road biking

I've switched to a road bike after using a road bike for several years. My wife convinced me to get this Swiss-made XS-sized carbon fiber BMC bike from a friend. It was pre-loved for a few years and he offered it at a good price so I decided to buy it. The obvious difference between my old sub-P25K MTB and this sub-25 pound bike is the weight. My wife can comfortably lift the whole bike with one hand (not that I'd want her to do it on a daily basis). I originally intended to purchase something less-expensive (like a Cannondale from Bikedilla or a Tommaso online), but that didn't happen.

I have been riding it occasionally for the past three months. It took a while to get used to in the beginning, since I had to try fitting it myself and adjusting the seat post and seat. I also had to adjust to the way I sit on the bike. It's a lot more relaxed with a mountain bike (although the fit still needs adjustment). With the road bike, the stance reminds me of a pounce-running pose - a more aggressive position since the purpose is to go fast. This is the most fun part of using this type of bike. The lightness and the acceleration. I have to stop myself sometimes from enjoying the sprints on flat roads.

I'm currently trying to get used to the shoes and pedals which require using cleats to clip onto (and stay on) the pedals while riding.  I used to own clipless Shimano 747s which required smaller SPD cleats so it wasn't as big a deal as the Keo cleats which I wear now. It's difficult to walk around in these shoes with clunky cleats. They're slippery and feel like a hard misplaced shoe heel. The solution should be cleat covers, although I haven't seen any available stock lately.

Another problem I have is that my right toe comes into contact with the front tire when I make a wide turn. I'll have to keep this in mind while I don't have a solution because the farthest thing on my mind is to have an accident caused by a right shoe at the wrong time.

I wish I could bike to work everyday like I used to.

PLDT Home Digital Team & Home Bro Team

Images from 20.PH.NET & Beyond: A look at the future of Internet Services

One Year of Digital Marketing

It's been 473 days of working non-stop, learning how to deep-diving and politicize at the office. I'm going to try and squeeze/share with you what I've gathered so far. Here goes.

1) Social Media - some people misconstrue the idea of building a community as a increasing the current one (x number) into something more massive (x² + 100,000 or so). It looks impressive on paper or powerpoint, but what you really want is a group of followers/fans that you know. That you look forward to everyday to converse with. I used to do social media inbound and I still remember some notable customers (those who were kind vs. those who have cussed me out of exasperation with the company's service). It's a balance when it comes to (social) customer care - there are praise-worthy days, and there are nights when you just want to drain the negatively-charged cerebrospinal fluid (I think I still have a vial of this at home) from your brain into your cacti garden. On building the community via a paid LIKE campaign - I think some commercial groups will benefit from this tactic at the onset. A healthy number of fans can differentiate and legitimize the professional, official group from a fan-sourced, fallacy-filled one. Jumpstarting the group, if you will. After that, it's up to the community manager to offer the genuineness of two-way human communication.

2) Pay-Per-Click Campaigns - I'm an SEO/SEM student of both Jhon Mariano and Mannix Pabalan. I'm thinking of getting SEO certification this long (Holy Week in Christian countries) vacation weekend and going through the Google resources and the Microsoft SEO toolkit. Admin access on Facebook and Google Partners allow companies to be ad publishers in-house, not dependent on third parties or ad agencies for creation, publication or monitoring of ads. I'm hopeful that corporations will take advantage of this to save on time as efficiency reports are seen in real-time and money since the promo ideation and creative process can be done internally. Processes can be made faster as well. 

3) Web - In relation to campaigns, the SEO strategy of a corporate site should be planned carefully and not done ex post facto. Keyword research (not GUESSING) should be conducted with the research group, product teams, customer care (for verbatims), agency (as long as they have proper digital capabilities, in this case, it should be an expert SEM group), IT and the digital marketing team.  It helps that the team has technical knowledge of web language, design language (color theory, design limitations), the CMS, hardware knowledge (redundancy, security) and user experience (USER?).

4) Management and mentorSHIP - the captain needs to be a thought leader and a voracious reader/researcher/resource person, aggressive in tracking campaigns and listening to social media pulse / leads. It's a new and fast neighborhood and keeping up won't hack it. It's an attack & evolve or face extinction.

5) Teamwork - I've always liked the Haro bike analogy from BMX Plus back in the 90s. A selection of the best components in the world won't guarantee the creation of the best bike (in parallel, a combination of mediocre parts won't create a good either), but complementing and using the strengths of each one to the whole's advantage is the success recipe that should be served.

PLDT Home Fibr TVolution Unboxing

Unboxing of PLDT Home Fibr TVolution!

PLDT Home Fibr TVolution first issue

PLDT Home recently launched its new complementary component for the #ConnectedHome called TVolution. This device connects to your existing modern LCD / LED / Plasma TV via the HDMI input and provides an Andorid OS interface where one can surf the internet and consume all sorts of digital media like streaming music, movies, sports events, rich media websites, games, social networking sites and productivity and communications software.

Here's the commercial video which aired on Philippine prime-time TV.