Bye!

Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr

Today we say goodbye to the unlovely Emirates Business 24x7, the newspaper that managed to be as unwieldy and unattractive as its name. Its passing will only be mourned by PRs who found it an easier target than other papers when selling in any story that had a positive Dubai spin. Emirates Business 24|7 was always a sucker for a positive Dubai angle because that's what it pretty much became - the in-house newsletter for Dubai Ltd.

Launched as Emirates Today by Awraq Publishing, a subsidiary of government-owned Arab Media Group, the paper was meant to be a quality tabloid. It was seen by many as a reaction to 7Days, an expat-owned tabloid that launched almost by stealth, originally a weekly but moving to a daily schedule and managing to survive a number of scandals triggered by its UK-style tabloid editorial. The majority holding in 7Days these days sits with the UK's Associated Newspapers, the owners of the Daily Mail and 7Days' natural cousin, freesheet Metro.

Emirates Today launched on a ticket of media freedom - I knew journalists who were contacted as part of the paper's recruitment drive and they were sold heavily on a ticket of 'Here you can finally be free to write what you like.' Some of us who had been around for a while thought this was interesting, if naive. Sure enough, wrangles over content policy started to see defections, talented journalists finding that perhaps there were a few more rules being laid down than they'd been led to believe. Emirates Today never really carved a place in the market - Gulf News remained the heavy hitter, 7Days its snarky, populist competitor. At the time, Khaleej Times was  arguably passing through something of an identity crisis, one symptom of which was a slew of often amusing headlines that could reach six-lines in depth.

Relaunched as  Emirates Business 24x7 (or 24x7 or 24|7 or 24/7 or whatever), the newspaper attempted to position itself with a differentiated proposition - there was no business newspaper in the market and yet the reason we're all here in Dubai is to do business - a regional trade hub, it made absolute sense to have a heavy-hitting business and finance focused newspaper.

Except Emirates Business 24x7 never hit heavy. Its slow descent into relentless positivity was accelerated by the recession, the increasingly shrill and desperate-sounding headlines becoming more and more witless as the recession deepened. As people facing waves of redundancies packed up and left Dubai, they did so to the sound of Emirates Business 24x7 shrieking 'It's not happening!' For many, this was so at odds with reality that they lost all interest in the newspaper.

So what do you do with a newspaper that has signally failed to deliver since it was first launched? That nobody will pay for or advertise in? That's right, you close it. You stop the constant haemorrhage of good cash into the maw of the printing press and you take it online. And that is precisely what Emirates Business 24x7 has done - today's copy is the last and we told to expect the launch of multi-media, multi-modal, multi-platform and multi-dimensional website Emirates 24|7. The website will launch, according to today's editorial, in mid-July. I personally wouldn't launch a new media project in the UAE in mid-July with Ramadan starting on the 10th of August (August already being the 'holiday month'), but then who the hell cares what I think?

You can follow @emirates247 on Twitter (@emirates24|7 remains unregistered) but not on Facebook, where Emirates247 is not a thing. Emirates 247.com takes you to business24-7.ae, so at least it's registered. Nowhere is there any hint of a smart thought-through approach to handling online queries as a result of today's announcement and the Twitter feed is simply a list of headlines with links to content - not the best use of Twitter I've seen. If we are to believe in a hyper-smart approach to a new and dynamic online initiative, the evidence is sorely lacking today.

Let's not be hasty, though. The new website could well be a smart, popular and brilliant product that we all gravitate to. Let's face it, it's going to have to be. Gulf News already has a significant online presence, with multimedia production teams creating numerous streams of content around the core newspaper website. The National also has a high quality website with additional content to the core paper, including some fine blogs. And then there are players like arabianbusiness.com, Maktoob, Zawya and AME-Info. It's already pretty competitive out there and creating a strong, differentiated brand that serves compelling multi-media content is the name of the game. If you're just setting out to save a print bill, you're not going to cut it. Worse, it's an unforgiving medium. With limited online experience, transitioning from paper to protons is going to be hard and made harder by online-savvy competitors with existing audiences.

The move will undoubtedly up the ante for Middle East media online. But if you're waiting for me to start wibbling on about how this is the beginning of the end for print, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. This has nothing to do with print vs online. This is about a bad idea that should never have happened in the first place - a largely undifferentiated newspaper with little to offer launched into a highly competitive market, slowly failing until finally breathing its last weary gasp.

Service With a Snarl

Image via Wikipedia

I've got into the habit of carrying a bottle of Masafi around with me, so pretty much every morning starts with a quick nip into our local ADNOC service station to buy a bottle for myself and one for Sarah.

