Personal Branding: The Art of Being Yourself – Part 2 Your Brand Name and Avatar

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:00:54 +0100

As you've read my previous post on the importance of personal branding (hopefully); I'm sure you've been waiting for the second part of my tips on your personal brand name and logo/avatar (hopefully). So without further ado, read on...

Your Brand Name:

In its simplest easiest forms, this can be your own name. However, the thing is your name might be special to you, but it would mean nothing to most other people. Unless you're creating your brand to make your family name recognized and popular, perhaps also for business use, I do recommend that you get yourself a witty nickname. Take mine for example, "The Manalyst". You won't believe how many times I got really great feedback over the way I used my name to create a brand name that represents who I am ingeniously. They also ask why I called myself The Manalyst and where it was inspired from so think of it as a conversation starter. Now imagine if I plainly used my own name "Manal Assaad"… What comment can you actually pass on that?! Okay I have some really nasty comments that I can say about my own name spelling in English, such luck I have. So think of a creative way to represent your name. Some personal brands I came across of and liked are "Zenology" and "AskAaronLee" both on Twitter.

You have to really think hard about this one, because whatever you choose, you need to stick with it for a really long time and use it across all social networks whether in Names, Nicknames, email addresses, or profiles URL.

Your Logo/Avatar:

Here is where you can actually get visually creative and might even have to do some designing. Most importantly, you need some really good clear shots of your SMILEY face. You might be lucky and have some photographers in your friends and use them to take some good shots of your portrait, otherwise a camera phone works out fine –that's the only thing I use actually and so far I got no complaints :P–.

Let me stress this enough here: NO MUG SHOTS OR PASSPORT ID PHOTOS OR NAUGHTY PHOTOS IN YOUR BEDROOM! I hope it was clear… Also, don't use generic pictures of nature, kids, celebrities –unless you are that celebrity, in which case: hi, can I have your autograph!–, etc. because people need to see the person they are interacting with in order to build trust.

It's best to use friendly pictures of you being casual and comfortable. If you really want to get creative, then choose a photo theme and stick to it. I'm known to have only pictures of myself wearing big sunglasses. People might think that I'm just showing off my wide collection, but actually It came by chance as I wanted to use some picture that didn't show my face clearly –for personal reasons, and no, I'm not a wanted criminal– and the only solution I could find was putting good pictures of me in big glasses, and it worked really well as a theme. Now when people meet me in person, they wonder who I am until I tell them I'm the girl with the big sunglasses and they ask me why I don't have my sunglasses on… even at night lol.

Another alternative to having your own personal photo if you are not comfortable with it is to use a photo of an item that represents you very well. Like choose something that you really like and have passion for, or have a certain meaning to you… but the connection has to be very obvious or publicized that your own name will be coined with that photo… Think in terms of how tissues actually mean Kleenex to almost everyone.

Third alternative, which is mostly for professional use, is to have your own logo. Here if you don't have any designing skills, try to get a friend who could help you with it, someone who knows you and understands you enough to get it right or who you can torture until he/she gets it right. If you want to take this very seriously, you may also pay a freelance designer to help you with it.

Finally, whatever you settle on, you use it on all social networks at the same time. You may change them all periodically but better keep them in sync.

Now that you have your brand name and logo/avatar, last thing to add to the mix is your own personality, and here I recommend strongly that you just be yourself. However, if you're an offensive obnoxious jerk, you might want to work on changing your personality… unless you're funny, because surprisingly that works for some people!

Facebook's Privacy Settings... Not Much Privacy There.

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:23:29 +0100

Is there anyone you know who isn't on Facebook yet? I doubt... Well, no one who matters anyway! I kid. I kid. I think with Facebook being the most popular social network almost everywhere, there is no doubt you'll be running into most people that you know, and probably most of those are after things to gossip about.

That's where the privacy settings play a big role... making sure that those annoying people you want to keep out of your business in real life are still out of your business online without rudely ignoring them (Yeah I'm sure that each one of us had to at least accept a friendship request from a few people we don't really want to be friends with but couldn't quite have the nerves to ignore them because we know it'll be awkward when we happen to run into them somewhere).

Now who hasn't been bothered by the way Facebook keeps changing their privacy settings almost to make it impossible for you to hide anything at all! Obviously some didn't care, but at least 36,042 people were so angry that they decided to quit facebook on May 31st as seen on www.QuitFacebookDay.com. With over 400 Million accounts on Facebook, that number seems too little to make a difference.

However, it seems that it wasn't actually as Facebook rolled out its new simplified privacy settings on May 26th. Now I wonder how many of those actually did quit after that since the website served them only notifications to deactivate their accounts on that day but can't actually take measure to automatically deactivate the accounts for them. Saying you are going to quit smoking doesn't actually mean you've quit!

Surely I wasn't too surprised as I've predicted the new change in privacy settings shortly before it was announced as I gave an interview to Saudi Gazette which was published on Friday, 28th of May, reported by Afifa Jabeen. For my personal opinion and tips on privacy settings, check out the article here.

I'd be glad to hear your opinion on this as well and how you make sure your privacy is protected.

Personal Branding: The Art of Being Yourself – Part 1 Why You Need a Personal Brand

Sat, 08 May 2010 23:46:10 +0100

You don't have to be in the marketing field to understand what a brand is. Most probably, you have been a brand all your life and you don't even realize it. Whether you are the cool funny person in your family, the geek in the office, the go-to guy or girl in your click, or the troublemaker in your neighborhood, chances are you have been branded with some label… quite possibly some people have even branded you behind your back with labels I can't point out here...

