Now, this whole EduPunk phenomenon is an entirely different conversation in itself. But what I really want to focus on is my experience of fulfilling instant gratification by buying the ebook.

My transition from physical books to eBooks has been brewing for the past couple of years.

Of course, I started by improvising with my Mac  – reading vertical PDF’s awkwardly on a horizontally-oriented screen. Then came the iPhone – and it kickstarted the reading experience on a handheld. After getting a sense of the numerous ebook readers that came out last year, I eventually bet on Barnes & Noble’s Nook and got one last November when it came out. And more recently, I got an iPad – which – intriguingly enough – has the Amazon Kindle App, iBooks, and (just awaiting release) Barnes & Noble’s eBook Reader App.

But here’s the rub. I’m beginning to feel The Rise of the Splinternet.

This new vocabulary was introduced by Groundswell author Josh Bernoff in this article.

Simply put – with the onslaught of these multiple devices, platforms, and software standards – competing companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble – have created walled gardens, as opposed to the open playground the internet was supposed to be.

Josh shares this summary table :

Now, i felt this first-hand when I tried to buy my ebook.

The reason I bought the Nook before international release is because I bet on the fact that it would would eventually have international presence – meaning I could buy online from their storefront all the way from the Philippines – a feature that the Amazon Kindle already has. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened yet.

Now, I could have bought the Kindle, but at that time it didn’t provide PDF support. More importantly, Amazon created their own proprietary ebook format, and shunned the cross-hardware-platform ePub – which the Nook embraced with open arms.

So it really is kind of a tangled mess. Because the Nook could read the ePub format, i was able to buy ebooks from different sources outside of B&N and load it in, while waiting their international presence. But along came the iPad, which made my decision-making process ever more complicated.

My ideal situation is that I could buy an ePub book which I can then read on my Nook, on my Mac, on my iPhone, and on my iPad. I really don’t have that option right now.

B&N doesn’t have international sales yet; The iPad has iBooks which can read ePub, but it’s not yet available in the Philippines. Amazon Kindle is on the iPad/iPhone, but it’s not in ePub format and hence I can’t load it on my Nook.

I eventually bought the Amazon Kindle ebook, because it was the only avenue I could buy this book from, as it wasn’t available in the ePub online bookstores yet.

Whatever happened to Openness? Can’t we all just get along?

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Well, the truth of the matter is that lately, I’ve begun to become more comfortable explaining Hapinoy’s Business Model in this way. Most especially now that we’re in a stage wherein we can more tangibly share the next phase of our evolution.

You see, a lot of people look at Hapinoy and mistakenly think that the whole plan is simply to organize, aggregate, and makeover a chain of sari-sari stores.

That’s actually an intuitive observation, as aggregating thousands of sari-sari stores is indeed a significant chunk of the Hapinoy program.

But from the very beginning, we never really saw the Hapinoy Stores to remain as ordinary sari-sari stores. Since a major thrust of Hapinoy is to grow the business of our micro-entrepreneur storeowners – captured in our Path to Prosperity Program – then we have to go beyond traditional business thinking in order to realize new revenue streams. And in a situation wherein commodity goods provide only commodity margins, then innovation and evolution will play a key part in our Hapinoy Stores’ growth.

And so, while one whole path of growth for the Hapinoy community is growth through backward-integration and creating an “inclusive supply chain” for community-based producers (a whole separate blog entry in itself) …

… another big area of growth is really the evolution of Hapinoy Stores into what we call Hapinoy+ (Hapinoy-Plus):

Simply put, Hapinoy+ Stores are those stores that go beyond the traditional sari-sari store model – beyond the basic assortment of commodity products.

A few quick examples :

- Due to our partnership with Smart, we’ve converted Hapinoy Stores into a cellphone-loading platform. In fact, our top stores have been computerized and wired – paving the way for Hapinoy Internet Cafe’s. After thinking through on how to maximize the very same PC’s, we partnered with Intel and have an ongoing experiment on a simple photo-printing solution called HapiPrints.

