Tailored Blazers and Skinny Jeans http://blazersandjeans.posterous.com Sensemaking in the world where I speak of amounts of money I don't necessarily have (yet) posterous.com Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:54:00 -0700 I got overdosed. http://blazersandjeans.posterous.com/2009/07/25/i-got-overdosed http://blazersandjeans.posterous.com/2009/07/25/i-got-overdosed

HISTORY

  • I used to list down my agenda before I go to the Internet shop.
  • I didn't have my own internet connection until last semester.
  • I managed to be productive in an hour or so of staying in an Internet shop.

COMPLAINTS

  • Waiting in line in those computer shops again
  • My flash disk always getting infected by NewFolder.exe, Funny UST Scandal.exe, or ravmon.exe
  • Too limited time to work on my research or home works
  • No extra time for an online job, ergo, no chance to amass MONEY MONEY MONEY
  • Incomplete productivity

MEDICATION: Broadband installation at home

PSYCHOSOCIAL REACTIONS

1) I-can’t-work-with-all-these-distractions effect

Do not get me wrong. I do enjoy chatting with my friends because it actually de-stresses, not distracts, me. But the fact that the list of the things that you can do online is almost endless, my distractions also became endless. When a distraction is just a click away (or when it conveniently presents itself to you), how can you ever run away from it?

2. I-am-a-busy-bee-do-not-talk-to-me-world effect

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Whenever my mom sees all these opened windows in White Winona's desktop, she would often conclude that I am in engaged in an online meeting with my group mates and for that I must not be disturbed. Well for one, she is not always right. But I never bothered to correct her. And I bet I am not the only guilty person here. With all those must-be-explored sites, must-be-read contents, must-be-tried-apps, I can spend the entire day just tinkering with my laptop. I can also fool myself (and the people who look at my desktop) to believing that I am a master of productivity with all those sticky notes found all over my desktop. But the truth is they are just there and they can stay there for as long as they want. See the fall sense of busy-ness AND productivity there? So at the end of the day, I will be an exhausted person (with strained eyes, back, and neck) and unupdated daughter/sister/niece/granddaughter who, in fact, did not really learn much but gossips and did not really accomplish much but page-hop.

3. I-might-be-missing-out-on-something-somewhere effect

The idea that conversations done online serve to supplement (or complement) whatever talks I have (or just had) with my friends, my family, classmates, colleagues, and others face-to-face, I feel the need to be always visible. You know the feeling when it’s been 24 hours and you haven’t logged in any of your SNS or YM accounts, like you are missing half of your life by not doing so? So you make yourself accessible online, with an attempt to shun distracters by appending that Busy icon. Well obviously, you can't expect the trick to always work. And for fear that I'm  missing something online, I realized that there are far more important things in the REAL WORLD that I'm actually missing.

4. I-feel-like-saying-something-to-you-but-you-must-not-or-cannot-know-so-I-will-be-purposely-vague effect

Ironically, inasmuch as people are actually enjoying the idea of sharing bits of their lives (in their blogs, twits, shoutouts, statuses, etc) for the world to see, most of these I find superficial. If there were any that really mirrored what a person is going through (raw emotions and all that), the entry would be rather vague to protect some identities. I did that one too many times already. But while it can be therapeutic, it can actually feel pointless at times because at the end of it, you never really got your message across that person/thing/whatever. Apparently, the more freedom (and avenues) that I get to express what I feel/think/see, the more cautious I become, to the point of being ambiguous.

RECOMMENDATIONS

So how will a person like me combat all these seemingly negative effects of the medication that I thought will make me a healthy, productive individual? I will use two antidotes starting today.

  1. Create/Revive my personal dashboard (a really good prescription from barrycade). Selective exposure is totally the key because hyperlinks are obviously everywhere. To avoid being pointed to all those different (unnecessary) directions, I shall first expose myself to things that REALLY need my attention. This may seem too limiting but if I ever get idle, I would definitely love to explore sites outside my pseudo-bordered world.
  2. Stay invisible when I do not have any business online. Out of respect (if not need for gossip), I always entertain friends (not just random strangers) who talk to me online, but my work gets compromised. If someone really needs me, there are so many ways to contact me (leave an offline message, text, call, email) without me being pressured to set aside whatever tasks I have at hand.

