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.

Mind Your Language

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I genuinely wanted to post about something, anything else, but I can't. The murder of the people in the little flotilla of boats 65km off the coast of Gaza by commandos is burning up Twitter today, with outrage being expressed across the Middle East and further afield. As I write, we know that 16 are dead but that figure will surely change as the picture clears.

The language used in international press reports has been at best questionable, but the biscuit belongs to Associated Press, whose deplorable report on events started with these immortal words: "...more than 10 pro-Palestinian activists have been killed after attacking naval commandos."

AP quickly re-worded the file, but these little tricks of language are part of the war of words that will largely dictate how the world treats this news. The message is now going to be that the soldiers, highly trained and heavily armed, were attacked and responded with minimum force in an intolerable situation made so by the actions of the 'activists'. I do hope that we don't neglect the inconvenient truth that these commandos stormed foreign-flagged boats sailing in international waters and then proceeded to use live ammunition against unarmed people, killing and wounding them.

Irish people still vividly remember Bloody Sunday, when British troops fired into the crowd at a Gaelic Football game in Croke Park, killing fourteen unarmed men. It was not to be the last Bloody Sunday in Irish history: in 1972 another shooting resulted in the deaths of fourteen men. Both events stand as moments of British history that evoke absolutely no pride whatsoever. Quite the opposite, in fact: they are shameful.

I do wonder if the evil of today will still be remembered in 38 or 90 years' time like Bloody Sunday is? I do rather hope so. The danger is, of course, that it will become like Today's Bombing in Iraq or Today's Fatality in Helmand - just Yet Another Act In A Senseless War.

The Dunning Kruger Effect and Writing Books

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What with one thing and another last week, traffic to Dubai's most inane blog went through the roof so this week I'm going to start off with the greatest traffic killer known to man - writing about writing. Whenever I post about writing, whole swathes of people just shrug their shoulders and wander off as if they'd been promised a lifetime's supply of peanut flavoured jelly beans and been offered a night out with Tony Blair instead.

Writer pal Bren MacDibble turned me on to the Dunning Kruger effect a couple of weeks ago and it delighted me so much, it's been buzzing around my little head ever since. It's really quite cool and it has provided me a convenient explanation for quite why work on Beirut, my third proper attempt at writing a publishable book, has been such an up and down experience. On good days, I'm filled with a sense of euphoria at how the book is coming together, truly a work with a mind and life of its own. On bad days, I can't bring myself to look at it, halting, half-hearted attempts at writing blocked by self-doubt and worry.

JG Ballard, a hero, used to write 1,000 words a day. I can remember thinking, when I started this odd obsession with writing, what a namby pamby wordrate that was. Nowadays I'll be lucky to match it. I know where I'm going, but find building the path there is taking much more time than it used to. I'm taking a lot more time to pick the stones, make sure the surface is prepared and then place them properly, as it were.

That's because of the Dunning Kruger effect, said wise old Dibs. And I suspect she's right. The Dunning Kruger Effect is a recognised psychological state whereby the unskilled are convinced of their brilliance, while the skilled are plunged into self doubt: the incompetent rate their ability more greatly than the competent.

I remember quite clearly (and with a shudder) setting out to write Space, my first attempt, and churning out 100k words of very funny but incredibly badly written book in a couple of months. There we go, I thought. pop that off to an agent or two and Robert's yer father's brother. To my shock, rejection slips started to arrive. Respected wordsmith Jason Pettus of the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography took a look at the MS, the consequent howl of pain and outrage still echoes in my memory. The book was rejected by over 100 agents, far from the literary world swooning at my feet as I had confidently expected. Eight years later, I recognise that it's actually uneditable and it's been consigned to the Bottom Drawer of Perpetual Darkness.

[Update. I have since edited it and put it up on Amazon simply because it made me laugh so much. Its first review reads, 'this book is not funny'!!!]

If I look back at draft one of book two, Olives, I'm inclined to the Pettus Reaction. Draft one was written in four weeks and I find it too painful to read it. It's like reading the poems you wrote when you were thirteen. The current draft of Olives is the result of a massive amount of learning, rewriting and editing and I am pleased with it. It's attracted some full read requests but no bites - but I know it's a quantum leap from the quality of writing of Space. Olives is also a serious book with a Middle Eastern setting - it has defined the areaof interest and genre I have settled into writing and is, in fact, the prequel to Beirut.

Beirut is about 75% complete and has taken seven months to get there. I'd like to think it's because of the Dunning Kruger effect. I suppose we'll see, won't we?

Mad Panda Ads. Why I Love The Client Most.

Image by The Searcher via Flickr

The region's advertising industy has been oft-heard to complain that it's down to the clients, that the agencies' cool creative teams come up with edgy, smart and clever executions but that clients don't run with them.

I've always thought that was balderdash. I can't understand why clients put up with much of the advertising we see around us, particularly the strange and breathless 30 second outbursts of parping that pass for radio advertisements. And I find it hard to believe that a client wouldn't go with something creative and smart that worked and actually communicated a proposition effectively. I suspect much of the disconnect lies here - that the 'really smart ideas' are great for awards but would fail to do the humdrum job that the client has in mind - actually selling stuff.

