I Am Blogie

Ever since I became active in the blogosphere, especially in the advocacy efforts of the Mindanao Bloggers Community, I’ve been getting invited to conferences, seminars, workshops and similar events. Most of them relate to Internet and cyber-media / journalism issues. There were the speaking engagements in local conferences, then came opportunities to contribute to larger-scale [...]

Automattic sent me a Moleskine notebook yesterday, as a token for having organized WordCamp Philippines 2009. It’s way cool — the “legendary notebook” embossed with the WordPress logo on the front cover!

Last year, Maya, Matt‘s indefatigable girl friday, sent me a WP hoodie for my efforts in 2008.

It’s certainly heart-warming, to be given such simple yet memorable gifts. Advocating the use of WordPress is its own reward, but tokens of appreciation do lift the spirit up when they are received.

No related posts.

This is the video greeting from Matt Mullenweg for the participants of WordCamp Philippines 2009. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to attend this year’s WordCamp, so I asked him to send a video greeting instead. Very gracious of Matt to have obliged us with our request!

We hope to see you in 2010, Matt!

Related posts:

1. Welcome!
2. Simple but memorable
3. Automattic, Pier 38, SFO

It’s a truly exhilarating experience after having put together two successful WordCamp Philippines events! The preparations for the second WordCamp in the country, held in Makati City last 19 September, was actually stressing me out to the point that I wasn’t getting my bread-and-butter work done properly the last couple of months. But, with the [...]

When I was in the big city last week for WordCamp Philippines 2009, my organizing team and I stayed at a delightful little hotel in Makati, Jupiter Suites. Honestly, I had never heard of it before (even though my mother’s family hails from Bel-Air Village in Makati), but I’m certainly glad I know about them now!

Situated right smack in the center of things in the country’s premier financial district, Jupiter Suites will be appreciated by businessmen and transients as it is surrounded by all kinds of food establishments (from fast-food joints to the more high-end restaurants), a convenience store, a bookstore, a pharmacy, and more! Glorietta and Greenbelt are a short hop away, and so are parks and churches.

Jupiter Suites, formerly known as the Jupiter Arms Hotel, is not a big, posh property; in fact, it’s only three floors, with less than 20 rooms, in my estimation. However, their accommodation facilities are good, the rooms are spacious, and the place is well-maintained. What I appreciated the most — apart from its strategic location — is their brand of customer service. During our whole stay, the staff were very friendly and helpful, and several times went out of their way to make our stay in Makati more pleasant. We were there for a major international bloggers’ event as organizers, so, as much as it was exciting for us, it was also quite stressful. Staying at Jupiter Suites definitely helped ease the transition.

One more thing that made my stay in Makati productive was their free Internet service. All rooms are equipped with LAN cables for you to hook up your laptop to, and the bandwidth was impressive during my entire stay. I was able to keep up with my Web-based activities, thanks to Jupiter Suites’ free & fast Internet connectivity. (I just wish they provided wifi access instead, so I could’ve moved around the room with my iPod touch… but then again, the LAN connection was pretty decent.)

Next time I find myself in the nation’s capital, it’s going to be Jupiter Suites for me!

They are located on 102 Jupiter Street (near the corner of Makati Avenue), Bel-Air, Makati City. Their landline number is +63(2)890-5050. Click here to jump to their website.

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Disclosure: Jupiter Suites sponsored the accommodations of the WordCamp Philippines 2009 organizers.

Copyright © 2009, Oliver Robillo.
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Lyle Santos, Chattee Lara and yours truly have been joining heads for some time now to come up with a line of cool WordCamp Philippines merchandise for everyone. Yesterday, the two went out to have a few laptop stickers prototyped. And here they are!

The WordCamp Philippines online store will be open very soon! Please bookmark the official site or subscribe to the RSS feed to keep tabs.

T-shirts? Of course we’ll still have t-shirts! Watch out for ‘em!

Sponsored By: DVO Bloggers Network - the Davao blogosphere

I’m happy to announce that the gang of Mindanao Bloggers and their supporters will soon be commencing plans and arrangements for WordCamp Philippines 2009! I will be calling the first organizational meeting within the following week.

It has yet to be officially finalized, but I’m excited to let everyone know that we’re working with the Asian Institute of Management to have this prestigious school be the host and venue for WordCamp this year. Thanks to Jayvee Fernandez and Regnard Raquedan for the invaluable support!

