You are in one of the category of Reflections of a Business Driven Life.  To read all posts, go to the main page, or you can choose to read or subscribe to a category:   on technology, on life, on business, favorite quotes, jokes, tidbits, EntrepreViews & reading reviews.

	Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Wired Desktop  (mycebu)   My article for sunstar daily on July 14, 2005.  This article is based on previous post also here. ------------   There used to be a time, and I am sure that a lot of people have also done this, when I mused that i would have been much more successful if I was not born in the Philippines, but maybe in Europe or in the United States.  People there seemed to be much more successful, and earning better.   This lament, about not being born in the right place or in the right time, might start to become irrelevant, thanks to information technology.  Everywhere in the world, we see now news of Indian, Lebanese, Chinese, South American, or African entrepreneur who made it big.  In now almost every country, there are lists of people who made it into billions.   One of the things that the internet and technology have been able to do is to alter the whole relationship between geography and talent.  As Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft once said, thirty years ago, if you were given a choice between being born a genius on the outskirts of Bombay or Shanghai, or being born as an average person in Poughkeepsie ( a small town in the US), you would choose the US, because your chances of thriving and living a decent life there, even with average talent, were much greater.  But today, Gates said, people can now plug and play from anywhere, and succeed anywhere, natural talent has started to trump geography.   It seems that it is better to be a genius born in China ( or in Cebu for that matter) than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.  The talk about Internet being a great leveler also then translate that it is now becoming more important what you can do, rather than to whom or where you were born.  This should be something encouraging that we should all take to our advantage as technology frees us from the limits of geography.  One of the great phenomena in recent months have been the growth of blogs or weblogs.  These are online diaries where people share their thoughts, their feelings, their opinions and the like.  From less than 10 million blogs end of 2004, it is estimated now that there are probably 20 or 30 million blogs in cyberoworld.  Surveys in the US found that nearly a fifth of teens there who have access to the Web have their own blogs Blogs are where people vent their feelings, share their innermost thoughts, and also their secrets, and unfortunately, as many forget, it is open to anybody in the world. It creates an issue that what you confide in your blog now may come back to haunt you in the future.  There has been cases where a daughter who confessed allegedly of lesbian practices soon was easily traced to a father who wanted to run for public office.  There was an applicant who shared his night out with friends, and getting drunk, and it was easily found by his potential employer in the internet.  I know a couple of friends who keep blogs, and I know one who share her depressions, and also her fights with friends in the internet.  The unfortunate thing is that the internet is an open record for all to see.  I had a friend who recently send us a link which showed exactly how our website looked 8 years ago. I did not know somebody was archiving all these! As our president GMA have found out, a small conversation that was tapped is now a source of her possible impeachment.  Next time, before you post the pictures you took at a party, or post your innermost secrets, always remember that anybody who has access to a search engine might potentially find it -- even years after.  Always be careful about what you confide in the web which will be available for all the world to see.   10:43:18 AM     comment []   trackback []

Inspiring Blog    (mycebu) One of the people I got to know through my blog is Jun Asis, who keeps the Magandang Balita ( the good news in English) blog.  From his blog, you will know Jun is a deeply religious person who spends a good amount of time in becoming a better person.  His blog is full of inspirational messages. He also contributes to Mabuting Balita ( also means the good news, normally associated with the Good News from the Lord).   Drop by him sometime!   10:38:13 AM     comment []   trackback []