entrepreneurship happen.