Those brands were usually just known among our family members, friends, and people who are in our social or professional circles. However, now with our social and professional circles reaching as far as the world can go through our online social networks, you can actually get the chance to present your personal brand the way you want the world to see it.

Keeping the technical terms to a minimum, the key features of a brand are the name, image and personality. Here, I try to give you a few tips on how to make your personal brand -aka yourself- into an art, with a purpose of course because let's admit that as much as Picasso's paintings are a form of art, probably most of the normal population have no idea what the heck is going on in those paintings… But I digress.

In part 1 of my post about Personal Branding, let me point out some of the reasons you need to brand yourself for:

A unified online existence. This way it would be easier for people to find you on the various social networks -given that you want to be found!- and be able to recognize you on any channel online from the first glance. It gives you a unique character that is YOU and you won't have people mistaking someone else for you -unless it's someone very rich, good-looking and important in which case you should be flattered :P… Just kidding-.

A testimony of expertise and professionalism. Even though you, yourself, are not a company, you are still selling something: You're selling your expertise, your professional services, your work attitude, and all the other traits that get you the job/salary/benefits/business deals you want. As a job seeker, it is not a secret that recruiters and employers are now digging into your online profiles to make a final decision of whether to hire you or not, and seeing conformity and originality in your online existence will surely give you an edge. As a professional, people who are deciding whether to work with you and trust your opinions and expertise will firmly build their judgment of you from the way you express yourself online and convey your image.

A good base for future benefit. You might still be just a college student and think it's way too early to concern yourself with a personal brand, but this is just another reason to start now! Just imagine how much credibility you would gain if you were actually able to successfully create and maintain your own brand. You might think it might never come in use… but hey, what do you have to lose! Everything is basically free. It doesn't really matter what profession you'll end up in, because almost every career in the world requires a distinguished personality.

Simply because it's a fun and creative way to express yourself… and that's that!

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I give tips about how to choose your brand name and avatar/logo.

If you liked this post, be kind enough to comment and/or share it with others who might like it.

Top 5 Smartest Brands

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:09:21 +0100

I'm a branding fanatic, thankfully not a brand addict or I'd go very broke very fast. You would think that unless you're in marketing, you wouldn't care much about brands and the philosophy that goes behind them, but we're all parts of brands whether we know it, want it, or can't care less about it!

In my daily interactions with brands as a consumer (or usually an observer, depends on how much cash I have), I've come to think of brands as people: they can be funny or serious, interesting or boring, stupid or smart...
I thought it would be fun if I made a list of brands that I think are smart, whether seriously or sarcastically. Try to figure out which is which since I still couldn't buy the SarcMark.

5 Facebook
It has come a long way since 2007 with over 400 million users as per its latest statistics. It's a brand that managed to convince over 400 million people worldwide of the "necessity" of belonging to it, and coming in interaction with it by using it for 55 minutes a day on average. It started as a closed network for Ivy League University students, grew into a wider network for family, friends, colleagues, and classmates, and now it has developed into a book of records where the world posts its status updates, photos, videos, links, and others, and basically lay your life out there for everyone to see. How smart is it really? Well I recall getting to know someone on Twitter and asking him to connect on Facebook, to which he said he doesn't have a facebook, to which I replied: "OH MY GOD! Who doesn't have a Facebook in these times?! It's a MUST!". He asked why it's a must, I couldn't give a satisfactory answer in 140 character, and that's why Facebook is ranked 5.

4 FarmVille
Why is it smart? Apparently because it has convinced over 80 million people that online farming is so cool and irresistible that they have to spend hours every day tending to it, and making it bigger and bigger as if the end prize is actually a real farm of its equivalence. I find it smart how 80 million people find it more enjoyable to make a hundred clicks a day at a cold screen than to buy a small plant, water it every other day and actually see it and feel it grow. Why is it smarter than Facebook? because I suspect that those users spending 55 minutes on Facebook spend that time farming, harvesting, milking cows, finding stray animals and sending them as gifts to those who haven't converted to "FarmVillism" yet.

3 Twitter
Twitter started in 2008 as a means for people to update their statuses in 140 characters or less with personal information (where they are, what they are eating, what they are doing, etc.) for their family and friends to read. However, now, that's practically the one reason you won't be using Twitter for! Now, Twitter has an army of 3rd applications supporting many uses to make it much more than just a 140 characters status updating tool, and 10 Billion tweets are there to prove it. It's becoming much more like Facebook but without the annoyance of having to ignore requests from friends and strangers that you don't really want to connect with, and also very useful if you just want to connect to someone without giving them the choice to ignore you. Yeah, it goes both ways! So it's smarter than Facebook because it became huge with out actually putting forth much effort, you gotta appreciate that!

2 Google
Why is Google smart? Seriously? Just google that question and you'll definitely get an answer! Oh, hold on, let me try it. Ok, I got 119,000,000 results but none of them really answers the question so let me do it. Google basically has become the equivalent of internet. Can you actually think of internet without getting the image of Google as the homepage?! That's just from the personal perspective. On the business level, all websites are fighting and competing for Google's attention as if nothing exists beyond it. Not to mention all the services that Google has (Google Docs, Google Maps, etc) that basically you'd find it hard to function without. So with such huge signficance why isn't it number 1?! Well have you seen Google Buzz!

1 Apple
Why is it smart?! Ask any Apple user, but get ready for a 30 minutes enthusiastic monologue on the greatness and awesomeness of Apple products! There's just something about Apple that turns its users into fanatics whose answer for ANY problem is "Get an iPhone/Mac/iPod...". Try it. Strategically distance yourself within an earshot of an Apple user and complain about something random like "I had trouble waking up early today and my coffee was too hot", they'd hurry over to you and excitingly suggest you get an iPhone, because, after all, there must be an app for that! So, yes, Apple is the smartest brand of all time because of its effortless ability to turn every consumer into an annoying persistent sales representative, and that not only without paying them to do so, but by even overcharging them for products!

