Philippine Webinars

During the mid afternoon of April 28th, Lopez Link through the HR / PR Council of the Lopez Group of Companies launched its first webinar session entitled “Social Media and Networking 101”, which was conducted by Janette Toral.

There were close to 50 registrants for the webinar comprised of different employees within the group of companies and guests. About 30 made it to the session. Considering this is their first undertaking within the realm of webinars, the number was definitely a good start.

As the room was opened, attendees started to come in as early as 20 minutes before the session.  The session started at 3PM sharp.  About 70% of the audience were first time webinar attendees, as they were asked by Janette at the start of the session.  A phrase has been coined for newbies stating that they are not “webinar virgins” anymore.

The presentation was filled with statistics, discussed the basics of social media and existing sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn plus a showcase of social media campaigns from top corporations and what made it successful.

One interesting thing to note are the questions asked during the session. Some were basic such as “What is the difference between a blog and a microblog?”, “What does SEO mean?” and “Is it advantageous to “be-friend” your competitors in social media sites?”. Some were geared towards internal communications, corporate branding, whether social media is just geared towards the B & C market but probably hard to penetrate lower C & D, and even a short assessment of Meralco’s effort to confront recent issues through social media.

Despite the audio issues experienced during the session, which could be due to high internet traffic usage at the scheduled time that resulted to a slow internet connection, the participants engaged with the speaker and stayed 20 more minutes to learn. Some even asked for an extension.

Rosan Cruz, AVP of Group Public Relations for Benpres Holdings Corporation informed us that there will be a monthly webinar session available for its employees and guests through Lopez Link, a monthly publication of the Lopez Group of Companies.

Support for the event was managed by ProFora Media.

In partnership with ProFora Media, Digital Filipino is celebrating its 10th anniversary alongside with One Internet Day this year. As we empower more Filipinos globally with the Internet, it is fitting that webinars are introduced, not only to educate of the numerous opportunities that it can bring, but the benefits of how this platform can bring everyone together to collaborate.

The celebration will be a whole day event, starting from 9AM and ends at 8pm on September 17, 2009.  There will be 9 FREE webinars available from different industries.

This is not only a milestone for Digital Filipino, but for ProFora Media and the webinar industry within the country as well, as this is the ever first virtual conference to be done in the Philippines.  Be part of history and attend a Philippine webinar.  Share it to your friends and colleagues so they, too, can be part of this event.

To check on the list of webinars to be conducted live on September 17 and to register, you can visit ProFora’s events page.

One might think that this is the worst possible time to leave the corporate world and a regular, monthly salary to start a business that offers a service unheard of in the Philippines.  Call us crazy, but that’s exactly what 5 friends and I did.  We officially incorporated ProFora Media Solutions last Sept. 15, 2008.

We’re a week away from our one year anniversary and during the 11 months, 2 weeks and 5 days that we’ve been in business, we went through every birth pain imaginable.  Chose the wrong tool provider, overpaid for accounting services, over-complicated our website design, wrong sales strategy, blablabla.  You name the boo-boo, we did it.  Our only excuse is that we believed in the concept so much that our eagerness to offer the service, more often than not, overshadowed rational thought.  We went back to the drawing board so many times that some people voiced the opinion that we should just close up shop.  Obviously, we didn’t listen…stubborn and pig-headed is a shared trait amongst the partners.

We’re still learning but as of today, I think we’ve got most of the major kinks ironed out because our September and October are fully booked with back to back webinars.  Renzie Baluyut has joined us as Managing Director for Marketing and we’re in the final stages of negotiation with several  learning content providers.  We’re also finalizing the training schedule for one of the top universities in Manila.  We have a presence on almost all the major social networking sites and we’ve documented and streamlined all our operational processes.  The wheel is turning…we just need a bit more elbow grease.

Virtual events IS the next step in the evolution of how we communicate with each other.  All that you need to do is let us, ProFora, show you how…

If you’re interested in taking those baby steps today, ProFora Media in partnership with the Digital Filipino Club will be hosting a series of online talks, in celebration of Digital Filipino’s 10th anniversary -The ProFora Media Lightbulb Sessions- on Thursday, 17 Sept 2009.

The webinars for the day include:
* 9AM – 10AM “Introduction to Software Process Improvement” by Janette Toral of Digital Filipino
* 11AM – 12NN “The State of E-Commerce in the Philippines” by Janette Toral of Digital Filipino
* 2PM – 3PM “Briefing on the 3rd Digital Filipino Web Awards (2009)“, by Janette Toral of Digital Filipino
* 3PM – 4PM “Managing Training Effectively & True ROI“, by Karthik Subbaraman of ECC International
* 4PM – 5PM “Briefing: Philippine Schools Cyberfair 2010“, by Janette Toral of Digital Filipino
* 5PM – 6PM “AEC Outsourcing in the Philippines“, by Gio Carino of Prodigy AE
* 6PM – 7PM “Video Editing for Profit“, by Mary Tolentino of ClientFirst
* 7PM – 8PM “Blogging For Money: How To Make Money From Writing Blog Reviews and News Articles“, by Janette Toral of Blog4Reviews

Contact us directly through:
www.proforamedia.com * info@proforamedia.com * +63.2.3767040 * Twitter@Profora Media * Facebook: ProFora Media

image credit: alucco7 on flickr

ProFora Media is accepting registrations for an upcoming webinar on the State of E-Commerce in the Philippines by Janette Toral.

Janette will be discussing the latest updates on the latest statistics, industry developments, policy updates and trends in E-Commerce within the Philippines during this complimentary one-hour webinar.

This live session will be held on July 16, 2009 at 11:00 AM Philippine time.

Expert speaker Janette co-founded the Philippine Internet Commerce Society in 1997 and lobbied for the passage of the Y2K Law and E-Commerce Law.  She published her e-commerce book in year 2000 that gave birth to DigitalFilipino.com.  She is the first Filipino author published by McGraw-Hill Education Asia.

She is a recipient of the DTI / CITEM E-Services Philippines E-Champion Award 2008 for Policy Development following Senators Magsaysay and Roxas.

For registration inquiries, you can contact ProFora at 63.2.3767040 or info @ proforamedia.com.