Sun-raped

This was during the run last Wednesday morning. I love sun-light effects! It never fails to make us glow with warmth and beauty!

It's the time of the year when I extra go blackest due to training for the Labor Day Coast to Coast 65KM. It's one of the road races, next to CCM, that I want to do annually.

Last year, we DNF-ed (did not finish) it. I'm thinking, I can't move on to next level ultras not until I finish this one. :)

Anyhoo, randomly writing this to entertain my ADHD-ness while doing nothing but babysitting. And, here's hoping to make up for not being able to run here in Negros Oriental.

running is big. MARKETING IS BIGGER!

I had always looked running before from a runner’s point of view. So it’s about runners and stories, and finding races, which basically is runroo / aktib.ph about.

But lately when I find myself in press conference of race events, I realized how BIG is marketing in race events. The bigger the event, the bigger the marketing is. I felt how little my marketing knowledge is.

But on the other hand it’s like finding a confirmation to a not-so-pretty truth which we or I tried to deny. I mean running is all about freedom and life and anything sunshiny. But somehow it does not extend to “some” race events.

Being such a noob to “marketing,” at first, I always wonder why press cons of running events (even how small a race is) have food but none of runners. I didn’t really get it at first when we’d be talking about “running” to get fit, and there are always food. Not just finger foods, but the whole she-bang buffet kind of food. But later on, I get it. I think I don’t need to spell it out to you why.

There are 2 main things that motivated me to be so loud about running:

* I want to be NEDBANK (Goals are meant to be scary and impossible.). That incident with that talented athlete who randomly asked me for a sponsorship kind of gave me a reason that maybe it’s worth wasting my time — this talking about running and running and more running.

I feel that dole-out sponsorship is just not the most sustainable way to do it. There must be some better way of doing it. And, I read somewhere that getting sponsors to sponsor an athlete, you have to have those media outlets where they can post their logos. That’s why athletes even write books — it’s another venue for posting logos. Well, I thought runroo can be a start.

* Pushing consumer web app to the PH market. Runroo was also made to promote aktib.ph or other local web app. Coming from the software world, like the talented athletes, it’s hard to get a consumer web app mainstream with the Pinoys (to think we’re the social media capital of the world), and then maybe beyond. The aktib.ph is our NTH attempt. 

It’s going to be a business so we can finally soon be a sponsor. But it’s also about giving a push to the local tech start-up community. With how Americanized we can be, with not-much need for localization of web app / social network sites, it’s surely a struggle for local web startups to get into the local consumer market. But this is a whole different story, I will spare you from that woe.

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So I’m writing this down because it feels like being in a crossroad — between the less and well-travelled paths.

It’s just too tempting to abandon my original goals.  Making money from MARKETING is tempting. It’s not easier. It’s definitely going to be a lot of hard work. But is more of a sure-ball, than having to go about the fuss of building a business out of a web/mobile app. Web/mobile app takes a lot of educating on both the clients and the customers. With marketing business, I only need to find thick-faced friends and thicken more my face, more late-night works, and some psycho stuff, I can probably get something right.

While the web/mobile/software app’s success can be as clear as zero visibility. It’s going to be a lot of experiments before we can finally hit one right. So I wrote this to remind me not to be tempted. But of course, I might be eating my words in some fancy press conference. =)

So on the athlete sponsorship side, I believe athletes should not only work on their running skills, but they also need to brush up their social and marketing skills. If you look at sponsored athletes, they have websites, facebook pages, twitter — these are all free except the time you’ll invest in these. I encourage to abuse these free online media.

But first, athletes should stop being too humble. As a Pinoy, we tend to be so humble, and we don’t like to self-promote. Thing is if you cannot promote yourself, how can a company/sponsor/brand trust you to promote them. 

Just thinking aloud.

PRIVACY POLICY -- not even bored people will read

Fred messaged about an email from facebook requiring us to put up a privacy policy ASAP for aktib.ph. We had made the sign-up process for aktib.ph via facebook for now -- reason maybe in another post. So I made one in a rush. 

Inspired by Automattic, wordpress creator, of making their privacy policy available to be used by others. I'm also posting this privacy policy I made for aktib.ph. Note that I gather "inspiration" from the following web apps:

* Wordpress - http://automattic.com/privacy/ -- I always admire how wordpress evolve. They're not the glitzy kind of blog service provider but I'm always amaze at how they grow their service. They're not the type who integrates all the new hip trend right away. But once they add it to their service, it's very well-done and sensible that it feels that they really thought through it before giving it to the public.

* 37Signals - http://37signals.com/privacy -- They're one of the best "content designer." Looking at their web apps, there's nothing so smashing about it. But it's their blend of visual and content design that gives it oommpphhh. I love how they craft their "texts."

* Instagram - http://instagram.com/about/legal/privacy/ -- Because facebook owns them. So their privacy policy must be so tuned-in with facebook.

* Twitter -- https://twitter.com/privacy -- because I love twidder! =) But with how "free" their app before, their privacy can be a tad complicated.

