This question popped up into my mind today as I think of the recent crisis in the Philippine government last week that has brought untold repercussions in  public governance and the Filipinos in general. 

The crisis was the result of the standoff between the two co-equal and independent branches of government – the Executive Department and the Supreme Court.

It happened when the country’s former President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, petitioned the Supreme Court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the Department of Justice for her to travel abroad to seek medical treatment.

Arroyo could not go abroad because of the pending “WatchList order” by the Department of Justice for her, even though at that time, no criminal cases were filed against her in court.

President Benigno Aquino, through his alter ego Secretary of Justice Leila de Lima, appeared to have defied the TRO issued by the Supreme Court, on the flimsy excuse that her department has not yet received the written order, though everybody knew about it, as it was broadcast in all the mass media.

Later, de Lima changed her tune, saying that the government would be filing a motion for reconsideration on the TRO. In truth, the government had been defying the Supreme Court order, and did everything to ensure that Arroyo could not leave the country.

Then the government’s Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Jesse Robredo, another alter ego of the President, said he was asking the legal experts so that in case of conflicting orders from the Supreme Court and the Secretary of Justice, he would know whose orders should be obeyed.

Of course, it is elementary that the order of the Supreme Court interpreting the law, takes precedence over other orders, and that it must be obeyed. That is the basic principle in a democratic and republican state. In fact, any diligent second year law student know this principle.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Secretaries de Lima and Robredo, under President Aquino, were setting a bad example to the citizens and creating dangerous precedents in not obeying court orders even from the Supreme Court.

This incident has led me to ask the oft-repeated question: Is Leadership a myth?

A country’s development (or the company’s success) is dependent on the success of its leader. On the other hand, the success of the leader depends on the good, competent, experienced followers and subordinates who constitute his management team.

Thus, a country’s success – economic development, good peace and order, vibrant investment climate, employment opportunities, improvement in the quality of life of the people, depends on firm and effective leadership and astute management of its resources – human, land, capital, entrepreneurship, and sound public governance.

Therefore, leadership is NOT a myth. It is important in governing a country like the Philippines.

However, in the case of President Aquino, without good, experienced, competent, and committed cabinet secretaries and without the people who follow him, leadership cannot be effective.

For peace, development, and progress cannot proceed without the rule of law, or if the rule of law is not followed.

*source of image: sncsolutions.wordpress.com

Venue of the Philippine Blog Awards – Visayas is Silay City, Negros Occidental, to be held at the Dr. Jose C. Locsin Cultural and Civic Center.

The Dr. Jose C. Locsin Cultural and Civic Center is the first cultural center in the Philippines, and is older than the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in Manila.

Silay City is the seat of arts, culture and eco-tourism in Western Visayas. The Department of Tourism identified Silay as one of the 25 major tourist destinations in the Philippines.

The Philippine Blog Awards-Visayas is also sponsored by the City Government of Silay and other companies like AirPhil Express, Smart Communications and Nokia.

If you are a blogger and wants to attend this memorable activity, you can preregister here.

Well, here’s the advice from Paris Hilton, a 30-year-old American businesswoman, multi-millionaire socialite heiress, fashion icon, television and movie star.

In her book “Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chick Peek Behind the Pose”, Paris has the following advice, which are good quotes. I have included my own interpretation and comments after each quote.

On Branding Yourself.  Paris says: “I’m an actress, a brand, a business woman. I’m all kinds of stuff.”

What Paris means is that each of us must have our own individual identity, our own brand. This means we must package ourselves into what we want others to see us, to know us. This is important if we are to create our own reputation.

What is your brand? How do people see you – as a person, a unique individual, a blogger, businessman or woman, a wife or husband, a professional?

In addition, as Paris says, we must be “all kinds of stuff”. This means we must strive to be persons who know how to multi-task our roles, who have other skills, or know many things.

On Being Your Own Boss. Paris says: “The best thing about owning your own nightclub is that everything’s free and you can tell the DJ to play whatever you want.”

Here, Paris is giving us business advice on having our own business. Having our own business means we are our own boss. We can tell our staff to do things for us, delegate responsibilities,  maximize our time, resources and profit.

On Friendship. Paris says: “I only want friends who are there for me like I’m there for them. Otherwise, it’s too painful.”

This is very important. We must be careful to select real friends, true friends who will stay for us and with us through thick or thin. Or as Paris says, friends who are there for us. But we should also be true to our friends, and we must be for our friends as well.

