FORGET-NOT-THE TRAILS: “As We Look Forward, Don’t Forget to Look Backward”

by Dessie A. Urbano-Tubale
Master of Development Communication

Thank you for this privilege to represent the UPOU Class 2008!

Hats off to you, fellow graduates! Congratulations!

I am very happy to deliver my final exam tonight – the valedictory address – because you are also taking this exam, fellow graduates. You have to listen to me, and to cheer for ourselves in the next 10 minutes.

Fellow graduates, as I drafted the speech, I thought of everyone of us in this class. I thought of how unique and special we are for being called the centennial graduates of UPOU Class 2008!

Let me tell you a secret.

While walking towards the podium, I saw our good-looking, famous, naked guy beside our UPOU officials. Why did he go down from his usual post at the Oblation Park? Has he been tired of standing, with his widespread arms and face pointing upwards, for 100 years now? Not at all for he isn’t seated even though there’s a reserved seat for him! I wanted to smile at him, but he wouldn’t look at me – yet! Then, I realized that maybe it was his way of urging me to say this…

Mr. Oblation, who’s celebrating his 100th year on Earth, our guest speaker, Hon. Rolando Andaya Jr., our UP president, Hon. Emerlinda Roman, and the UP System Officers of Administration, our chancellor, Hon. Dr. Grace Alfonso, and the UPOU officers of administration, the Chancellors of constituent universities, our University Registrar, Dr. Melinda Bandalaria, Regent Romulo Davide, Regent Nelia Gonzales, Regent Felix Librero, respected UPOU faculty and staff, distinguished guests, our beloved family members and friends, fellow centennial graduates of UPOU Class 2008, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

Well, after hearing his name in my acknowledgement, that’s the only time that Mr. Oblation or Oble sat down with a pleased smile on his face. In case you want to know, he’s now sitting beside our Chancellor, Ma’am Gigi. Oble’s arms are still widespread, of course; but, he’s now facing you, fellow graduates.

The Centennial Meaning of SABLAY

We made it, Class 2008! We are now wearing our SABLAY in our left shoulders. It’s a common thing then that we’d find ourselves saying, “Natapos din at di na sumablay pa”…

My favorite anecdote with regard to wearing the SABLAY comes from our respected University Registrar, Dr. Melinda Bandalaria, or Ma’am Mel, as we fondly call her, who’s also my adviser – and these are her words:

“…higit sa medalya ng isang honor student ang karapatang iginawad sainyo na maisuot ang sablay na sa kaliwang balikat nakalagay” 1

Thank you for this great reminder, Ma’am Mel. In case you’re wondering, I got your words of wisdom from the Internet.” Ladies and gentlemen, that’s one beauty of being a UPOU student and graduate. I was and am always almost connected to the Internet for online information, and I guess this goes for all of us, fellow graduates.

Fellow graduates, as we keep our SABLAY later on in our respective homes, or as we put our SABLAY in gold plated frames, keep in mind the thought that UP has made us the best of what we can be! We should also remember our responsibility to selflessly give back to our country! Allow me the opportunity to let you take a few minutes to look over and feel our SABLAY, and reflect upon the centennial meaning I made. It is…

S-haring our
A-we inspiring and
B-est
L-eadership skills
A-mong the country’s
Y-outh

Fellow graduates, the most memorable part of our graduation was the transfer of our SABLAY from our right shoulder to the left, a confirmation of our status as graduates of the world-class University of the Philippines!

University of the Philippines: “Matibay na Ugat, Mayabong na Sanga”

UP – University of the Philippines o ang ating Unibersidad ng Pilipinas – ibinabahagi nya sa atin ang karangalan na maging bahagi ng isang institusyong may “matibay na ugat at mayabong na sanga” 2.

What has UP, with its seven constituent units and 12 campuses, produced over the past 100 years? Mr. Oblation was, and, is a witness to the facts that UP has produced “seven of 14 Philippine presidents, 12 chief justices of the Supreme Court; 30 of 31 national scientists; 36 of 57 national artists, 250,000 UP alumni -15,000 doctors, 8,000 lawyers and 23,000 teachers-”3; and, added to the alumni today are the 173 graduates of UPOU Class 2008!

We are, indeed, privileged to be part of the institution that has the sturdiest roots and flourishing branches among the universities in the whole archipelago of the country! While our school has the only, unique Filipino academic costume, which is the SABLAY, our country has the ONLY national university4 – ang ating UNIBERSIDAD NG PILIPINAS – as declared by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on the 29th of April 2008!

Forget-Not-The Trails

Like what our previous UP Class 2007 graduation speakers shared with us– to “take not the road less traveled, but rather make new roads and blaze new trails”5, according to Mikaela Irene Fudolig, BS Physics of UP Diliman; and, from Fr. Gerard Ravasco from the MDC of UPOU, to “pave and asphalt the blazen trail – we have already seized the opportunity to further our knowledge and skills”6;

And, today…

I would like to tell you, fellow graduates, to “take new roads, and design the life that you want to achieve; make use of the knowledge and skills you have seized, but forget not the trails”. For, whatever heights we’d reach, “as we look forward, don’t forget to look backward”.7 We are the centennial graduates! Fellow graduates, let’s ask ourselves, specifically, “how can we help UP in the next 100 years?”, or more generally, “for being the ‘Iskolar ng Bayan’, how can we help back our country?”

