Member Profile: Likha Kho

I use the pen name “Likha” for my online writing activities. I’m married and I have two girls. I specialize in early childhood development and education.

By nature, I am soft-spoken and quiet but I speak my mind when necessary. When I was a child, my grandpa thought there was no one in the house because I could go on all day without talking.  Sometimes I wonder how I got married to a talkative man. I guess there’s truth to the saying that opposites attract.

I can be kind and patient—sometimes, too kind and patient. But when I get fed up, I blow my top without warning. Bihira akong magalit pero masama akong magalit.

I like to keep things simple and natural. I leave the house without make-up and jewelry, spend less and save more and try gaining more friends than enemies as much as I can. The only time things get complicated is when my values are compromised.

Friends find me funny pero iyakin din ako. Iniiyakan ko ang mga teleserye at tribute sa TV. Minsan pinipindot ng asawa ko ang ilong ko para tumigil na ko kaiiyak. That’s the mark of Cancerians. We are quite emotional.

I love the arts but there’s still a lot I have to learn. I play the guitar, sketch and paint. I have also tried my hand in composing songs, writing scripts for theater and directing plays.

What’s weird about me? Nothing really.  I just have a penchant for nice teeth. I can get stranded in an island but not without my toothpaste, toothbrush and dental floss. 

On Choosing to Write Online

Someone tapped me to come up with a magazine for a government agency. He liked my work and encouraged me to write more. So I thought of expanding my work online to reach a larger audience.

Where Readers Can Find Her Work

Knoji, Expertscolumn, Ezinearticles. These are the sites where I use my pen name “Likha.”

Regarding Works in Print

Yes, I have works in print using my real name.

What Makes Her Happy

Being with my hubby and kids; seeing my loved ones well and happy; eating Pringles, veggie pizza, star apple and chocnut.

Her Worst Pet Peeves

A messy house

Narrow-minded and bossy people

Braggarts

Dirty toenails

When TFD queries are ignored

Her Goals

To raise successful, happy and God-fearing children

To live a well-lived life

To improve my health by gaining weight

To write a book on parenting

To die happy

Length of Time She Has Been Part of TFD

Since it started— about year and half.

Why She Likes TFD

I have good friends here. I’m a very private person so I don’t easily open up. But in TFD, I found a few good friends with whom I have maintained a certain level of trust and openness. 

Suggestions for The Filipino Diaspora (TFD)

The group needs to simplify and focus.

    I understand TFD was created to drive traffic back to our Triond articles and other sites. That was the come-on to the members. That’s why our vision now is to up our rankings and be number one because higher rankings could translate into higher views for our sites. There was a time a good number of my Triond views came from TFD. I may be wrong but I now get the impression that we’d like to dip our hands into other things for TFD. We really have cool ideas but let’s guard against spreading ourselves too thinly for it can set us off course unnecessarily.

Aggressive marketing strategies

    I think we have featured the members enough. Now it’s time for the members to look beyond themselves, invite visitors and promote, promote, promote. Kelangan tayong gumawa ng ingay sa labas, hindi sa loob. We have great plans but we have to invite more visitors to the site. Our old friends still use the old link so that’s one problem we overlooked.

    We need brilliant ideas on how to market the blog from our SEO and blog experts. But everyone has to move in sync.. hindi lang isa, hindi dalawa, kundi LAHAT.  Sana hindi tayo makontento sa tayo-tayo. At some point, we have to move out of the “family” mentality and open ourselves to the world. That’s what I learned from mpa. We were so comfy with our SKD group that he urged us to move out of our comfort zones. There’s still so much of cyberspace we haven’t reached.

·         Translate this profiler page into feature articles on TFD members and guests for publication on Triond and other sites.

·         Move out of our comfort zones by using the forum at the site more often than the TFD-FB page for TFD-related matters. We have to re-create that culture if we’re serious about moving up.

·         Go back to our “best practices” when TFD moved up to the top 10 blogs. I think the highest we reached was Top 6. What strategies proved effective for us? Sniping blogs, indexing articles, visiting the forum, welcoming guests, commenting on articles posted at the site, directly inviting friends to post their sites in the forum, writing articles on TFD, linking TFD to our sites etc.

·         Looks like our ranking meter is not activated. We’ve been nailed to No. 42 for quite some time. That’s one of the measures to check if we are making headway to our vision.

Morale boosters

We need morale boosters. The members’ involvement has declined considerably. Now, we’re a bit lethargic. We want to belong to TFD yet we hesitate to get involved. I don’t quite get that.

I think the problem is not so much that the members are busy but that group morale is low. We were all busy back then when MPA was creating the blog but everyone wanted to get involved. Group morale was high. Why was that?

Since mpa left, the challenge for TFD has always been to move the site along and up our rankings through member participation.

Decentralize

Assign an officer for the month among TFD admins to ensure that someone oversees TFD activities on a rotation basis. We need to decentralize so that we don’t just depend on one and the same person to call the shots. Nung nawala si mpa, nawala din ang gana nating kumilos. Pano, nakasandal tayo lahat kay mpa. We don’t want that to happen again. Ideally, our VMG should be our driving force and not “personalities.” Our VMG should propel us to action whether the leader is with us or not, whether we love or hate the people we’re with. It’s also one way of professionalizing the blog especially since TFD is a group blog, hindi maiiwasan ang cliques.

Her Own Mission Statement as Part of the Group

Given my limited time online, I can help promote the blog through concrete marketing strategies agreed upon by the group. We need systematic steps on what to do. And of course, I will continue to write, write and write. 

Message to the Readers

Thanks for visiting. You are most welcome to be guest bloggers.