So those were what I consider to be the top 5 smartest brands. What are yours? And in what order?

How To: Really Like Twitter

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:33:30 +0100

I live in the Middle East and you don't need statistics to know that people here are more of Facebook fans, probably because we tend to be very talkative and 140 characters simply doesn’t cut it for most of us. Or perhaps because FarmVille doesn't have an account on Twitter (for which I'm really grateful).

I asked some friends about that, and read some other people's opinions on it, and barely any of them seemed to really like Twitter. But I kept seeing it everywhere online and was curious enough to try it, and finally took the leap about 2 months ago. After spending all that time interacting with people on Twitter, learning about it and from it, I really liked it and even became addicted to it! So I figured that liking Twitter or not liking it depends on your understanding of it, your experience with it, and basically how you start on it!

Facebook Vs. Twitter

Seriously, stop comparing between these two. I've been on Facebook for many years now and I'm practically new on Twitter but I knew they are completely different from my first day on Twitter. I was told that Facebook is much more fun than Twitter and that the latter is basically only updating your status. WRONG! I've had more interactions and more fun on Twitter in these 2 months than I've had in years on Facebook. Facebook is really great when it comes to keeping in touch with your family and friends easily, and checking out their photos, and sharing things with them. But Twitter is like having the entire world on wheels that keep the fun coming your way. I was also told that Twitter is lame. WRONG AGAIN! I said it before and I say it again now, Twitter is only lame if you're following lame people (and dare I say, if you're lame too!). In one hour on Twitter, you will learn more things than you would in a week on Facebook.

If you really learn how to use Twitter, it can be the best thing ever (until something even better comes along in the future, it will for sure, but for now Twitter is doing just great). Now here are some answers that would help you start on Twitter (they're also good if you've already started but not really doing well!):

What Do I Use Twitter For?

Before you decide to use twitter, you need to know WHY you want to use it. Do you have a blog/website that you want to promote? Do you have a business that you want to grow? Or do you just have a lot of spare time and you want something new and cool to have fun doing? If it's the latter, then you've come to the right place, because I tweet for fun mainly. Sure it doesn't matter to anyone else why you want to be on Twitter (unless you're a spammer, in which case STAY AWAY!), but it would help you to know what your goal is to know where to go from there. In my opinion, there is no wrong reason to be on Twitter, there are just wrong uses of it. If you're not sure what the experience is going to be like, then read some posts about it first, but the experience greatly varies from one person to the other. Some people are addicted to it, some people think it's very useful, and others just can't understand it and even hate it. So I say the best bet is to just go ahead and try it for yourself!

Tips: If you want to learn everything about Twitter, you can start here with Mashable's Twitter Guidebook (who you should follow as well).

Who Do I Follow?

There is no general rule here. There are people from everywhere tweeting about everything all the time (Yes, all the time!). So you can decide to follow whoever you want to follow and that depends on your goal as per the previous point. Basically there are different types of tweeters, and you can learn about them from Guy Kawasaki's The Six Twitter Types or Mashable's The 10 Users You'll Meet On Twitter. You might want to follow people in your niche so you can get the scoop on all the related news if you want to use Twitter for professional goals, or follow interesting people who tweet about anything that you can find online, or maybe specialized people (or brands) who just focus on one topic like technology, politics, movies, celebrity news, etc. You can follow all the celebrities you love, if you're into that sort of things, to keep up with their latest updates, the most active and interesting ones being Ashton Kutcher and Alyssa Milano. And there are non-celebrities but really amazing people that you would want to follow like Guy Kawasaki (He has the greatest stuff but don't expect him to talk to you though), Diana Adams (The most lovable person on Twitter with lots of interesting links and will reply to you), Blair Semenoff (He keeps the interesting links coming, and he still stops once in a while to thank you for a retweet or retweet something interesting you shared), Scott Stratten (this dude is hilarious, enough said!) and many others (you can just check out my VIP list to see who I personally like).

Tips: You can start by following people based on their interests or professions by checking out sites like www.listorious.com or www.wefollow.com; and you can also follow people from the blogs and websites you like.

P.S.: Don't go on a following frenzy and follow everyone you see. You are only allowed to follow up to 2,000 people at first, until the number of your followers is right about that much (The rule is you can only follow 10% more than the number of your followers once you get to 2,000).

Who Would Follow Me?

Unless you are a celebrity, you will probably suffer with that a bit. Don't expect the number of your followers to skyrocket anytime soon, and that's OK. Don't worry because you will get followers anyway. But the number and quality of your followers will greatly depend on your tweeting skills. Just expect a lot of spammers (people promising you lots of money or followers), bots (accounts with numbers in their names and pictures of hot chicks, especially if they offer you porn) and marketers (basically the same as those who call you up at inconvenient times, or send you junk emails) to follow you in the beginning. And whatever you do, PLEASE don't fall for those telling you they can get you thousands of followers. I know we all want to have thousands of followers to brag about, but soon enough you'll know that getting followers who are really interested in YOU and love what you do is much more rewarding than a huge number of followers who don't really care about you.

Tips: If you really want to reasonably increase the number of your followers then start by following back those who already took the time to follow you, and also look for others who often follow back but make sure they are worth following (as mentioned in the previous point).

What Do I Tweet?

