A New Iniquity

Image by gerry balding via Flickr

Mr. G. tells me of a new iniquity being heaped on the heads of Sharjah’s already stressed-out cabbies. A new dictat from Das Company means that now they’re not allowed to buy more than Dhs50 of petrol in any given day – if they do, it’s to come out of their own pockets.

All of the cabbies working for the new ‘regulated’ taxi companies are remunerated purely on a commission-only basis – there is no basic salary whatsoever paid to them, despite this being in contravention of the current labour law.

They have to make Dhs 275 a day in fares to even have a chance of making money on their commission-only deal. If they make less, apparently they’re fined by some companies. They’re also fined for a wide range of things, from failing to stop for a fare through to picking up near the airport. In fact, a lot of people walk from Sharjah airport all the way to the ADNOC station on the airport road to avoid the Dhs20 surcharge that the airport taxis levy. Mr G got fined Dhs150 for picking up a passenger outside the ADNOC station, which has not made him happy. Given that he is an unusually lugubrious chap at the best of times, this is fascinating to observe. The inspectors who prowl the streets preying on unsuspecting cabbies are, of course, remunerated on the number of fines they dole out, a nicely sadistic way of harnessing unenlightened self-interest.

Interestingly, Dhs50 doesn’t even fill a Toyota Camry. At the 'new' "We've put the rates up to accommodate the drivers" rate of Dhs1.5 per kilometre, a taxi would have to travel over 180 Kilometres with a paying passenger to make the Dhs275 daily minimum. And, of course, taxis spend a great deal of time driving around looking for a fare - never more so than in Sharjah right now, where the buses roam left, right and centre for pennies.





You do begin to wonder what they'll think of next...

Is It Any Wonder People Have It In For Bankers?

Image by TW Collins via Flickr

The scene. A shop. Quite a noisy sports goods shop playing pump it up let’s get this fitness ting movin’ music. Sarah is trying to get me to make the decision between the black trainers with the black stripe and the black trainers with the pink stripe for her. The mobile rings.


“Hello, Alexander McNabb.”

“Hello?”

“Hello!”

“Hello.”

“What do you want?”

“Is this Alexander McNabb?”

“Yes, it is.”

“This is HSBC customer service.”

“And?”

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“I’m calling regarding the issue you had with a transfer. You raised a customer support issue with Internet banking.”

“Right...”

“I need to ask you some security questions.”

“Okay.”

“What accounts do you hold with us?”
(told her, not telling you. Not that I don’t trust y’all, ye understand)

“What is your current balance?”

“I have not got the faintest idea. Not a clue.”

“Well, what was the last transaction on your account?”

“I couldn’t even begin to tell you.”

*desperately* “What is your date of birth?”

“Fried eggs and ham.”

“Thank you. You had an issue with Internet banking. I’m just calling to help you.”

“What issue? I don’t remember an issue? When?”

“About ten days ago. You had an issue with IBAN numbers.”

“Oh, Lord, yes! I remember now! You require an IBAN number on transfers to the UK but there’s no field specifying that you need an IBAN number on the online form.”

“We now require an IBAN number on transfers to the UK. You can insert this in the ‘comments’ field in the online transfer form.”

“I know that now. I had to call your call centre to find out and then I asked the call centre person to escalate the fact that there’s not actually a field in the form that requests an IBAN number. That was my problem, you see? If you require a critical piece of information to complete a process, you actually need to ask people to insert that information in an appropriate field, marked, for instance, ‘IBAN NUMBER:’.”

“Yes. You have to put it in the comments box on the form.”

“But that’s my issue! How am I supposed to know that I need to put the IBAN number in at all? By osmosis? By a process of miraculous information transfer? Holes opening in the space-time continuum? How simple is it to put a field on the form that says: IBAN NUMBER:?”

“I apologise, but that is not possible at this time.”

“Oh come on! Of course it’s possible! A badly trained macaque of below average capability could add a field to an HTML page in less than ten minutes. Instead, they got you – a call centre operative with about as much chance of influencing any policy decision regarding your bank’s woeful inability to make its systems even marginally fit for purpose as I have of winning the UK national lottery – to call me and say sorry but it’s broken and we’re not going to fix it.”