I frequently look at the bad ads and wonder how on earth they got made, put myself in the meeting. You know the sort of thing - we're in a boardroom full of pony-tailed goatee beards in open neck shirts and Massimo Dutti jackets and hapless client...

"This is gonna be huge, George. We got a guy in his car, see? And he stops at the traffic light and asks his friend where he's going in such a hurry, isn't that right, Elli?"

"Yes, that's right. See, George, Raymond hit the nail on the head. Guy in car, friend. You can see it there, no? The smell of hot tarmac and exhaust fumes, then the guy revs up and says he's going to the Chicago Beach Hotel brunch and he describes it like it's a really hot woman, kapisch? All signature cuisine this and tantalise your tastebuds that. And at that very moment, the lights change and they both start racing. Over the sound of screaming engines we hear the guy shouting, 'why are you racing me?' and..."

"The other guy shouts, 'to get there first' at him!"

Whole team looks eagerly at client, who grins with relief and says: "Sounds great guys! I'm sure glad you got my account!"

Yes, thank you, I do feel much better now. Anyway, lovely colleague Maha found these ads. They are a wonder indeed. They were created by four-man Cairo boutique agency Elephant for client Arab Dairy and its Panda brand cheese - it was actually the dairy's agency of record, Advantage Marketing & Advertising, that brought Elephant into the room.

Crying with laughter, I have to admit to being blown away that ads this good are coming out of the region. And while I'm admiring of Elephant's creative and execution, I think the award should go to Arab Dairy for going with the whole idea. Why not, ad guys? If you're going to blame the bad clients, celebrate the great ones, no?



There are more of them - see here, here, here and here. (Oddly enough they haven't created a YouTube Channel or  done anything particularly 'social' around this other than put it up.) Alternatively, if you want to catch a glimpse of traditional over-produced, drab and lifeless ads more typical of the region's output, here's an ad from last year's campaign.


(BTW, you don't really need to speak Arabic: the Panda ads all follow the same basic idea, person is offered Panda cheese, says no and then the Panda appears, stares at them for a time carefully calculated to induce a strong sense of awkwardness then gets violent.)

Hate

Image by George via Flickr

 To be perfectly honest, I'd rather have nothing to say about this at all, but I don't see how I can let it pass by now that it's been resolved, to most people's minds, appropriately.

The blog at www.al-emarati.com posted a hateful piece a few days back, based on the Mangalore plane crash. you can hear more about it in this podcast of the Dubai Today radio show yesterday, which I co-host every Tuesday. Jessica Swann and I talked to Samurai Sam, the shadowy figure behind the ever-central UAE Community Blog about the very issues raised by that venomous little blog. The whole issue raised an interesting ethical conundrum - how bad does it have to be before even people like myself and Sam, who believe passionately in free speech, agree that it's bad enough to be blocked?

I'm told that the al-emarati blog, although it looked as if it hosted several bloggers, was all the work of one man, a person who many bloggers will know as A Blessing in Tragedy. Sure enough, it certainly seemed that way stylistically, veering between interesting comment and bilious ranting. You'd start to worry about the stability of someone capable of that range in commentary rather than fiction.

There was a sizeable group of people calling for the Mangalore post to be blocked by the UAE regulator, the TRA. Although I appreciated people's strength of feeling (you'll just have to believe me when I tell you it was a truly horrible outpouring), I and others felt that blocking is not the solution to stuff that you don't agree with. Tellingly, the regulator's guidelines for blocking do not include incitement to race-hate. And I'm not sure how qualified we are, in the absence of a definition in law, to call that. If it doesn't actually break a law, blocking content is purely an emotional reaction and sets a dangerous precedent for obliterating opinion that we don't agree with - but that is vitally important for open debate.

However, it's been taken out of our wishy-washy pinko liberal hands. The blog has been deleted and now returns a 404 error. The URL had previously displayed the etisalat and du blocking messages, which rather made my heart sink. But now it's a 404. Whether that is because its author finally realised that he'd gone too far, or because Google had invoked US laws governing race-hate, we may never know.

But yes, I am very glad it's gone.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I have seen the climate changing here in the UAE and the effects of climate change since I first came here in the late '80s. I've watched the wadi tracks being turned into blacktop and wadis such as the East Coast's Warryah and the great Hatta Wadi turned into graffiti-splashed rubbish tips and I've watched as the many natural pools that dotted the Hajar mountains were drained by farmers using stinking pumps that leak oil and benzine into the waterways.

I've seen the desert becoming increasingly dotted with clumps of vegetation further and further out from the towns so that now you have to strike deep into the dunes before you see unbroken sand and I've watched the mountains being torn down to build megaprojects while villagers complain of disease, dust and unpredictable water flows. I've witnessed the water table plummet as natural underground waterways of the UAE have been depleted.