This means we don’t need fair weather friends, – those people who are with us only when the going is well. And leave us at first opportunity when we are of no use to them. The world is full of such opportunistic people.

On Creating First Impressions: Paris says: “Trust me, people act differently toward you when you’ve got jewelry on your head.”

What Paris probably meant is that we must try to look our best, to create a good impression. First impression counts.

It’s true, to look good, “having a jewelry on our head” makes all the difference. To have a good facial expression, to smile, to look pleasant, is important to project our image, our brand, our identity. It’s like having a jewelry on our head, figuratively speaking.

On Being Consistent.  Paris says: “You can see all these girls leaving a party at the end of the night and they look terrible … This is a huge mistake. People remember how you look when you leave as much as they remember how you look when you arrived.”

This means we must be consistent on how we look and on our outlook. This includes our job performance, our managing the business and tending the store, and the way we treat others – our friends, families, business associates, customers.

This means that whatever we do, we should strive for excellence, from beginning to end, since the ending is as important as the beginning.

As they say, all that begins well, ends well.

 *credit for image: Glenn Francis at en.wikipedia

“Dear members,

Today we have made the decision to close CMF Ads, with effect from late October 2011. This blog post is to explain why the site is closing, and what happens next.”

What Is CMF Ads?

As a member of CMF Ads for more than two years I, too, felt sad upon reading the announcement, just like the many blogger-members.

For those who don’t know what CMF Ads yet, it is an advertising firm for blogs where the advertiser-bloggers can have:

• Network Ads start at $0.30 for 10,000 impressions ($0.03 CPM).
• Firework Ads start at $1.00 for 50 unique clicks.
• Campaign Ads run for 30 days at a price set by the publisher.

At the same time, a blogger can also earn by being a publisher:

• Passive income with performance-based payments.
• Earnings go into your account – no need to keep topping up.
• Reinvest your earnings – buy ads and get your blog noticed.

Recession and Blog Advertising

It seems that recession, coupled with many members’ cutting down on expenses to advertise their blogs, has forced CMF Ads to close shop. As Ben Barden, CMF Ads creator and Admin says:

“Why the Closure?

For several months we have noticed a sharp decline in activity across the site. Many of our advertisers have simply stopped coming back.

We have had several attempts to bring the site back to life, such as Atomic Ads, but these have hardly been used. We have also noticed a big decrease in the amount of payments coming into the site. General site usage is also down.

There are always reasons for activity to decline, such as people going on holiday, having time off work or school, going back to work or school, going outside during the summer, and so on. However, there’s only so long you can come up with excuses. It’s reached the point where we can’t ignore it any longer.”

In closing, Ben has this to say:

“We understand that this will come as a disappointment to many of you, particularly if you’ve supported us since the early days. We really appreciate your support and would not have lasted this long if it had not been for you. CMF Ads is closing because we feel it has reached the end of its life, and we don’t want to drag it out any further.”

So Long CMF Ads!

I don’t want to say Goodbye to CMF Ads. Knowing Ben Barden, his expertise in web development, his experience in running an ad network and his love for it, I know he’ll soon  come back with a new advertising for blogs – better and more vibrant.

If you are presently employed, how would you know if the company you are working for is a good one?

In “A Great Place To Work: What Makes Some Employers Do Good (And Most So Bad)” Robert Levering gives five hints or indicators about a good company to work with, or the five things make for a good company. These are as follows:

1. A friendly place. Few of the companies had separate executive dining rooms, executive parking spaces and other perks that set ranks apart in a social hierarchy. People enjoyed each other company.

2. A minimum of politics. Management did not encourage politics by such acts as demoting or dismissing for what employees may perceive as personality conflicts rather than performance deficiencies.

3. You get a fair shake. Employees are treated fairly and not taken advantage of. Complaints are heard impartially and fully.

4. More than a job. Employees believe their work has meaning, and that they have responsibility and control over it. They feel free to criticize the actions of others without fear of retribution.

5. Like family. A caring, nurturing environment in which one’s personal concerns are important to others in the organization, engenders a lifelong career commitment by employees. Exuding a “We’re all in it together” spirit, god workplaces are often more productive and profitable than their competitors.

Does your company have the foregoing characteristics? Why or why not?

*source of image: happyfuturegroup.com

His immediate problem, as he told me, concerns his two new employees whom he called “lousy employees”. Francis said his two employees, a male and a female, always came in late for work, and don’t follow instructions.

