ProFora Media welcomes Atty. Bong Belaro- entrepreneur, lecturer and author- as one of our speakers for our series of online workshops, the ProFora Media Lightbulb Sessions.

Atty. Belaro is extremely passionate about helping out entrepreneurs.  He believes that entrepreneurs should take a more proactive approach when dealing with their ventures, and not just consult with a lawyer when problems with the business come up.

In fact, he even wrote a book specifically on the subject matter.  Legal Forms for Entrepreneurs, which is available at Fully Booked, National Bookstore and PowerBooks, is a comprehensive reference and must-have for Filipino entrepreneurs and business owners.

With Atty. Belaro’s book, you can save thousands in legal fees by using outlines and samples in his compilation of basic legal forms and letters commonly used in current Philippine business setting.

And as part of this initiative to help out Filipino entrepreneurs, Atty. Belaro has a series of webinars, specifically for entrepreneurs with ProFora Media.

His webinar- “Legal Forms: An Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide”- gives business owners and entrepreneurs an overview on why it is necessary to retain the services of a good lawyer, specifically for ther business endeavors.He has other webinars lined up with ProFora Media for the year 2010.

Atty. Belaro practices law as a partner in Belaro and Associates.  Their law firm has had dealing in litigation and corporate law, international trade, cross-border transactions, offshore registrations, real estate, government procurement and intellectual property.

Atty. Belaro also has his own entrepreneurial endeavors, including printing and publishing, importing and trading, and leasing out commercial spaces.  He publishes the Pilipinas Bulletin, a tabloid distrbuted at LRT and MRT stations on weekdays.

ProFora Media welcomes renowned professional photographer Edwin Celestino, as one of our featured speakers for the month of October.

Edwin Celestino is one of the Philippines’ foremost fashion and commercial advertising photographers. Collaborating with agencies such as J. Walter Thompson, Basic Advertising and BCD/PinPoint, his photos have enhanced the message of numerous ad campaigns. Having started in 1977 as an in-house photographer for the Metro Manila Commission, he is now transferring his knowledge to the new generation, first as a teacher in the UST College of Fine Arts and for the past 5 years, in the DLS-College of St. Benilde.

Beyond what’s written on Edwin’s speaker bio, however, we have managed to dig up ten things you might want to know about him, just to get more acquainted with Edwin Celestino:

1.  Edwin is the technical half of the only husband-and-wife photographer team in the Philippines.  He and Tesz Celestino had clocked some thirty odd years of experience working with designers like Pitoy Moreno, Ben Farrales, Frederick Peralta, Cesar Gaupo, and Lulu Tan Gan.   Their work has been published in the coffee table books, TAO: The Filipino People, KASALAN: Philippine Weddings, Philippine Costumes, and in magazines like Design And Architecture, InStyle and LifeStyle Asia.

2.  In 1977, while working for the Metro Manila Commission, he unhooked himself from the helicopter’s safety harness just to get the right angle for a picture of the reclamation area that would become the CCP Complex.  The “that-was-a-really-dumb-thing-to-do moment” only occurred to him several awkward seconds after he was back on the ground.

3.  Goes into God mode when on a photo shoot.  If you’re the client, tell him how you want the picture to come out, then step back and let him work.  If you’re the model, don’t tell him you know better- or better yet, don’t even talk- or he walks out.

4.  Can be bribed with a case of Coca-Cola.  Make sure it’s not diet or Zero though, as he can tell the difference since he averages 3 liters a day.

5.  Laughs like a loon when he sees people shooting outdoors and their portable flash units are pointing straight up “…what are you bouncing the additional light off?  The sky?”

6.  Thinks that people who keep their DSLRs on “Automatic” and call themselves good photographers, should be shot.  Considering the affordability of cameras today, an AK-47 clip just wouldn’t have enough bullets.

7.  Always brings a Canon A570 point and shoot digicam and uses the pictures he takes with it to emphasize that learning the basics is more important than the equipment.

8.  Remodeled part of our house and built a darkroom just so he could “play” with all the aspects of conventional photography and because he wanted to learn more.   He figured that his children didn’t need an additional bedroom anyway since his son and daughter hadn’t reached the point of actually killing each other yet.