I've seen dead coral and coastal spills, turtle beaches in danger and helped to clear rich mangrove creeks clotted with reeking rubbish. I've stood on long strands as fishermen leave hundreds of sand sharks to gasp their last, dotting the long shore with their white-bellied bodies. I've watched in horror as huge, ecologically disruptive, building projects promote the proximity of migratory, and protected, flamingos.

I do recommend taking part in this survey, linked here. It's part of Richard Wagner's Doctoral Thesis, at the Vrije University in Amsterdam and is being supported by EDA, the Emirates Diving Association. It's a short, well-structured survey that should take no longer than ten minutes of your time.

Blockheads Reprised

It would appear that the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Or TRA to you an' me) has blocked YouTube's age verification screen.

The problem was highlighted on Twitter yesterday when a link to the now infamous 'Sheikh Zayed Road Madness' video was shared - the link came back with the blocked splash screen on both Etisalat and Du networks. A good link is, BTW, here.

Although the first assumption is that the block was because of the nature of the content, which is a group of nutters endangering the lives of motorists on Dubai's busiest road by pulling doughnuts and the like, this was not in fact the case

(Dubai's police website still allows you, rather charmingly, to key in number plates and get a record of fines and the like without requiring any corroborating evidence that it is, in fact, your own plate you're looking up. So you can look up these chaps' driving history if you want.)

What had happened was the video had been flagged for age restriction (you can't actually tag a video with an age limit on YouTube when you post it, it has to be 'flagged' and a YouTube staffer will review and age restrict the video) and therefore viewers were sent to the YouTube Age Verification Page.

And THAT is the bit that had been blocked. One can only assume that 'if you need to be asked, the answer's no' is the policy in place here.

Helpfully, Etisalat's Twitter Twit suggested to me that YouTube itself was responsible for the block, which is patently not the case, and then referred me to YouTube's Terms of Service which, of course, are totally irrelevant to the point in question.

Have you read YouTube's TOS? Here. Fill yer boots. Bet you can't finish it without going mad.

In the meantime, we await the results of the investigation that is being conducted, I am sincerely advised, into whether it is morally or culturally reprehensible to answer the question: "Are you over 21?"

Geek Outbreak!

GeekFests - they're like buses: nothing happens for ages and then they all come together.

GeekFest Beirut takes place next Saturday the 29th May 2010 at the uber-funky Art Lounge in Beirut - with the  Maniachi in charge it's going to be a blast - and all the details are here on the justasfunkyasthevenue GeekFest Beirut website. You can also, of course, follow @GeekFestBeirut on Twitter (or just do a search for the #GeekFest hashtag).

ArtStuf in Beirut is going to include showcases displays and things from, Abir Ghattas, Moshumi Nandy, Elyse Tabet and Dreamchaser while TechnoCases come from GeekFest early adopter Nokia and Telephone.com.

GeekFest Beirut's going to be televised thanks to Amer Tabsh from FTV Social, photographed by  Fady Nammour and live tweeted by LAU Social. Gotta say a thank you to moodeef.com for hosting the website!


CAIRO HERE WE COME!

On the very same night, over in Cairo's Zamalek, GeekFest Cairo 1.0 will be taking place! UNorganised by Mohammad Mansour (@TripleM) with a little help from GeekFest's designer-in-chief, Naeema Zarif (@Naeema), GeekFest Cairo will be taking place at El Sawy Culture Wheel thanks to the generous involvement and participation of Ziad W. Aly (@ZiadAly).

GeekTalks in Cairo will include:

Mohamad Mansour
Social Media for Social Change

Naeema Zarif
Creative Commons

Mohamed Gaber
Visual Political Aggregation: The modern Propaganda

Ziad Aly
Improvised Inspirational Speech

There's more planned as well. So now we've got GeekFest Dubai, Beirut, Amman and Cairo! Whoever thought that a cup of coffee with @saadia would lead to this?

The Devil's In The Comments

Image via Wikipedia

An interesting thought (well, to me at least) to end the week. We've got this little phrase, 'the devil's in the detail', a version of 'never look a gift horse in the mouth' and many other similar wee pieces of wisdom that boil down to 'that looks like a great deal, why don't you take a good, long, hard look at it and make sure you know precisely what you're getting into here.'

When we're looking at information and opinion posted online, the devil's actually not so much lurking in the detail as in the comments - whatever you've got to say, it's how people, the 'community', reacts that's perhaps more telling. Take this example, the article that sparked my thinking about this. It's a really, really nice piece that tries to take a reasoned, moderate tone about the whole controversy revolving around the infamous South Park/Prophet Mohammed debate (and, by inference, the original Danish Cartoon Saga and the recent 'Let's All Draw The Prophet' saga). It basically asks Muslims to consider what the Prophet himself would do and counsels them to, effectively, turn the other cheek. I liked it.

But read the comments. Read how quickly that feedback descends into vituperation, unreason, hatred and bigotry.

What amazed me is how much stronger it all made the original post and how much the howling of the 'haters', directed at a moderate and well-argued voice, made that voice seem more reasoned and even more powerful.

The devil, these days, is certainly in the comments. But sometimes devilment doesn't half backfire!