Success takes team effort. We see this in nature all the time. Human beings, however, sometimes step on others to succeed, not knowing that doing so takes him far away from real success.

Not in Open For Business. We just announced today that marketing professional Willy E. Arcilla will mentor eight INQUIRER.net readers who need help in growing their businesses, for one year, for free.

Read our news article on the business mentoring activity:

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I stumbled on this short film by Nic for www.monday9am.tv that shows an interview with one of my favorite authors Seth Godin. There’s a lot of talk in the video about curiosity, faith, getting stuck and why one of the smartest things done by the smartest people in the world was turn off their television. But what I really want to share is how he talked about attitudes towards risk. He says:

Curious is the key word… It has to do with a desire to understand, a desire to try, a desire to push whatever envelope you are interested in… [Curious people matter because they] are the ones who talk to the people who are in a stupor. They are the ones who talk to the masses in the middle who are stuck. The masses in the middle have brainwashed themselves to think that it’s safe to do nothing.

Seth Godin is a genius at creating strategies to market stuff. He wrote bestselling books such as Meatball Sundae, The Dip and All Marketers Are Liars. Imagine what would have happened if he was not curious enough to try out his ideas. But it wasn’t easy for him, too. He further explains:

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My sister is an OFW. Right now, she is here in the country on a five-month vacation and using the break from work to become a licensed real estate agent. When she goes back to work in January, she is hoping to sell properties to her fellow OFWs. Not a day wasted for our hard-working workers based abroad.

Many entrepreneur nowadays is in deep thought on how to market to OFWs. A Philippine Daily Inquirer special report shows that this Christmas season alone, dollar remittances have fueled new affluence among Filipinos. (Click here to read X’mas spending evolving toward ‘more important’ purchases and here for Dollar remittances fuel new affluence among Filipinos).

How do you market to someone you cannot see, you cannot visit, you cannot call through your landline? That’s definitely a challenge, but finding the solution will definitely bring in exciting results. The real estate industry has already done this. It is raking in the money and from the looks of it, despite the subprime mortgage issue, will continue to do so in 2008. Most OFWs are not yet well-versed on various investment options in the market so houses and real properties are good options that are tangible and easy to understand.

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Some eye-popping figures came out of Cartoon Network’s latest study on Filipino children and their lifestyles.

P37 billion – spending power of kids in their “tweenies”, or kids seven to 14 years old

46% — of Filipino kids are now using the Internet versus 26% in the 2005 study

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I first heard about the “Why Not” forum from Smart’s Mon Isberto. At the time, I thought it was just a marketing gimmick or people pounding their fists on the table about something nationalistic when they are actually just marketing themselves. This blog post by Niña Terol has made me see that there must be something real here for the politics-weary Filipino who wants to change the world — often through entrepreneurship. I post this with the permission of Mark Ruiz, one of the founders of Why Not. Read on:

By Niña Terol
 
It was an ordinary Thursday night, and yet Warehouse 135, the hip warehouse-turned-club on Yakal Street in Makati, was filled to capacity. Only it wasn’t filled with clubgoers and party scenesters—it was filled with young professionals, creative minds, thinkers, and dreamers who all dared to ask a question that would set the tone for the entire evening’s talks: Why not?
 
The WhyNot? Forum, according to founders Mark Ruiz and Bam Aquino, is a “smorgasboard of great, brave ideas—an open-source innovation soup that will hopefully inspire other Filipinos all over to connect adjunct thoughts, take impactful action, and weave together new breakthrough ideas.” Inspired by the TEDTalks of the United States ( www.ted.com), it is based on the simple idea of gathering some of the best minds in the country to share their respective ideas for 15 minutes each. By asking The Question and challenging outmoded assumptions, it is hoped that WhyNot? Forum will spark a thought revolution that will encourage people to “think new thoughts, share big dreams, do brave things.”

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