Last week, our lecturer gave us the summary of our whole semester. Imagine all of the concepts discussed for a few months discussed in less than hour! Seems hard, right? Nah. The lecturer made it all simple.

The lecture revolved around four things, four things that make social media what it is today, and four things that would make social media stand the test of time. He gave us these concepts:

Communication. Ah… The essence of being social in social media. It is a no-brainer that people should communicate; however, people should also know what, when, where, and how to communicate properly. This is the challenge that communicologists share to everyone. This is what we are learning up till now, even after four years of being soaked with this core concept.

Collaboration. A primary factor why net was given a 2.0. People working together to achieve a common goal is vital resource of social media. It gets people thinking, and working, and developing together. It leaves no one behind. It makes a standard that everyone agrees to. Collaboration is not new, but collaboration in the Internet is something worth exploring by everyone for their own personal development.

Education. People want reliable and informative stuff. That is what we aim for. Though we may know the w’s and h of communication, we must also learn the effect of that communication to people. Will it benefit them? In what sense? Many business professionals seek the answer to this, but we must also take note that these are not for the business-minded only.

Entertainment. If you want to entertain people with some information that is at the same time relevant and helpful, you may want to explore your creative side. Better yet, use collaboration to get that infinite talent that is available over the Internet. Entertainment is essential, especially of you want to have a striking message to have a striking effect to the people.

These 4 simple concepts are what makes social media a new foundation for everyone to step on. Let us see the possibilities of this technology, and reap the rewards for letting ourselves in the world of social media.

Last Saturday, September 20, our class had a special lecture on social media. This was handled by Mr. Gian Paolo Pangan. He talked about plenty of things regarding how Web 2.0 and the social network sites have brought upon a change to the Philippine society.

Yehey!, as we all know, is a Philippine version of Yahoo! It provides Filipinos with a contextual indexing of items. From being a website, Yehey! has transformed itself into an online marketing firm. Since then, Yehey! has been helping companies achieve good reputation, and market potential from the public. They have improved brands such as Tide, Boy Bawang, Goldilocks, and many others. They have also helped politicians to be present online. Politicians such as Mar Roxas, and Manny Villar are just a few of those whom they have helped.

While discussing, he mentioned three important steps in doing an online marketing plan.

1. Create buzz – creating a buzz over the internet is either easy or hard, depending on the topic. If you’re trying to make a buzz that isn’t even buzz worthy, then don’t try to make such a buzz at all. If you think your ideas got potential, share it over internet forums, make a video about it, engage people into reacting to your idea, and wherever you think your audience broods. If it is interesting, people would surely go there. I don’t believe that making multiple accounts and talking to yourself would be a legit “buzz.” A buzz must have complete strangers involved.

2. Generate hype – hype is something that is generated when people are continuously talking about a certain topic. As  communicologists, it is a challenge for us to create that “honest” hype. How do we do it? Let us take note of what our idea is all about and how it can make a change for society, then we would know how to make that hype. Hype could also be attributed to the skill of the communicologist to be consistent in giving regular updates to the customers/people regarding the organization’s idea/product/service.

3. Craft strategy – again, strategy is essential. Strategies are specific, objective, and rational. A good online marketing/advertising plan would have a specific target audience, no matter how explosive a plan may be to the other demographics. The plan should also lay out the objectives one by one, and how these objectives are to be measured later on after the execution of the plan.

Some facts regarding Philippine online activity according to mr. Pangan:

1. 28,000,000 – number of internet users
2. 83% – those having social networks
3. 86.4% – have uploaded photos
4. 98.6% – have watched an online video
5. 90% – have read a blog

Based on the data, we can say that Filipino online users are rapidly spreading out the word to everyone. It won’t be a matter of time before we will be named as the “social networking capital of the world.”

These are some of the new rules of PR for all of us. I picked the top five from the bounty that our lecturer gave us.

You are what you publish. PR practitioners are not representatives, but individual advocates of their organizations. Their positions are now covered with usernames that make them only a part of the web, not superior corporate citizens.

Participation, not propaganda. Public 2.0 is a very participative and reactive demographic. PR practioners could get to know more about them by actually immersing themselves into that public. Call it phenomonologcial.

