so many digital questions

I came to New York with so many questions.

Digital practice in Manila is both exciting and difficult - so many opportunities to do fresh things in such a young market, but no established expertise yet to learn from.

Which is one of the reasons I headed out. To find answers to a lot of questions. I was sure that "the secret" existed out there somewhere and where else to start to find that but in New York?

I am taking classes at NYU from teachers who have been digital media practitioners over several years and have seen the Internet boom, burst and boom again. They know their stuff. But one thing is sure - they are still making things up as they go along. The space changes, objectives change, the market changes, we have to adapt.

I wish I could have discovered a cheat sheet for surefire digital marketing. But even the experts say, you never know. The space changes, the audience is dynamic and really, you can never know what will work.

Sometimes it is great to learn that there are set rules. SEO-ers make their careers trying to game the system. Wouldn't it be great if we could do that for digital marketing?

But I guess that would take some of the fun out of things. To be honest, one of the things that drew me to digital marketing several years ago was that the field is still, especially in Manila, wide open.

hello, new york

Am determined to punch something out, even if it turns out to be absolute dribble! Otherwise I might end up never writing.

On New York...
Parks in the middle of random busy blocks. Beer gardens hidden behind take-out counters. Renoir, Mondrian, Pollock within walking distance. Avenue Q a few minutes away. Unlimited Metrocards that will take you up, down, up, down, up, downtown. School campuses sprawled around the city. Popup musical acts on the street. I love this city. Can I stay here forever?

On Digital...
Interesting first day of class - trend overview, networking, introduction to digital strategy tools. Some takeaways - 

All media is social! So we need to enable. / But we also need to understand the technology. Build the technology. / Even in a market as mature as the US, people at every level are trying to get a grip on "digital" - so there are always opportunities for people who can be consultative and generalists. / There are no best practices... yet.

Things change so fast and everyone has to be smart about keeping up with the developments and filtering what is going on to see how it affects different clients, brands or projects... Maybe this is why I could relate with this Morris Lewis (Alpha-Pi) at the Met.

happy new year

Today is my birthday. I am twenty-seven! Got a birthday text a greeting me a happy new year. That thought seems so apropos (for a party but also a crime, just kidding Maureen) for this particular birthday.

Got on a plane yesterday and have a one-day layover in LA before heading to New York. I am spending a few months there, mostly to study digital media marketing at NYU. Am so excited. Being in New York at all will be awesome!

I am especially looking forward to class. Most of my career has been focused on the digital space, and I've gotten to practice a lot through the help of very supportive bosses and officmates, and some of our forward-thinking clients.

But we know that in a media climate characterized by pull instead of push, brands have to be extra strategic to create cut-through digital work. And I realized that I didn't know enough about the space to make the best strategies. There is infinite room for innovation and experimentation, but there are also a lot of best practices.

And my thinking is that I can't take us out-of-the-box, if we don't know what rules to play by.

So this summer (it is summer in Manila, but [cold] spring in the US), my plan is to learn the basics - how are things "supposed" to be done? Then we can see about breaking the rules... So expect a lot of reflection-type stuff from my New York digital media Spring / Summer :)

It's going to be a happy new year.