I've been online for more than ten years now. I guess I was lucky that DLSU took a progressive stance in adapting the use of the internet. I remember using ICQ and pinging my school friends through their ID numbers. It was really cool.
Things have gone a long way since Wordstar 4.0, dot matrix printers and huge floppies! I owe a lot to my brother who exposed me to the wonderful computer world - enrolling me for logo programming at the age of 10 (I definitely don't remember anything anymore) and giving me my first PC. Now the applications that bumped off the typewriter from the horizon are even more progressive, Google Docs & Spreadsheets allows you to edit a document in real-time with colleagues who are in another continent.
I barely read the paper. I get my news fix online through Inquirer.net and Philstar.com and sometimes through Manila Bulletin (who I hope would archive their articles properly). I read a lot of blogs, pay my bills online, write online through my blogs. Well, basically I can't imagine my life without the internet anymore (and that's why I'm so scared to go home to Bicol).
One of the things that I've been thinking about though is putting up an online business. I just haven't figured out what I'm going to sell. My friend Ottie has been bugging me about it for more than a year already. I told her though that it would be really interesting to put up an e-commerce business. I've been checking out websites that sell stuff online and studying how they've so far been successful. Most of them started really small with a defined niche and look at them now - big in their own niche, successful and their markets don't have borders!
Aside from determining the product, the market, I guess I have to study profusely on the Philippine Internet Payment Gateway Accepting Credit Cards Guide to learn how to go about doing business online.
Well, I hope I get this plan out of the oven before Miguel goes off to college. Now where's that personal mission list of mine...
I started writing when I was 8. My mom got me a journal where I could rant (prob so I won't be an annoying brat). I stopped writing for 8 years until the pen and then later on the keyboard called on me again. I blog because I like writing and that's just about it. Hope you get inspired though... Bite the apple!
i never got a college plan for my kids. My goal was to get enough savings by the time the kids were in college. I figured that I should have raised my income by then. True enough, I was able to achieve it. On business, I can't rely on just one source of income. Diversification is the key. I am launching a small traditional brick and mortar business soon. I can never tell the stability of online business. Even Google adsense income is not also the same every month. Hope you find that business soon, online or not.
ReplyDeleteI've been telling myself the same thing for the past 12 years. But, I'm now at the panic point because Miguel's in high school already and he wants to study abroad in college! Oh noes! That's why I had to re-do my personal mission, to set things back in the right course :)
ReplyDeleteoh, ailene, i have 7 kids, 1 is already on his own, and the rest are all in school (from law school, to college, to high school and grade school). i never got educational plans for them--how could i do so? it was financially not possible, sending them to school (the present) and financing education plans (future). God has been so good to me, that i am able to send them to the best schools in town.
ReplyDeleteas to the online activities, i wrote, as my strategic management paper in the ateneo for my mba (imagine, i completed mba only in august last year) that INTERNET HAS ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES. it is true--i wonder how it will be 10 years from now!