- With Ateneo School of Government’s iBop-Asia project, we’re actively researching the Hapinoy Healthcare Hub, our exploration into medicine distribution and marketing.

- Just recently, we met with a large beauty-care company’s CEO, and will now explore a new category pillar of products for the BoP,  thus reimagining the Sari-Sari Store are as a center for beauty care.

And the list goes on and on : agriculture, simple technologies for the BoP, food and nutrition, et cetera. The possibilities are almost limitless.

And as these limitless possibilities emerge, this is where the iPhone metaphor begins to rear its head.

Because Hapinoy’s strategy and Business Model is NOT retailing. The truth is that – much like the iPhone – our business model is to be a platform.

To the non-geeks, let me explain that most of the functionalities of the iPhone are unleashed through the applications installed on it. It’s what has allowed the iPhone to go beyond being just a normal phone. Literally, it has simultaneously become a GPS device, a gaming machine, an ebook/comicbook reader, a location-sensitive information tool, a PDA/organizer, and so on and so forth and so on and so forth (all the way up to 100,000+ apps)

But here’s the beauty of the platform business model :

Apple manufactured the iPhone and got it into the hands of millions of people; And yet equally as important, Apple also developed the distribution mechanism to bring the Apps to the iPhone – the much-venerated iTunes Store.

But if you dig down to it, all the applications that you can buy and install on the iPhone – all of these were developed by independent third party software developers. Which then points to the fact that Apple didn’t have to invest in huge resources and manpower in order to develop all those applications from scratch; It just had to open itself up as a platform, and then relied on an ecosystem of these companies who then developed apps for their device.

The beauty is that it’s a win-win-win situation. iPhone users get more functionality, App developers gain sales from selling their Apps, and Apple derives revenue from every transaction.

And so, applying the same thinking to Hapinoy – in order for the Hapinoy Store to unleash the true potential of the network, then the ecosytem must be opened up as a platform to independent entrepreneurs who want to develop “applications” for sari-sari stores. And these apps can take so many various forms — whether it be new products for the BoP, new services even (such as the Hapinoy+ examples mentioned above), most especially new livelihood opportunities for the BoP.

And it will also be win-win-win : you’ll make money, the Hapinoy Store will realize higher revenues, and MicroVentures also benefits from the transaction.

So if you’re an entrepreneur out there who wants to start a social business enterprise, we enjoin you to start with Hapinoy. You won’t have to start from scratch in trying to make an impact; We’ve already got a large network, an ecosystem, a platform, upon which you can build your big idea. Email me : mark@hapinoy.com

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The SkyEye team listed above. Not in picture are : JB , Chemical Engineer from La Salle; Serge Gonzales, 2nd Year Management Student (Chief UAV pilot), and Philip Cheang 4th year BS Information Design.

—

Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) that can do aerial video/photography, SkyEye envisions itself as providing Aerial Imaging and Mapping, Interactive Mapping, and enabling Traffic Support Systems, as part of its portfolio of commercial services.

Now, an amazing factoid is that this team – Matt, Roy, Martin, Vinni, Kylo, and Happy – are still undergraduate students of the Ateneo – tinkering with technology and figuring out a commercial business model out of it.

So, never being one to miss an opportunity to try something novel – as this certainly falls into my ‘One New Thing A Week’ category – I met up with the group in the Ateneo SEC Field to check out this intriguing project :

Serge Gonzales and Matthew Cua of SkyEye, with their UAV.

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with a Lumix LX3 attached

You can view the UAV’s camera through goggle displays while the pilot mans it with a radio controller

Picture of me face-to-face with SkyEye; Pilot Serge Gonzales manning the controls.

Picture taken from SkyEye. Also in the picture are Dr. Greg Tangonan and Paul Cabacungan of the Ateneo Innovation Center (more on that later).

