The Spark from Collabs (Collaborations)

Over the weekend, I joined Sparkfest Cebu while also doing activities with my fellow bloggers/vloggers at the Cebu Content Creators and “The Gamhanan Gang”! The theme of the day was collaboration. The Sparkfest conference discussed it and then afterward we creators executed on it with our live-stream #C3Live.

Here’s a few rants/reflection/takeaways I want to share with you.

I got this insight from Spark fest speakers and the stories of Steve Benitez (Bo’s Coffee), Franco Soberano (Cebu Landmasters), Carlo Delantar (Waves for Water) and Cham Lopez (Anthill Fabric Gallery).

I have more learnings about creativity, and social entrepreneurship but that’s for another article! For now, here’s something I realized about best and next practices.

Best practices don’t make a company/institution better, best practices make them catch-ups. If all you’re doing is picking up best practices from your competition, peers, and other industries—you aren’t really pushing forward, you’re pushing to the middle. Well, maybe slightly above average, but only for a short time, until your competition truly came up with something innovative. Then we would be back to trying to get back to average.

The problem with instituting best practices is they don’t make you a “leading organization,” they make you a “following” organization. Innovation, creativity and thought leadership on the other can give a company better position in the long term.

To lead means to innovate, and the only way you get to lead is to let yourself or those who work with you, fail. True innovation, true industry leading ideas come through failure. If you have something that others will emulate, you call that “Best Practice.”

So, what are we supposed to do then? Go out there and execute on your ideas that could be the Next Practices!

Spark Fest is brought to you by The Spark Project, the Philippine’s most popular crowdfunding website, and community. More on Sparksfest: https://www.sparkfestbytsp.com/

Insights from the Power of Collabs session; we were joined by Carlo Olano (Kalami Cebu), Angela Morales, Glenn Abucay and Jomie Hospital!

Many young people aspire to be Youtubers or influencers these days. And we received a lot of questions about starting and growing one’s channel. I've learned along the way that our career level & achievements does not define completely our success & who we are. I do not consider myself successful in general, though I have achieved the things that I want to do so far (goals & objectives I've set for myself).

The answer is … do more. Create more, distribute more. The right audience will find you. If you are good enough, the numbers will follow. Fellow creator Glenn Abucay said it best: “If you don’t know what to do, you try things.” Repeat until you find that thing you want to do. And don’t forget to document the process too via blogs, vlogs, Instagram, podcasts..etc..

Success is always a moving target. You never arrive at success. You taste, spar & fight with it. And even when you think you've attained it, you raise the bar and strive for more. I'm not successful entirely, I am merely a work in progress. Sometimes we mess up, and that's alright. You learn a lot more in failure and mistakes compared to success.

Collaboration can be that spark that starts a new journey, friendship, learnings and more. It can also be a force of Good instead of pulling others down.

Create, Connect, Collaborate with C3: https://www.facebook.com/cebucontentcreators/
The Best Bisaya Vlog Squad - Gamhanan Gang: https://www.facebook.com/GamhananGang/

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The writer wears many hats: RFP®–Registered Financial Planner | Licensed Real Estate Broker | Content Creator- https://www.facebook.com/VernonJosephGo/