TESDA Releases Over 2,000 Scholarship Vouchers to Students in Davao

Earlier this year, a study conducted by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) released data that out of our total GDP, 5% of that has been earned by the IT – BPO (Information Technology – Business Process Outsourcing) industry. Despite the market’s newness, this percentage is equivalent to a whopping P 9 billion pesos.  That said, it is no wonder that IT – BPO is really one of the most promising emerging markets in the Philippines.

As a response to this data, the Office of the President, through the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), has granted the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) scholarship subsidies for the IT-BPO industry in the form of scholarship vouchers under the Industry-Based Training for Work Scholarship Program (I- TWSP).

In Davao city, the highlights of this program are the following career lines: Contact/ Call center training, Software development, Animation and Medical transcription. TESDA will be giving away more than 2,000 scholarship vouchers for our young Davaoenyos. Creative communication anddesign school JoBS Academy will be handling the applications for scholarships in Animation and Software Development. The Contact Center (CC) training will be handled by select technical-vocational institutions with accredited Contact Center programs that are under the ICT – Davao umbrella. Also, leading transcription training ground MTC Academy will handle the applications for the Medical transcription training.

What is different with the I-TWSP is that each industry association must ensure that at least 70% of all graduate from their allocation of the I-TWSP vouchers are employed within six months after the completion of the training.

“Our confidence for this project is very high. We know that the IT- BPO industry is one of the most promising emerging technologies not just in the Philippines, but in the whole world. It’s true that we’re a leading player in this market but we must not take this time to sit on our laurels and instead, focus on training and development. We might be #1 now, but other countries are also keeping up. That is why we are thankful for this opportunity. After all, it’s easy: Innovate or stagnate.” This is the meaningful message of Belinda Laya-Torres, President of JoBS Academy, newest member of the ICT-Davao (Information and Communications Technology).

The I-TWSP Davao leg is spearheaded by the ICT Council, under the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines.

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Your New PR Girl is the organizer of the ICT Davao press con for this amazing news. :) Free education. Who isn't happy about that?

For more information, you may visit the JoBS Academy's website: www.jobsacademy.edu.ph. Or call them up at 282 1470.

How to Keep Your Cool in the Office

Managing your temper and cracking a smile is the most difficult thing to do under stress. This is especially true if the work you’re in demands a lot from you at a split-second pace. When it comes to making crucial decisions that involve your company, and being faced with incompetent staff and a demanding boss or customer, you just want the earth to open up and eat you! However, before jumping out of the 23^rd floor becomes your only option, you should remember that there are better ways at addressing pressure than killing yourself. Along the way, you might realize that it’s the best option...and that this is one heck of a career advice.

When you’re trying to reach a hectic deadline, or at rush hours in the office, make sure you silence the unwanted. This means that anyone who may ask anything that doesn’t involve the crucial papers currently at hand should get out of your space. Make sure that while you’re working and sorting out the details, you listen to the right people, ask the right questions, and get relevant answers right away. Finish everything with a good time margin of about 5 minutes as allowance. After making sure that everything is handled well and delivered on time, take a breather, and get back at it!

Under normal, ordinary office circumstances, dealing with difficult people will be more challenging. You know that you’re not in the position to insist on being a corporate bitch because nothing “special” is happening to necessitate an attitude. Just like what most unhappy lovers do, just fake it! No one really knows whether you’re listening or not, anyway. Might as well, take advantage of the situation and put a smile on your face and think of happy thoughts. You can even divert the stressors’ attention away from you, in order not to pop your last nerve.

Making sure that you have grace under tremendous amounts of pressure or stress is very taxing. It requires from you a great sense of self, patience and a fully charged music player! Bear in mind that if you stay as the professional that you truly are, you’re still the winner in the end. No one can become the champ if they’re the one to lose their temper first. Besides, the best revenge you can give anyone is not by being as difficult as he/she is, but killing them with kindness. Realistically speaking, there is nothing more irritating for a grumpy workmate than to see you smiling while he’s moping and miserable.


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When I am pissed in the office (around a year ago, when I still worked in an office), I surf the net for some funny videos, stories or good music. Sometimes, I also take a couple of deep breaths and close my eyes for an energy recharge. Sometimes I go out for a short walk around the office compound. I bring my umbrella, of course. 


What are your ways to keep your cool in the office?