Of course that's also your business and no one should tell you what to do with your own account, but if you simply want to tweet about meaningless things in your day (like what you had for lunch or dinner, what your mom just said to you on the phone, how upset you are about something, the color of your PJs, etc), don't expect people to care enough to follow you. Apart from that, you can tweet about anything you like. You can share interesting links you find online, you can share various news, quotes, your blog posts (if you have one), jokes, etc. It all depends on what kind of followers you want, and on what you enjoy best. In my opinion, it would be best to include a bit of everything, that way you know that no matter who is following you, they would at least like some of your stuff, and that would get you other followers as well. And surely it matters what your followers like because you're not there tweeting "for your eyes only". The whole point about Twitter, the way I see it, is that you share things you already know and enjoy with others who you think would enjoy them too. So yes, it is (or at least should be) about sharing! Now the best thing you can share with your followers is a conversation. Make sure you always engage with your followers by initiating conversations with them, commenting on their tweets or answering their questions, retweeting the ones you like, or thanking them for retweeting yours and replying to them as often as you can. Always, ALWAYS, make time to talk to people. It's not called a "social" network on a whim, you are expected and you should socialize with people.

Tips: If you're not getting many followers, it might mean you're not a good tweeter. Try to see what others are tweeting and learn from them. You can also see what your current followers like and retweet, and tweet similar things.

P.S.: When you engage in a conversation with someone, make sure you move that to the Direct Messages so you don't annoy the rest of the followers, unless you think they'd be interested in it. Also, if you initiate a conversation with someone and they don't answer you back, it's not the end of the world! (I've come to learn that personally, and I was even featured in a post for it). Perhaps they are very busy, or maybe that's just their style and they don't like to talk to people. If you get too irritated with it then you can always unfollow them, unless they really tweet valuable things which would redeem their lack of sociability.

When Do I Tweet?

Practically whenever you want and whenever you have time. Once you get the hang of it, you will probably find yourself addicted to it and browsing the net from site to site to find interesting things to share all the time. But I'm sure you have a job or an actual social offline life, and you can't afford to tweet at all times. But take note that the frequency of your tweets is related to how many followers you get. If you rarely tweet, then you probably won't get as many followers as you'd like. So just make sure, if you can, that you would tweet at least a couple of times a day. But seriously there is no rule here either, it all goes back to what you're comfortable with. Just don't stress over it. If you can make time to tweet interesting things every day, then do so and you will see the difference it would make. If you can't, then it's not a big deal, but just make your time there worth it.

Tips: You can use services like Hootsuite to schedule your tweets to a later time. So if you have some free time now, but you know you will be busy the next day or so, you can tweet a few extra things and schedule them to when you would be offline. One thing I personally do is that I reschedule the really interesting things for 6 hours or 12 hours later so that followers who missed them the first time can check them out the second time when I am offline. Just don't overdo it and keep the repeated tweets at least 6 hours apart and schedule them for the peak times depending on where your followers are.

Of course, there are a lot more things that you need to learn about Twitter and you can find them everywhere online written by much more experienced tweeters. But the 5 things above are what will directly affect your Twitter experience, the rest are just techniques that would make your journey easier.

If you're still hung up on the 140 character limit, just remember that some of the best things come in small packages… Just look at how small the iPhone is! Or kittens… those are really cute too.

Now name other great things that come in small packages, or share your own Twitter start-up experience with us. And if you like this, don't forget to retweet it and subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter if you aren't doing so already.

Thanks to Cute-Death for the really cute picture I used!

Do Women Prefer Working With Men or Women? Let's Find Out!

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:03:42 +0100

[A little story first] …Adam was created. Then, Eve was created. Then came the egg, or perhaps it was the chicken that came first… Ok let's just focus on Adam and Eve now. They had a quite little home, and a loving relationship. But Adam had to work, then Eve wanted to join and THAT's when things got awkward!
Adam thought work was only his thing and that Eve should stick to domestic chores. For a while, Eve believed that was the only thing she's good at until she gave work a try and loved it and was good at it.
Then she had to nag Adam for a really long time (there were accusations and objects being thrown at each other and at times there were even cases of domestic violence) until she was able to set her foot down in the corporation that Adam had long dominated…

I guess that pretty much sums up the history of corporate Adam and Eve up until this moment. It's important to know all the difficulties that working females went through, and still are going through in some cases, to be able to understand the dynamics that govern their relationships with each other and with the opposite sex.
I believe that for the most part there are still a lot of issues there more than males and females would like to admit openly, and they mostly revolve around: Who's better than who?!

Scientists, psychologists, philosophers, and business experts (and occasionally curious people) have long tried to study the differences between both genders to be able to come up with an answer that justifies their sexism (whether in favor of men, which was most likely, or women).
Take for example the following case that was discussed in the conclusion of Malcolm Gladwell's no.1 international bestselling book "Blink":

In 1980, an audition was held for The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra where each of the thirty three candidates played behind a screen to avoid unfairness (only because one of the candidates was the son of someone in The Munich orchestra). When candidate no.16 played the Trombone, the committee instantly recognized that's who they wanted! They sent the rest of the candidates home, and called the man back in from backstage, only to their shock it was a woman, Abbie Conant. They simply believed that a woman could not play a masculine instrument such as the Trombone. [paraphrased and summarized]

If you're interested in what happened next, she got the job but only after lots of unnecessary auditions, and kept struggling for years, and was even demoted for no logical reason at all except that she was a woman. That was just an example of the many cases that were so existent in the old days, but things have definitely changed for the better now.