Invariably, the lone blue-trousered cashier is stacking newspapers, crushing crisp packets or doing something else more important than actually standing next to the till and waiting to do the one thing cashiers do best: take the cash. I usually leave the money and walk out waving the two bottles. They know the code, so I don't have to wait around for them to scan the bottles, something one is now forced to do if buying anything else there, thanks to the Tyranny Of The Scanner.

I have watched people buying other stuff and the drill is always the same - the customer is studiously ignored until he or she is standing waiting to pay at the cash desk and starting to fidget, at which point, the cashier will slowly shuffle across the shop and grudgingly swipe the goods before demanding payment, usually with a grunted number.

It struck me this morning just how very wrong this scenario is. The customer is almost always made to wait upon the convenience of the shopkeeper, who has defined pretty much any task in the shop (a destination intended to be attractive to the customers it depends upon) as more important than actually serving the customer. Nobody complains, partly because this is the way things are and partly because finding anyone to complain to who has any power to effect any degree of change is just too much investment for likely no return.

I only thought about this at all because I had been in a workshop thingy the day before and one of the questions we had considered was where UAE banks' pain points were. I had made the point, not unreasonably, that one of the greatest pain points for banks in the UAE is that their customer service, without exception if anecdote is to be believed, stinks. I have found nobody who would recommend their bank to me, have never complained about my bank (which I, admittedly, do quite often) and had someone respond with a cheery, 'Try my bank, it's great!'. If anyone ever does, I think I might have to be treated for shock.

Someone else in the workshop thingy corrected me.  The abysmal customer service of banks in the UAE wasn't a pain point for them, because it doesn't actively hurt them. People still bank with these people, despite their anger. So banks don't care about it, it isn't a business issue for them, my colleague claimed. And he was right. Well, sort of. It's not a pain point for them simply because they're ignoring the issue - not because there is no issue to be addressed.

Like the awful ADNOC shop, banks treat their customers with very little consideration. The many instruments and vehicles of international finance do not include customer service, although all of the money banks play with belongs, ultimately, to customers. There is no thought of anticipating customer needs, instead the customer is forced to wait upon the banks' pleasure. Escalating the complaint is almost impossible - you get stuck in the numbing vortex of the call centre, which has been designed to take customer feedback and beat it into submission before discarding it. And so 'management' is effectively cushioned from the pain - the call centre is where pain begins and ends 99% of the time.

Because there's nobody listening to the customers, the management of both ADNOC and banks don't see that there's anything wrong - that perhaps there's a better, happier, way of doing things that likely costs less than the annual staff party but that has the potential to transform the brand experience of the people the business depends upon - it's that inability to see the customer as germane to the business that informs the appalling customer service of both. They'll spend millions on telling us we're happy, but not one penny on actually making us happy.

The easiest thing to do is craft a mission statement that puts the customer first, conjure up some brand values that include 'customer-centric', then run some nice, reassuringly expensive, ads that talk about customers and then completely ignore the customer in any business process, staff training or management objective.

Because customers aren't king any more. We're just dirt on the shoes of management teams sitting around in focus groups congratulating themselves on how much they invest in us, whose last thought would actually be finding out what we think or feel.

I'm quite enjoying watching companies start to experiment with social media. The first step any half-decent practitioner (ie: anyone who doesn't call themselves a 'social media expert' or, worse, 'guru') counsels companies to take is to start listening.

We've already seen some rather shocked reactions as a result of that advice. The first shock is frequently at the whole idea of listening to customers. ("Yew! Who wants to listen to them?"). The second one is when they hear what customers actually think about, and are saying about, them.

I wonder when ADNOC (the Abu Dhabi National Oil company, thank you for asking) will start...

(Yeah, so I'm grumpy. Bite me.)

GeekFest Update

Quick update to this week's GeekFest Dubai post - we do, in fact, have a TechnoCase. The nice chaps from Samsung Gulf are coming along to show off their nice, shiny new Galaxy S Android SmartPhone.

That should go down quite nicely, methinks...

