I FIRST MET Janette Toral when the city’s IT industry was still young, back in 1998, and I was only beginning to foray into this new arena. Ever since then, Janette has played a part — albeit silently — in the furtherance of Davao IT. Her constant encouragement and support are invaluable even to this day.
In the national scene, her moniker, “Mother of E-commerce”, is very apt. It is for her advocacy of, and direct participation in, the E-Commerce Act. This landmark legislation subsequently became Asia’s first E-Commerce Law (RA No.8792), enacted in June 2000. She is best known, however, for the DigitalFilipino.com Club, which she founded on Christmas Day of 2003. This proactive Internet community is populated by professionals, corporations, entrepreneurs, students and researchers. In Davao City, there are a handful of members; hopefully, our numbers will increase soon.
Janette is many things: lecturer, mentor, SEO consultant, marketer, blogger, lobbyist, advocate, organizer. She is also an accomplished author. To date, she has published countless journals and papers, plus three books: DigitalFilipino: An E-Commerce Guide for the eFilipino (June 2000); DigitalFilipino.com: E-Commerce Workshop E-Book (May 2004); and, Philippine Internet Review: 10 Years of Internet History [1994-2004] (September 2004).
In late April or May of this year, she will come out with yet another: Blogging from Home. This will be Janette’s first international publication, as the book has an ISBN acquired in Australia, and will be printed in both countries.
Blogging from Home, in Janette’s words, will be “where I intend to share insights and experiences in being a home-based blogger.” Janette currently has a number of blogs, most of which deal with information technology industry issues and current events. She also has advocacies that have found homes in various blogs: The Filipina Writing Project, Women and E-Commerce, iBlog, Software Process Improvement, among others.
Clearly, Janette has maximized the blogging platform as a medium of effective communication. The upcoming book will benefit those who aim to explore this new yet powerful medium. In the book, readers will be treated to “topics on…blog strategy, dealing with blog readers, making money through blogs, creation of a blog network, and blogging advocacy.” Janette says she has also inserted a sample template guide in each chapter “to help the reader visualize how I created mine” (her blogs).
The author hopes to launch the new book at the iBlog4 Conference on April 26 in Manila. At present, she is in Australia where her husband is currently employed. Janette spends half her time Down Under, where she also finds herself engaged in her consulting work. As well, she has taken this opportunity to market an online device for ranking blogs called Ratified.org to Australian bloggers. (I’m proud to say that Ratified.org is a Davao-made Web service, created by Andrew dela Serna.)
By writing about her knowledge, skills and life experiences, Janette carries on in contributing to the IT industry and to the community. In February 2008, she was the recipient of an Award of Recognition in the Policy and Legal Category, given by the Department of Trade & Industry at the annual e-Services Philippines conference and exhibition. The literature reads: “This award recognizes personalities or organizations whose ideas, talent, and commitment have contributed significantly to Philippine ICT development and/or whose passion and dedication have helped raise the bar of excellence in the Philippines’ e-Services industry.”
Members of the DigitalFilipino.com Club get Janette’s books (plus other resources) for free. But beyond that, I have personally benefited from my membership when I bagged two major Japanese translation clients, through business networking with other members.
Together with my colleagues in the IT industry, I look forward to more fruitful collaboration with Janette Toral in the coming years, which, I predict, will prove advantageous to Davao City.
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Hello Blogs. Thank you for the kind plug. I’m keeping my fingers crossed if the book can make it at that time as layout and printing is not within my control. But the online version will be up this week. In addition to members, those who made a blog post sharing info about the book when it was first announced will also be given a copy. Cheers!
That’s great, Janette! Looking forward to receiving my copy.
I do hope you make it to your print date. Good luck!