In a recent survey done by Bayt.com, the n#1 job site in the Middle East, to measure women’s perceptions, attitudes, experiences and satisfaction of various elements of their role in the workplace, the relevant results were as follows:

Women from all nationalities, and especially Westerners, said they felt that they get treated as equals to their male colleagues.
They also said that the rewards and recognitions were dependent on performance and not gender.
However, most women (except Westerners) feel they have a lower chance of being promoted than their male colleagues especially for GCC Nationals and Asians.

Looking at the charts in the survey, you'd see that Westerners are responsible for most of the positive results in total, while initially Arab and Asian females were a lot more on the negative end. Keep in mind that the survey was conducted for only professional females in the Middle East.

So it seems that Western females working here either have a more positive perception of the workplace or are actually treated better because they have a more positive attitude, which is pretty understandable if you are familiar with the study in Greet Hofstede's book "Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations". (I'm not going to pretend that I read the book –I'd love to but I still don't have a credit card to buy things online-, but I had a fair overview of what it has from Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers")

You don't have to be an expert to know that Western females' behaviors and attitudes would be different from those of Arabs' and Asians' due to the fact that they were raised differently. I believe we can safely assume that most Westerners are raised to believe that women and men are equals on all levels. Growing up with that mentality, they surely will have more confidence and power within the workplace compared to those who were brought up with the idea that women are different than men (and in many cases much weaker and less of an equal) who'd always carry out a weight of stress trying to prove that ideology is wrong and becoming demotivated had they failed due to some bad luck or unfairness. The latter seems to be the prevailing case in Arab and Asian countries.

Now I'm not trying to condemn any of those cultures as wrong. Regardless of my Arabic identity (which seems not to be evident in my mentality or personality), I do believe that most women are different than men on levels such as physical and emotional attributes. But I do not care about any studies or anyone else's opinion when it comes to intellectual attributes, because simply put: intelligence and stupidity are existent in both genders and are the result of many factors (like background, family genes, education, etc.), none of which is what in our pants (or skirts!)... and to think otherwise is ridiculous.

In a poll that I made to gauge women's attitudes towards each other and men, I have to say the results didn't quite shock me. 67% of female workers said they feel more comfortable working with men rather than women. Although the number of voters is small -since I'm not so popular and famous and I didn't offer a million dollar prize just for an opinion- but I believe if you ask women around you, they'd mostly give you the same answer.

To be fair, most of those who voted "men" has also noted that they'd rather work for professionals regardless of the gender. If you're interested in reading their comments, I've compiled them in a post for you here (am I not so nice!).

Before I had made the poll, I had a discussion with a male connection on Linkedin about Saudi businesswomen in particular, and all businesswomen in general. The discussion revolved around the fact whether Saudi businesswomen would rather deal with male or female businesswomen. I'm sure that if you're a foreigner who has the same stereotypes as everyone else who has ever heard or read anything about Saudi Arabia, you would assume that Saudi businesswomen prefer dealing with women considering their religious and cultural values. But I thought differently for many reasons:

There is this kind of ideology here that men are more professional than women because in KSA, men have been in the business field longer than women have.
Also, psychologically speaking, women tend not to trust other women, just simply. Don't ask me why because I am not an expert, it's just how I feel and I know you feel that too. So you will find Saudi businesswomen more willing to have a man take care of their business rather than let a woman handle it.
Another factor is the limitations for women. Men have more access to the business world (especially here since there is a separation between males and females) and more freedom to venture in it. I don't care how you justify it, or what you call me, there are just certain places and certain situations in the business world that no woman should have to go through just to prove their equality to men.
Also, I think that Saudi businesswomen enjoy dealing with men because men tend to kind of bare any mistreatment. Some Saudi businesswomen are very bossy and demanding (and even disrespectful at times); a type of personality that other women don't work well with, and that men hate but often bare with it thinking it's typical female behavior and they need to be civil and gentle with women (of course, I'm talking about nice men).
Most women are too emotional to handle tough stressful jobs, and on some days (yes, you know which days) it's tough for them to handle any job! I don't believe that women's emotionality is negative, or that it's a feature built in their genes. The extent of it depends on their nurture, not nature, since women who grew up among lots of brothers tend to be less sensitive than those whose femininity was stressed upon since early childhood and treated like princesses or barbies or Cinderellas.

Although this is a topic that really interests me and I could talk about it for days, I think I should conclude it now and leave you with these few words:

You, as a woman uncomfortable with men, should try to leave your flood of emotions at home, and only bring to work those emotions that would help you overcome centuries of stereotyping and inequality with men.

You, as a woman uncomfortable with women, should have more faith in your own kind and what it could accomplish because if you don't support your peers and give them a chance (and set them straight when they are wrong) then who would?

I trust you and I support you, even if I don't fully understand you and try to avoid you at times =P!

4 Easy Tips For the Social-Business Networkers

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:44:49 +0100

It is in our human nature to form relationships and bond with other people who share our interests or networks. Yes, no newsflash there. And perhaps the most rewarding type of relationship-building and networking is professional business networking. I don't mean rewarding monetarily only; it is only through business networking that we are able to grow professionally and improve our performance which helps us attain job satisfaction and thus reflecting on our personal life alike. When is the last time you saw someone with a lousy job cheering about how happy he/she is!
Now I can say with utmost assertiveness that all of us business networkers, and especially the younger ones like me, must be thrilled with how social networks have made it a lot easier (and much more fun!) to find, meet, and interact with professionals from all over the globe with no restrictions. And I just wrote a post earlier about how thrilled I am with this, titled "Doing Business Naked" and I encourage you to read it and cast in your vote for the ending question.