Beirut

The smell of death was everywhere. Lynch wrinkled his nose as he adjusted to the darkness inside the house, cautiously picking his way through the rubbish on the floor. He could hear Palmer outside, shaking his head at the man’s clumsiness. The small washroom off the entrance hall had overflowed.
Shit and death.    He walked across the hallway and gingerly opened the door, a black cloud of flies rising. Lynch hurriedly pulled it shut against their buzzing. The next door led to the kitchen: empty cans and water bottles, plastic cups, rotting food and, oddly, a number of dried teabags stuck to the ceiling, flicked up there when they had still been wet, their little yellow and red tags dangling down from the tea-stained strings.
Lynch heard Palmer entering the house, wincing at his raised voice: “Lynch?”
He moved fast, back into the hallway. Palmer stood smoking in his white, open-necked shirt, his jacket slung over his shoulder and a look of disgust on his reddened, sweating face. Lynch grabbed Palmer's fat arm furiously, digging his fingers hard into the younger man’s soft flesh. ‘Shut up, would you?’
Palmer laughed nervously. ‘What, you think they’re still here, do you? You reckon they’re hiding in the bog waiting for us? We wouldn’t have got within a mile of this place if they were still around.’
Lynch let him go and glared at him. ‘Just shut up. And don’t touch anything.’
Palmer, shaken at Lynch’s ferocity, whinnied. ‘Okay. Anything for a quiet life.’
Lynch turned and walked into the living room. The furniture was scattered; the terrazzo-tiled floor was a spattered mess and the sofa’s stuffing had been pulled out in clumps. He searched briefly for the TV remote, gave up and walked over to the set, switching it on with a tissue wrapped around his finger. The sound was almost deafening in the hot, gloomy silence of the villa: urgent Arabic, Hezbollah’s Al Manar channel. He switched it off again. He turned to speak to Palmer, but the Embassy man wasn’t there. Cursing softly, Lynch left the room, following Palmer through the open door from the hallway and catching up with him standing in the bedroom doorway.
‘Christ.’ Said Palmer.
Lynch pushed past him. The stench was richly appalling. The overturned bucket in the corner of the room spilled its solid waste onto the burn-pocked carpet. There were streaks of blood on the walls and something darker, probably more shit, smeared there too. Two eyehooks were set into the wall at the opposite corner to the bucket, a long tangle of dayglo yellow rope coiled on the floor below them. The bed was filthy, the twisted, bloodstained sheets tumbled onto the floor. Lynch noticed a garish melamine plate on a tray, swirls of food dried onto it. No cutlery. The polystyrene cup of water was still half-full.
Lynch flicked the newspaper near the hooks over with his foot: The Beirut Times, 22nd March. Five days old. There was a piece of expensive-looking paper folded on the bed. He grunted, reaching for it, before wheeling around, fury on his face as the sound of Palmer being violently sick filled the room.
The rebuke died on Lynch’s lips as he saw Palmer had opened the cupboard door. Something that had once been human was slumped there. Pulling the paper tissue over his nose and mouth, Lynch pushed past the retching Embassy man and peered into the cupboard. The corpse stank, even through the tissue, its sightless eyes crawling with fat bluebottles. There was blood all over its scalp, dried rivulets across its marble white face. The slashed throat was an obscene second mouth grinning blackly at them.
Palmer left the room and Lynch stood alone, looking down at the body, his mind and heart racing. He felt his stomach rebel and tensed against the impulse. Unlike young Palmer, Lynch had done this before. He bent, patting down the pockets, pushing his fingers against the distended corpse to check for papers. Nothing. He straightened, then went back to the bed and picked up the folded piece of crisp, hand-made laid parchment. Opening it showed the name ‘Paul Stokes’ written carefully in ink on the textured surface.
Lynch had seen those careful notes before, a piece of parchment placed by every murder personally ordered by the great Christian Warlord Raymond Freij. The old man had written hundreds of those notes before cancer had written its own note in delicate tendrils that crushed his wracked body until he could breathe no more.
‘I’m sorry, Lynch. Truly.’ Palmer was standing in the doorway, his face turned away from the cupboard. His voice faltered. ‘I liked Paul. He was a good bloke.’
Gerald Lynch looked down at the corpse of Paul Stokes, journalist and latterly spy and smiled. At least Paul was reunited with Aisha, he thought. At least his suffering finally led him to her. If he were being honest, he didn’t truly believe that for one second. But it was a nice thought for a time like this.
Anger came to Lynch. Mickey must have done this. Michel Freij, the joint head of the biggest defence technology company in the Arab world and Raymond Freij’s son and heir. Like father, like son.
Lynch turned and led the way outside, stooping to breathe in the clean air. Palmer burst out of the house a few seconds later, red-faced and gasping. He spoke between shuddering breaths. ‘So that’s. It is it Lynch? You just walk...walk away now?’
Lynch looked up into the hills around them, the sky above an innocent bright blue above the brown land dotted with gnarled trees, the vegetation greening the dusty foothills. The air smelled of heat, an unseasonably warm Mediterranean spring day.
Breathing easier now, Palmer moved around to face Lynch. ‘Job done, Gerald? Write off your joe and piss off back to your nice, comfy flat in Beirut? What was there to smile about back there? Paul was a fucking human being. He was a good man.’
Lynch looked impassively at Palmer, gauging the younger man’s state of shock. He was mildly surprised to find he didn’t want to punch the idiot. Palmer was crying, the tears welling up in his washed-out cornflower blue eyes as he shook his head. The dark rings and puffiness around them were at odds with his otherwise youthful countenance. Every man has the face he deserves by forty, thought Lynch. Oscar Wilde. At this rate, Palmer will look like a Vietnamese pig.
Lynch handed Palmer a paper handkerchief and watched, contemptuous, as the boy blew his nose.
‘Thanks.’
‘Come on. Time to head back home. The Lebboes can clear this lot up.’
Palmer was wide eyed. ‘Does Paul’s death truly mean nothing to you, Lynch?’
‘Palmer, listen to me. You hearing me?’ Palmer nodded. ‘Good. You’re a fucking idiot.’
Palmer watched Lynch’s departing back, refusing to move. He swayed, supporting himself with a hand against the concrete wall, great dark patches under the arms and down the spine of his linen suit. He pushed away and walked towards the car as he heard the engine starting. He knew that Lynch would quite happily leave without him.
In the dark quiet of the villa, a mouse started to move at the very moment when Gerald Lynch, racing grimly up the dusty track to the Sida Road with Palmer sitting damply beside him, decided to pay Michel Freij a personal visit.

