Milestone Series, Part 2: A Team Gathers

The response generated from the very young and fresh BakitWhy.com was positive, supportive, and inclusive. Jeremiah Abraham (Founder and former Director) sought out to create a Team who could help develop and implement something bigger than your average Blog.

Here's the direct email invitation from Jeremiah:

Hey all,

You're invited to a quick meetup to discuss the strategy of BakitWhy.com... this is the fun part (seriously). You've been chosen because you've either been very involved in the site or have expressed good interest (or both). Here's your chance to help mold and shape BakitWhy from the ground up! Who knows...a year from now, we could be looking back at this and wondering where the time went! =)

The first ever BakitWhy meeting occurred on May 22, 2008 and was attended by a group of friends who would contribute to the beginning stages of forming a Team. The meeting was located in Hawthorne, CA at the bedroom of Jeremiah Abraham, in which he offered his friends an opportunity to become involved with the Pilipino community in a setting where each person's role was unrestricted and defined based on individual interest and expertise. A majority of us had all been active members of collegiate Pilipino organizations, mostly under the umbrella of Alyansa ng mga Kababayan @ University of California Irvine (UCI). The meeting was attended by Kaywan Shiraz (Project Manager), Rachel Wagoner (Director of Product Development), Justin Madriaga (Media Coordinator), Trisha Nocon (Team Development Coordinator), Laureen Abustan (former Events Coordinator) and Bernard Estacio (former Online Events Coordinator). Although each of us had very different career backgrounds, from engineering to social work to media arts, we all had a common passion of being an active contributor to our Pilipino community.

That first meeting was a basic 2 hour discussion, and led to the creation of a rough draft of the mission, purpose, and direction of BakitWhy.com. This meeting set forth the ultimate goal of growing the blog into a real content provider, online community, and social media force. By the looks of our pictures at that first meeting, our minds were churning with ideas on how the site could connect Pilipino-Americans in a way that we have never connected before...where the Pilipino-American lifestyle was defined by...well, YOU...US!

To be continued in Milestone 3...

Related Links:

• Milestone Series, Part 1: BakitWhy.com’s First Steps
• Milestone Series, Part 2: A Team Gathers
• Milestone Series, Part 3: Boots on the Ground
• Milestone Series, Part 4: Dancing Right Into The Mainstream Eye
• Milestone Series, Part 5: The 2.0 Transformation
• Milestone Series, Part 6: Hello Team!
• Milestone Series, Part 7: The BakitUp++ One-Year Anniversary
• Milestone Series, Part 8: Three Regional Conferences, Two Weeks, One Common Identity
• Milestone Series, Part 9: BakitWhy 3.0, A New Hope