“I do apologise. I can put a request to escalate this with Internet banking.”

“They pushed the whole issue down to you! Are you going to escalate it to them so that they can push it back down to you so that you can call me to tell me you’re sorry that the issue about the issue regarding the problem I had is still an issue?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let’s face it, you have absolutely no ability to escalate any issue whatsoever, do you? All you’re going to do is repeat sorry until I stop shouting, aren’t you?”

“Sorry.”

“Why don’t we end the call right here? I don’t have to be rude to you and you don’t have to listen to a rude and angry customer and we can both get on with our lives without the irritation and frustration of this call and your Internet banking form will continue to lack a simple input field requesting information that is crucial to the process in question.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Dubai Booze Food Ban Clarified. Not.

Image via Wikipedia

The news broke online yesterday that Dubai Municipality was to invoke a 2003 regulation banning the use of alcohol in food preparation across the city's licensed premises. Arabian Business, drawing from sister title Hotelier Middle East, got a nice little scoop in there.

Interestingly, the news ran today in The National, Khaleej Times and 7Days but not in Gulf News or Emirates Business 24x7. You'd have thought there'd be consensus that the story was of interest to the readership - both to those who drink and those who don't.

It's an area where the UAE has long struggled to reconcile pragmatism with public opinion. Advertising alcoholic products has always been banned in media here, with exceptions generally made for 'closed community' publications (for instance, a golf club newsletter). Reference to alcohol in radio or television advertising is generally confined to euphemisms such as the awful 'beverages', 'bubbly' or 'a glass of red'. The practice of using these terms editorially rather than the actual names of alcoholic drinks has become rather blurry of late, things had tended to slip and publications were actually using words like wine and beer. Back in days of yore, that would never have been tolerated, incidentally, and we'd have been hauled off down the Ministry for a wee chat at the very least.

According to the reports, the Municipality has stated the ban is partly a result of customer complaints regarding the abuse of the long-standing practice of flagging up dishes in a menu as containing alcohol. It has also stated that it had found this practice being abused in its own inspections - although it's slightly strange, is it not, that we didn't hear action taken against specific establishments who did this.

Arabian Business and The National are the only two titles that mention the fact that the city's horrified chefs have gone back to the Municipality and sought a more lenient step than a total ban. A final decision is expected Tuesday.

However, this latest move once again highlights a depressing pattern of behaviour. If officials had consulted with representatives of the hospitality industry - a vital sector to Dubai - then the importance of the decision to that industry could have been made clear to them before any announcement was made or circular issued. They could even, shock horror, have worked with the industry to find a way of ensuring any abuse of longstanding practice did not take place. Instead, we now have a period of uncertainty, patchy communication and lack of clarity regarding a seemingly draconian decision that will affect many of us - and a decision that will, once again, doubtless play badly in international media.

It's, as always, all about the public relations. PR isn't about 'spinning' bad news or burying stories, hyperbole and relentless feelgood 'messaging' - it's about communication, ensuring that you say what you want to say, clearly and effectively to the right people at the right time and in the right way. It's also a two-way street - you've got to listen to people before you communicate, ensure you understand the environment in which you are operating and shape your communication based on what it is you believe you want to achieve - the objective. The lack of listening or any attempt at consultation merely plays in public as arrogance and the inevitable 'clarification' just wastes time and resources.

We'll have to wait until Tuesday to see what's going to be the final word on this one, but in the meantime you're welcomed to a new bizarre twist to Dubai's attempt to define a course acceptable to all - you can have a glass with it, but not in it. You can have that glass in a hotel but be arrested and fined for having had it.

The glass is looking increasingly half-empty, is it not?

When Stickers Turn Evil

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Gulf News has fallen into the very annoying habit indeed of selling advertisers the right to post a removable sticker on the front page. It’s come a cropper with this in the past, one sticker which wasn’t very removable damaged the paper when readers attempted to see the news they are paying for, while another was a ‘feel good’ message splatted on news of a devastating human tragedy.

It’s interesting to see how much a brand will damage itself for short term gain. Readers, who let us not forget actually pay for Gulf News and so have some expectation of getting access to news, are forced to remove the sticker before they can read the front page of the newspaper – the most important page of news that GN has to offer.