(I finished Beirut last night.)

GeekFest 5.0

 GeekFest 5.0 is taking place at The Shelter in precisely one week - Thursday 24th June from around about 7.30pm. It should be quite a lot of fun.

GEEKTALKS!

Talking Pandas Fadi Abu Ghali who runs Dubai based advertising and communications agency Aya Middle East along with Laila Abdullatif, the Emirates Wildlife Society in Association with World Wide Fund for Nature (EWS-WWF)’s Sustainability Coordinator are the some of the people behind the recent neat little animation for EWS-WWF that used some tricksy animation to remind us that we're making an awful mess. They’re going to be telling us a bit about the problems the ad is intended to address, how they came up with the idea, the technical wizardry they used to create the animation and how they're using social media and all that kind of stuff to spread the message.


Why Marriage is the Theme of My Life
Areeba Hanif needs no introduction. A lecturer in digital film making at SAE Institute and a director, writer and editor, Areeba founded her company to produce webmercials and documentary style wedding movies. she is also GeekFest’s official videoguru, making sure the GeekTalks are there on Vimeo for all to see. she's going to be talking about her struggle with arranged marriages, one broken engagement, her feature script "Match Made in Parental Heaven", My Big Day Films and finally the real reason for putting on the scarf.

Moving Ahead With Ramallah
TEDxRamallah is an independently organized conference (licensed by TED) happening in Ramallah where the theme is to showcase inspirational stories of Palestine. The event is taking place at Ramallah Cultural Palace on the 9th October 2010. TEDxRamallah is actively casting about for speakers with inspiring stories, from any field (education, business, art, science, technology, etc). The community are encouraged to nominate speakers as well. Ramzi Jaber is the dynamo behind putting this event together. He's working closely with a group of volunteers to make it a successful gig - this talk's a chance to throw in your ideas and stuff.

One girl's quest to change the world using education
Masarat Daud is 26 years old. Belonging to India's largest and most illiterate state of Rajasthan, she has lived in Dubai all her life. Last year, she realised that the world is not someone else's responsibility and embarked on a journey to make the change that she wishes to see. This led to the creation of 8-Day Academy, a smart program that focuses on educating rural communities...in just eight days. Masarat will be talking about the Academy, about TEDxShekhavati – a TEDx event in rural India, and about her belief that village people can change the world.

Caution. This talk has a bitter/sweet ending.

Bean Bag Workshops!

A new feature at GeekFest, the Bean Bag workshops are a chance for small groups to share expertise in doing stuff. The idea’s to have a semi-circle of 10-12 beanbags and a presenter looking at ‘how to’ type topics. This is very much an experiment, so if it works we’ll do more of ‘em next time around.

8.00ish    Blue Sky Thinking
Photographer and photoblogger Catalin Marin will be sharing ways of getting beyond the Dubai summer haze and taking that awful washed out, white sky effect out of your summer photography using some simple and smart Photoshop techniques. He's here, by the way.

8.30ish     Pump up your personal SEO
 When was the last time you Googled yourself? Do you own you? Do you want to build your blog traffic by being higher up in search? Time for some SEO weight training, then! SEODubai’s Jon Santillan will be sharing some simple ideas and approaches that will help you to build your personal Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO.

ArtStuf!

Born in Nanjing, China, and raised between Bahrain, Dubai, and New Orleans, Lantian Xie is a visual theorist who utilizes interdisciplinary methodologies to investigate our contemporary relationships with time and space. His work is either hard-to-understand genius or just plain strange. But it’ll be projected at GeekFest, where we hope Lantian will also be taking the opportunity to create another of his groundbreaking pieces of surreal video.

There’ll also be a slideshow of photography from blogger and well known social media gadfly Kinan Jarjous.

GameFest!

As usual, the slavering, snarling pack of gamers will be huddled around the FragZone at the back of The Shelter, hooked up together and killing each other and/or various alien life forms. Some Big Iron is apparently coming in this time around, so we're arranging backup generators and asking people to turn off their televisions in the surrounding area.

