Mind Soup

Omar Christidis is the Founder and CEO of ArabNet, the leading events and media company focused on the Arab web and mobile industry. ArabNet organizes the leading conferences for the digital sector in the MENA region, including the ArabNet Digital Summit, the premier international gathering for Arab digital professionals and entrepreneurs. The Summit was held for the fourth time in Dubai in June 2013 and brought together more than 800 attendees from 35 countries and received more than 9,100 tweets and 42,800 hits on the live-steam.   In 2012, Omar was selected by GulfNews Magazine as one of its “30 under 30" list. He is a graduate of Yale University and the Co-Founder of the Yale Arab Alumni Association.   At the last ArabNet Beirut, the issue of language of the conference was raised. Why do you think it is better for the conference to be conducted in English in both Dubai and Beirut? ArabNet Beirut and the Digital Summit are held in English because of the signific...

“There is no room for mistakes, the competition is severe. The right image has to go with the right text.” Deema Saidi studied Marketing at the Lebanese American University (LAU). With a committed passion for the arts and everything glamorous, she had the chance to work for prestigious, well-established companies such as Elie Saab, Oscar De La Renta, Missoni, Diane von Furstenberg, Y3, and Furla. Armed with experience in social media for fashion and hospitality, she now resides in the UAE where she works as a luxury and PR marketer. In this interview, I discuss with Deema the state of online fashion marketing in the Middle East. What is the biggest challenge, in your opinion, when managing fashion social media accounts? Fashion social media accounts have a lot of challenges, just like any other product or service you have to make sure that you are consistent with the voice, the brand image and the quality. As you may know, fashion is a form of aesthetics and maintaining the ima...

By the time a person reaches 25, it seems that he/she has become fully saturated emotionally, mentally and sometimes physically. In fact, our generation has witnessed the highest stress level among all generations. Recent studies  have shown that high school students today have the same anxiety levels as insane asylum mental patients during the 1950’s. Our generation strives so hard to stand out, both at work and at home, in an attempt to be noticed in the highly competitive environment that we live in. Suddenly, attaining a comfortable living is not such an easy task. We work hard to be able to hold everything together and push ourselves to and beyond our limits and this has taken its toll greatly on us. The amount of information that we now acquire by the time we are twenty is probably more information than previous generations could learn in a lifetime. With the widespread access of information through the internet, TVs, mainstream and social media, we are bombarded...

Interview with Leila Khauli Hanna, a pioneer in social media adoption in the Lebanese classroom Leila Khauli Hanna is a full time Instructor of Marketing Management at AUB’s Sulaiman S. Olayan School of Business since the year 2000.  She holds a Masters of Business Administration with a specialization in Marketing and Econometrics from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Ms. Hanna has taught courses at the Undergraduate and Graduate level in the fields of Marketing and Economics in the US, Lebanon, and France.  She has introduced and coordinated several highly specialized and cutting edge courses at the school and was nominated three times for the teaching excellence award at AUB. Her research interest lies in the Creative Industry of Lebanon and the Digital Transformation of businesses in the region.  Ms. Hanna was the first to introduce full-fledged social media integration into her courses in Lebanon. Her students use these tools to com...

My name as it appeared in the event brochure I was invited earlier this week to talk at Hadeer Conference about how NGOs can use social media to benefit their organizations and campaigns. I gave a general lecture and discussion about the basic tools that they can use and some tips. These include: a brief introduction of Social Media and its importance, objective, target audience, monitoring, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, blogging, Facebook advertising, crisis management, content calendars and integrated campaigns In the presentation, there are also two local case studies of Be7ke and Donner Sang Compter . Check out the slides from the presentation below. If you have any questions or would like more details about my presentation, feel free to email me mhijazi [at] onlinecollaborative [dot] org. Social Media for NGOs مواقع التواصل الإجتماعي للجمعيات from Mohammad Hijazi

ArabNet Digital Summit 2012, the biggest event for web and mobile in the region, is less than 2 months away. Last year’s summit brought over 1000 attendees, 100 speakers, featured 18 panels and 17 talks, in addition to 20 entrepreneurs pitching their ideas and startups. This year’s event is even bigger! Cutting-edge panel discussions, specialized workshops, exciting competitions, focused networking sessions, social activities and more, spread over 5 action packed days including: Two Developer Days with technical discussions and workshops for programmers An Industry Day about how web and mobile are transforming traditional industries like healthcare, travel, education and banking Two Forum Days , the largest gathering of digital business leaders in the region featuring over 100 globally renowned speakers covering the latest trends and technologies in web and mobile A Community Day raising public awareness about the the power of digital The Digital Summit will also include ...

A while back, the generous people from Impact BBDO and Nokia sent me a Nokia N9 phone. It was exciting because it was my first non-Symbian phone and I was looking forward to trying something new. It is perhaps one of the most beautifully designed phones that I've ever seen. Nokia have outdone themselves with product development this time. The finishing is perfect, especially the way the screen is embedded as part of the device making it unified and beautiful. The curving on the edges also make it sleek and stylish. In addition to that, the minimalistic design adds to its beauty and makes it very simple to use. The device has only three buttons (two for volume control and a lock-screen button). It fits very comfortably in a person's palm and doesn't feel as big as it is mainly due to the curves on the sides. I will not be covering the all the phone specifications in detail, but if you are interested in the full specifications, check out this link. Below, I w...