It is arguably no great deal, this process of getting your fingernail under the corner of a little advert and removing it before you can read the story under the front page headline. But it’s actually just as annoying as Etisalat’s habit of selling its customers to SMS spammers – I don’t want it, I didn’t ask for it, it forces me to act to remove it before I can access a product/service I have paid to receive. This means that the sticker connotes the brand it is promoting with irritation as well as devaluing the brand of the product used to carry the message.

It does seem odd to me that advertising agencies still fail to understand that consumers don’t actually want invasive advertising in their lives. Agencies slap themselves on the back about how their campaign was ‘edgy’ and ‘disruptive’ and appear to completely miss the point that I, and many others like me, do not want my life disrupted by a brand screaming slogans in my face. I don't want to have to remove stickers or open spammy text messages from companies. I am increasingly sensitive to it, increasingly irritated by it and increasingly likely to act against it by sharing my irritation with an increasingly large audience of people who are voting with their feet and sharing their feelings about brands and media that act in this way.

While I’m being bad tempered about this stupid idea, a message for Carrefour’s advertising agency regarding the sticker I had to unpeel from today's GN: the washing liquid brand Pril is spelled with one ‘l’ as shown clearly in the image of the product on the sticker. You dolts have spelled it with two ‘l’s in the text outlining the marvellous special offer I can ‘avail’ with your ‘voucher’.

Piracy's Death - Innovation's Birth

Image by Joriel "Joz" Jimenez via Flickr

The first headline I ever penned as a writer and journalist in the Middle East was for a column in 1986. I was quite proud of it (be gentle, both I and the market were young): "Software Piracy Waives the Rules".

Ever since then, the theft of intellectual property has held the Middle East market back - both in software development and in other innovations involving probably the region's greatest potential asset (oustide oil): intellectual property.

Call me optimistic, but I do believe there is a new wave of innovation washing the shores of the Middle East and it's being driven by a generation of people who have decided to explore the potential that the Internet opens up. I'm very much looking forward to ArabNet in Beirut next week, where we'll be able to see for ourselves just how that process is shaping up and perhaps gauge how strong and viable the movement is.

I have watched innovation get squashed in this region for much of my time here, a constant sadness to me. I watched the first generation Arabic software companies flounder (great innovators such as SaudiSoft, Sakhr and Nafitha sent to the wall by endemic software piracy that ripped the foundations out of their businesses and forced them out of the consumer software markets) back in the 1980s and I have watched piracy defining the market ever since - software, music and television alike - to its detriment.

Over the past twenty years, the region has been very much a consumer market - with piracy being a constant barrier to anyone considering the high cost of entry in developing, say, applications software. There have been a few highly notable exceptions to this, mostly Jordanian but also Egyptian and Lebanese -  mostly involved in creating bespoke software for international markets. But innovation - software innovation and business innovation based on pretty much any form of electronic content or property - has been stifled by the piracy of intellectual property and the unwillingness of regional governments to effectively enforce the IP legislation that is in place in every country in the region now.

I've posted before about my interest in how the very many social relationships that have opened up around the region are playing a role in bringing people together - social networks, together with the physical events they are triggering such as Tweetups and even GeekFests have allowed people to share ideas and approaches and generally helped to speed an ongoing process that is being driven by a large number of organisations and initiatives that are helping to foster entrepeneurship in the Middle East - from NGOs such as The Queen Rania Centre for Entrepeneurship and the WEF backed YallaStartup! to private funds investing in new business ideas such as Middle East Venture Partners. It just takes a glance at the ArabNet website to see that there's something very definitely going on here

The wonderful thing is that now there is a new freedom: the Internet has brought a new class of web-based businesses. The one overwhelmingly marvellous thing about 'the cloud' (the idea that you can use web-based applications and services to do the stuff that you used to do on your own computer) is that you can't steal it. Software piracy is a thing of the past. People can now develop in the Middle East, for the Middle East, and actually look to gain viable revenue from their work. And users in the Middle East can pay a reasonable monthly fee for access to services - or get them for free where business models are based on free access to consumers through raising alternative sources of revenue (A la Google).