9.  Can do things with conventional film photography that is only possible now with PhotoShop.  Up to this day, his children’s friends think that they each had a twin that died because of a picture Edwin had experimented on with double exposure.

10.  Has The Beatles, Ne-Yo and Akon on repeat in his iPod but memorized all The BackStreet Boys songs for videoke.  Give him a mic and he’ll belt out “Quit Playing Games With My Heart”, complete with the dance moves.

Edwin Celestino will be conducting a series of photography webinars together with ProFora Media, with actual field trips and face-to-face sessions mixed in.   His first set of photography workshops, Basic Photography: Understanding Exposure, begins on October 22.

“O captain!  My captain…”
-from the poem by Walt Whitman (1865), and popularized in the film “Dead Poets Society” (1989)

I was in 3rd grade when I first experienced Pido.   It was 1985 and we were asked to pick an extra-curricular activity and I chose to join The Ateneo Children’s Theater.   He was the assistant director then.

Pido Aguilar is our featured speaker on the ProFora Media Lightbulb Sessions on October 13.

During our very first cast meeting, I remember him coming into the grade school auditorium dressed in the most peculiar outfit I had ever seen—purple leg warmers over black leather, zip-up boots, jeans, a yellow scarf, and a white long sleeved shirt.   Furthermore, he came in speaking with a different accent and was making all sorts of gestures which I found to be a bit over the top.    In addition, I couldn’t reconcile with the idea that he was a teacher in the grade school department.   How could the Ateneo have someone who acted the way Pido did—unusual to say the least—teach?

None of my other teachers were like him.   So I, naturally (at the time, anyway), did not know how to relate to him.   “This guy is weird,” I thought to myself and recalled being confused as to whether I would be amused by his enthusiasm or dismiss him as an outright crazy person.

In 1989, I found myself with Pido again.   He was to be the class moderator of my final year in elementary.   He was still the same Pido I remember from four years back—odd, eccentric, and energetic.  But this time, I no longer saw his off-the-wall antics as strange in the negative sense.   In fact, it was now quite the opposite.   I looked forward to them.   His passion was infectious.   He was just so much fun to be with that there was a time when my only motivation to get up in the morning and go to school was to find out how Pido would sound like (would he sound Indian today?  French, perhaps?  Maybe even  German?),  what he would look like (what outfit he would end up wearing for that day), or what surprise he had in store for us in class (would he stand up on the teacher’s table and scream at the top of his lungs again, etc.)

He made learning an adventure, an adventure where every day we learned something new, or we learned to see something so mundane in a new light.    However, I think the most wonderful part of my experience Pido was not so much that I enjoyed the exploits and antics, but in the way that he related to me as his student.  I may no longer remember many of the subjects that he taught, but the most important lessons I carry to this day.

Pido had helped me believe that I could– that belief made anything possible, and that passion was the fuel that drove everything.

Pido Aguilar– author, educator, training expert and international speaker- will be doing a series of webinars for the ProFora Media Lightbulb Sessions.  His online talk, “Train to Retain/Teach to Retain”, scheduled on October 13, 2009, emphasizes the need for quality training, and touches on the seven standards of highly effective training.

Know more about Pido Aguilar, and check out his webinar on October 13, 2009.  Register for “Train to Retain/Teach to Retain” here.

ProFora Media welcomes Conrad Favorito as one of featured speakers for the month of October.

Conrad was former Group Chief Quality Officer of the Transnational Diversified Group (TDG), and as such, spearheaded the overall TQM and ISO efforts of over 30 TDG companies.

Conrad also held several concurrent positions at TDG, such as Division President for Investments, Director for Corporate Affairs, Editor-in-Chief for the in-house magazine & online communications, as well as Lead Facilitator for the in-house 7 Habits of Highly Effective Living workshops.

He has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy-PreDivinity from the Ateneo de Manila University, and a Master in Business Management from the Asian Institute of Management.

Favorito is a member of the Rotary Club of San Juan and has been affiliated with the Philippine Society for Quality, Philippine Franchise Association, and Corporate Planning Society of the Philippines.

