I was given a wonderful opportunity to go abroad last weekend and present to delegates from over 20 countries my experience in building the Mindanao Bloggers Community. Organized by the dotAsia Organisation, the event was BlogFest.Asia, the region’s very first pan-Asian conference for bloggers, held in Hong Kong from 6 to 8 November 2009.

My participation in BlogFest.Asia was thanks to Mozilla’s Gen Kanai, who recommended me and Juned Sonido to the event organizers. We were also joined by two other compatriots: Tonyo Cruz, who talked about Filipino bloggers’ response to Typhoon Ondoy; and Atty. Jimmy Soriano of Creative Commons – Asia. (Please read my ‘official’ post about the event here.)

This was the second time that I was part of an Asian conference, although this was bigger than the first. The first time was in July 2005 when I joined fellow Japanese-language teachers & scholars from all over Asia at a week-long conference held in Taichung and Taipei, Taiwan. In both occasions, I was able to glean insights into different Asian cultures, and gain a deeper understanding of our differences and commonalities. Also, on both conferences, I felt that attending them was the next best thing to visiting the delegates’ own countries.

At BlogFest.Asia, I had some firsts. It was my first time to meet someone from Kyrgyzstan (although it wasn’t my first time to meet Central Asians, because at that 2005 conference I met people from Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan). I also found out that people from Mongolia use the same patronymic family names as people from Iceland. It was my first time in Hong Kong. It was also my first time to bring the Mindanao Bloggers Community (MBC) outside the borders of the Philippines.

Interacting with the Asian delegates gave me the chance to bring the MBC to a wider audience. And it was a fruitful exercise because I believe my contribution to the conference left a good impression on some of the delegates. Bloggers and new media practitioners from Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and other places approached me after my talk and congratulated me for having delivered an “inspiring and insightful presentation.” You can’t imagine how elated and buoyant their generous words made me feel.

I have fellow Filipino bloggers like Janette, Avel, Juned, Manolo and Aileen to thank for my successful participation in BlogFest.Asia. They are my friends, but more importantly, they are people who possess an uncommon influence in their fields and exude a passion that stirs the soul. Moreso, I am grateful to my fellow Mindanao bloggers, because it is for them that I felt compelled to bring the MBC’s message to the world.

OK, on to lighter stuff.

I was extremely pleased to have sampled authentic dim sum with Juned on our last day. Going to Hong Kong, you see, I told myself I should be able to eat Chinese dumplings where it was invented. Juned and I were able to find this off-the-beaten-track restaurant that served excellent dim sum. It’s called Ho Choi, on the 3rd floor of a building near HSBC in Yau Ma Tei. No tourists there, just locals, plenty of them. One of my favorite dumplings is hakaw (shrimp in translucent bags), and they serve it at Ho Choi. It was so yummy!! Now I don’t know if I can still enjoy local dumplings…

There were many things I wasn’t able to do in Hong Kong, though. I was supposed to go to Disneyland (a friend was going to give me a day pass), but didn’t have time for it. I stayed in Kowloon the whole time, so I’ll have to save going to Hong Kong central for my next trip. I must say, I actually can’t wait to go back. I found the place simply fantastic! And I envy their transportation system — going around Hong Kong via the MTR subway was amazingly simple and convenient.

While I look forward to another trip to Hong Kong (and Taiwan, of course), I’m more of a mind to experiencing other exotic destinations. Hopefully, I will be able to pay my new blogger-friends in Bangkok, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur and other Asian cities a visit in the near future!

Bloggers & Amb. Kenney

The U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie Kenney, is often in Mindanao, attending to the various projects and commitments that her government has in the Philippine South. But this time, she made a special stop while in Davao just to meet and get to know some of the bloggers here.

Last year, I had a chance to meet the U.S. embassy’s press attaché and spokesperson, Rebecca Thompson, in Tagaytay for the Media Nation conference. Then a couple of weeks ago, her office contacted me to get a group of bloggers together for a meet-up with Amb. Kenney during her brief stay in Davao City. I thought it would be good to have a diverse collection of bloggers, and I came up with this seven: Jaime Haw (Apple® fanboy); Migs Hipolito (mobile technologies); Ria Jose (politics, lifestyle); Rhodilee Jean Dolor (family, business); Sarah Matalam (community work, motherhood); Lyle Santos (nursing, Internet); and Brendel Balaga (nursing studies).

Roundtable with Kristie Kenney

During the very informal — in fact, very up close and personal — get-together with the ambassador today, we came to know a personable and gregarious woman. Far from what all of us were expecting, this charming lady appeared very down-to-earth, and loves basketball; she can even keep up with any sports fan on the latest in PBA stuff. (She was practically gushing when she told us that she was going to do the meet-and-greet for Kobe Bryant, who’s scheduled to come to the Philippines soon.) By the way, she also got herself certified in scuba diving here in the Philippines.