TechnoCases!

There are no TechnoCases. Canon didn't go ahead.

If you decide you want to do a TechnoCase, you've still got 24 hours or so to get it together.

Stuff

As usual mOre will be serving up food and drink but we haven't got a tab because the damn TechnoCase didn't come through. It's at The Shelter in Al Quoz (this is the link to the location map). You can do the Facebook thing or follow @GeekFestDubai on Twitter. GeekFest Dubai is jointly UNorganised by myself and Shelter supremo Saadia Zahid (@Saadia on Twitter) and is a not for profit event held without harming any small furry animals.

There are also GeekFests taking place in Alexandria, Cairo, Beirut, Amman and one looks like it might happen in Damascus.

The World Cup. If you want to watch the world cup at GeekFest you are genuinely more than welcome. But you'll have to bring a TV or something. If you would all like to agree that GeekFest will be a vuvuzela free zone, that would be just fine with me...

My Shiny

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

(You might find it helps to read this first!)

"What's that on your shiny?"
"It's a flag. It's because the World Cup is on. I'm supporting my team."
"That's not allowed. Take it off."
"Why? It's my shiny. You sold it to me. You said I had to dare to dream, live to love, enjoy a new lifestyle of freedom and joy with my family. You said that I would build my dreams of the future in an iconic luxury community that redefined living."
"It's the rules."
"But it's mine! You said I was free to hold it. I'm a shiny owner, not just a borrower. I paid you good money to own a shiny!"
"They're not that expensive, you know."
"They're not now, but they were when I bought it. But bought it I did, outright and it's mine! I know my rights, I do!"
"Have you seen those Sharp Quattron ads on the TV? The really annoying ones with the smug looking guy from Star Trek?"
"Yeees. What's that got to do with me having rights?"
"Just imagine the way he says this: Well, actually, you don't. We can tell you what to do. What TV you watch, what colour you paint your shiny. Whether you put flags on it. Even what newspaper you can read, if the whim or fancy takes us. All sorts of stuff, in fact. That's the deal."
"The deal was freehold."
"The deal was shut up. You've got a shiny. Be happy. Now go away and blow a vuvuzela. But quietly. And not after 9pm."

Sammy The Survivor

Image via Wikipedia

You've got to hand it to whale shark Sammy, the girl's a survivor. When we all thought she'd popped her clogs or was on death's door and being released clandestinely, she actually turns out to have been tagged by Mote Marine Laboratory and sent on her way swimming as free as only a happy whale shark could be.

The nocturnal release of the big fish with no video or photographic evidence made many cynical souls doubt - particularly as it came at the end of an extended period when Dubai's Atlantis Hotel was being pilloried for keeping the whale shark. There was more than the odd whiff of sulphur to the whole story, with undercurrents roiling regarding the actual nature of the whale shark's 'rescue' - whether it was caught to order or just wandered in for tea and decided to stay.

We get the news that Sammy is alive and well earlier than we normally would, because we should really have had to wait for three months to hear from the whale shark. Fortunately, the tag 'popped off' early and now Sammy's free to swim the waterways of the Gulf and beyond, free of tagular encumbrance.

Hooray! Thank goodness there are no links between Atlantis and Mote that would allow nasty cynics to question the tale of Sammy's good fortune.

Dope Test Does For Dubai DJ

Image via Wikipedia

Dubai isn't the best place in the world to be a DJ, it would seem. Following from the controversial four years in the chokey handed out to British drum 'n' bass DJ Grooverider, who served ten months of the sentence before a handy Ramadan pardon slipped him a Get Out Of Jail Free card, news breaks today in the papers of a DJ who has been arrested and charged with drugs offences.

Grooverider, or Raymond Bingham to his mum, was carrying just over a gram of hash in a clear plastic bag - very airport security conscious of him - which he says he forgot was there. I can sympathise with that - when Abu Dhabi  police are lifting Afghans with over 15 kilos of smack in fruit crates, you can sort of see that a gram of hash is hardly the road to nailing Mr Big. At least it wasn't a microgram or two stuck in his shoe.

However, Grooverider did have the banned drug on him. This new case sees a man charged for having the drug in him - the DJ, identified as custom would have it as merely "AM", was according to Gulf News and others, the subject of a raid following a tip-off. The papers report that Dubai's anti-narcotics unit searched his car and then his house and found not a jot of naughty stuff. So they gave him a blood test and found THC in his bloodstream. THC is the stuff that makes smoking hash fun (The used engine oil they cut it with is some of the stuff that makes it less fun, but that's another story).

Gulf News reports the man as saying, "I am not guilty. I want a judgment," which is a slightly odd thing to say in a court of law. It's the one thing you can be sure of, really.

