This events and community growth manager has impressive achievements up her sleeve, including founding her own business development organization and now organizing events for a woman’s startup. She shares tips on working effectively with a team even if not physically with them in an office.

Titled “A Day In The Life Of A Woman,” this series celebrates the women in our lives. From the everyday to inspirational, the series aims to highlight women from various fields and share a bit of the diversity we experience every day.

Noreen is a startup community builder and entrepreneurship advocate. She has been involved in founding social enterprises and startups since 2010. In 2012 she founded SlashIgnite Inc.—a business development and consulting company in Iloilo City, Philippines that has been developing ideas into sustainable social impact initiatives and startups.

For Noreen, catching up with loved ones and seeing her efforts lead to real impact are some of the things she looks forward to in her daily schedule. Here’s what happens in one of her jam-packed days:

7 AM: I rise up and start the day with prayer and reflection.

8 AM: Have breakfast and greet the loved ones via chat as we’re all in different cities at the moment–parents are vacationing, brother and his wife are in a different town.

9 AM: I go to my work place (a desk in my room) and check-in with the Connected Women team in Slack. I love how we’re all in various places in the country (and in the globe), but it still feels like you’re working with a real team–and we are!

10 AM: We are currently busy preparing for our next event in Zamboanga City in partnership with Facebook’s #SheMeansBusiness initiative, so I’m tracking event registrations and sending out confirmation emails.

11 AM: Registrations are coming in! I’m happy to be getting feedback from local organizations like the DICT Mindanao Cluster 1 who are a huge help in getting signups.

12 NN: Lunch time–I head downstairs and a bowl of pinakbet (a Filipino vegetable dish) and homemade dumplings are on the table. Nothing like the pure bliss of having healthy home cooked meals!

1 PM: I go back up to work and I open my draft plan for the CW Chapters. I’m using this Community Canvas tool to help map out the purpose, experience, and governance of this potential community.

2 PM: Have an insight: I’ve been handling many roles in the past years (in the startup and social development space), but advocacy and community building have always been in the picture. It’s interesting that I can be more conscious and focus on this now as we launch the Connected Women chapters soon.

3 PM: The ads for our events are picking up and I’m amazed at our marketing team. Learning a lot about the art and science of ad targeting.

4 PM: Inquiries are starting to pop up and I answer them. I’m very happy to see this huge interest in the event and I’m excited to see all the women entrepreneurs adopt technology for their success.

5 PM: As the day ends, I’m generating event reports to send to our team while continuing to respond to queries.

6 PM: Work hours are done. I check-out at Slack, close my laptop, and prepare to head out for dinner.

7 PM: I drive to the city to attend this dinner gathering with some startup folks. No surprise here, but we’re also talking about community building–how do we develop our own local startup community.

8 PM: Needless to say, building communities (in the startup space at least) is the kind of “work” that doesn’t feel like work for me.  I love going to these gatherings and even help organize them because the startup scene is a huge driver for our local development.

9 PM: I drive back home feeling fulfilled at today, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

The Importance Of Tech For The Remote Worker

Noreen says that one of the perks she appreciates about working remotely is “not having to deal with traffic!” She also knows how valuable technology can be to remote workers, so apps like Slack, Facebook and cloud storage devices like Google Drive and Dropbox are especially important to her. Google Drive is something especially important to her because she keeps a lot of notes there.

Remote Working Is A Big Responsibility

“Manage your time well,” shares Noreen on how one can be an effective remote worker. “Be clear on your goals and focus on being effective. Remote work gives you freedom but it also is a big responsibility. Having a work journal for me helps to document what I do everyday and track my productivity.”

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