Do you have any other recommendations?  

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Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:56:00 -0700 If I Were A Brand http://blazersandjeans.posterous.com/2009/07/24/if-i-were-a-brand http://blazersandjeans.posterous.com/2009/07/24/if-i-were-a-brand

What is my brand? What brand am I? I am not sure if these two are the same question only stated in different manner so by default I only need to provide just one answer. Just the same, I am still at the point of exploring the possibilities. I have been asking myself this question for days now after reading an article somewhere, discussing the importance of personal branding. And as barrycade would put it, there is a sea of penguins (out there in the Arctic!!) that is vying for readers’/clients’/customers’/employers’ attention. How can I possibly stick out? The potential of new media as an avenue to make yourself (or your brand) popular or accessible (at least), or to generate income, is just so overwhelming.

Two-pieced attempt

Blogging.

There is an array of platforms that you can use to host your blog. Some are free, but if you want to get premium features, you will have to pay for it. Now what exactly do you blog about? It can be anything that interests you, but make sure you retain a unique voice that will serve as your selling proposition because surely, someone out there is going to talk about the same thing that you are tackling. As for me, I only maintain this communication blog and another personal blog, making me a journal blogger (without any pressure at all). When you start writing for the money, investing on your domain, then it becomes a different issue.

Social networking sites (SNS).

As of now, I only have two social networking accounts—Facebook and Multiply—that I manage to update monthly, if not weekly. For other people, though, the frequency may be higher. Good for them. The fact that our connections define how well we get to fare in the business will see these networking sites as really helpful tools. These sites also serve to reinforce whatever it is that you blogged about. It can make you gain more readerships because options like linking your blog to your SNS accounts gives you more ways to direct people to where your humble abode is. As you go drafting your blog entries or creating your SNS accounts, I am sure you think about what image to portray exactly, what voice to use consistently. I find answering those questions difficult because it is very much like asking me to define myself right now (and I will have to stick with what I will be saying for the rest of my life).

Apparently, it is not anymore just the business of companies to create a good branding for their products in their attempt to generate good, stable shares. All of us who, in a way, are utilizing the Web is actually encouraged to have our own personal brand because it is the only way by which we can stick out. We have changing roles after all. Today we are mere consumers, tomorrow we are the dragon producers.

Why do I put a lot of pressure on it now? I came across a statistic lately that is quite daunting: Only 1 out of 100 Filipinos will become wealthy. So with so much people in the Philippines (and the world), all trying to max out the potentials of new social media, I should get going now in my attempt to live a comfortable life in the future. What better time to start than now? :-)

Selling Noemi Stephannie Guerrero

Do I have to sell myself? This question may seem odd but I think that yes, I have actually been doing it subconsciously.

1)      I recently created my Google profile so that people will find me easier; so that my future employer will find me and the things that are related to me easier. That way, I can also control the information that they will see initially. I tried googling my name and it annoys me that my communication blog is nowhere in the first three pages of search results. There are so much clutter that I need to exert conscious effort to actually optimize the results.

2)      I try to stick with just one username in the Web. It will probably take me some more time before I actually get to create a uniform identity online, but it is good to know that I am on my way there. I used to have just noemi717 as my username in any site. But now I am also ilovemobility, pearglace, noenoenoe, and guerreronoemi. Now who won’t get confused? In the same way that message consistency is a key to better communication, I think I will have to apply the same principle when establishing my identity. Good thing there are sites like Ping or HelloTxt, which can make updating all your SNS accounts a breeze, no matter how different your usernames may be. It goes without saying, then, that neither facelessness nor having multi-personality in the online world is something that should not be tolerated. If you want to enjoy the benefits and convenience that the new media can afford you, you will have to have that single branding that is unique to you. And with this, I return to the spirit of this entry. What brand am I exactly? Having a unique, recallable and single name does not suffice, I think. There is always more to the name after all. I guess I still need to figure out what that something is.

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