Tips for Effective Communication in the Office

As children, the scene where we are rushed to the room when we have visitors is familiar. Because of this, a lot of us grew up timid and afraid to talk to strangers. Hence, we find it hard to express ourselves when it comes to public speaking. This may be one of those classes in college or high school that you just wanted to get over and done with. Though at times it might be fulfilling to know that you just passed this course, your next boardroom conference with the CEOs might get back at you for that. Don’t worry! It’s never too late to master the basics of public speaking, especially if applied to the office environment. Here are some pointers you’d want to consider:

Basic public speaking lessons would tell you that confidence is the core of effective communication. Well, this is true and false. While it is true that you need this boost in order to speak properly, you also risk not being able to relay your message properly. It may be that because of too much confidence you place on yourself, you forget your audience along the way. The moral of the lesson is to be never too arrogant in speaking. You should have empathy with respect to your audience, especially if they’re the people you need to impress for a bonus of promotion. Strike a balance between these two always.

Furthermore, mastery of the topic will always save you from humiliation. Although most of the time, you’d be asked to report on something you do, along the way, you might encounter unfamiliar areas. This might be because of the work of a colleague who passed the last minute and you just copied his work unto the final presentation. Don’t run away scared! You can manage this by reading his part of the report thoroughly before you place it on to the presentation. If that doesn’t work, ask him to explain it in your behalf. As a last resort, just be honest and say you’ll get back to that once your data’s good to go.

Lastly, never present yourself in a boring manner. Always use hand gestures and keen eye contact on the people you need to do the report on. There are observable patterns in the crowd’s facial reaction that’ll indicate whether or not they follow you. It’s not as easy as observing your friends, but you’ll get there with more exposure. Being able to effectively communicate needs a lot of practice, so there’s no instant pill you can take. When you do get the hang of it, you can only get better at it with time.

PR Shoutout for Gifts Davao Bouquets

Four years in the business and it still looks better!

Gifts Davao has helped more than a hundred men (and women) please their loved ones through high quality floral bouquets and excellent service. It actually started as an idea for a Mother's day gift, the Hershey's Kisses Bouquet, and then interest picked up.

Today, Gifts Davao serves 5 major orders:

*The Ferrero Bouquet - A bouquet of flowers, with decorated Ferrero Rocher chocolate stems.
*The Kisses Bouquet - A bouquet of flowers, with decorated Hershey's Kisses chocolate stems.
*Dozen Roses Bouquet - Simple and classy. One dozen long stemmed roses.
*2 Dozen Roses Bouquet - When one dozen is not enough, double up!
*Mixed Flowers Bouquet - Basically, anything goes. Roses, mums, liliums, dendrobiums, lilies, gladiolas, vergattos, ferns, white lace, asters, margarets and bundles of baby's breath come together for a nice visual feast. The simplest combo is roses and mums.

Here are the advantages of ordering flowers from Gifts Davao:

*Fast transactions - all you need is to text one number: 0933 973 4990. Unless you're texting during unholy hours, the owner will reply to you in a jiffy. For out of town and out of country orders, email correspondence also proved to be seamless.

*Easy choosing - a HUGE portfolio is on Facebook. Click THIS LINK to see it and like the page as well.

*Hassle free delivery - delivery is always on time, and they cover shipping through LBC (plus special packaging). Moreover, deliveries to far flung areas in Davao, such as Cabantian or Toril, are also welcome.

*Wide choices for payment - You can pay via deposits in Gcash, BPI, BDO, Unionbank or Metrobank. You may also do money transfer through MLhuiller, Cebuana Lhuiller, RD Pawnshop, Palawan Pawnshop, Western Union and even Paypal.

*Free consultation - Sometimes you don't know what to give, which colors for a certain type of girl, or what flowers to put depending on the depth of your relationship or on the occasion. Are you saying sorry? Do you want to get back? Just want to make her smile? Celebrating your 8th anniversary? They'll help you out.

*Additional requests are welcome - Want a teddy bear to go with that? How about a cake? Or a song? They'd gladly acquiesce!

Here are some pictures of the beautiful bouquets at Gifts Davao:

Aren't they lovely? Order your own bouquet now! Text 0933 973 4990. :-) You really won't regret it!

Did You Just Fall Out of Love With Your Business?