All we've got to do now is get the region's telcos to wake up and smell the coffee - embrace online business models rather than clinging to the last shreds of circuit-switched thinking. Bringing down the price of broadband should be an absolute priority - because right now the Middle East has the potential to do what IP theft has stopped it doing for decades - make money out of the intelligence of its people.

Silence! I kill you!

Image via Wikipedia

People occasionally like to talk to me about censorship and seem mildly put out when I tell them that I've never come under any pressure to censor the blog. When this conversation takes place as an interview, I am always credited as being a 'blogger' or an 'ex-journalist'. For some reason media are unwilling to put 'PR guy' as my job title. It would appear to detract from my authority when talking about freedom of expression in media, for some reason. Oh well.

I have had a long acquaintance with censorship in the Middle East, from being banned in Saudi Arabia to being bawled at in Bahrain. I've even survived being shut down in the UAE (In, I have to point out, a previous life: nothing to do with the dear old agency I call home). I have been forced to crawl on the floor picking up copies of my magazine tossed there by Ministry of Information officials and had more than my fair share of uncomfortable meetings with blokes sat behind desks the size of aircraft carriers while I crouched on a chair that's lower than a futon, my nose touching the glass that invariably covered said desk. I all fairness, I must point out that all that stuff happened over fifteen years ago. Life is a lot different now and the pressures of censorship in the Middle East today are a great deal less, believe me.


I started this blog in part because I wanted to show that you can speak your mind in the UAE, in your own name. I have set my own limitations based on my experiences in media here and so yes, I'll decide not to comment on a toxic topic. Living here pays my wages, blogging doesn't. I do believe in respecting the society and culture of the foreign place I call my home.


However, I've been irritated on a few occasions recently where I have encountered an insane degree of censorship in the mainstream media I have worked with that has been derived from expatriates fearing the reaction they are assuming will come from 'up high'. That has even extended to broadcast media refusing to cover stories that are being carried not only globally but also in local news media. When I have pointed out how utterly craven it is to ignore a controversial story that is being carried by other media totally accessible by the target audience and subject to the same regulatory environment, I've been told that I should 'know how it is'.

But I do know how it is. And I know that media that self-censors to that degree is serving neither its audience nor its masters.

Couples Kiss. Naturally.

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I watched with growing horror as the kissing couple story broke on Sky News last night. Another brilliant, world-straddling home goal, splashed all over the news. The message from the news report was quite clear: if you drink alcohol or kiss when you're on holiday in Dubai, the strict and fundamentalist Islamic state, you will be thrown in an Arab jail.

That should do wonders for tourism. The expensive advertising is screaming 'Come to Dubai and Live the Life! Have fun in the sun!' and the world's media are quite clearly screaming 'Not.' I can tell you who'll win the battle for hearts and minds here, and it's not the advertising.

Oddly enough, the fact that the whole incident took place in Jumeirah Beach Residence (Jaybeearr to most of us) depresses me even more. This, surely, is the very motherlode of the live the life dream in Dubai, the place where nice, clean people go for their morning runs along cobbled, nicely maintained walkways and hang out in the very large number of nice restaurants and coffee shops that crowd together under the stacked sandy towers above them. This is where people from all around the world chat, eat and drink together; where they shop together and pass each other in constant procession, walking out in society.

 I can understand the whole thing being taken seriously if the couple involved were clearly going at it like rabbits in public while beating the place up in their drunken stupor, or if the woman who filed the complaint had asked them to desist and had been attacked with a torrent of abuse. But if any of this was the case, it's certainly not coming across in the media coverage. In fact, what is quite clearly coming across from the media coverage is that this regrettable incident should never have escalated into anything other than a warning and being given a leaflet on how to behave in Dubai, if that. The defence says it was a social kiss, according to GN, making the lovely claim that the couple had "denied lip-kissing".

I believe that what is and is not acceptable in Dubai should be communicated more clearly. There needs to be a guideline that can be shared by the airlines and hotels that bring tourists in, by the real estate companies that let and sell property and by the media that tell us where to go and what to enjoy. And that guideline has never been needed so much as it is now.