Lines between PR and marketing is now blurred. This raises the challenge for PR practitioners because not only must they be able to communicate effectively with the public to raise reputation and image, but also know how to market their product/service. They must know that people only react online when they are interested with something that they’re seeing; therefore, there must come some marketing strategy to seal the deal.

Spam is coutnerproductive. Spams are like the billboards in Guadalupe. They’re nice to see, but you’d rather see more of the beautiful river down the bridge during sunset than Willie Revillame, with three girls, proclaiming his chick-trapping man-scent. PR practitioners should know that Public 2.0 is further divided into subcultures, and they mus be able to target those subcultures that they deem important for the organization.

Public 2.0 looks for benefits, critically. As technology becomes better, so are people’s rationalizing powers getting sharper. Public 2.0 doesn’t get fooled that easily nowadays, and that is a great thing. PR professionals, in turn, must be able to assert the personal benefits and social relevance of what product/service they are pitching over the net.

These days, it’s hard for people with online capabilities not go online. Not only must organizations observe this phenomenon, but also react to it. Same with organizations, PR practitioners should realize the great potential that web 2.0 offers for businesses and society.

Last summer, I had my internship at one of the biggest corporations in the world. I must say that I really had fun learning what it’s like to be out of the house for 14 hours. I saw a lot of things, lots of buildings, lots of people, and lots of attitude. The company I worked with is much like a crab and egg plus corn soup, with a bit of cabbage and tomato. having different kinds of ingredients makes the experience worth having. Come to think about it, these variety of relationships that people create, maintain, and destroy reflect even our internet activities, but however the confusion and mixtures made, the internet still makes up a pretty good whole. That is what I think wiki stands for.

Corporate wikis are basically a collection of what people know regarding a topic, much like ingredients that has been from many places. The only thing that differs between cooking soup and creating a wiki is that in wikis, intrusion is highly acceptable and recognized. Wikis have this advantage over other web applications that makes it stand out and be as profitable as the hunderd million Wikipedia. Corporations , on the other hand, see wikis not for its profit-over-the-night solution, but for its functionality and business strategy. In my internship, my supervisor asked me to join with her in creating a wiki site for the company. Though I must say that I didn’t find the wiki to be a full wiki because of administration moderation over the contents passed, it was still a giant leap for my supervisor to think of ways to let her colleagues try to find their place in the company through idea contributions. In comparison with soup, contribution from different farmers and animal raisers is a must for a person to have a wonderful mix of soup.

Much like the soup, wikis are as are collection of some things. In corporations, wikis are a collection of ideas, ideas that neither good nor bad, just plain raw materials. If we put all those ideas together, much like mixing them up on a heated pan, those ideas start to smell good and turn to something delicious. Many companies are now experimenting with wikis. Nokia, Citigroup, Pixar, and LA Times are four of the many companies that test the waters of wikis.

Common Rules of Wiki Etiquette….

These do’s and don’ts were lectured to us by sir Barrientos, and can be found here.

The Do’s:

• Be bold – if you know you’re right about a certain topic in a misinformed wiki page,  do improve it! That’s how organizations improve through initiative.
• Make notes – make sure you have your reasons why you changed something or else your fellow employees will get mad at you.
• Give praise – a praise doesn’t mean that that person is an ass-kisser. It only means that a useful contribution deserves respect.
• Build structure – structure doesn’t mean a person needs to create content. The person may be an editor only and be part of the structure as well.
• Be polite – being the opposite of rude, it may be just the line between getting a promotion from editing your boss’s contribution and a resignation which you don’t even want.

The Dont’s:

• Take it personally – it’s all business after all, and bet the day will come when another would feel the same with you.
• Ignore questions – inquiries are the first step to development, so don’t dodge them.
• Delete useful content – someone with evil motives would surely be the only one who would do this.
• Be chatty – sticking to the essence of wiki is the key, and the essence is: information for all. It’s not even close to chatting personally in wikis.
• Keep it secret – an idea is like a genie. It needs to be released from its lamp.

Exactly why some orgs don't like corporate blogs.

Blogging has been popular since the dawn of 21st century. From the rich to the not-so-rich, blogging, in one way or another, helped majority of bloggers cope with the stress of daily living by posting online journals to which people can read and participate. But is this the only use of blogging? Not so. Corporations here in the Philippines are starting to take a dip into the universe of corporate blogging, and the results are, to some extent, not that impressive.