However, as I already mentioned in that post, there are certain limitations that you should keep in mind when you're socially getting involved with your business contacts. And here I present them to you as tips based on my personal opinion and experience:

Just because your business contact befriended you on a social network, that doesn't mean he/she is your new best friend. Don't rant to them about your latest tech shopping spree, and certainly don't cry to them about your relationship problems. Maybe you aren't saying that directly to them, but you might be publishing it! To avoid that your business contacts read stuff they aren't supposed to be reading: a) stop sharing them b) or control your privacy settings. For example, on Facebook you can create a friend list for business contacts only and always edit the settings of something before you publish it. I could recommend you to have two facebook accounts, one for professional use and one for fun and going wild, but that can really be difficult and time-consuming, and you'll probably end up sacrificing one on account of the other.
Just because you don't have to be formal, it doesn't mean you can be rude. You don't need to call a business contact by his/her last name, but you can't start calling them "dude/chick; buddy/woman". Those things might not sound so bad to you, but they are very bad if it's someone you don't really know well or for long. You can and should be friendly and casual, but don't disrespect the other person. And I might be pointing the obvious here, but you also shouldn't: a) cuss, b) talk dirty c) flirt shamelessly d) use foul languages, etc. To put it clearly, I will quote Scott Stratten (the creator and owner of UnMarketing, and a pretty cool guy on Twitter @unmarketing) saying: "Don't tweet anything you wouldn't want to see on a billboard with your name/face/logo/phone # and your mom driving by."
Don't overwhelm your contacts with your contributions. Some great tips to use when interacting with new people are to learn a bit about their interests to find commonalities between you, comment on things they share constructively, or even compliment some things you like about them (surely without faking it!). But PLEASE don't overdo it. It is so repelling when I add a new contact then find them messaging me, emailing me, leaving me comments etc. over 10 times a day before I have time to reply! Of course that would be amazing if they were constructively commenting on my posts. Don't just email your contacts or leave them messages repeatedly in a short time interval even before giving them a chance to respond to your first email or message. Always keep your interaction with them in the beginning to a minimum so you don't make them feel like they are being smothered by you.
Be as nice as you are, unless you are overnice. I don't know how many people out there are like me, but when someone I only recently added to my network starts stalking my every move and talking about how great/special/impressive I am as a person (even though they don't know me well enough to judge), it starts creeping me out because I think: a) they're either faking it because they want something in return or b) they have a secret shrine for me where they worship me and finally intend to sacrifice me to gain blessings. Even if I'm wrong about both reasons, it'd still be very uncomfortable for your contact to have a stranger adoring everything about him/her and firing grandiose compliments at him/her back to back until he/she has nothing back to say after expiring all the thank-you lines. And one more point, we appreciate you being super-nice and complimenting everything and everyone, but I'm sure you don't want people to feel obliged to fake-compliment you back.

At the end, you can be yourself and have fun until it starts annoying your contacts (and trust me, you'd know if they think you're annoying). And always remember that not all people are alike, some contacts might welcome any behavior and attitude, while others might still prefer formality and professionalism online as much as offline. You just need to know who you're dealing with first!

Doing Business Naked

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:30:50 +0100

Have you ever had an important meeting or event that got you so nervous that you had a nightmare about it seeing yourself showing up naked and had every one shocked and pointing at you until you realized it and felt so embarrassed that you wished you could just disappear?!

Well this isn’t about that. This is actually about wanting to be there naked! No, not literally. Just read on.

Going back in memory to college years, you must remember that one of the important courses of management was Organizational Behavior which is supposed to teach business students about group and individual dynamics inside an organization, and a huge part of that is communication.

After graduating, if you were as enthusiastic as I am, you probably read dozens of articles about business etiquette and all the behavioral rules that govern business relationships whether within an organization or externally with its clients, suppliers, partners, or any other stakeholders.

We study up on such models because from the beginning of our careers, we aspire to reflect an image of professionalism among our peers and our business contacts. We read about interview etiquette, email etiquette, lunch/dinner meeting etiquette and the entire bundle of business etiquette for the smallest details that we need to tend to, like in the following email cover for a job application:

"Dear Mr. (last name)
I would pleased to be a part of your esteemed organization… I believe I'll be a great asset to your staff… I would be glad to show up for an interview to discuss how I can contribute to your organization's success…
Looking forward to meeting you.
Yours sincerely;
My Name."

We repeated those words in one form or another almost robotlike because we wanted to sound as perfect as possible. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. It's definitely a must if you're a fresh graduate looking to nail your first interview or job; it's a phase that we all must go through.

But things are different now! The business world has been shifting from formal to casual in a rapid pace. All thanks to Social Media that's changing the way business is conducted by re-engineering communication. Your potential employers, colleagues, superiors, managers, clients, etc. now are with you everywhere and at all times through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and many others.
We practically have our whole lives in all of its aspects published online for all our business contacts to see, and it goes against the golden rule we were always urged to abide by "Never mix business with pleasure." -Pleasure here referring to social activities including online ones.-

Let's say you applied to a job at a company that likes to do a little digging about its candidates. You could polish your resume as much as you want, but with one hit of a button in Google search of your name, potential employers can practically uncover everything you did in your life up until that moment (including your naked baby pictures that your mom published in her Facebook photo albums). Moreover, they can even keep up with what you're doing in real time if you're on Twitter.

You can try to keep it all professional and well-mannered on your social networks, but the formality and professionalism that you work hard to encompass during business meetings aren’t things you'd want to fake 24/7. I say "fake" because we're all human beings, and we're bound to have personal things we're embarrassed of or even just not inclined to make explicit during business interactions for a number of psychological reasons (even though we all know that we all have and do such things). Keeping up with such an attitude of professionalism and formality throughout our life would just be impossible, exhausting, and just simply not fun!