After the success of “Blogging Lebanon” last December, Online Collaborative at the American University of Beirut proudly announces its annual conference for this year “Social Media Changing Lives”. There is no doubt that social media is expanding drastically in the world, and especially in the Middle East, yet this change is not only related to technology and the internet. Social Media is revolutionizing every aspect of our lives. The aim of this conference is to discuss how social media is changing fields such as education, culture, business, media and journalism, music and art, NGOs, politics, religion, human rights, science, the environment and the personal lives of everyone who is using them. This conference will be taking place on December 16, 2011 at 12:00 PM at Issam Fares Hall at the American University of Beirut . The conference is open to the general public, and is free of charge. However, due to the limited capacity, it is required that you register beforehand so yo...

Beirut, Lebanon - Nokia thinks that way too many phones are being held hostage in the wrong hands by users who own the latest Nokia devices yet are not installing the applications that make these devices thrive the way they were meant to. So Nokia have unleashed an “App Patrol”, a group of dedicated “Smartphone law” vigilantes who don’t take application matters lightly. These patrols will be on the lookout for the most serious Nokia application offenders, ready at the drop of an app to arrest and fine these violators! Keep an eye out for the App Patrol as they have planned raids at universities, malls, cafés, cinemas and other application offender hotspots in Beirut. The App Patrol has issued a public warning on their YouTube channel to notify all the application criminals in Beirut to take heed and make sure they get the right applications for their Smartphones in order to avoid being prosecuted by the Nokia App Patrol. Patrol warnings and the right thing to do: ...

Screenshot of OTV's twitter page I just stumbled upon OTV's account on twitter. Not surprisingly, they fail at the first rule of social media: Social Media is an INTERACTION between a company and its customers (fans, followers, etc..), i.e. there should be TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION between the brand and the fans. If you check OTV's twitter account, they have almost 2000 followers but they are following ZERO people. If you look closely at their tweets, they are basically regurgitating news headlines in their tweets, no interaction, no responding to replies, no nothing. This totally beats the purpose of social media. If you think being on twitter will get you more viewers, then you are wrong. THE WHOLE POINT IS FOR YOU TO DIRECTLY INTERACT WITH YOUR FANS . By not following anyone, it not only shows you as an egocentric company who only cares about blasting your opinions to everyone, but you are also not creating any value for yourself or your customers. If you decide t...

My friends and probably people who follow me on twitter probably know that I do not like Apple (probably much more than not liking - perhaps despising). I'm sick of people keep bombarding their Apple products in my face every time I say something, and I am sick of the shameless brainwashed promotions from live conversations to social media to TV programs and ads. Upon the request of one of my friends, I would like to share my reasons for this hatred to Apple as a whole, and not any certain product. The Apple brainwashed culture   It is perhaps what I hate about it the most: the over-zealous fans (or shall I call addicts) who are eating, drinking and breathing Apple and are basically walking billboards for the company. I like Google and Facebook and you don't see me shamelessly promoting them like crazy every chance I get. And it's not even just that, Apple owners think they are better than other people, that they are some sort of super-humans. Let me tell you this: o...

View of Club's Stands next to West Hall Today has been a very long day indeed, a long fruitful day. AUB's Online Collaborative had its debut today during Clubs day where cabinets and active members of clubs and societies gather around West Hall to recruit members. After struggling with the board for around an hour, we were set to go. The collage of social networking logos attracted many students who came closer to ask questions or take a flyer. Other students had surprised or even disgusted looks when they saw our stand. They don't know how important and crucial our work is. Many thought that we are a group of people addicted to facebook and trying to recruit facebook addicts into one group. Our humble board Boy, they are so wrong. What they don't know is how the whole world has its eyes fixated now on digital media, especially social media. News outlets are leaning more and more towards online media. Many politicians, organizations or event planners ...

.. . and I am back! @ jrsaba (left) and @ JimRamK (right) If you have noticed that I haven't posted much during the past few weeks, I was taking a little break due to lots other engagements. But now I'm back and I'm hoping to post regularly again. L-R: @ Loulouhilal @ mhijazi @ Haythamelzein @ Sarahilal000 @ jrsaba Yesterday (Tuesday), there was a tweet up gathering in Copper - Gemayzeh. I (@ mhijazi ) went with a close friend of mine @ jrsaba [ blog ]. @ loulouhilal and @ sarahilal000 [ blog ] generously picked us up with @ haythamelzein from Hamra and we headed to Gemayzeh. It was a little weird at first, but we started mingling and meeting people we have only @-replied before. People who I already knew personally include: @ JumRamK [ tumblr ], @ GinoRaidy [ blog ], @ YasmineHajjar [ blog ] and @ BMaks88 . But I got to meet really awesome people who I have been in contact with online. Below are a few examples: I was really looking forward ...