JWC#6 — an early step into web marketing and a first-place team award

In 2014, while I was in Mathayom 4, equivalent to Grade 10, I applied for and was selected for the Web Marketing track at Junior Webmaster Camp #6, or JWC#6. I joined at the earliest school year eligible for the camp, and the team I worked with received the camp's first-place Best Website award.

Organised by the Thai Webmaster Association, the camp took place at Chandrakasem Rajabhat University on 2–4 May 2014. It gave upper-secondary and vocational students an opportunity to work together on a website project. At the beginning of upper-secondary school, being selected and working with people from other disciplines gave me a practical setting in which to explore my interest in the web and marketing.

Selected for Web Marketing in Grade 10

A contemporary participant account records 613 applicants nationwide, with 48 places across three tracks, 16 per track: Web Content, Web Design and Web Marketing. The JWC#6 participant's diary provides context for the selection process.

I chose Marketing, a perspective that asks who a website is for, what people gain from using it, and how to reach those people. That is a part of the experience I value: marketing belonged in the thinking behind a website from the outset.

1 Day trip — designing a break for people with limited time

Participants applied individually to their chosen tracks and were then randomly brought together into teams with different strengths. I joined through Marketing and worked with people I had just met to decide what to build and how to divide the work.

Our project, 1 Day trip, began with people in Bangkok, especially employees with limited days off who wanted to travel without setting aside several days. We proposed a website that would help organise trips suited to each user, with a complete outing within a single day.

We had just 24 hours to develop the idea, build the website and prepare the presentation. I represented the team on stage for the Marketing part, explaining who the website was for, the problem those users faced and why a one-day trip answered that need.

This gave me practical experience of marketing at the point where a product takes shape. Understanding the user had to inform the idea, and I had to communicate its value to both teammates and judges. Working across disciplines under a deadline also meant listening, dividing responsibilities and deciding what mattered most to the shared result.

Presenting to people who built the Thai web

A contemporary participant’s account identifies three judges:

• Pond — Pakorn Santisuntornkul (ปกรณ์ สันติสุนทรกุล), co-founder of Dek-D.com.
• Note — Waroros Rojana (วโรรส โรจนะ), co-founder of Dek-D.com, identified in the camp account with Dogilike.
• Boy — Apisilp Trunganont (อภิศิลป์ ตรุงกานนท์), from Pantip.com and then president of the Thai Webmaster Association.

The Dek-D founders’ and management team’s own blog provides the founders’ background and lists Dogilike among the company’s products.

The judging considered the idea, the website and the presentation together. Our team received first place for Best Website. The award belonged to the whole team; for me, presenting the marketing reasoning to people who had built websites for real audiences was an important experience while still in Grade 10.

An early foundation in user needs and teamwork

What stays with me from 1 Day trip is starting from people’s needs, bringing different strengths into one piece of work and explaining the reasoning clearly. It gave my interest in web marketing a practical brief, a responsibility within a team and a result evaluated by people in the industry early in my journey.