Starting an online business

I recently re-launched the Women in Web, Wireless, and Outsourcing blog and invited friends and female club members to contribute. This is one blog project where I hope to get enough folks to blog in it, generate traffic, and earn at the same time.

Joan Piñon, site owner of My Little Baker, made her first post on "Owning a piece of the Web". It is about her story of taking the plunge in setting up her online business.

I encourage you to check it out and give her moral support as we need more entrepreneurs in this country. Her experience can also be most encouraging to educators, as Joan is also a teacher.

As for my story, here are some posts that you can check out:

• About DigitalFilipino.com
• Blogging and the Digital Filipino
• Build it, break it
• Work at home

How about you? How did you get started with your online business and started earning online? If you have an "about" story in your website that details it or blog post that gives a bit of a history, I hope you can share the link and get others inspired too.

Becoming a Success by Helping Others

I got an interesting question lately as to how should one measure the success of their ventures, particularly of a website.

It made me reflect as success parameters can be different from one person to the other. Some measure it based on their traffic rank, articles, visitors, projects, among others. I've been through that stage and can easily say that I've graduated from it already.

My biggest satisfaction or success parameter comes from seeing others become successful in their ventures. Being part of that success, even in the smallest way, counts a lot to me.

Community impact is the most important parameter in my website success. It is how you help others, in achieving their goals, that count the most.

I guess this is also the reason why I formed the DigitalFilipino.com Club.

Still at PageRank 6

Thanks to Marc's post, I was able to check how our PageRank is doing. So far, it shows that we are PageRank 6 for DigitalFilipino.com and PageRank 5 for the DigitalFilipino.com Club!

Despite the fact that the DigitalFilipino.com Club is a members-only site, it is interesting to see that it was able to achieve such a rank!

Blue Ocean Strategy

Very rare do I find a book that is able to grab one's attention and encourage the reader to finish it till the end. One of the best book I've read to date is Blue Ocean Strategy (How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant) written by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

The book intrigued me as it challenges some of the principles espoused by Michael Porter in his book Competitive Strategy and Competitive Advantage.

Making DigitalFilipino.com work and reach where it is today is heavily inspired by the books I've read and people I met. Will share more insight in future posts. Here are some of the books that have been most interesting:

Strategy:

• The Six Value Medals (Edward de Bono)
• Good to Great (Jim Collins)
• High Tech Start Up (John Nesheim)
• The Power of Unfair Advantage - How to Create It, Build It and Use It to Maximum Effect (John Nesheim)
• The Mystery of Capital (Hernando Desoto)
• Built to Last (Jim Collins)
  

Leadership:

• The Effective Executive in Action: A Journal for Getting the Right Things Done (Peter Drucker)
  
• Failing Forward (John Maxwell)
• 8th Habit (Stephen Covey)
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey)
• 17 Indisputable Laws of TeamWork Workbook (John Maxwell)
  

Thinking:

• Six Thinking Hats (Edward de Bono)
• Blink (Malcolm Gladwell)
• Thinking for a Change (John Maxwell)

Spiritual:

• Grace for the Moment (Max Lucado)
  
• Leadership Promises for Every Day (John Maxwell)

Too soon

Blogger Vonj made an interesting study on the Philippines blogging developments, classification, and leaders.

DigitalFilipino.com, my personal website, is often referred to as a hybrid website/blog. I guess back in 1999, there was no tool availble to do exactly what I wanted and therefore lead to the creation of my site, as to what it is today. Although there are new online tools that partly has the features that I'm currently using, but switching to another platform is not an easy task. I decided instead to update my site integrating tools like comments by Haloscan.com and RSS feed.

It is quite weird to be assessed with blog sites based on the technology that I'm using (and its limitations). My site is often confused as well for being a commercial or company site. I guess that is the price one has to pay for coming out with stuff too soon.

Recently, podomatic.com created a quiz tool that podcasters can use to create one for site visitors. So for those of you who think you know me well enough, try answering this. You may need to dig the archives of my website and mailing list to answer it.

Bouncing members (2002)

Have been very happy lately for the DigitalFilipino discussion group bouncing list is now stable. From 200 bouncing members, was able to bring it down to less than 20. Oh what a relief! I hope the day will come when the discussion group will achieve the 2000 membership mark.

As we are celebrating our 3rd year anniversary this September 17, allow me to recall how DigitalFilipino.com started. I was reading the book, Digital Darwinism, when the name DigitalFilipino.com suddenly hit me. The next day, while attending the launch of MyDestiny Internet cable service, I decided to use one of the computers in the event and register the domain name.

Was very proud of the name and knew that this is going to be the start of something very serious.

Working on Filipino Internet User Report (2002)

After finishing my Cebu and Davao CMM training programs, it was a relief to be home and finally get the chance to attend to some DigitalFilipino stuff like updating articles and making follow-up on several business proposals. Am currently finishing the Filipino Internet User Report, the 3rd issue of the DigitalFilipino StatsReport.

CMM class in Davao (2002)

The event last week at the Traders Hotel went well and was fun. =)
We all learned a lot from it and am currently arranging a follow-up activity. I hope it pushes through.

Am now in Davao conducting an Intro to CMM class. Glad to see my schedules getting hectic again. As times are tough, all of us have to work harder to earn a living.

On September 17, DigitalFilipino.com will be celebrating its 3rd anniversary! Sana maraming pumunta sa party.

Just an update (8/23/2002): the training in Davao inspired me to come up with a program on Making the Philippines CMM Self-Sufficient.

DigitalFilipino matters goes here (2002)

Ok. Just some changes in this blog. From this point on, all DigitalFilipino related activities will be posted in this blog. While my personal related stuff and thoughts can be found in my LiveJournal. Am currently stuck at home finishing the 3rd issue of DigitalFilipino StatsReport.