Why is this so? I thought of five reasons why many Philippine organizations don’t use corporate blogs .

• Blogging is relatively young. Its age is more or less half of its users, and with that premise alone, we can see that blogging needs more time to drill into “conservative” walls of capitalist organizations.
• People have wrong notions of corporate blogs as websites. Just because an article is part of a corporate website, doesn’t mean it’s a blog.
• Blogging is stereotyped. Blogging is paralleled, if not equated, to an online journal, and to that only.
• Philippine market is not a blog reader market. Market researchers and communication professionals would rather spend time on interacting with consumers and audience, rather than posting a blog that no one would be reading; and lastly,
• Professionals are just plain lazy. Come to think of it, why would we want to blog if the company doesn’t want it? We still need to shine those shoes!

It seems only right that companies, with those arguments, wouldn’t want to post something about the company for tow paragraphs twice a week. However, they are missing out on the

Everyone says "blog." Even organizations.

opportunities that blogging may deliver on them.  Blogging is not just about sharing your hidden desires for somebody or letting the world know that your mom’s an emo, but for communicating with the world about anything, and with anything comes organizations and their respective thrusts in life. With more and more proactive and critical people going online, organizations should try to get adventurous and start typing something good (and honest) about themselves. It is beneficial that organizations start to share a part of them and enable others to talk to them back. That, I think, is the main essence of blogs-pure interaction. Also, there is this challenge for us to discover what corporate blogging means for us and how we can step up beyond our ordinary roles. Its benefits are still up for grabs. What are its benefits to organizations? I’ll give five.

• Management gets to interact with the youngest demographic-the NetGen. The Net Generation is definitely a new class to research upon, and these are the people that usually have the resources to support organizations.
• Online reputation is balanced out with the real life ones. Take a look at Willie Revillame. He’s adored by many of our citizens from the marginalized sector, but he got suspended because of online forums going ballistic over his . Maybe the ABSCBN president or head of corporate communications could write a blog stating their insights on the August 3 incident.
• Blogging saves a lot of money. Blogs are as cheap as P20.00 of an employee to publish his or her own corporate blog.
• Blogs have more content. Since the general rule for blogs is to keep it short, brevity, conciseness, and accuracy could help corporate bloggers be more meaty with their posts.
• Adaptability through times is a characteristic of organizational communication. In Goldhaber’s definition of the term, it is implied that organizations need to cope just as frequently as they communicate with people, mainly because people change. If organizations want that adaptability, then they’d better start studying about the possiblities of corporate blogging for their company.

Corporate blogging sure is unpopular to Philippine organizations, but as communicologists (not just me but everone of us, since we communicate every second of the day), we should consider changing times, and how these changes will impact our lives. We already know how blogging impacts our personal lives. Now let us take a look at how it affects our organizational life as well.

They're seeing your naked pictures all over the Net.

To complement and support my arguments regarding how social networking sites have been a resource jungle for HR professionals out there, I’ll be sharing an article by Jacqui Cheng that features how Internet profiles can be career-changing. I got it here. I highly recommend her article, so if you have the time, please do read it.

What does it say?

To do justice on her piece of work, I’d like to highlight some of her findings on the work done by CareerBuilder, a jobseeking company much like Jobstreet and JobsDB, who made the study in the United States regarding searching for a job candidate on their social networking profiles. To go to CareerBuilder’s site, just click here.

• 45% of US employers look at potential employees’ social networking sites to look for more information about them. Facebook ranks first, followed by LinkedIn as the hottest sites employers look at.
• A third of the survey’s respondents (US employers probably) said that the they don’t hire people with “provocative or inappropriate photographs” on their social networking profiles.
• 16% of employers don’t hire people who use text language in their profiles.
• Employers get a feel of a candidate’s compatibility with the organization through the candidate’s online posts. “Other employers said that they found the profiles supported the candidates’ professional qualifications or that they discovered how creative the candidate was (Cheng, 2009).”

So What?

For the organizations – The survey reflects how online social networks could confirm or contradict what is inside a candidate’s resume. Companies here in the Philippines could try to emulate this by searching for their potential employee online and take a look on how compatible is the person to the organization’s principles and standards. Even though there are less of Filipinos who use the Internet and social networking sites than US, most young professionals in Metro Manila use Friendster, Facebook, and many more, so it’s a good thing to start searching for them online.