She also blogs herself: check it out. While her blog is her own, she said it’s started to take the shape of an information portal for the embassy’s activities. For her own personal use, she’s on Facebook. Isn’t it quite refreshing to know that someone in her stature keeps abreast of Internet trends? So we couldn’t resist telling her about Plurk and how Filipino bloggers are engrossed in it. She does know about Twitter, but she said she prefers Facebook.

We had the opportunity to tell the ambassador about our blogs and about the Mindanao Bloggers community, in which she seems to be genuinely interested. The U.S. government and ours, in efforts to establish long-lasting peace in Mindanao, collaborate on development projects in the areas of education, agriculture, environment, health, prosperity, human rights. I suppose Kenney was keen on knowing how our community was contributing to the upliftment of Mindanao’s image through our various blogs.

Meeting Kristie Kenney

Meeting Kristie Kenney, who has gone to more parts of Mindanao than I have, has inspired me to forge on and try to achieve my goal this year: to visit as many places on the island as I can. I asked her what places in Mindanao fascinated her, and she related how she was amazed by the tuna port of General Santos, as well as by the beauty of Tawi-Tawi and Marawi. How I wish I could go deeper south and see more bloggers’ communities in those areas get organized!

This was the first time that the head of a diplomatic mission to the Philippines has gone out of their way to talk to bloggers. And I hope it won’t be the last. We’ve invited Amb. Kenney to be our guest of honor at the Mindanao Bloggers Summit in Cagayan de Oro this October, and she has accepted in principle. It’s not certain yet what follow-up activities might happen between the MB community and the American embassy in the future, but I do expect a continued exchange of information at the very least.

After about 3 years in existence, and after all the activities that have given exposure to the MB community, this has to be the most fulfilling one for us yet. In behalf of the bloggers of Mindanao, I’d like to thank Ambassador Kristie and her staff for the wonderful morning today! Hopefully, this October again!

I arrived in Cagayan de Oro City last night, having traveled by car with Rodney Jao and Ray Rubio. Rodney has a speaking engagement for Microsoft at this software giant’s roadshow on mobile applications development. Ray and I just came along for the ride (literally).

After checking in at a hotel near the Limketkai Mall, we had dinner at P.Joe’s Diner. Their food’s not exactly something I’d recommend, but it was a place we’ve known for years now, and we weren’t feeling very adventurous, so… At least their wifi connectivity was decent. Still, we should’ve tried eating at the other establishments nearby. Read the full story

The DigitalFilipino.com Club fellowship night and bloggers’ get-together last 21 October 2008 at the Casino Filipino in Davao was a very enjoyable and eye-opening event. Enjoyable because there were about a hundred bloggers there, and it’s always fun when bloggers come together to eat and play.

One of the things that made the affair an eye-opening experience for me was discovering that there are quite a number of Dabawenyo or Davao-based bloggers who made it this year’s Top 100 Philippine Blogs (a project of the DigitalFilipino.com Club in cooperation with Ratified.org). Among the top ten blogs are Jehzlau Concepts, Pinoy R.N., and Bakla Ako, May Reklamo?. The MindanaoBloggers community blog also made it to the roster of notable Filipino blogs.

For a comprehensive list of blog posts covering the event, click here. Read the full story

We’ve now decided on the venue for WordCamp Davao on 4 September 2008. For those of you who have registered for the event (and complied with the requirements), see you at Bryan’s Grill & Café in Palm Village. For those who aren’t familiar with the place, click through to the locator map.

Bryan’s Grill is a cozy al fresco restaurant where we can sit back and relax while listening to the WordCamp speakers: Councilor Pete Laviña, Red Rola, yours truly, and of course, Mr. WordPress himself, Matt Mullenweg. And it helps that the food at Bryan’s is simply spectacular.

Read the full story

As a blogger, no matter how long you’ve been blogging, it’s always a rush knowing you get more and more readers as you go along. And it’s particularly inspiring when someone actually appreciates your blog.

This I-love-Davao blog of mine just got blogged!

Sinag of sinagshine.blogspot.com chose Ang Dabawenyo in her entry in the ongoing You Got Blogged! review-a-blog competition. Her review is really heart-warming, and certainly adds to the motivation for me to write even more about my hometown. Thanks, Sinag!! Read the full story

The 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit was satisfyingly successful. We could’ve gotten more participants from more areas of Mindanao, but for a first-time effort for a unique event, I was happy with the turnout. The important thing is, my colleagues and I have gotten the ball rolling. I’m counting on the viral nature of blogs: each blogger has his or her own set of readers, so when he or she writes about the Summit and its objectives, the word gets around pretty quickly. Read the full story