Let's be clear here. I've lived here a long time and travelled extensively around the Arab World. I wouldn't be here if I didn't have some sort of affinity with the place and its culture. I totally respect the requirement for modesty in the UAE and that we should all of us show appropriate respect for its cultural values.

But I despair. I'm becoming increasingly concerned at this terrible schizophrenia; the place in which I have lived and worked for so long is suddenly alien to me. The place that openly and freely sells alcohol to all comers and which displays kissing on its television screens is the place where fines and jail cells threaten all who are brave enough to enter. The inconsistency makes a mockery of the tolerance that has been behind Dubai's success and that I had always admired so very much.

Buttons

Image by saraab™ via Flickr

Sometimes you find a story in Gulf News that goes beyond the ordinary, that is in a class all of its own. They usually originate from Ras Al Khaimah and involve herds of suicidal sheep, ghosts in caves or escaped deadly predators that some lunatic has been keeping as pets.

My treat today was the news that a shopkeeper in Ajman has been arrested for selling fake Dubai police uniform buttons. It's obviously no treat for the shopkeeper, who'll currently be in nick somewhere while they work out what to chuck at him charge-wise ("Let's do him under the 1986 official gold buttons forgery act!"), but the story itself has many touches of manic genius. It's here in all its glory.

Dubai police are not at all happy at the shop flogging copies of their buttons, as said buttons are specially made for them by a company in Italy. In fact, the danger of such buttonfoolery are pointed out to GN by a forensic expert and criminologist with Dubai police, who tells the newspaper, "These buttons could be used by suspects impersonating a police officer."

"I'm a policeman. Give me all your money."
"Show us yer buttons!"
"Here."
"Okay, you're legit. Will you take a cheque?"


The criminologist uses his keen understanding of the recidivist's mindset to conjecture that Dubai's Boys in Green might have been buying the buttons from the shop owner whose establishment is suspected, GN tells us, of being a tailor's shop, in order to repair their uniforms on the quiet. Apparently any policeman found ruining his uniform or losing his military costume accessories could face a military fine or trial.


So rather than face the consequences of their actions, they've been sneaking up to Ajman and getting black market buttons sewn on? Surely not - not policemen! There has to be some other explanation.

Won't it be wonderful if the shop owner had the presence of mind to keep a customer list? This could do for Gulf News what the parliamentary expenses scandal did for The Telegraph.

ButtonGate! We await the next installment of this one with bated breath...

Off on one

"Woss 'e up ter nar ven?"

"'e's off on one abaht ve bloody Emirates Festerval of Licherachure."

"Licherachure? Why on urf would 'e wanna blog about licherachure?"

"Dunno. But 'e as. 'E's bangin' on abaht books and writin' orl week."

"Oh, what? I 'ates it when 'e does vat. Writing vis, editing vat on and on. Iss allus better when 'e's avin' a go at ve RTA or summit, innit?"

"Yeah. Less go'n read Life in Dubai. 'e wone be all bla bla bla about ve bloody licherarchure wossit."

Which is my way of telling you that readership of this blog, as predicted, plummeted like a plummeting thing in free-fall and in fact almost halved last week when I was blethering about writing all week. And I don't care. It's my blog and if I want to get over-excited about the Emirates Lit Fest I shall. So there.

The Social Media Public Session wasn't bad at all, really, and was quite fun for audience and speakers alike (unless everyone hated it but were being nice to me for some reason). We didn't really solve the ills of the world or define the future of publishing or anything, but we had a lot of laughs. It hasn't changed my mind about this one jot, though.

GeekTalks up!

The first GeekTalks are up online, thank's to official GeekVid girl, Areeba Hanif (@MyBigDayFilms on Twitter). Areeba's done a great job putting these together - particularly as she had to face filming the talks with no space, bad access, crappy light and no sensible solution for her to get lights etc set up. She didn't crack a frown all through!

If you'd like to pop along to Vimeo, you'll find that we've set up a lovely profile for GeekFest Dubai 3.14 and will be posting GeekTalks there in future. You'll find it here or you can see the vids from GeekFest Dubai 3.14 on the Facebook fan page here.

We've used Vimeo because, for a small sum, we can host big video files and manage them effectively - and you can embed them anywhere you want. So do feel free to share!