For the people – The survey is a wake up call to start cleaning your profiles and posts! If you want to get hired by the best of companies, make sure that you make your reputation clean, especially online because that’s where they gauge your reputation in real life. This also calls for social networking participation. As young professionals, we should always update our profiles so that what organiztions see is your present and better self, online that is.

First, let’s take a look on what organizational communication is as a program at UP Manila. What makes this thing unique to other communication curricula out there? Let me give you some.

1. Organizational Communication is a rather unfamiliar program, but often wanted by companies. Hey, we’re unique on that sense, right? That would mean we’re never gonna go jobless, unless we want to.
2. Organizational Communication combines essential business and communication principles into one.
3. Organizational Communication provides flexibility to its students by teaching root lessons and lets it students choose their own path. Wonderful, right? We’re not gonna be stuck in a specific field.
4. Organizational Communication, in my opinion, is the most timely and practical communication program out there.
5. Organizational Communication, with its students and graduates, evolve and change together with society. We are synchronized with organizations’ developments because we study them.

Whew! I sweated a lot of blood just writing those five. Now, organizational communication, or orcom, is a pioneering program here in the Philippines. Only  a handful of universities give this program, such as UP Manila and DLSU. Why so? Maybe because no school other than us have realized the bankability of this program. Kudos to DLSU for realizing this more than Ateneo!

Talking about being pioneering and being rare, we should take a look at the drawbacks of being claimed as such. One primary disadvantage of the program is that it never gets  the credit that it deserves. Most of the people mistake us for being mass communication students. And this is a sad reality. It gives us the burden of informing them what the course is, and it makes the whole explanation look like a lecture, which is just a waste of time. So why not just direct them to a website that would encapsulate organizational communication and its meat? That’s what the students of the program are doing right now, but there’s another sad reality-it is never viewed by people. Why? Because we lack the net popularity in search engines, the one people search when they don’t exactly know the URL of the site. To talk about solutions, an orcom alumnus talked about search engine optimization and its beneficial effects to a site that gets zero visits per day. Check it out with the link below.

http://www.siegwebsolutions.com/about.php

By the way, the one who talked about this in our class is also the owner of the said company. This gives me the inspiration to pursue a techie job after I graduate.

In a recent study made by McCann World, people from across the globe are going online, and not just online, but online for social networking. Several countries are now experiencing jumps of internet participation by double of what was two to three years ago of their population. Its implication? Employers have the power to use the Internet to Google out every name there is, and rest assured, results would be shown.

Human Resource Managers of today don’t scan your 10-page resume full of things you did from jumping from a skyscraper, running half the globe in 2 days, or any of those feats. They might take some time reading and understanding some of your written experiences, but they look for something more. This is where Internet comes in.

People nowadays have their own personal social network account, may it be friendster, facebook, or youtube. These social networking sites work perfectly for employers because they can see what’s outside of your resume, and probably the more important notes that they should know about you, the aspiring employee. What is it that they are finding? We may speculate about many things, but I can think of these:

Your online communication style. The way you do your profiles in social networks show a bit of how you do in your written communication. There’s a whole lot of difference between “baby”, “bhaby”, or “bhe.” Also, the way you talk to your contacts in social networks could be a good measure of how you would communicate with your future officemates.

Your interests. Some people may not realize it, but whatever interest you put into their profiles may be used during your long-awaited interview. It would be really bad if you put in two different, contradicting interests in your resume and in your profiles. Make sure you make them coherent because it might be used against you.

Your friends. Your network could serve you well in the near future. It is highly possible that employers are looking to your friends list to see what kind of a person you are. It is especially specific to the friends that you give link to and those that give you comments. Those are, most likely, you real friends and not just your cyber friends. Their comments regarding you, the way they talk to you, and many more that involves your friends in social networking sites have bearing more than your written resumes.

Your photos and other uploaded media. This is why Hayden Kho would likely have a reconstructive surgery of his face if he wanted a new job. See, employers would want to know your physical appearance first so that they could be prepared once they meet you for the interview. However, it is not only your appearance that is presented through the photo, but a hint of your character as well. Imagine yourself on a photo with booze and college drinkers. If you are targeting a job that requires non-alcoholics, then your chances of getting hired is cut down to nada, even if you are a non- alcoholic in the first place.