His defence is that he smoked while in the UK at Christmas. THC is known to stay in the system for days, possibly weeks after it is consumed - most online references give 30-45 days, although some claim three months. The amount of body fat you're toting has an effect here, as THC likes to snuggle up to fat and stay there. There is also the question of the sensitivity and type of the test - the most common test is a urine test, but hair can also be tested for THC and it's in there until the hair grows out. The 'half life' of THC is an interesting fact for many because an increasing number of companies (particularly US corporates) insist on being given the contractual right to carry out random drug testing among staff.

Wherever this case goes, you can guarantee it's going to go in the UK press, where it's not going to play terribly well, I suspect. The message has always been utterly clear here - don't do drugs and if you do we'll be tough on you.

Spoilsport

Image via Wikipedia

Right, just so we're abundantly clear on this, I don't like football. I don't dislike it, I mean chaque a son goute and all that, it's just that it leaves me cold. It does nothing for me. It doesn't float my boat.

Which means that the next three weeks are going to be hell. We're already bombarded with World Cup themed advertising, including football patterned doughnuts, radio ads where the sound of people screaming 'Goooooooaaaaaaaaaalllllll' suddenly erupt in my car (why do advertisers think that playing unpleasant sounds to people is likely to do anything other than irritate them?) and endless billboards featuring people who have painted their heads different colours in some display of crypto-neolithic tribalism.


The newspapers are filling with pictures of happy blowing plastic trumpets (apparently they're called vuvuzelas, which I didn't know before, so thanks for that) and even Twitter is starting to populate with 'Are you watching the game tonight?' tweets. I have the nasty feeling that the only thing to do is lock myself in a lead vault underground in a remote and unpopulated island. There are a number of people that would agree with this course of action as being as beneficial to them as it is to me, I know.

Mind you, at least it's minimised the appearances of that little yellow git...

Criminal Tendencies

Image via Wikipedia

Another writing post. The last blog reader is going to wander away now, but I can't help it. I'm on the home straight with new book Beirut and the next two weeks are likely either going to be writing posts or no posts at all. Sorry.

One thing that has amazed me over the course of writing Beirut is that I haven't been arrested. My Google life has been extraordinary and has mostly involved things like weapons, military assets, intelligence, police and other deeply dodgy stuff.

I can't imagine how writers did this stuff before Google - they must have spent months in the library, ordering books and poring through piles of obsessive esoterica. Actually, come to think of it, I have ordered books and stuff - some of which (I didn't realise until too late) had the potential to attract unwelcome attention down at Sharjah Post Office, too! Luckily the customs chaps there have long had me down as a harmless eccentric, so they don't look to closely at the books I bring in. I think my reputation, founded on a mixed shipment of chocolate and clothes which my mother unwisely thought would survive transportation to an area with a 50C ambient temperature and exacerbated by another shipment of educational toys meant for Sarah, was finally sealed when I tried to explain my jar of rather delicious chutney made by the fair hand of Australian novelist and pilot Helene Young. They'd really rather not know these days...

I've also depended on the expertise of a number of people as well as quite a lot of walking around that most glorious of cities in the company of various lovely colleagues or on my tod. There's nothing quite like just walking around a great city and Beirut certainly rewards the experience with an enduring intensity.

Put it all together and you have a demonstrable track record of a deeply unhealthy interest in a lot of things that go bang and otherwise kill people, an awful lot of phone calls and emails with people centering on military helicopters, missile systems and toxic substances and a nasty obsession with the military and intelligence services of a number of countries. As well as mooching around certain cities day and night taking photographs and generally just acting strangely.

Nobody's batted an eyelid. I'm not sure whether I'm relieved or worried...

Al Boom to Bust?

Image via Wikipedia

Dubai real estate investment portfolio manager Abid Al Boom is in Dubai court being accused of frittering away something like Dhs900 million of his clients' money according to media reports today. Seven Days splashed the sorry tale with glee, after the prosecution yesterday told of Al Boom's spending - apparently he had racked up a collection of 53 top-end cars, a luxury yacht and two 'party boats'. Something like 3,700 people had invested money in Al Boom's 'portfolio' which, according to Khaleej Times, consisted of a plot that could hardly account for 10% of the funds deposited.

Oddly enough (and uniquely), Emirates Business 24x7 neglects to mention the story at all. Even more oddly, the defendant in this case is not only being named (you usually see 'the accused, AAB) but is being very publicly named indeed. Al Boom himself, facing a possible sentence of two years in jail - or even a jail term 'until his dues are settled', has already had two judgments against him, a year in prison for bouncing a Dhs1.2 million cheque and three years in prison for issuing two cheques totalling Dhs5.240 million.