Is there such a thing as a “lousy employee”?  Do you have under your employ “lousy” workers? Lousy is defined as “totally repulsive, or comtemptible, or miserably poor or inferior.”

This gets me thinking. If there are what we call lousy employees, could there be also lousy bosses or lousy managers and lousy employers?!

For if the employee is lousy, it may be because the employer who has hired him or her is also lousy. It takes two to tango, as the saying goes.

Going back to Francis. I suggested to him to explain exactly what he expects from his new employees. He should begin by assuming that his new employees know nothing about each task. He should make them understand exactly how the job should be done. This way, he won’t be faced later with the more difficult task of breaking their “lousy” habits.

After all, it is the job of the employer or manager to be prepared to teach the workers, especially the newly hired employees, punctuality, dependability, and most important, how to listen and follow instructions.

In the last analysis, a manager or employer must or manage by example. He should model the kind of behavior that he wish to see in his employees. He should be on time, work hard, and never break any of his own rules!

*source of image: ibnlive.in.com

I remember this management saying when I read in a newspaper today about the road in Japan which was devastated by the March 11, 2011 devastating earthquake. The highway was situated in Naka, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, and was severely damaged because of the 7.2 quake.

However, a Japanese company restored the damaged section of the highway linking Tokyo and Ibaraki in just six (6) days. Yes, in only six days!

I then kept on thinking why countless other road projects in many countries of the world took many months to repair or rehabilitate. I know for a fact that the repair of just a small damaged portion of some roads or highways in some countries took six months to one year to finish

Where lies the difference? Is it due to graft and corruption? Is it due to the incompetence of some contractors?

Whatever the cause for the unreasonable delay in fixing a damaged road, management is a factor. For management is defined as getting things done through people. It is the art of using limited resources – time, money, organization, machines, the services of men, to accomplish an objective.

The principle that lies behind in fixing a road efficiently and effectively is the same principle that can be used in all other human endeavors – like running a bank, an organization, a small business, a job, a career, an event, or any other human activity.

Too often, we heard and witnessed a lot of business being closed, of companies going bankrupt, of firms in the red. The root cause of these problems is lack of management, or due to poor management.

The key to effective performance is to manage, and manage effectively and well. This principle applies to any human activity, be it in running a business, a family, a relationships, a school, or even in blogging.

But how do you manage? What is your management style?

* source of image: project-management-software.biz

Value of DMOZ listing

Business Sphere’s listing in DMOZ is significant because DMOZ is the internet’s largest directory system in the world, with over 3 million websites, and is maintained by human editors.

Thus, a website or blog listing in DMOZ can also be an important part of having a website rank well in Google, because Google uses DMOZ results in its own directory.

Business Sphere is worth $ 23,362.00

In addition, Business Sphere is now worth US $ 23,362.00 as valued by Website Shadow. com. On the other hand, Value The Website.com estimates Business Sphere’s worth to be $ 20,131.00.

A PR 3 Blog, Alexa’s Top 100,000 websites

Since September 2009, Business Sphere has been consistently included in Alexa’s Top 100,000 websites in the world, and has a Page Rank 3 from Google beginning December 31, 2009.

Business Sphere’s Top 10 Visitors by countries

Moreover, after 18 months, Business Sphere has a lot of visitors from many countries of the world. According to Google Analytics, Business Sphere’s Top 10 visitors for the last 30 days came from the following countries:

1.      United States              1,472

2.      Philippines                   1,347

3.      Australia                         344

4.      United Kingdom           192

5.      India                                 187

6.      Canada                             171

7.      Malaysia                           66

8.      Singapore                         64

9.      China                                  39

10.  Slovakia                             36

Thanks and Acknowledgment

On a personal note, I met a lot of bloggers and friends in the blogosphere. I want to thank my pretty friend Glady Tomulto of the noted blog Experience Negros.com for introducing me to blogging and Sheila Sultani, a popular blogger of the well-known blog The Ad Master, for giving me my blog avatar.

You must have heard or read about Tai Chi, the world-famous internal Chinese martial art practiced by many people, both young and old, for both its defense training and its health benefits.

Tai Chi is also practiced for many other reasons, like for demonstration, longevity, physical fitness, discipline, and for finding the right balance.

The Tai Chi principle of finding the right balance is also applicable in blogging, that is, when you blog, especially when you want to optimize your site in search engine results page (SERP) by doing search engine optimization (SEO).

