The 18th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta

Guess, what it is a few days to go before the the 18th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. It will be held on February 21 to 24 at the Clark Freeport Zone.

There will be early morning and late afternoon balloon flights, aeromodelling demonstrations, ultralights, and fixed-wing aircraft competitions. You can also watch paraglider pilots and skydivers float through the air, as well as witness our own servicemen perform rescue demonstrations.

But the highlight of this years fiesta will be the participation of the Breitling Jet Team, the largest civilian aerobatics team in the world. Now, I have been to previous hot air balloon festivals at Clark but the prospect of real live air daredevils makes me want to come back. Next weekend.

Tickets are available at SM ticketnet outlets for P250.

National Arts Month this Feb

Since 1991, when the Presidential Proclamation No. 683 was signed, we have been celebrating National Arts Month in February of each year. The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the country's prime agency for the arts and culture, has been leading the celebrations, initially with activities focusing in the National Capital Region (NCR) until they covered more and more regions. At present, activities are held all over the country.

The activities for the National Arts  Month have been consolidated into what is now known as the Philippine Arts Festival (PAF). Now, the PAF is mainly comprised of the flagship projects of the seven committee's of the NCCA's Subcommission on the Arts, namely, architecture, cinema, dance, literature, music, theater and the visual arts. You may check the schedule of activities at the NCCA website.

Juan time: Philippine standard time

It did not get much mileage but the sometime in the past the Philippines launched Juan Time, a campaign to promote the value of being on time, the direct opposite of the penchant to be late we commonly call Filipino time. The campaign involved the setting up of an online reference for the correct Philippine Standard Time (PST) meant to encourage Filipinos to value time more and to be punctual. To this day, the online service remains to be the most authoritative reference of the correct Philippine time. You may check it at kidlat.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/ourtime.shtml.

Watch Sinulog 2013 live!

I have always wanted to witness Sinulog live but have not been able to, ever. But now, with technology, we can now watch it live. You may watch the live streaming of Sinulog 2013 at http://www.sinulogsasky.com/ or at http://cebu.sunstar.com.ph/sinulog/. Viva Pit Senor!

The will to blog again

The year 2012 was an eventful year for me. Still, there were many things that I completely failed to do and one of them is blogging. Funny but my last post in this blog, Pinoy Seminars, was in early 2012. I remember I was planning to revive my blogs then at the start of the year. Fail.

Early this year I listed around 20 to dos in 2013 and again blogging is one of them. I had modest success in the past, getting traffic here of people wanting to improve themselves through seminars and trainings in the Philippines, and I did earn a few checks from blog ads. I resolve to regain that.  Expect to see not only Pinoy Seminars but also Bol-anon alive again.

Samuel Beckett says "Habit is a great deadender." Let's rise above our habits.

It's More Fun in the Philippines

Taken at a resort in Zambales fronting Potipot Island.

93 percent of communication is non-verbal

I have just read that in communication, words account for only seven percent; the tone of voice makes for 38 percent and the rest is body language. Thus, 93 percent of communication is non-verbal. And when it comes to non-verbal communication, some are more receptive to sounds (auditory), while others are more visual (kinesthetic). Marge C. Enriquez writes about this at Inquirer.net in the article entitled "Win people by knowing their communication styles".

If you’re selling a car or a condo, a spiel that follows the classic formula of accurate information, clarity and brevity won’t work. It’s not what you say but what you don’t say that gets the message across.

Management consultant, facilitator and speaker Ben Ampil quotes studies as saying that in communication, words account for only seven percent; the tone of voice makes for 38 percent and the rest is body language. Hence, 93 percent of communication is non-verbal.

Likewise, it is also important to know the target consumer or individual’s communication style that is based on his dominant sensory perception if you want results.

If a person’s main communication style is verbal or sound or word-based, he is classified as “auditory,” and tends to be detail oriented. A “visual” person relates to images while a kinesthetic is more responsive to feelings or experiences.

Free Online Course on Knowledge Management

One of things I am so interested about is knowledge management. Good thing that there great number of online resources available for free. One is this free online knowledge management course. Here's how the course differentiated data vs information vs knowledge.

What then is knowledge? And what is information? How is knowledge different from information?

Information is organized, systematized data. And what are data? Data are statements about reality or about other data. They are representations about the world – be it physical, social, psychological, organizational, or any other form of reality.

Data becomes information when they are organized according to certain preferences and placed in a context, which defines their meaning and relevance. Information is meaningful, contextualized data, but not yet knowledge. It is clear that as compared to information which is an objectification, knowledge involves subject formation.

Information can become knowledge when a human being interacts with it, appropriates it and makes it her/his own, contextualizes it by placing it in relation to other knowledge that are already her/his own, and internalizes it by making it a part of his belief system.

Knowledge, then, is people-based. Its information that has been processed, analyzed, distilled and packaged by the human mind.

Information is not knowledge. That became painfully clear during the Information Age when organizations invested heavily in information technology only to find themselves drowning in vast in-house caches of meaningless and unused data. Now they are inundated externally with even more mega-tons of information, unfiltered on-line. Organizations that do not understand the difference between knowledge and information will fall once again into the technology trap.

Tech Tutor 3 at SM Megamall

Tech Tutor 3, September 27-28, 2011 Megatrade Hall I, SM Megamall

The National Museum online

I have just watched GMA's documentary entitled Philippine Treasures. I was happy to learn that the National Museum's website now has 360 degree digital tour feature courtesy of Firefly. I think such a feature will go a long way in making us Filipinos more aware of our heritage and culture.

I encourage everyone to visit the site, even though I have to say that it is rather slow.