So, we tend to get loose on social networks with our family, friends, and the new interesting people we meet every day. And we definitely share our personal life, publish details we wouldn't normally make public in a business setting, and basically reveal our true selves.

We practically are naked in front of our business contacts. And I don't know about you, but I love it! I welcome the chance to act like a social human being who can talk about work and anything else I'm passionate about just honestly and casually. That would relieve us from the stress of having to act like cold robots all the time. I also believe that it drives us to be better humans, because now if you're just a big fake who preaches ethics and morals at work that you never abide by in your personal and social life, you better shape up or you're going down!

However, this new social-business fashion freedom also comes with its set of limitations that you should keep in mind when you're undressing in front of your business contacts. I'll discuss these in another post titled "4 Easy Tips For The Social-Business Networkers" as to not make this one too long and scare potential interested readers who aren't so fond of theses.

Now that was just my personal opinion, but I'd love to know yours: Would you, as an employer/employee/client, rather stick to formality in business, or like to do business naked?!

5 Reasons Why The Movie "Gamer" Is The Future Of Gaming

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:02:05 +0100

No this isn't a movie review. If you read my bio, you'll know that I don't just watch movies for their entertainment value. Movies are a fun way for me to learn things (when appropriate) and induce creative thinking.

I just watched the movie "Gamer", and it got me wondering if that movie offers an insight, even if a slightly accurate one, on the future of gaming in the ever-growing popular social networks.
Don't call me absurd just yet, let me list my reasons then you can judge:

FarmVille as The Top Application on Facebook: Let me just start by saying that I personally think it's a stupid silly game (there, I said it!) that has gotten over 68 million addicted users. Do you want to know how addicted are FarmVille users? I was asked plenty of times by family and friends to harvest their farms because they need to go out, or their laptops crashed, or they are on VACATION. Seriously, well played Zynga, well played! The point of the game is to build your own virtual farm by controlling a farmer. It's mildly based on the popular game The Sims where you create your avatar and live a real fake virtual life. I really can't see why people are obsessed about it, but the society in the largest social network have spoken: "It's so much fun to use virtual games to do something online that you can't (or are too lazy to) do in real life". Sure you say that it's just an innocent farming game that is no where related to "Slayers" in the "Gamer" movie, but then take a look at number 5 in the Top Applications in that list: Mafia Wars, with over 26 million users who apparently believe that forming mafias and killing each other is an awesome game.
Real Deer Hunting Game: I first heard some news of this game many years ago and was shocked to know that the game was a test for shooting REAL deer in REAL fields under your control from your PC/laptop, and not just a hunting simulation. I still remember that news clearly (I can't find that article now so I'm sorry I can't give you a link, if you have information on this, then let me know) because I thought it was appalling. It still is and it's even gaining more popularity, because otherwise, why on earth would it be released on iPhone/iPod Touch. Don't think that I'm a vegeterian who thinks killing and hunting animals is inhumane. I just think that it's inhumane to do it for mere sport without even being able to use the excuse of having a rush from that kind of outdoorsy activities. It's an outdoorsy activity when you actually go on a hunting adventure, not just sit behind your desk and shoot as many deers as you like with no real effort at all. And if this type of real hunting is popular, then who's to say that, in the future, hunting down criminals isn't going to be as popular!
People Are Individually Smart But Collectively Stupid: Ok so maybe I don't currently have a study or an article to back that up, but just look around you. Whenever some small group (or sometimes even one person like a celebrity) thinks that an idea is "cool" or "good" or whatever attribute they decide it is, they gain a massive number of mindless followers that even makes it hard for a smart individual to resist or refute the idea. Let me go back to my FarmVille example (Yes, I REALLY hate Farmville!): I just listened to F (my older sister married with a baby) scolding my younger sister M because M failed to attend to F's farm after F asked her to do it yesterday because F doesn't have internet at her house, then F was talking on the phone with her friend about sending her animals on FarmVille and giving her tips on taking care of the crops and gaining more money, and F even offered her friend that she'd take care of her farm for her when needed. I don't know who decided that FarmVile is SO cool, but almost EVERYONE is so convinced that it is to the point that they don't even question the fact that there could be more useful things to do online for fun. Apply this logic to a neat interactive game like "Society" or "Slayers" featured in the movie, and tell me that that can't happen in real life. Ken Castle, the creater of those games (in the movie) put it quite nicely to convince everyone how cool the games are.
(Just a note, I'm talking about the collection of people as a group, not when smart individuals intentionally form a group of collective intelligence).
New and Constant Advances in Science and Technology: There are a lot of resources that just talks about how science and technology are advancing to whole new astonishing levels; consider Artificial Intelligence or Brain-Machine Interface. I'm not going to explain all that and elaborate on it, you can find everything you need to know on this topic by a simple web search. All I'm going to say is that if we filmed a documentary about the technologically advanced things we have available now and we take for granted (mobile phones, laptops, microwaves, etc.), went back in time like 100 years ago, and showed that movie to people in those times, they would think about our documentary exactly what we think about "Gamer" and other sci-fi movies now. I'm not going to get into government mind control theories and conspiracies and what not, such things are basically bigger than any one of us to comprehend or prove, but to me, mind control technology doesn't seem that far-etched in the future.
Movies Are Often Based On Facts: I am not just talking about genres such as drama, romance, or comedy, but actually imaginative wild movies like action or sci-fi (not really the Star Wars type... that's just too crazy). I am not an expert in the movie production business, but my sense of logic tells me that most of those script writers actually get inspired from real situations and stories. For example, if you watch the movie "Gamer", you will see that the game "Sims" is referenced as the character Ken's inspiration to create the game "Society". Another point, I also know that movie producers have this whole process of researching and testing movie stories and scripts, to make sure it would get positive reactions from the public and be a hit. And to make sure the movie would get positive reactions, they make sure that the story plays on people's real beliefs, opinions, thoughts, emotions, etc. And for that, you will find that most movies are based on or reference real facts that get exaggerated in the writers' imagination. After all, everything is possible in movies. And as I always say: if I wanted to watch a movie that is solely based on real life and has absolutely no creativity and imagination, then I'd go out, live life, and be in it, rather than watch a movie of it!