Here’s a video of SkyEye in action :

—

All-in-all, it was a really cool experience to have actually tried out SkyEye. It was like playing a Flight Simulator using Terminator vision goggles.

But beyond the nerdgasmic angle, my entrepreneurial mindset eventually kicked in and my mind was racing through real-world applications of this technology. And Aerial Photography is just the tip of the iceberg.

—

Now, I’d like to take a step back and look at the SkyEye Project in a larger context.

Because the SkyEye Project is the kind of student-centric innovation being cultivated at the Ateneo Innovation Center, a nexus point wherein Ateneo School of Science and Engineering undergrads can collaborate with other colleges – as well as other schools – in order to explore, tinker with, and apply new technologies to the real world.

But while it’s fraught with practical experimentation and applications – as evidenced by the SkyEye project – it also has an eye of incubating student projects, interfacing them with the industry, and bringing them to market.

In fact, I have two hats in dealing with AIC — #1 as a resource (Greg Tangonan, the Director, has invited me on board as a resource), but also #2, as a customer. And this is because Hapinoy and Rags2Riches are collaborating with AIC on a few key projects.

Ultimately, the AIC gives me hope that a new generation of tinkerers with business sense are about to set loose to the world-at-large. And maybe somehow, this will catalyze a new wave of technology-based entrepreneurs.

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After getting the invitation from our friends in YouthVotePhilippines, Reese and I went to support :p

Since it’s an advocacy project, each person participating for the Headshot had to make a stand for a specific Millenium Development Goal (on top of YouthVotePhilippines core of involving the Youth in the 2010 elections).

Lo and behold, a couple of months later the headshot images have been put up on the website of One Youth.

Here’s my headshot (doesn’t look like me! :p), and I guess it’s obvious which MDG I’m voting for : alleviation of Poverty and Hunger.

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Rags2Riches celebrated the 2nd Year Anniversary of it’s RIIR Designer Line in Bonifacio High Street. Sponsored by Ayala/Fort and Starbucks, the theme of the night was Green Nation – An All-Natural Party.

As we have been reflecting on Rags2Riches’ core pillars of Community Empowerment and Fashion, it’s high-time for us now to start seriously talking as well about our Environmental advocacy. After all, from the very beginning Rags2Riches has been “upcycling” scrap cloth – thus far converting tons and tons of waste into high-end fashion bags and accessories.

Now, the convergence of these three pillars – community empowerment, fashion, and environment – forms the bedrock of a term that R2R President Reese Fernandez has coined as “Eco-Ethical”. And that’s what Rags2Riches will now stand for — “An Eco-Ethical Lifestyle”. In fact, we now have a manifesto on this.

—

On another note, I myself just flew-in from Singapore after attending the Red Dot Concept Design Awards. But the overall spirit of the event was very energizing. Special kudos to Matt Pardinas, Rags2Riches’ Sales and Marketing Manager who really worked tirelessly on this event – all the way from conceptualization, design, and organizing! His efforts certainly made Green Nation a success.

Here’s looking forward to more amazing anniversaries to come! In the meantime, let me share some highlights of the event :

A video on the different partners-in-change that Rags2Riches has had through the years.

The Nanays of Rags2Riches all dressed up for the party

Ate Badette – Rags2Riches office manager, and Jing Ludovice who works with the communities

Rajo Laurel shares an inspirational message to the Nanays as well as the partners.

Unfortunately, Fr. Javy was in Culion so I shared Rags2Riches’ milestones of the past 2 years. As I made the presentation, I really saw that in every step of the way – the secret formula of Rags2Riches has always been working and moving alongside the Community and the Nanays. Whether it be in working out production systems and quotas, spewing out these high-fashion events, even quality control — the centerpiece of R2R continues to revolve around our community-empowering roots.

Reese Fernandez, Rags2Riches President, delivers a message of gratitude for the past 2 years and gives a glimpse of more exciting things to come from R2R.