We won’t be marching with, and wearing our SABLAY if not for the many people who have joined us in our journey.

Our academic trail

Firstly, our academic trail: On behalf of the UPOU Class 2008, I would like to thank our Faculty-in-Charge, advisers, and tutors for all the lessons learned, for spending sleepless nights correcting our TMAs, FMAs, and theses, and for giving us the most-sought grades! Thank you for the University Council for allowing us to graduate!

Our familial trail

Secondly, our familial trail: The best part of being a speaker is I can acknowledge my family present here. I will get that opportunity after I have allowed you to say your thanks first (kindly utter, on your seats, your prayer of thanks to your family members) after the third count…1.2.3. (Thank you) To all the families of the graduates of Class 2008, thank you for being there for us, and for coming from far places to share this moment with us!

It goes for all when I say that I would like to thank my family members who are my number one fans and supporters. Thank you, my whole family, for everything, and for being my major inspiration to achieve greater heights. I am so happy to see you all after 10 months, my Papa and Mama, Delfin and Jessie Urbano, my siblings Deji, Dessa, Don (who’s in Malaysia), and Delfin Jr. To my husband, Frederic Tubale, who came with me all the way from Kuwait just to make sure that I mention his name in my speech, thank you for everything, labs, starting from washing the dishes and doing the laundry when I crammed for my papers at the graduate school, and to doing other major things! Thank you to my family-in-law, Lola Conching, Lola Auring, Mama Connie, Papa Fred, and my siblings-in-law for sharing this joyous moment with me.

Our expanded trail

Thirdly, our expanded trail: UPOU life won’t be complete without every one of us here, dear graduates! Cheers to the friendships we all have formed! Special thanks to my friends and classmates in the MDC program. Thank you to my bestfriend, Lalaine Alcala, for taking a special time to be here with me.

We would also like to thank the companies we all work with. Usually, they gave us the benefits of doing our assignments at the office; that meant using the Internet for free – well, that is, during our free time, right? Personally, I am thanking my bosses in Kuwait, Mr. Mohsen, Al-ajmi, and Abu Mohsen Al-ajmi, for being so kind and accommodating, and for giving us this chance to go home.

To all the people, friends, and relatives, who are too many to mention, our heartfelt gratitude as well.

Our original trail

Above all, to our original trail, our God the Almighty Father, for breathing life unto us, and for giving us the brain cells to get through with life at UP.

Final Words to the Graduates

In case you want to know, Oble is now standing in his usual post at the Oblation Park. He has just sensed that I am about to finish my speech.

Fellow graduates, we all came from this school that has the sturdiest roots and flourishing branches! So, armed with God’s guidance, and UP’s ideals and teachings, go and do great things to flourish, once again, UP’s branches! Look for the work that you were born to do, if you haven’t found it yet…but, never stop learning. Go for lifelong learning!

I’m glad to have found my true calling after taking up Master of Development Communication. Thank you, UPOU!

Lastly, fellow graduates,

Aim high, but…

“Don’t run through life so fast that (we) forget
where (we)’ve been,

But also know where (we)’re going.”8

Above all, forget-not-the trails…

“As we look forward, don’t forget to look backward…”

…UNTIL WE MEET OBLE AGAIN(9)…

Thank you…

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Cheers to charities out there!

Kaioo (invented name inspired by the Greek word for “you”) is the first nonprofit social networking site. It started its online operations in beta sometime last November 2007, both in English and German versions. Versions in five other languages are in the works. It’s founded by German executives Thomas Kreye and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz (CEO of Sony BMG). The initial start-up of Kaioo was funded by Schmidt-Holtz out of his own pocket with €500,000, or $730,000 so it remains “entirely independent of any political, religious, commercial or other organizations”.

What makes Kaioo as the first REAL “social” community and unique is that all of its advertising revenues will go to the charities chosen by the registered users, while the operating costs are covered by the sponsors. (more…)

YouTube, a content community, is a form of social media. Content community is simply defined by Spannerworks as “online community that organizes and shares a particular kind of content“. Examples of content communities that are popular on the Web are Flickr for photos, del.icio.us for links, and YouTube for videos.YouTube has become a hit among video users. Over at Mashable’s blog entry in 2006 , YouTube served “100 million videos a day and the site served 2.5 billion videos to nearly 20 million unique visitors in June”. Statistically, YouTube accounts for the largest share of all videos watched online at 60% followed by MySpace Video at a much lower rate of 19%. (Hitswise cited by Mashable)

What makes YouTube a hit over the other content communities for videos (MySpace, Yahoo, Google, AOL, Uncut, Metacafe)? (I won’t be discussing here about the remarkable marketing, branding, of these videos since this is a social media strategy blog for development organizations and not for businesses. You might see this topic soon in my other blog at dutdot.com.)

