I want to write a book

No. I want to write many books. I want to write books on topics that I know some unique perspectives about. For example, I want to write about my experience in planning, organizing, promoting, implementing, evaluating a conference. I want to document this unique experience and lessons I have learned about organizing a conference. Maybe, other people would be interested.

I also want to write about using technology for teaching. I am really frustrated with seeing the premiere university of the country not being able to take advantage of technology, all the while complaining about the limited resources present. I want to show how educational institutions and learning facilitators can utilize offline and online technology to create a better, more enabling learning environment.

I want to write about training, based on my experience as a trainer and with new perspectives from my graduate education. I want to underscore ethics in training and how training functions in business and how it can be a business.

I want to write about crisis management - selling the idea for institutions which think it is a waste of time. It is critical - like development.

Of course, I want to write my old books - ZAIJE, 6SAR and Blue Light.

Sharing experience badly handled by other people - ethical?

Now, it is time to reflect--for myself.

1. As a communicator, did I do the right thing?
2. If I did, did I do it properly?
3. If not, what wrong exactly did I do?
4. What should I have done instead?

Sadly, not I--a BA Organizational Communication major and a Masters of Management candidate--can assess the situation.

I guess my emotions got the best of me.

This is not revenge. This is documentation. I believe that if lesson will be learned by me--it will not be about ethics or patience, no. It will be that however ideal institutions maybe, they can only be as strong as their weakest link--human emotion and ego.

Did ego play a part in my writing of these posts? Or how about revenge? Did I really do this to teach a person a lesson?

I will not make any justification for my action. Again, this is just documentation.

And documentation of human experience has never been objective.

Things to do for today

So I am converting this blog into a to-do list.

1. Pay for Cavite LGU and issue OR
2. Finish Data CD of SCAHR 2009
3. Finish Data CD of UPM GCC
   
4. Finish After Activity Report/Review (AAR) of UP Manila Conference on Global Climate Change
5. Encode the Mini-DV tape of UPMGCC.
6. Follow up DV of my money

I will still write part 2 of my crisis management experience. Hopefully today.

Crisis Management: Sharing Thoughts

Ever since I was employed here in UP Manila, I have thought of the College's capability to respond to a crisis. The crises I thought of were not all that disastrous, of course. Some were actually just pseudo-crisis, for example, a bomb threat.

Of course, I also thought of realistic crises, such as earthquakes and inclement weather. I never had the financial capability to do a formal risk assessment, but I thought it is obvious that the College can use whatever free services are available to have the capability to alleviate stress in crisis times.

I have been interested with crisis management since the time I was in ROTC. In ROTC, when we conducted program or project planning, we always considered uncertainty. In Oplan jargon, they were called "Assumptions," as compared to "Friendly Forces" or "Enemy Forces," which were sentient individuals or organizations. Assumptions are the clearly identified situational indicators that you will need to have, considering that they are out of your control or influence, in order to carry out your operation.

In my thesis for my undergraduate degree, I studied crisis management in an educational institution. It was then when I understood--among others--that crisis is relative, and that there are different types of crisis.

Crisis is relative means that a situation maybe a crisis to one person or organization and it may be normal for another. An example given to me by my key informants (in my undergraduate thesis) is tuberculosis. TB has been an ongoing health crisis for health practitioners, but it seems that a lot of other people do not care about it.

The typology of crisis is also important because the spectrum of your types of crisis will allow you to prepare with your limited resources for crisis--from one end to the next--while not interfering with your day-to-day operations.

As the College's information officer, my main responsibility is to communicate to the public information of importance to them. The way I look at it, my principal publics were:

1. College Students
2. College faculty
3. College Administrative Staff
4. College Alumni
5. Partners
   

Besides these five is a heterogenous group of groups and individuals who will have a unique stake in the actions, decisions or status of the College.

Synthesizing crisis management and communication, you have crisis communication--a critical component in crisis management.

The minimalist goal of crisis communication is to minimize stress, fear, uncertainty and to bring order in a highly dynamic environment. This has been the basis of my initiative to lay out--without being asked by the Dean--a crisis communication system, using all free services that I know.

(Of course, the Dean actually initiated the idea of using online resources to increase interactive communication between the Office of the Dean and the various stakeholders of the College. My take on it was only in increasing the ability of the College to use it for crisis situations.)

Social networks proved to be useful, so I created a CAS Facebook Group, a Multiply Group, a YM ID for the CAS, and Twitter. I also made my mobile number easier to remember for CAS members (4636 spells INFO in mobile keypad). I designed the faculty database so that I can communicate with a lot of people faster.

Then, it was September 26, 2009. And I was at CAS.

To be continued....

UP Manila leads awareness campaign on climate change

August 21, 2009, Manila -- The University of the Philippines Manila College of Arts and Sciences is joining the call for an immediate and collective effort to mitigate the grave effects of global climate change as it holds its conference on Global Climate Change on October 22 to 23, 2009 at the Pearl Garden Hotel, Ermita, Manila.

With the theme “The Science and Social Impact of Global Climate Change: A Philippine Setting,” the conference will highlight the effects of global climate change to different natural and social resources and development initiatives.

With renowned authorities as speakers on the environmental, social, legal and other aspects of global climate change, the conference will benefit individuals and organizations in the academe, research, development policy, environmental and natural sciences, and advocacy.

Aside from the plenary sessions, the conference has parallel sessions which will serve as a venue for presentation of research studies completed by various organizations. The parallel sessions will discuss Energy and Environment; Society; and Health.

Interested individuals and organizations may log on to http://sites.google.com/site/upmgcc or http://www.upm.edu.ph/climatechange for more information.

The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is the liberal arts unit of UP Manila, the Health Sciences Center. CAS holds the distinction of being a Center of Development for its BS Biology program. The College also administers natural and social sciences programs and provides general education courses to the health science programs of the University. For more information about UP Manila, you may log on to http://www.upm.edu.ph.