It's the Christmas season again, and love and festivity is just all around us. Symbols of love are everywhere—the color red, Christmas trees, Santa, gifts, et cetera. What also caught my attention was the  massive business going on. Lantern stores sprout on busy sidewalks, beggars are now singing carols, and the price of fruits and flowers slightly shot up.

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I had no problem with any of those. However, as I contemplated on the business part and on all the love brewing around, I suddenly thought: what if you fall out of love for your business? What if you just lost it? What do you do to fall back in love again?

See, perhaps the best job in the world is to be one’s own boss. And even though it’s not that easy or as loose as it sounds, many people still jump into the bandwagon and try to come up with their very own gigs. At first you like being the king of your time and being able to have the say on everything; however, when the realities of business ownership and management settle in, it’s also easy to just lose the zest for your business.

Imagine, you have to worry about financial management, employee relationship, sales and most of the time, you even get to work on weekends as well. When your to-do list starts to lengthen more than usual, there will be times when all you want to do is shut yourself out and sleep all day.

If you need help falling back in love with your business, here are a few time tested tips:

The first thing that you need to do is to set your mindset right back on track. Ask yourself why you are doing what you do and what your business stands for. Or, if you want to amp up the purpose of your business, ask yourself, “what is the most important aspect of my job?”. Whether it’s giving jobs or providing above satisfactory services, you need to remind yourself what your purpose is. Take time to pause for a while and reflect on what we are there for. Usually it’s the daily drill that just gets into us, and reflecting on our purpose re-energizes us back into taking those drills more seriously and purposefully.

Now, if you think that it’s the huge mound of tasks getting into you, start delegating some of the little ones to a trustworthy delegate. Pass some important-but-easy-and-time-consuming tasks like website maintenance, social media marketing and calendar scheduling off to an assistant. This will give you more energy and time to focus on the more important aspects of your business or future projects.

Lastly, don’t forget to take some time off. Take a quick vacation (one weekend will do) to inspire yourself and perhaps generate fresh ideas and more innovative perspectives. Indulge your employees to these kinds of mini vacations once in a while as well.

See, it’s not very difficult, isn’t it? You just have to start with the right mindset and work from there. And for a while, take your time off the numbers (sales, debts, etc.) and work on the heart of your business—the purpose. Once you get it right from there, the numbers will eventually concede.

Need more help with business revamping or mindset recharging? Drop me a line at the comment box or email Your New PR Girl at karlastefansingson@gmail.com.

Facebook Etiquette for the Working Ones

We all know how famous Facebook has become. And we all know what this fame can do to our careers. Now that bosses and employees may get cozy and may take a peek at each other's personal live through Facebook's social networking magic, there are unwritten rules about Facebook Etiquette for employees. I'm listing down those that jump out of my mind:

1. Don't send a friend request to your boss. It's just wrong. However, if he adds you up, clean up your profile (meaning: no drunk and obscene pictures) and click "Approve". Also, you might want a grammar check on your info.

2. Don't whine about work on Facebook. Even if you *think* your boss won't see it, it doesn't mean it won't reach him.

3. Don't badmouth your boss or your officemate on Facebook. It's very unbecoming.

4. If your motto is "Work hard, party harder", change it. Stick with "Time is gold" instead. Haha!

5. No slutty pictures, videos and language. Once in a while, swearing is okay. But don't make it about work!

6. Don't Facebook while you're at work! AND DON'T PLAY FACEBOOK GAMES in the office! Just don't. Unless it's part of your job.

7. Use private messaging for posting personal news. Nobody likes to see you scream on the Facebook walls. Your workmates will thank you later.

8. Avoid oversharing. Enough said.

Here's some more social networking new bits:

A recent survey conducted in 2008 by Jackson Lewis LLP, one of the nation’s largest management-side employment law firms, surveyed 100 employers in New York to determine how on-line social networking sites have affected the employer-employee relationship. Some of the findings were as follows:

• 56 percent of the employers admitted to monitoring employees’ Internet use to determine whether they are accessing on-line social networking sites, among other potential inappropriate behavior.
• 38 percent of the employers blocked employees from accessing such websites.
• 16 percent of the employers admitted checking out on-line networking sites to see what current and former employees might be saying about them.
• 12 percent of the employers use social networking sites to recruit new employees and to assess applicants before extending a job offer.
• 6 percent of the employers have terminated employees for utilizing on-line social networking during work time.

You're welcome! :)

Love,