Looking back on it, Dubai's meteoric property boom was really a market running as fast as it could towards a brick wall shouting 'That's not a brick wall, that's not a brick wall'. With all the confidence, certitude and arrogance that unlimited success could breed, the whole thing spiralled out of all control - and the lack of regulation in the UAE's financial and real estate markets meant that unfettered capitalism ('laissez faire' has long been one of Dubai's favourite words) could bask side by side with criminality and abuse of trust. And it did.

What I find heartening is that cases like this are being heard and reported on. What I wonder is how many more there are out there. And how many investors got hurt when, as is inevitably the case, the chain letter finally reached everyone in the country.

Words

Image by thismanslife via Flickr

I started the week posting about writing so I'll end the week doing the same.Goodbye traffic.

When I first started writing books, the Dunning-Kruger effect in full force, I was firmly of the view that my undeniable skill would make me millions. After all, Dan Brown and JK Rowling and all that lot make millions, don't they? The big sexy numbers are here.

A little further down the path, I have come to recognise that this view of writing being the road to limitless wealth is not only highly unlikely, it is insane. Most writers don't make very much money at all. In fact, I'd be better off writing for UAE quality newspaper The National as a freelance than I would be writing books.

Here's the maths.

The vast majority of books will not sell more than 5,000 copies, while a 5,000 copy sale would make you a bestseller in Canada. 98% of books published sell less than 500 copies, by the way. And there are something like 500,000 books published in a given year. A bestseller in Australia is 10,000 books.

But that's just too depressing. As a rule of thumb, let's say 35,000 copies is a reasonable bestselling success. And we'll assume the royalty rate is 8%, which is also a reasonable number.

So, 8% royalty on 35,000 sales. AT £7.99, that's £22,372. Sound neat? If you have written (and you likely will have) a 100,000 word novel, that pays you a cool 19p per word. It would have been 22p a word, but you gotta give your agent 15%.

NUJ (National Union of Journalists to you) freelance rates for a smaller consumer magazine are 37p a word. The National, famously a good freelance gig, coughs up 55p a word for freelances .

Using the same assumptions, if your book sold a smashing 100,000 copies, like Miranda Dickinson's Fairy Tale of New York did, at the book's RRP of £6.99, you be looking at a nice cheque from the publisher for £55,920. Pretty cool for a few months' work, no? Now pay your agent and the taxman and you're looking at something nearer £30,000.

You'd still be looking at having earned less than writing for The National: 46p a word once the agent's been fed.

*sigh*

Attacked by Blogs

 The recent breakfast cereal incident reminded me of this piece, which ran in Arabian Business, as well as on the blog, a while back. I thought it worth sharing an updated version of the piece just in case it's useful to someone.

What should you do if a blog slags off your company or makes snarky comments about your customer service? What are your rights and how can you fix the damage? Here’s a handy ten point guide for companies that feel themselves wronged by blogs.

1. Think
Before you rush to make a dim-witted comment on the blog, think about it. What has the blogger said that you disagree with? Is it an opinion or a factual error? Can you back up your assertion that there is a fundamental error? Can you provide evidence that the opinion expressed is ill-founded or at odds with the majority of people? If you work with a PR or communications agency, get their counsel before you act. Cast around for any other mentions, conversations or expressions of opinion/fact on this issue. Once you've commented, monitor the reaction and feedback and be ready to continue the conversation.

2. Remember: it’s a conversation
If you’re being attacked by blogs, it may be worth taking a look at the situation they’re highlighting and seeing if the point is valid and addressable – and then addressing it before going online and saying so. If the attack is invalid, then it’s worth acknowledging the point that’s been made before making your, well-argued, counterpoint in a measured, respectful way. The more aggressive the blogger, the more a measured tone will position you as the reasonable and authoritative participant in the conversation. It’s literally just like a face to face conversation – and wagging fingers or shouting will just get people’s backs up – even if in response to someone who’s obviously infuriated. Think how you’d behave in a customer service situation. Well, bloggers are just customers with an audience. Typically, although not always, people express frustration or annoyance online because the offline system has failed and they haven't felt as if anyone has listened to them.

3. Most blogs don’t matter
Before you go making a great big song and dance, consider doing absolutely nothing. Most blogs are read by an average 1.1 people – the 1 being the blogger. Is the blog well respected and well read? Will it influence opinion? Just because someone in the company has emailed a link to the blog around every member of the management team doesn’t mean that the blog is normally well read. A few hundred visits to a marginal blog prompted by that email, by the way, will just let the blogger know that they’re onto something that gets them more readers. So they’ll likely do more of it, not less.

4. Blogs can matter very quickly
I’m going to be very Delphic now. In deciding to ignore a blog, do bear in mind that blogs can go from zero to hero in absolutely no time. A lot of today’s journalists spend a lot of time on blogs and the oddest things can result in a huge amount of interest. There have been instances of a blog post making national front page headlines within 48 hours in Europe and gaining over 2 million readers as a consequence and Middle East blogs have also broken stories that have moved into mainstream media. And then there are companies that have turned expressions of customer dissatisfaction made on blogs completely to their advantage. The success story is built around actually listening to what people are saying, not ignoring it.

