And the Creator said, “let there be light.” And the flickering screen was alight.
Archive for May, 2007
May 28, 2007 at 8:55 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I have been reading several mails I sent years ago. I never thought these can be very good reminders not only of a person’s milestones but also mishaps. One time, a female friend and I were held up by a bunch of teen-agers along Xavierville Avenue several meters away from Xavierville Subdivision’s gate. I have forgotten about it until I read my email again:
Salamat sa pag-email Jean!
Yes, I was robbed. Yet, I was robbed for a good reason!
First, the three teen-agers, each equipped with a rusty knife used for mango peeling, are impoverished. They need a source of hope and inspiration–someone that will give them joy–from a cellphone, for instance–in their aching lives. They needed to feel that the world does care for them and meets their needs.
Second, these amateur hold-uppers need jobs. Maybe soon, after they realize the innate risk and corruption their hobby gives them, they might apply for a job–Information-Technology-related perhaps. Thus, impressive records in fundraising through cellphone donation will prove to be an attractive accomplishment in each of their resumes.
Third, these immodestly honest boys are bored. They want and ask for adventure. Is it not great that I was able to help them ease the bursting desire within them to have a great adventure that even beats the reality-based television programs on the boob tube?
Thinking of you guys when you pop up in my mind,
JULY
May 10, 2007 at 2:50 am · Filed under Uncategorized
My sales team and I have been working for days on improving sales for the second half of the year. We have stayed at a hotel here in San fernando, Pampanga simply to stay outside our airconditioned rooms and chafe ourselves at the hotel’s al fresco bistro from morning till early sundown.
In an unconcious process of squeezing sustainable sales promotions, I was led to a distillation of pucka marketing moonshine. My mind poured forward casks of non-traditional marketing strategies: A school developmental program for a cologne brand; an electricity-saving advocacy ad for an ironing aid; a barangay developmental program for a detergent brand; juices flowing out of brims of creative thoughts.
I began collecting photos of unique promotional materials and non-traditional advertising campaigns. I opened up sites of award-winning sales campaigns. I surfed Ad agency web sites through and through, falling intoxicated by its flavor. I read case studies of successful marketing campaigns and fell much more soaked. The late night fell asleep as I grew wide awake drunk with superb marketing bliss.
May 9, 2007 at 6:33 am · Filed under Uncategorized
The stifling desert has engulfed the earth. This week has been filled with sales meetings tuckering the vigor away from each of us in the sales team. For several days, analysis of distributor performance for the region has wrecked the sanity in my team’s soul. Each has to churn out a kilo ton of SWOT Analysis, extinguish business territory concerns, and plan promotions half of 2007 ahead of time. These griddled our minds to fine crisp, torched further with the sun’s temperament in high summer’s might.
Nevertheless, amidst the flux of numbers and Excel worksheets–and the rising frustration and pressure–night has become Eden. The four of my teammates decided to savor and eat at a grill a couple of kilometers away as we try to quench the rut into which we have fallen earlier.
And we have indeed seen the osasis of Eden. Our talk has risen to beliefs, faith, and Christianity. I have never imagined that each in our group would be so knowleadgeable and inclined to discuss matters like these in depth. Mike B. told about his religious clan and his bouts in finding his own convictions, Gim was light with his comments spruced by his antics on religious blunders, Mike E. narrated his stories of falling in and out of religion, while I expressed the deeds I coiffed in college when I was awestrickenly religious.
The dinner was long but engaging and somewhat brooding. As we returned back to the hotel, the parched air became uncomfortably humid. The heavens will surely cry tonight.