If you were just looking for a movie review, then in case you haven't got the point, the "Gamer" movie experience will primarily depend on your own perspective. In my perspective, it was inspiring of this post, and certainly entertaining and action-filled.
And if you have your own personal reasons why you think I am right or wrong, then enlighten me. I'm definitely interested to hear more about this topic.

A Leader By Default

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:33:39 +0100

"9: Why do you listen to 1?
5: A group must have a leader.
9: But what if he's wrong!
-5 looks down baffled with no answer-"

I was watching the animated movie "9", which I quite enjoyed, and those lines inspired me to write about a topic that has always interested me and at times even disturbed me. "Leadership".

Let's not get into the statement "A group must have a leader" because in my opinion that's debatable, and I'm sure that any one of you out there who has the urge to constantly follow a (/any) leader, must have a million justifying reason but the fact remains that it's a matter of personal preferences. However, I do agree that in certain situations, one person must lead in order to avoid chaos. My debate is on WHO would make a leader!

I live in the Middle East, occasionally in Lebanon (my home country), where the concept of leadership is often flubbed (☚ word of the day - flubbed: messed up, screwed up, destroyed, ruined, etc.). If you watch regional/international news (which I avoid with great passion), you must have heard of Lebanon and its many political dilemmas due to the many leaders and parties, each trying to take over and prove their alleged rightfulness. Now don't take that as a statement that "we suck and you rock!". I know every country has its problems, but I'm in no position to judge something I haven't experienced firsthand (PREJUDICE IS BAD!).

Now let's head to the source of the problem as to what makes a leader worthy of being a leader (before you think to yourself "oh this is going to be one of those boring theses", it's not! It's going to be fun and you'll get a treat at the end.).

According to the very general definitions you would find for "Leader" or "Leadership", a leader is a person or thing (e.g.: an organization) that rules, guides, and inspires others. Well I don't know about you, but to me that sounds pretty vague and subjective.

Let's try to search for "Leadership attributes" for more accurate results:

Google search engine results: about 863,000 for leadership attributes. (0.36 seconds)

Good luck reading them all to know what would make a leader! Or you can just keep on reading and get an idea based on my perspective.

One result that I found a bit reliable is this right here:

The 11 critical attributes of leadership are listed below:

1. Unwavering Courage (in some cases, courage is inapplicable.) 2. Self-Control (you'd have to know the leader personally to be able to judge on this one) 3. A keen sense of justice (based on what law?!) 4. Definiteness of decision (what about the quality or rightness of the decision?!) 5. Definiteness of plans (What about commitment to execution?!) 6. The habit of doing more than paid for (Is there an extent to what he/she is being paid to do?!) 7. A pleasing personality (Even if it's just an act?!) 8. Sympathy and understanding (Again, a close knowledge is necessary as so not to fall for stories) 9. Mastery of detail (one side-note: in Lebanon, we have ministers heading ministries totally irrelevant to their experience and background. Not much mastery of detail there! Like a car mechanic fixing a spaceship.) 10. Willingness to assume full responsibility (So he/she is willing, but will he/she commit when $#!+ happens!?) 11. Cooperation (Is it really cooperation or an exclusive club of plotters?!)

Answer this in full honesty: Do you look into all of those attributes before committing yourself to a leader? (Yes? What? I can't hear you!). It is surely hard to investigate and have certain proof of all those attributes, but don't just simply follow a leader who looks impressive because he/she has many other followers. Don't just blindly trust a leader and follow his actions with complete obedience without having an objective sense of reasoning. Leaders are human and thus bound to make mistakes at times even if they were supermen/superwomen (BTW Superman is dead, if you haven't read so yet.)

Where am I going with this?

Be your own leader first. learn to have the above attributes and be the best you can be as a person. No one is better than you as a human (unless you are an evil villain), but some can outshine you with their actions. Thus, learn from their actions, imitate, modify and originate, but never just follow to be in the herd!

If you find yourself with an urge for a role model, investigate, question, and always reason. Don't just trust what other followers are saying even if they were your best friends, or wife/husband, which brings me to my next point.

Have some guts and stand up for what is right. Don't just stand up to what your leader thinks is right and don't defend him/her when you know he/she is wrong. Just follow the leader's singular actions, one at a time, rather than the leader himself/herself.

Conveniently and coincidently, I just came across this quote -watching the movie Zeitgeist, that was referred to me by a friend- that directly fits my point:

"They must find it difficult… those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.

- G. Massey, Egyptologist"

Now, this isn't a conclusion, because I still want to hear from you as to who you consider as a leader/row model (in any industry, profession, age, dead or alive, etc.), and why or how he/she inspires you.

And don't ask me whom I consider as a leader. That position is going to be vacant until I am proven wrong or I have better alternatives, because no matter what the case is, NEVER appoint a leader by default!

P.S.: As for the treat, I consider knowledge to be the biggest treat. If you don't agree then you shouldn't have been here on the first place =), but you're still welcomed.

UPDATE: I just came across a really interesting article on the mistakes that leaders do, which is what you need to watch for in your leader; an interesting read titled: The Seven Deadly Sins of Leadership.

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