You see, finding the right balance when you do SEO for your blog is also important. If you want to get high rankings on Google, Bing or other major search engines, than you have to find the right balance between on-site factors and off-site factors.

According to Axandra, the on-site factors and off-site factors both influence the position of your blog or website in the search results, and it is in finding the right balance between these two factors that can improve your blog in SERP, when people search for the keywords in search engines.

On-site optimization factors

On-site optimization refers to the factors that you can control on your blog. These include:

1.      The text on your web page,

2.      The number of your web pages on your blog,

3.      The number of your keywords and related keyword phrases on your blog’s pages,

4.      The links on your web pages to other pages of your blog,

5.      The links on your blog’s pages to other blogs or sites.

Off-site optimization factors

Off-site optimization refers to the ranking factors in search engine results page that are usually out of your control, because it’s the search engines that determine your blog ranking in SERP.

The most important off-site factors are the links to your website, like:

1.      The number of backlinks that point to your blog,

2.      The quality of the backlinks that point to your blog,

3.      How often your blog is bookmarked on social bookmark sites,

4.      How often your blog is mentioned on services such as Twitter.

Again, as in Tai Chi’s principle of finding the right balance, search engines determine the position of your blog in the search results page based on the on-site and the off-site factors of your blog.

SEO is like Tai Chi: Finding the right balance

By optimizing both the on-site and off-site factors, your blog will have good chances of having a high ranking every time people search the web. And you will have steady and continuing source of traffic to your blog that is totally free.

Indeed, the principles of Tai Chi like finding the right balance are applicable in many human activities, including in SEO and blogging.

*source of image:  mimosaspirit.com

Blog Promotion to get new readers and traffic

That is why I have been saying all along that one best way for bloggers to make their sites stand out from the millions other blogs is to promote their blogs, to make it known to the world and be competitive. And how to make their blogs known to their target readers and visitors? Of course, by advertising.

CMF Ads and Adgitize are Good Networks to promote Blogs

I have found two good advertising networks to promote blogs — CMF Ads and Adgitize. I have been advertising on these two ad networks since May 2009, the time when I started to blog primarily as a hobby and for self-expression.

I also used Entrecard in the past, but I was not satisfied of the untargeted traffic it brings and the 1-2 hours dropping cards daily which I could spend to write quality content. Even then, when I was in Entrecard, my blog was on the Top 2 of the most popular blogs in all categories composed of 40,000 blogs, receiving an average of 400 droppers a day.

Talking about Adgitize, it has started its affiliate promotion for this month of October 2010.

What is Adgitize Promotion?

As explained by Adgitize founder and admin Ken Brown, Adgitize started its affiliate promotion to give its member-bloggers (publishers) money when they refer new advertisers in the Adgitize.

This means publisher-members will become Adgitize affiliates, by getting new advertisers and or sponsoring new advertisers. As such, affiliates will be rewarded by bringing in new members who advertise.

Ken said that Adgitize will pay out over $140 in the next 6 weeks to affiliates who sponsor new advertisers.

• Top Affiliate to bring in New Advertisers Each Week – Receives $15
• Top Affiliate to bring in New Advertisers Each Month – Receives $25
• One Winner to be Drawn from All Affiliates with at Least One Active Advertiser during the month – Receives $15

Why Promote Your Blog in the Adgitize?

I have already explained the value of advertising and promotion for blogs, or why bloggers must promote their blogs thru advertising. But why in the Adgitize, for example?

I can share to you my experiences as an advertiser in the Adgitize for the last 16 months already, as follows:

1. Adgitize ad rate is relatively cheap vis-à-vis other advertising firms.

2. Adgitize charges a fixed $ 14.00 only for one month, compared to other advertising firms that charge on a cost-per-click (CPC) rate or on a cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM).

3. My ad in the Adgitize can be seen by thousands of readers in a given hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in many countries where the publishers are based, since the ads are rotated and shown in more than 5,000 active publisher-members in the network.

4. Adgitize encourages its member-bloggers/publishers to visit other members’ blogs daily to get to know them and they are given points which are translated into money everyday.

Try Adgitize and See

What about you? Why don’t you try advertising your blog in the Adgitize and see the benefits in terms of traffic, new visitors and more readers from around the blogosphere? To see for your self, visit Adgitize today.

* Note: This is NOT a sponsored post about the Adgitize.