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The get-together of DigitalFilipino.com Club members and Davao’s IT professionals last 14 May 2008 at Casa Leticia was an eye-opener for many first-timers. There were more than 30 Dabawenyos who attended, most of whom were, before then, uninitiated into this different sort of organization. Janette Toral, initiator and representative of the Club, was delighted to see so many attend the event.

The DigitalFilipino.com Club is a nationwide association of e-commerce practitioners and enthusiasts, IT professionals and companies. It is a business organization, in that its focus is on how to maximize Filipino talent in bringing success to members’ businesses. I have been a member for several years now, and I have directly benefited from my membership. Twice already I have closed business deals with other members, thanks to the networking activities that the Club constantly conducts.

Members get access to valuable research material, the Club’s extensive knowledge base, and the chance to network with entrepreneurs and corporate members.

The meet-up last 14 May was the third leg of Janette’s three-city roadshow. According to her, compared to the ones in Manila and Cebu, the Davao event had the best attendance and participation. In Davao, there are only a handful of members — but hopefully this will change in the coming weeks.

The format of the event was simple and straightforward: a presentation by Janette (which doubled as an update of sorts for Davao-based members), and then a report by yours truly on upcoming IT-related activities. Attendees were also given the chance to introduce themselves and their companies. For the more aggressive, it was an opportunity to let everyone know about their products and services.

Fred Nadela of Brokenshire College, Maria Jose of Apex Innovators, and Bert Barriga, representing one of the newest software development houses here, were some of those who enthusiastically apprised us of the latest developments in their respective companies. Lizabel Holganza of MTC Academy, and president of ICT Davao Inc., announced upcoming events that relate to the IT industry. Janette remarked that the Davao attendees were wonderfully participative.

After the presentations, everybody got the chance to catch up with colleagues and meet new ones. I’m pleased to report that I was able to observe quite a few business deals being initiated during the informal networking session.

We are already planning on a follow-up meeting for Davao members and candidates in August. Hopefully, more Dabawenyos will decide to join the DigitalFilipino.com Club. For information on this, please feel free to contact me, or visit www.e-commercephilippines.com for more information.

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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Janette Toral has embarked on yet another writing project that is worthy of lengthier attention spans. Right after the successful conduct of the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs project, now comes the “Filipina” Writing Project.

This time, bloggers are not only going to compete literarily, but also in terms of search-engine ranking. This points to the real purpose behind this endeavor: to encourage more people to write about Filipino women and their virtues, strengths, contributions… And thus, at the conclusion of this project, bloggers will have generated content that will hopefully debunk the unsavory image in which Filipinas — our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, wives, colleagues, friends — have been portrayed online.

This is a laudable effort by Janette, who also authors a blog called Women on the Web, Wireless, and Outsourcing. I’d like to encourage all who read this to participate — not just for the prizes, but for the contribution that you will be able to put into realizing the project’s noble objectives.