5. Don’t hide your identity
Like the Ray Bans ad says: don’t hide. There may be an urge to post a positive, balancing comment on the blog under an anonymous handle or a pseudonym. Do be aware that most bloggers have access to tools that allow them to track back visitors to the blog. You make a comment on my blog? I know who you are. I also know where you are, what browser you use, what version of Java you have, what operating system, where you came from and where you went to. So if you work for a major daily newspaper or a telco and you don’t like what I’ve got to say, have the guts to say so under your own name so that your comment is honest and balanced by your vested interest. Because I’ll know anyway and just ‘out’ you for being a custard. And so will many other people who write blogs.

6. Find out who the blogger is
No, I don’t mean set the secret service on ‘em. I mean take the time to read some of the blog at least, look at past posts and comments and see if the blogger is authoritative or a loose cannon. There’s nothing more awful than watching some corporate flak try to make a fool out of a widely respected expert because they didn’t bother finding out who the blogger was – regardless of whether they blog under their own names or pseudonyms, bloggers have an ‘identity’ in the overall conversation. (Please do note that I do not, under any circumstance, intend 'widely respected expert' to refer to myself. I'm just a goon.) Take a look at the blogs that link to/are linked to out of the blog. Look at Technorati and find the blog’s rating. There are other tools you can use too, including alexa. See if the blog attracts any comments and also take a few minutes to look at Twitter, because Twitter is probably the greatest blog-traffic driving tool in the blog-traffic driving toolshed. And don't forget Facebook, too! Perhaps also do a google or two and find out how the blog ranks on search. Authority is about tone, resonance and reach.

7. Take some time out to understand blogs in general
Know what a troll is? Or a trackback link? Understand the importance of RSS and feed readers? Know what IMHO stands for? If not, find a younger member of your staff and get them to explain it all to you before you start blundering around crashing conversations. By the way, if you want to know what blogs, Twitterers and others are saying about your company, consider setting up a Google alert. If you're ready to be slightly more sophisticated about your online presence, you'll want to engage an online monitoring company.

8. Don’t crash the conversation
Think of it all like you’d think about joining a real-life conversation. In posting to my blog, I’m putting something into the public domain that I think people will find interesting or that I just want to get off my chest. Usually both! It’s a bit like standing on a soap box. A few people are kind enough to drop by and listen to me – some have a chat with me at the end of the lecture. And I go to their lectures too – to listen and have a chat afterwards. It’s all pretty civilised most of the time. It’s relatively easy to join the conversation as long as you don’t crash in without having bothered to listen to the preceding debate. Again, just as in real life you wouldn’t rudely barge into a group and vent your opinion on a topic without taking the time to find out what the prevailing opinion and tone of debate was like. Well, not unless you want the group to all round on you and tell you to shove off, that is...

9. You can’t make it go away
Blocking access to a blog from within the corporate network because it has attacked your company will just ensure all your staff go home and take a look at what all the fuss is about. I worked with one company that did just that, in the face of our advice, and we watched in frustration as they embarked on a futile and highly visible witch-hunt that resulted in scoring 11,000 visits to a blog that wouldn’t have got 11 visits otherwise. For one reason or another, you have earned the attention of a blog. Depending on the situation, it’s likely that the best and most advisable course of action is to engage with that blog’s author and balance the POV with your own or even, gasp, act on the input.  By the way, consider search when you're commenting. The greatest crime of the cereal commenter was naming the clients who weren't otherwise named, ensuring that search brought up the post (try Googling 'Kellogs fake diet'!). SEO can also be your friend - investing in a good SEO strategy means your voice turns up first on search and these days that's actually a business essential.

10. Consider blogging as a tool
Don’t think of blogs as purely a dangerous manifestation of unfettered opinion and irresponsible ‘citizen journalism’. Blogs are so much more than that. They are a powerful medium of expression that is increasingly becoming an important barometer of public opinion and source of public voice. They are self-correcting in a way that conventional media aren't - people will correct a mistake on a blog faster than you can say 'nmkl pjkl ftmch'. And they're part of the revolution in social media that is changing the way people today communicate. They're not about to go away, in other words. By the way, this post is a very good case in self-correcting point!

You can actually use a blog as a highly effective platform for your company to engage with customers. Take some time out to have a look around and you’ll find that they’re actually a neat tool. You don’t have to have a million readers for a blog to matter, either. It’s better to have a few hundred people that want to interact with you than advertise to 100,000 that don’t. Remember, this is the era of the ‘long tail’. So think about joining ‘the conversation’. I think, after a while, you’ll be glad you did.