Dec 24, 2012

Newsweek's last print issue, but why?

Today Newsweek tweeted the picture below because on January 1st 2013 it'll be digital only.
While this is in part because people are spending much less on printed media, there's more to the story. They mixed up their audiences. Read more about this below the picture.
Inline image 2

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/this_one_history_R8rQ0efbLZYNoVQQ12pAYJ

...

Newsweek never seemed at home in either world since it merged with the digital Daily Beast, .... Caught between two worlds, Newsweek also struggled to find its voice. The magazine that once set the agenda on weighty topics was an odd fit with the irreverent Beast.

As a consequence, the magazine ended up vacillating between deadly serious and silly stunts, such as the "Diana at 50" cover that paired the deceased princess with Kate Middleton.


Dec 3, 2012

I can't find the Best Management Book Ever "High Output Management"!

Every other person on Quora question, including Marc Andreessen & Keith Rabois, and so many others, recommend 1 book for Peoples-Management:

High Output Management by Andrew Grove - ex-CEO & Chairman of Intel & its 3rd employee, written in 1983!

The book is about 30 years old, yet it is still considered the definitive guide. (Before it people swore by Management by Peter Druckers, the father of modern enterprise management)

Too bad the book is not on Audible. They released an Audio version of it on cassette in 1984, and I can't find a digital copy of it :-) Here's a summary of the book. (too bad getabstract.com doesn't have an abstract of the book).

Request to the geeks, please let me know if you can find this book in Audio format on the internet.

(old edition of the book is available here: http://archive.org/details/HighOutputManagement)

Nov 26, 2012

Sharing my Business Plan for Populace Ads - winner of Google Best Online Business Plan award at QRCE

Like many people around the world - I have more ideas than I can implement in a lifetime. I used to keep those in lists. But now, and inspired by Creative Commons and open source movements - I want to share them.

I admit that most of these ideas are not real because they are simply not good enough. However, if somebody reads them and gets inspired even a bit, and enhances them to a point where they get implemented - I would be very very happy.

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts under label "Sharing Ideas". All these ideas are shared under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 license. You can share them, change them, use them for any purpose - just attribute if you feel it's worth doing.

First idea to share - my award-winning Business Plan for Populace Ads - to democratize advertising for businesses around the world.

In 2008, we formed team Populace Ads and participated in the QRCE 3rd Business Plan Competition. We were happy to win the special "Google Best Online Business Plan" Award. The team was made of me, Muneeb Arrabi, Fadi Dallasheh, and Ashraf Dabbas.

We followed up with several great mentors and friends, and we modified the plan further - added major new idea (to create an advertising templates platform). However unfortunately we all got too busy with our current tasks and couldn't implement this plan.

I'm sharing the original business plan that was submitted to QRCE (and please forgive horrific financial mistakes - that was result of to little sleep), and the modified plan with the reformed ideas.

Hope somebody finds this useful.




Oct 11, 2012

The Art of Start in Jordan slides


Ahmad Takatkah (@SinbadTheVC) and myself (@MRArrabi) gave this workshop at the IEEE event in Hashemite University on Oct 7, 2012. It covers tips & advice on how to launch your startup in Jordan.

Sep 11, 2012

Amazing article about startups by Paul Graham

I love this quote:
how lame Facebook sounded to me when I first heard about it. A site for college students to waste time? It seemed the perfect bad idea: a site (1) for a niche market (2) with no money (3) to do something that didn't matter.

Sep 5, 2012

Thoughts on book "The Startup of You" by ReidHoffman (LinkedIn cofounder)


I finished reading The Startup of You book recently, written by Reid Hoffman (LInkedin cofounder) & Ben Casnoca. I thought I'd share few comments about it.

The book is great for those who want to enter the "Business World":
  - either fresh college graduates 
  - or technical people who want to make the jump to business roles
It gives a number of recommendations - that are frankly similar to a lot of other books. But the style is direct & clear, which makes for an easy reading.

The book has some interesting stories about birth of "Web 2.0" - namely the Paypal Mafia (must read wiki page). For example: both Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman bought the six-degrees patent early on. Mark created Zynga. Reid created LinkedIn. And they both were early investors in Zackerberg's Facebook, Path, Naseeb, Tribes, Flickr and Digg. (and many more). This makes you feel that Silicon Valley is just so small. [The book doesn't have details - just tips. look online for more]

In my opinion the book is not deep enough, with few exceptions, for people who have been in business roles for 3+ years. But it is very good for people about to enter this "business career" phase.

hope you like this.

Jun 10, 2012

Winner of Oud Compeition (under 18 yrs old)

(an old post from my lost blog ehcafe.com - Oct 2009)

Mohammad Abo Zikra from Egypt. The winner in the latest Oud Competition in Syria for under 18 years old.



Mar 7, 2012

Re49: leather/Tannery marker Pen Q

To Whom may concerned

 

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Water Erasable Pen for garment/cross stitch/patchwork marking.
Air Erasable Pen in violet/pink for fabric/textile marking.


If you are interested in them, We will send you our water/air erasable pen quoation
with price, pictures and other details.

 

Best Regards
Mike
PILOT FULL LIMITED
ADD:ROOM 307,NO.73,CHENXI ROAD,JIMEI AREA,XIAMEN CITY,CHINA
TEL NO.:86-592-8406946 MP:86-18965825106

Mar 1, 2012

مقابلة في دوت نت عربي مع عماد العشي

عماد عشي صديق عزيز وصاحب البودكاست الشهير دوت نت عربي، وقد دعاني لاجراء حوار عن تجربتي في العمل لدى مايكروسوفت في امريكا وعمان. ارجو ان تعجبكم الحلقة:

www.DotNetArabi.com 

Jan 31, 2012

Dr Thrun leaving Stanford to teach online - 500,000 Students at a time!


Digital Age is on the brink of disrupting Education from centuries-old traditions. From online courses, to Apple's iBook2, to Khan Academy, to many more. How would this wave, Education 2.0 if I may call it, affect our Arab world? Looking forward to that.


Professor Sebastian Thrun (Robot Cars pioneer & winner), announcing leaving Stanford: 
"Having done this [teaching an online course attended by 150,000 students, 264 getting perfect score, none at Stanford], I can’t teach at Stanford again…It’s impossible…there’s a red pill and a blue pill and you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I’ve taken the red pill and seen Wonderland."