Be moved. Be changed. Be a leader.

Seldom will you have an opportunity to listen to world renowned personalities. The Global Leadership Summit will bring to the Philippines an extraordinary line-up of speakers like Colin Powell, Michael Porter, Jimmy Carter and others.

The Global Leadership Summit is an event that will be held in 193 cities and 31 countries. To know more about the event and to register, visit http://www.glsphilippines.org/

Since the line-up of speakers are pretty impressive, I don’t expect these speakers to be present personally but rather, I assume that they would be there through video.

We were struck with two brownouts yesterday in the office. Rather than wait it out and distrupt our work schedule, I decided to call Meralco’s call center number, 16211.

As with other big companies, its an autmated system that greets you when you call Meralco. The good thing about browout inquiry is that the system can accurately provide the time when electricity will be restored. In the first inquiry, the system notified of an emergency line problem and that service should be back by 2pm. Electricity returned a little past 1pm.

In the next brownout, I called a few minutes after experiencing the outage. The system then gave a notice that service will be back at 3:30pm or 30 minutes after. Service returned at 3:20pm.  

In both instances, it was good for me to know when electricity would be back so we can adjust our work activities. Great service Meralco for this system!

Note: you need to have your service identification number ready to use their automated system.

The Chinese Filipino Business Club is once again sponsoring a free learning event this August 24. Strategic Marketing for New Market Segments will be held at the 8th Floor Sky Tower I Building, Dasmarinas St. , Binondo, Manilafrom 1pm to 5pm.

Invited to lecture on targeting emerging market segment is Ms. Maria Aileen Abiva-Sazon. Ms. Sazon is the President of Felta-Multi-Media Inc and a Director of the Philippine Marketing Association of the Philippines. She is also the Education Committee Head of the Direct Selling Association of the Philippines.

In the session, expect to learn the following concepts:

• Keys to successful marketing
• Consumer behavior — Emerging Market Segments
• KYC for your Business (if you don’t know what KYC means, attend the event)
• Know what your customers are buying
• Developing a competitive edge
• Determining your pricing strategy
• Market place and marketing planning
• Marketing action plan

Call 2416463/2444996 to register.

I learned that investing is not a piece of cake. Apart from investing in safe instruments like time deposits, the rest requires skills and market knowledge.

The past year saw the rise of the stock market and mutual funds became the in thing. Just as when I placed some money in a balanced fund, the market took a down turn. I actually do not want to look at the net asset value at this time.

Investing in dollar is also jittery. The dollar has fallen from a high of Php 56 to Php 44. I’ve lost money due to the exchange rate difference.

For all its worth, it might still be safe to put your money in time deposit.