“Hi, I’m Mike Abundo - mikeabundo.blogspot.com”

One of the more memorable lines from an audience member.

Dean Alfar on Blogging Creatively

In what’s turning out to be the most humorous and entertaining session so far, five-time Palanca Award winner, Dean Alfar (notes from the peanut gallery), has taken the stage to talk about his reasons for blogging and how it ties into his life as an author, a father, a husband, and entrepreneur. If there’s one reason to go to iBlog, this must be it.

Dean’s quotable quotes:

“I found out about blogging when I was surfing for porn.”

“No self respecting blogger doesn’t update. You owe it to your audience.”

“We artists need validation.  ‘Read me!’ ‘Look at my photograph!’ Maawa naman kayo.”

“Noone will read your work if it’s bad — unless it’s about sex.”

CICT Commr. Mapa on Blogging and Governance

CICT Commissioner Dondi Mapa, the highest ranking government official who’s blogging, talked about his reasons for blogging and his future blogging plans.  Among them is the launch of three new work-related blogs. These blogs are about: (a) the PH ccTLD issue; (b) the Three Year Sector Development Plan; and, (c) The Philippine Cyberservices Corridor.  Abangan!  Thanks, Dondi, for sharing your thoughts with us!

GMA 7 at iBlog

Through some quirk of fate and the resourcefulness of our Conference Chair, Atty. Rissa Ofilada, the folks at GMA sent a crew over to cover iBlog.  I’m not sure when or where the piece will come out but this is a first for us. Let’s hope this increases awareness of blogging and encourage more people to blog.  Mabuhay! (more…)

iBlog T-Shirts

One of our enterprising students, Sharon Corpuz (she’s the one in the blue T-shirt) had the idea of selling T-shirts at iBlog.  Although we had run out of funds, our Conference Chair, Rissa Ofilada, advanced the money to have them made.  After all, we all wanted some souvenir of this event that has taken hold of all our lives for the last four weeks.  They’re selling now for P160 or P180 (depending on the size).  As of this writing (2:15pm), we haven’t reached our break-even point.

If we’re unable to sell more, we’ll continue selling them after the event.  I hope you can help us by buying one.  Thanks!

i.PH Session

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.  In order to keep our promise of FREE admission to iBlog, we had to get sponsors.  We had this belief that there was an abundance of companies all to willing to hand us money to get this event together. How wrong we were. 

So, I’m happy that we were able to get 3 sponsors to support the event namely, i.Ph, San Miguel Corporation, and YDS Web Solutions.

That’s Emil Avancena of dotPH demo’ing their new product called Calliope.  It’s an easy-to-use blogging service. They offered a free trial to the folks who attended the event and I understand they got a lot of sign ups.

To our sponsors:  Many thanks!

Morning Session Open Forum

Open Forum at iBlog where Gail and Abe answered questions posed by newbies. 

Kutitots Talks on Beautifying Your Blogging

Gail Dela Cruz (aka Kutitots) spoke next on adding bells and whistles on your blog (from blog rolling to tag boards to whatever else is out there). Instead of the usual powerpoint presentation, her slides were in flash.  We’ll still have to figure out how to upload them to our site but we’ll make it available to you at the iBlog site. 

Yuga Speaks

Yuga Near

Yuga Far

Our opening session was presided over by Abe Olandres (aka Yuga).  He talked about blogging basics and gave simple instructions on how to get a blog started.  It was an informative session.  Thanks, Yuga. 

Blogging at iBlog

After a short delay in getting the Internet connection up, iBlog was off and running at around 9:30a.m.  Before the event officially started, we asked the folks present to introduce themselves and say something about their blog.  We were pleased to find that many bloggers were present and it was a nice experience to place a face to a blog. A blog comes alive! 

Pic by Jon Lao

An elderly lady stood up and explained that she knows nothing about blogging but she wanted to learn so she could be closer to her grandchildren.

Perfect. 

Blogging is also about connecting with other people — even people you see every day or those who are closest to you.  Welcome, ma’am, we hope iBlog can make a difference in your life. 

For now, we’re still about to begin. 

Wish us luck.