THRIVE MANILA | October 17 to 25, 2015 | Click on the image to visit the THRIVE Facebook page and learn more about this inspiring event

(Originally published in Inquirer.net on October 16, 2015) It’s a curious kind of convergence, happening in one of the world’s most complicated cities to navigate and live in. Artists and designers will get to hang around startups, who’ll also get to meet social media mavens and social enterprises, who’ll most likely be enjoined by bike advocates and environmentalists to support their causes. There will be art, music, green and healthy food, bikes, left and right brains, and more conscientious shopping. Welcome to THRIVE, a first-of-its…Continue Reading “THRIVE: Where Manila’s cool changemakers converge (Inquirer.net)”

In September 2012, I was fortunate enough to have been one of the panelists of Mashable and Rappler‘s “Social Good Summit” in Manila. Here’s an excerpt of a feature about some insights that I and fellow netizen Jane Uymatiao shared with the audience. To view my full segment, please watch the video on the right sidebar. To view a summary of the  Social Good Summit, please click HERE. Hope to see more of you “super citizens” online! 😉 — ‘The tweet is mightier than the…Continue Reading “In the News: ‘The tweet is mightier than the sword’ (Rappler)”

Almost a month ago (and fresh after the grueling campaign!), I and my “writing sisters” from Writer’s Block Philippines joined Lonely Planet guidebook author Greg Bloom in giving a travel writing seminar to guests of Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street . It was great fun sharing our insights from two of the things we love most–writing and traveling–and to be joined by no less than an authority in the field. Here, I’ll share an excerpt of what Fully Booked published in its blog, but for more meaty…Continue Reading “In the News: Top 5 Take-Home Tidbits from the Lonely Planet No More Seminar (Fully Booked)”

We’ve all seen how social media in the Philippines exploded with posts, tweets, and other memes pertaining to the 2013 mid-term elections. We used social media to learn about some candidates, poke fun at others, and even report election-related offenses. The social media scene was vibrant, albeit cacophonic; and, you have to admit, many of us couldn’t help but engage in the online conversations. Now that election fever has died down, how do we process all that hullabaloo and apply its lessons to our own…Continue Reading “What can the 2013 elections teach your company or brand?”

In the movie The Secret, based on a book by the same title by best-selling author Rhonda Byrne, a man relayed his astonishment when he realized that the new house he had just bought was the same one whose image he had clipped from a magazine and tacked on a corkboard several years earlier. In Chicken Soup for the Soul, actor Jim Carrey was said to have written a multi-million dollar check to himself as a way of affirming his aspirations to someday be wealthy. This was years before…Continue Reading “Dreamboarding and “The Power of Cut-and-Paste””