So . . . Will resumes be a thing of the past? I say nay. Resumes would still be important and vital in getting to know a person formally in the corporate world. But then again, your facebook account would verify your resume at par your interview.

While reading one of my favorite sites, I stumbled upon a news that’s news-worthy enough for us communication technologists. It is available here.

The Summary

To give you guys a summary of the news, it’s all about how the Canadian government would want to innovate its copyright laws due to the massive use of file-sharing processes. Bill C-61 was introduced by the Conservative Party of Canada in June 2008 and it created  a lot of noise in the consumers’ and creators’ worlds. The Bill, at first , is legislating for improvement in the copyright law. Concepts such as time-shifting (TiVo thingy), file sharing (P2P), DRM (Digital Rights Management), fines (C$500/pirated max instead of US$9,000/creation pirated), and laws that would protect creators from the hands of law-circumvence. The Bill created uproar in the different sectors of the Canadian society until news for the bill died out some months ago.

What’s Now?

The Canadian government is back, and now with a fresh perspective of the bill. Due to irreconcilable debate regarding the bill, the government is actually asking its citizens on their views regarding the bill. This time, they are not the ones who will be imposing on the bill that only created media mileage and achieved zero solution, but the government actually wants to hear from the people who use these technologies! How is that even possible? Is it fictitious? I don’t think so. The government has even put up a Copyright Consultation site to ask its citizens on how they would want the new copyright law to influence digital rights, consumer’s use of it, and the creators as well. To quote Minister of Industry Tony Clement: “Canadians are concerned with copyright and its implications in our increasingly digital environment. . .” Our goal is to give Canadians from across the country a chance to express their views on how the government should approach the modernization of copyright laws. Your opinions and suggestions will help us draft new, flexible legislation so that Canada can regain its place on the cutting edge of the digital economy.”

Flexible. I love the term.

So what is in the site? Essentially, just five questions.

1 . How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernized?
2 . Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time?
3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada?
4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada?
5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?
My eyes suddenly filled itself with water for no reason (maybe because I’m rubbing it now :p). Is this for real? I mean, IS THIS FOR REAL? The government, the high institution that prides itself in getting work done by representatives that don’t speak representatively, and loves shooting binding walls to its citizens, is getting knowledge from the “ordinary” peasants? Yes. And it’s happening in one part of the globe, a huge part at that.

Implications

Going back by jet, we now focus on its implications on our country. What does it mean for our country?

The Philippines is, like Canada and many other countries, in need of a serious reform regardng DRM and Copyright laws. Taking into consideration the Canadian move, we might actually gain from this inspiration. How about setting up the kind of consulation Canada is doing right now? I think the government needs to listen to the people to prevent everlasting debates that the government itself is engaging by referencing on books, not on experience. The people need to be heard. That’s why social media is sprouting its cones like mushrooms-too fast you don’t even see it coming. What Canada has done is not only get better resource, knowledge, and wisdom from its constituents, but also embrace the face that times are changing, and people want to be heard because they have something to say.

Unfortunately, I could only hope that the Philippine administration adopted to these changes in society. We are still living in a classical environment, with classical procedures, even with classical leaders. Hayden Kho and Katrina Halili will still be toys of media, the administration and the Internet, forever holding to the sight of a law that would protect their interests. I am not saying that file-sharing is bad, but boundless file-sharing is gonna go kaboom like New Year. There should still be limitations, and the collective wisdom of the people will solve this problem.

As organizational communicologists as well, we are tasked by our principles to take an active part into the changes that our society is undergoing. Lots of repairs here and there, and reconciliations between baby boom, Gen X, Gen Y, and NetGen are being stitched. Let us be mindful of the implications of rules and procedures here in our country, and how they will shape our future. Let us be proactive in engaging people to speak out their concerns about the flux of technology, for without engagement, there could be no attachment-attachment to the country that Jose Rizal is calling as Nationality.

The choice is always within the people. And while you’re deciding, watch the 9-year “champ” with her awfully-crafted, bad-PR statements last year.