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Saturday, January 14, 2006
Toral: From hobby to online business
By Janette Toral
Digital Filipino
Before Christmas, a good friend of mine started getting into the hobby of jewelry making to create personalized gifts for friends. In less than a week, my sister and I got hooked into it as well. From various trial and error experiences in making these fashion accessories, the three of us decided to bring this adventure online and will announce soon. Through it, I hope that bead jewelry hobbyists will find a common community to learn, ask questions, share their work, swap handiwork and even sell.
My point in sharing this is that hobbyists should not hesitate to find ways in converting their favorite past time into a fun business.
No holiday. I don’t know about you but for most of us, last Christmas was not holiday as usual. It was work, work and work.
The government kept talking about the country’s economic gains, but the cost of living has hardly gone down. We end up having to work twice as hard than before to have the capacity to get what we want.
I think this is also why hobbies and alternatives end up opening new business opportunities. In the case of jewelry, items made of gold, silver and diamond are quite expensive. Buying it now is really more of a luxury. However, alternative accessories made of semi-precious stones have become much more accessible. Through the Internet, you will be amazed at the wide variety of designs using these gems.
INTERNET FORENSICS. Last Tuesday, we had our briefing session on Internet forensics. It is amazing as to how various spammers and scammers have come up with ways to fool people online, trying to extract valuable information such as our credit card details, password and the like. Be very cautious when you receive these type of e-mails. I also encourage you to join local Internet security groups where you can ask for assistance when you receive an email that is doubtful in nature and intent.
Photo documentation. I’ve been organizing activities for quite sometime now. However, one thing that I’m not really good at is in documenting our events through photos. I know that there are some of you who are camera shy and see photography as excessive publicity or egoistic at times. However, as the years go by, it is easier to go back and recall your organization’s history through photos. As I dug up my digital photo archives lately, I was amazed to find book tour photos in the year 2000, among others.
Now, with full regret, I wished I had done a better job in taking care of those photos. With online free services, such as those of Flickr.com, organizing your photos have never been this easier. Be mapped as well with similar photos online.
CEBU WORKSHOP. I’ll be in Cebu this Feb. 6 to conduct a tele-center building workshop with a women’s NGO, catering to cooperatives in Southeast Asia. I am glad to see how information technology, computers and the Internet are seen as important tools in boosting competitiveness and marketability of grassroot cooperatives.
However, what government, NGOs and private corporations must bear in mind is that ICT initiatives must always have a clear return-on-investment. It must be attributed to either revenue growth or cost reduction.
The lack of sufficient metrics should leave doubt as to whether you have used ICT to improve your processes or just computerized an existing bad process.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 14, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
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