Bueno, let’s get the ball rolling!

We are now calling for volunteers for the various committees (logistics, tech, food & refreshments, etc). If you would like to be a speaker at WordCamp, let me know! And if you have suggestions on topics to be presented / discussed at WordCamp, do leave a comment right here.

Further announcements shall be posted on WordCamp.ph, the official site, whose domain name is sponsored by dotPH. More generous sponsors — we welcome you!

While the site is still being completed, we’re already working our behinds off to ensure another successful WordCamp!

Meanwhile, to my fellow Dabawenyos, we will soon be putting together more WordPress seminars (basic- and advanced-level sessions) before the summer is over within the next few weeks. Please refer to this blog for the schedules. And, yes, there will most probably be a Davao leg for WordCamp, just like last year.

Blog on!

Sponsored By: 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit - 27 Oct 2007, Davao City

Copyright © 2009, Oliver Robillo.
This feed is for the exclusive use of the publishing site, Blogie Blog. The unauthorized use of this feed is an infringement of copyright.
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Since 2005 — or even earlier? –, blog-centric events in the Philippines have been on the rise, with a number of major events becoming well-entrenched in the Filipino blogosphere. Foremost is the five-year-old educational event, iBlog Philippines, led by Janette Toral, who has been a very active and visible Internet figure primarily through her DigitalFilipino.com [...]

Ever since Matt started talking about the WordCamp Philippines 2008 T-shirt design, the buzz hasn’t quite died down yet, even months after the event. Today I got a trackback to the WCP site from WordCamp Ed D.C. (WordCamp Ed is an initiative that’s focused on promoting the educational uses of WordPress.)

The post is about their T-shirt design, which looks pretty cool actually. Then it says, “Who wins the t-shirt contest — us or WordCamp Philippines?”

It’s flattering, really. Andrew and I and the rest of the WCP2008 organizers take it as a challenge, of course! But a friendly one. Personally, this makes me very proud of what we’ve accomplished in the world of WordCamps.

I know this post is rather late, but I don’t want to pass off blogging about this!

The WordCamp Philippines official blog site was acclaimed the best website in the Events / Conferences category of this year’s DigitalFilipino Web Awards. Needless to say, I feel really proud of this award. It adds to the warm and fuzzy feeling I and my team already have for organizing a very successful WordCamp event.

Here’s the video of Winston Almendras, who accepted the award on our behalf, reading the acceptance speech I’d written for the occasion.

Find more videos like this on DigitalFilipino.com Social Network

Here’s the official list of DigitalFilipino Web Awardees:

1. Apparel / Fashion Category - Tesoro’s Philippine Handicrafts and Barongs
2. Art Category - Hiraya
3. Association / Organization Category - Information Technology Association of the Philippines
4. Auction / Shopping Portal Category - KabayanCentral
5. Automotive Category - AutoIndustriya
6. Beauty Category - Godiva
7. Blog - Corporate Category - The Belo Medical Group Blog
8. Blog - Personal Category - The D Spot
9. Blog - Professional Category - Tech at Hand
10. Books Category - OMF Literature
11. Community Category - TipidPC
12. Computer / Consumer Electronics Category - Villman Computers Philippines
13. Consumer Banking / Bills Payment Category - Philippine National Bank
14. Corporate / Professional Category - Syntactics
15. Events / Conferences Category - WordCamp Philippines
16. Financial Services Category - Absolute Traders
17. Food Category - Filipino Recipes
18. Games Category - RF Online Philippines
19. Gifts Category - Express Regalo
20. Guides / Review Category - ClickTheCity.com
21. Home Furnishings / Improvement Category - Philippine Interior Design & Feng Shui Tips
22. Jobs / Employment Category - MyNimo
23. Magazine Category - Candymag.com
24. Music / Movie/ Film Category - TitikPilipino
25. Newspaper Category - Inquirer.net
26. Pharmaceuticals Category - GlaxoSmithKline Philippines
27. Podcast Category - The Daily PCIJ
28. Politics Category - Filipino Voices
29. Real Estate Category - BF Homes Properties
30. School / University Category - De La Salle University - Manila
31. Services Category - Load.com.ph
32. Social Networking Category - GreatPinoy!
33. Tourism Category - Cebu CeBoom CeBlog
34. Travel Category - Philippine Airlines