The Google Operating System (GOS), in its blog post “Why is YouTube more popular than Google Video“, identified the factors that make YouTube more popular than Google video.

Here are the six reasons I culled from the GOS’ list, which, I think, are important considerations for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in using YouTube. I added on the right side of each item the specific benefits that could be derived by the nonprofit organizations.

1. open and better perspective about a video (links, views) –> Openness
2. focused on community –> Community building among volunteers, sponsors, donors, clients
3. favorite videos for easy and repeat viewing –> Ease of use
4. sharing of playlists –> Advocacy, Promotion campaign,
5. group membership –> Online support, increased membership base
6. social network –> Networking, relationship building

There are many ways that videos could help NPOs in broadcasting and promoting their causes by specifically by using the YouTube nonprofit program. Click on the image below to know more about the program:

Organizations participating in the YouTube nonprofit program:

1. One Campaign to Make Poverty History
2. Autism Speaks
3. Asia Society
4. Friends of Earth
5. International Resource Committee

and many more…

Add and broadcast your causes NOW!

In India, a social networking for the poor was developed - Babajob, a version of LinkedIn, that “connects India’s elites to the poor at their doorsteps, people who need jobs but lack the connections to find them. Job seekers advertise skills, employers advertise jobs and matches are made through social networks”. (NYT, 2007)

Anirudh Krishna, Duke University economist, reported that “many of India’s poor remain in poverty not because there are no better jobs, but because they lack the connections to find them”. With this, Sean Blagsvedt, previously from Microsoft, got a brilliant idea and said, “We need village LinkedIn!”, and thus gave birth to Babajob. Continue reading…

I heard from a fellow development advocate that a similar social networking site for the POOR is currently being cooked up in the Philippines. Cool!

MySpace continues to top the list with 107,000,000 users, followed by Facebook at 73,500,000, Orkut at 67M, Classmates, Windows Live Spaces, and Xanga at 40M, and the rest follows.

Graph1. Top 20 Social Networking Sites

Of the 76 social networking sites, 49 of them have generated millions of users.

Table1. Social Networking Sites (One Million & Up Users)

Just imagine the power of reaching out to these huge databases of social networkers. NGOs/nonprofit and other development organizations should start tapping these social networking tools.

The excel sheet I uploaded in this site provides the complete ranking. (Data were gathered from the listing of social networking sites in WIKIPEDIA)

socialnetworkingstat.xls

As a development advocate, two social networking sites of the 76 sites interested me: the Care2, which has 7,949,252 members (I just checked its membership today), and the TakingITGlobal with145,000 registered users.

I just created a search engine for development organizations. Since this search engine is for development organizations such as NGOs, non-profits, international organizations, government agencies, training and research, grantmakers, fundraisers, and so on, this customized search engine offers or displays NO ADS. This search engine searches the entire Web, but it emphasizes the included sites on this particular search engine. Topics included are development-related sites. For now, this search engine emphasizes two of my sites - Social Media Strategy for Development Organizations and Simplywired for Development. More development sites to be added in the future for this customized search engine.

Anyone can collaborate on adding up links/sites on development, social media, and other development-related topics on this customized search engine. Click here to be a contributor!

Happy searching!

Let’s see the Future Social Media Users:

My drawing is a bit small so I am rewriting here the groups of social media users that I identified in the diagram below:

From (1) individual users –> (2) businesses, marketing firms, PR and media relations –> (3) politics, professionals –>(4) academia, universities –> and to (5) DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS (e.g. NGOs, non-profits, and so on)

There will be more users (from the 5th group in the above figure) that will embrace social media. [I will be posting soon my write-up about this.] These are the development organizations (NGOs, non-profits, training and research, international organizations, grantmakers, government agencies involved in development). They may be behind in the integration of social media among the other four sets of users in the above figure, I am certain that they will gradually “engage and encourage” with social media. Read my entry here about Fard Johnmar’s new communications strategy in integrating social media.

But to the second question, will social media ever replace the traditional media? the answer is: No, not at all, particularly to some developing countries where the prevailing forms of media are the traditional, the social media will never be a replacement, but will just be integrated to their communications strategies.

Fard Johnmar of Healthcare Vox “pulled no punches” in his free e-book Envisions Solution: From Command & Control to Engage & Encourage - A New Healthcare Communications Strategy for a Social Media World. Although this ebook is applied to the healthcare industry, this new communications strategy is likewise applicable to various organizations/groups. This is a must-read for nonprofits/non-governmental organizations, development practitioners,and other development organizations as well.

Reflect on how this new communications strategy will be of great benefit to your organizations, and stakeholders:

Source: Fard Johnmar’s e-book

Download the e-book here. Get your copy now! “Engage and encourage” with social media!