The PROMAP Manufacturing Learning Series

Back when I was still working, I've always been keen to observe how the industry operates both in the macro and micro scale, and I must say that I sure have learned a lot in 5 years. I liked the customer meetings because it allowed me to take a peek on what our customers problems were, and how multinational companies related to each other. I also liked the production floor meetings and chatting with operators, technicians, and facility personnel because I liked to learn how things operate at their end. Being a process engineer granted us that advantage and I tried to learn all I could from it.

And so in spite of my resignation last year, I wanted to keep myself updated somehow. This time though, I already had the time to look beyond the semiconductor industry.  Fortunately, I bumped into Dr. Richard Chu from the UP Eng'g, Chemical Engineering department, and the adviser of my college org Society of Manufacturing Engineers. He mentioned that the senior professional chapter had an upcoming seminar about Rootcause Analysis, so I decided to come last July 5 just to check it out.

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Rediscovering Newspapers

One of the activities that eat up a huge chunk of my online time is reading articles. Sometimes I catch up on news, sometimes I read on social commentary,  gossip, and whatnots like Buzzfeed, Thoughtcatalog, etc (my favorite is Lifehacker). While it is of course healthy to take a peep into the perspectives of different people from different belief systems, there are times when I think some of these are just carefully-worded junk. It's funny how people with twisted reasoning can gain sympathy and believers by simply relying on witty rhetoric. But then again that's what makes the internet interesting.

Even if I love reading these articles, I'm realizing that the overload of content and the fact that just about anyone can publish their work, is turning this end of online content into a pile of confused mess.  Just like how videos of cute dogs and cats can now be considered junk because there's just waaaaaaaaay too much of them. It can be tricky to sort through the ones with real value.

Even self-declared news websites can produce a lot of crap nowadays (though not all really). If in the pre-internet era you can trust all the facts you see in new articles, nowadays you'd have to take things with a grain of salt because they tend to make typographical mistakes, errors in citing references, and sometimes even their facts are just downright wrong. I don't really get what their editors are doing, but I think they're less strict on their online articles because they know that they can undo their errors by simply hitting the "edit" button. And all this while acting like arrogant journalists at that (*ehem*ehem*tamaan-na-ang-tatamaan*lol).

Anyway, this line of thought has prompted me to rediscover the one medium that has been grossly affected by the rise of online journalism - the newspapers.

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Freelance Writing And Thoughts About Having So Much Time

I dedicated this week to doing freelance writing full time. I knew it wouldn't be easy, which is why I really took advantage of the waiting time I have for some of my materials for the thesis. I wanted to 'get the groove', you know. Hehe.

So far, I've been able to write 12 articles varying between 500 and 650 words each, and 1 E-book. Yes an e-book! Huwaw! Is legit! Hahah.  I didn't realize it could be soooo hard.

When you're in the industry, the company, your bosses, define your targets. In our case, there were so many external stimulants that keep pushing you to work and drag yourself forward, and you get to push yourself to heights that you never thought was possible. That's how you re-discover yourself. And that's because, well, you HAVE to. You can try to slack off but someone is bound to push you once again.

It's a different story altogether when you have time in your hands. Don't get me wrong, I am given a golden, GOLDEN opportunity to finally learn everything I've ever dreamed of. And to tell the truth? I am having the most interesting time of my life!

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6 Things I Learned From the 6th Go Negosyo Filipina Entrepreneurship Summit

March 7, 2014 marked the celebration of the Filipina entrepreneurial spirit, as over 130 schools and hundreds of entrepreneurs trooped over at the World Trade Center, for the 6th GoNegosyo Filipina Entrepreneurship Summit. This is spearheaded by Joey Concepcion, founder of Go Negosyo, along with its industry partners.

The Go Negosyo booth

World Trade Center was packed!

  

I was never really the business-minded type, Tatay is the only one who really liked to do business in the family. Mama would have wanted to come but she had work to do, and she was the one who spotted this event at the Manila Bulletin. We came out of curiosity, and in addition to me trying to look for acrylic sheet suppliers for our technopreneurship class.

The booths were quite few, mostly limited to the sponsors. I didn't  find what I was looking for, but what I went home with was something even better - the chance to bond with Tatay and a truckload of inspiration.

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SPIK 2013 Annual Forum - Nurturing That Much Needed Link

I have always thought that when it comes to research, the Philippines is already bursting with so many ideas. In fact I think the university is  almost saturated with it. We have already proved countless of times that Filipino talent is definitely at par with our counterparts from developing countries. 

While a new idea is always a good thing, I think a larger problem is that these ideas remain just that - a pool of ideas. Majority of thesis studies  are left to dust in their departments, either because it has not found a suitable application/funding, or the momentum to follow it through has simply burned out. 

So I found it very timely that key people from the university, the industry, and the government are now making concrete responses to this need, by initiating a partnership between ERDT, Engineering Research and Development for Technology, and SPIK, Samahan sa Pilipinas ng Industriyang Kimika. Well yes, it is composed mostly of chemical engineers, and related industries, mainly because manufacturing in the Philippines, is 60% composed of companies that are related to the chemicals industry. Being an ERDT scholar, we were required to attend the forum. As chemical plants normally employ a mix of various disciplines, below fields  can also benefit from the forum:

Civil Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Industrial Engineering

Materials Engineering

Mechanical Engineering and

Environmental Engineering

The main goal is to create a government-industry-academe linkage, with the following roles:

Government - provision of scholarships, funding, necessary legislation, and support on the national level of the programs

Academe - provision of capable manpower and environment for research, laboratory facilities, intellectual know-how

Industry partner - commercialization, funding, mass production/ implementation of results

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Science via Art, and Vice Versa

Our professor invited Joey Tanedo from the College of Fine Arts to talk about the upcoming video presentation of our review paper. I thought we'll just deal with the technicalities of video making like the framing, the camera works, the gestures and the like. But what we talked about was something deeper. It was the marriage of Art and Science.

I first heard about this while reading Steve Job's biography (I blogged about it here). The reason why Apple remains to be the icon that it is, is because they were able to merge technological genius with a fine taste for art. You can see it in the way they planned their operating system, from the all the nitty gritty connections, to the design of their phones - everything is well thought of.

Now if they CAN do it, why can't we?

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Freelancing at Essays.ph Yo!

I've been approved as a member of Essays.ph for a long time now however I never really found time to claim an assignment because I've been too busy with work and extra-curricular activities. And during times when I'm actually free no assignments would be available.

Today though, I chanced upon an assignment. So I clicked and claimed right away. Only to find out that I need to submit five 450-word-articles within twenty four hours. I wouldn't mind the requirement, only that I had work tomorrow so essentially, I only have roughly five hours to complete the whole thing. HUWAAAT.

So here I am writing like crazy as a first time freelance writer. It's exciting and scary at the same time. But I love how I was able to learn so much in a matter of hours. And the act of typing is so therapeutic. I think you would agree, yes? The sound of keyboards snapping is almost like running water. It's so peaceful. Bwehehe. It's really cool when you still have ideas bubbling in your head, but after a while it gets draining. But I guess that's the challenge. To write even if you feel like you no longer have ideas. To find a new angle, to come up with a new story. Ahh, I think a writers life must be amazing and stressful in different levels.

Everyone's work is stressful in different levels anyway.

I just finished churning out 4 articles. The last article is still brewing in my head but I think I'll allow myself some sleep first. In fact I'm also brimming with ideas to write on this blog. Wee.