* Yahoo! flickr -- http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/sg/yahoo/ -- Because they're older than google. They must have the wisdom. Surprisingly, how complicated can their service be but their policy is a breeze to read.

* Piclyf -- http://piclyf.com/site/page/legal -- Because I can! They're from PH so I was thinking maybe there is something unique to PH. But none. It looks like we have the same inspiration -- wordpress.

So the final product, which may not be at all final. Anyhoo, after reading here and there policy, I think the gist is just to let the community that we'll not be making money out by selling their information. And, in between lines, different services have different way of saying it. 

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At aktib.ph, we provide a venue for active people to inspire others, and find events where they can be more active. It's already quite a privilege that you, passionate people, are and will be using our service. Thus, there's no way we are going to exploit your goodness.

Following is a privacy policy for your perusal. If you feel certain parts of it are not agreeable with you, feel free to message us (see contact details at the bottom). 

DATA GATHERING and USAGE

Website Visitors

For those who will just be browsing the content of visit aktib.ph, no personal information (e.g. name, address, email, etc) we'll be gathered from you. But we detect data of how you access our website, like IP address, operating system, browser, etc. This is so we'll know how we can provide the best experience of our site (e.g. if you're using a mobile gadget, a mobile version of our site would be provided to you.)

Registered Users

The aktib.ph is a web application which has features that are available to registered users. Some of these features enable you to personalize your usage of aktib.ph.

To register, you need to create an aktib.ph account in which we gather basic personal information: name, birthday, city, etc. But the minimum information we require for you to create an account with aktib.ph is email address, which we do not display or share on public.

These information would be mainly used to link the personalization / contents you posted on our website to your account. Therefore, they're mainly used so we can put credit to the contents you posted on the website.

Aktib.ph does not sell, rent, or share your personal information with other parties, unless explicitly approved by you. 

You can delete any time your account with us.

Communication

As part of our service, we will contact you from time to time via email for product / service updates. 

User content

You can create and post content on aktib.ph. Your content will be publicly available, and can be shared by others.

Content rights belong to you. You can delete them any time you want from our site.

DATA STORAGE

We use third-party vendors and hosting providers to store your content. 

Though aktib.ph owns the code, databases, and all rights to the our application, you retain all rights to your data. 

ADS

Currently, we do not have ads system in our application. Nor we have any affiliation with third-party ad providers. 

ANALYTICS 

Our system has third-party analytics tools installed for traffic and usage trend monitoring. Basic information we gather are what devices, operating system used in accessing our website.

We also gather information on which part of the website is visited. This way, we will know how we can improve our service, and which features may need to go.

DISCLOSURE

We may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with law.

PRIVACY POLICY CHANGES

Because the only thing constant in this world is change. 

In case of changes, we will be announcing it on aktib.ph or via email. Rest assured that we will not make any changes that will disadvantage you. 

QUESTIONS

Any questions or comments to this Privacy Policy, feel free to contact us at rose@runroo.com, or mail us at Unit 701 7th Floor, TGU Building, Asiatown IT Park, Lahug, Cebu City, Cebu 6000 Philippines

Dole-outs?

Following is a snippet from Chrissie Wellington's "A Life Without Limits Books." And, this has been my old 'new' perspective. I have nothing against gift-giving/feeding, but I'm just not sold-out to it.

"We give presents to the locals," I wrote in my diary, "perhaps as a means of alleviating our own guilt and making ourselves feel better, when really it does nothing to help people help themselves. In the longer term it actually has a negative impact on their development." - Chrissie Miles

I feel that inspiring people to work on to achieve something is more empowering than giving them something material which would actually become trash later on.

Life is...

like when you're in that middle of the race that you felt bonking, and just want to throw in the towel. But you're too far from the starting line already, and you're still far away from the finish line too.

You just feel like lying down on the sideways, and whine your heart out.

But then you know it's not going to help. It's actually a waste of energy and time.

So you pick up yourself, and forced yourself to put one foot in front of another. And hopefully you'll find a second wind!

And a cup of coffee it is!

("Let go" shirt)

limbo

The past weeks had been such a busy one for me. That kind of busy that Only I know.

Anyhoo, the aktib.ph/runroo.com experiment gives some interesting feedback. I guess it's on that phase of -- so what to do next?!?

So I guess that's why I'm feeling in limbo today because there are not "one possibility" to explore. It's still a long way from a finished product. But I think that's what is my / our concern -- what is its finish product? So what really is it -- is it some photo/story sharing or another more sustainable product/service?

Either way, it will be a long ultramarathon haul. But hopefully we can finally found one definite goal to work on.

In this kind of moment, when there's no solution yet, the best one will be to have a good torture run to kill unnecessary worries and neural connections! :)

(waiting for this puto cheese recipe to get all done)

Bag Inspection or Trash Inspection?

I hate bag inspection. It's that pseudo security measures here in Philippines.

But I actually don't hate the inconvenience of it. I actually like of having the chance of making chitchat with the security guards.

The thing i dreaded most about it because the insides of my bag resemble a trash can. I cannot imagine how the guard would judge me after.

Happy 9th Wedding Anniversary!

To more conversations over coffee with you.