For the month of October, Conrad had put together a series of talks for the ProFora Media Lightbulb Sessions.

Conrad Favorito’s Personal Planning and Relationship Management for the Modern-Day Professional Webinar Series happens on Saturday, 24 October, 2009, and features four different online seminars, on four different topics.

Part 1:  “Be Cooler Than Cool: Managing Relationships” | 11:00AM to 12:00PM, standard Philippine time (GMT +8:00) | Register for this webinar now.
Part 2:  “Raising G.R.E.A.T. and Happy Kids” | 1PM to 2PM, standard Philippine time (GMT +8:00) | Register for this webinar now.

Part 3:  “Personal Visioning & Planning for Success & Happiness” | 3PM to 4PM, standard Philippine time (GMT +8:00) | Register for this webinar now.
Part 4:  “Balancing Your Personal Score Card” | 5PM to 6PM, standard Philippine time (GMT +8:00) | Register for this webinar now.

Click here to know more about Conrad Favorito’s Personal Planning and Relationship Management for the Modern-Day Professional webinar series.

Editor’s Note: Conrad Favorito’s Personal Planning and Relationship Management for the Modern-Day Professional webinar series had originally been scheduled for Saturday, 10 October 2009.  Because of Typhoon Ondoy/International Storm Ketsana, the organizers have decided to move this series to its current date, 24 October 2009, which is also a Saturday.

Janette Toral has been one of the most active speakers for the ProFora Media Lightbulb Sessions, being a passionate advocate of e-commerce in the Philippines, and the empowerment of Filipinos through the internet.

For today’s post, we’ve dug up some facts on Janette Toral in an effort to get to know her better.

So here are ten things you need to know about Janette Toral, our featured Speaker for today.

1.  Janette has been very busy lately, aside from conducting webinars for the ProFora Media Lightbulb Sessions.  In fact, she just started a new venture with Blog4Reviews and will be launching a complementary Internet advertising engine soon.

2.  Janette co-founded the Philippine Internet Commerce Society in 1997 and lobbied for the passage of the Y2K Law and E-Commerce Law.

3.  She is the first Filipino author published by McGraw-Hill Education Asia.  In addition, by publishing her e-commerce book in 2000, Janette paved the way for the birth of DigitalFilipino.com in 2003 that serves as an e-commerce advocacy, research, consulting, advertising, and training platform.

4.  Janette Toral started pursuing opportunities in the field of computers back in 1989 at STI-Kalookan.  She left in early 1991 as chief operating officer of its Taytay branch to pursue creative challenges- and we can see how well that has turned out for her.

5.  In 1995, she started speaking in major IT events about complex e-mail, groupware, and document management systems that paved the way for several columnist and writer stints in various publications.

6.  Janette is a recipient of the DTI/CITEM E-Services Philippines E-Champion Award 2008 for Policy Development following Senators Magsaysay and Roxas.

7.  Janette Toral created awareness about the Capability Maturity Model and Capability Maturity Model Integrated in the Philippines since 2001 that lead to the national government’s priority work areas for 2003.  She has been conducting CMMI related workshops since 2002 and trained around 200 companies nationwide on Software Process Improvement.

8.  Janette created the site http://www.cmmiphilippines.com in 2004 to promote the concept of having a Philippine Software Process Improvement Network (PH-SPIN) and advocate the adoption of CMMI in the Philippines.

9.  Janette also renders consulting for companies who needs help in training their personnel on various areas related to CMMI, develop software process improvement action plan, and in coming up with an institutionalized software development policy.

10.  For 2009, Janette’s advocacy focuses on search engine marketing awareness, blogging as a tool for Philippines 2010 elections transparency, the use of blogs & social networks for e-learning & e-commerce opportunities, and Internet content development by children.

In fact, you can come attend some of Janette’s webinars with ProFora Media:  there’s a series of talks happening for One Internet Day 2009 on Thursday, Sept. 17, and then there’s another- more intensive- series of workshops for the month of October: a Certificate Course on Search Engine Optimization Techniques (details on that course are here on the ProFora Facebook page, as well as here on this blog).

Cheers, everyone!