Tita Becky Aranaz shares her experience on working with R2R, as host for the night and Board Member TJ Agulto watches on.

with Anna Castillo, Brand Manager of Cream Silk, who will be sponsoring the Rags2Riches production site as part of the brand’s advocacy on empowering women.

with Ms. Vivian Sarabia of Sarabia Optical, a new partner with whom Rags2Riches will be launching a limited edition bag

With Karen Naranjo of VMV, another new partner of Rags2Riches

New partners sign their commitment to partner with Rags2Riches

The Nanays also sign the commitment board.

RIIR Designer Amina Aranaz-Alunan with Aligs Abrera of Rags2Riches.

Here comes everybody! The growing Rags2Riches family … and continuously expanding …

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Inovent got invited to the Red Dot Design Concept Awards last November 25 in Singapore’s Red Dot Museum, and so Chief Inoventor Brian Quebengco, Design Inoventor, and I went to check it out and get ourselves immersed in award-winning concepts. Below are the highlights from our journey :

Standing outside the Red Dot Museum

Standing outside the Red Dot Museum

Upon entering the main awards area, the venue exuded a hip-cool envelop that captured the spirit of Red Dot.

We got prime seats right near the front! In picture is myself with Brian.

Ken Koo – President-Asia Red Dot Awards

Peter Zec – Founder, Red Dot Awards

Winners would walk through the runway …

… to receive their awards

Singaporean performance artist/musician Sonicbrat provided ambiance and mood in between awardings.

Below are some of the cool concepts i particularly liked :

The Red Dot Luminary is the best-of-the-best-of-the-best Award.

“And the Luminary goes to Sirius Breast Cancer.”

I really hope that this concept gets commercialized as it can potentially help so many people.

Brian and Jonas looking forward to come back next year … hopefully to receive awards!

All of the pictures (and a boatload of other design concepts) here :

No related posts.

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BASA (Bayan Akayin sa Abot-Tanaw) is a volunteer-driven outreach project conceived by  Father Ted Gonzales, SJ.

The group envisions a Filipino people nourished by reading; thus harnessing a powerful imagination for nation-building. The group’s challenge is to enlighten souls, liberate minds, and empower lives through knowledge sharing – believing that informed minds and hearts of integrity will lead to better life choices. As such, most of its activities – led by Marifel Castriciones – are reading programs and library-building.

Late last year, Fr. Ted brought up the idea of BASA creating and launching its own book. I thought it was a really cool idea, and so we put together a team who could make it happen.

We invited Ms. Tintin Bersola-Babao – TV personality and children’s book author – to be our partner-writer in making this book a reality. Coupled with artist Martin Malabanan and Palanca-award winner Christine Belen as the editor, lo and behold the book “Si Kontra, Si Bida at Si Big Boy Buwaya” sees the light of day.

Digging deeper, it’s actually a very timely-written book that teaches lessons on nationalism, brotherhood, and team building; Particularly relevant now as we’re gearing up for the 2010 Philippine Elections.

Rounding up the cast of characters were Nines Terol-Zialcita, Ida Amigo, Mira Angeles, and supporter Jess Lorenzo. Sponsors that also made it possible are the League of Corporate Foundations (LCF), Accupoint, and Paul Santos.

Check it out now!

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In this Module, we tackle the qualities of what makes Innovators … well, innovators. And also what we can do to imbibe and emulate that — by discovering our PassionFuel, dabbling in MindJunk, and gaining clarity on our MissionDrive.

HERE’S TO THE CRAZY ONES!

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View more documents from Mark Ruiz.

In the spirit of open-source and sharing my cognitive surplus, I’ll be uploading my Innovation Class week-on-week as it unfolds (that way, I still have the upper-hand in surprising my students).

I’ll eventually be organizing all of them (with all the notes, readings, etc) into a coherent blogsite with specific resources for teachers/educators.

All in the spirit of spreading the Innovate or Die advocacy (most especially for the Philippines!

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