Which Online ?

Which Online Marketing method is the best?

Which Online Banking is the most trustworthy?

Which Online Shopping site is the busiest?

Which Online Security algorithm is the most efficient to be used to secure the web?

Which Online Cloud storage will prevail?

Which Online compressing algorithm can be used to replace ZIP and RAR?

Which Online Gaming zones are the fastest?

Which Online Streaming Movies website are available?

Which Online radio are in the market?

Which Online sports channel are the easiest to subscribe to ?

Which Online cars broker sites can I use?

Which Online Money currency to replace the dollar?

Which Online Payment methods are the most secure and efficent?

Which Online Chatting Apps are the most flexible and easy to use?

Which Online Live News site shall I follow to know everything?

Which Online Fashion Designers recommendation shall my wife subscribe to?

Which Online Cartoon Network shall I let my kids in?


Everything is moving online, there are plenty and abundant of ideas, stop keeping your ideas secret, no one will try to steal it.

Ideas in secret die. Select an Online Idea and go do it.

When Monkeys can't reach the Ripe Banana they say it's not sweet

So do most people.

But they use different phrasing:

"Oh, that's how he did it. I thought It's more complicated. "

"Aha you used that feature, everyone can do that"

"No, my level of thinking and implementation is way beyond this"

"Instagram? I thought of that application before but didn't implement it"

"No my idea is way more sophisticated."


Yes you know those people, you might be one of them.

Cut this attitude and learn to listen to others. Watch movies you don't usually watch, read books you don't read, listen to people stories that don't interest you.

You will be surprised to learn something new!


By the way there is an arabic song to this proverb.

So Do I

You know what makes you an average person?
It's not where you work, or how much you get or what you make or where do you live.


Its the "So Do I"

Karl Benz invented the Automobile, the whole world used his design to manufacture cars. It did change the World. Now we have more than 350 Automobile manufactures in the world all creating automobiles running on gas and driving on 4 wheels. Average. 
Now it's easy to open an Automobile Manufacturing company. Why its easy? because you are a coward.

Someone created a product template and she said I'm going to use it, you said "So Do I, I'm going to use it as well because it works!" which lists you with the rest of the world as average.

You can go ahead and say "so do I". But you will not notice very much of a difference. If you want to be a purple cow, go Reinvent the wheel.

@VIVA_BH 3rd Tipping Point Strike, This time for Android in #Bahrain

In 2010, VIVA just entered the market. People wanted to test their new service so they rushed and bought the cheapest phone that time, Nokia 1202 (BD9) creating huge sales for this device.

In 2011, VIVA raised the bar with an iPhone4 offer that tipped the sales for the iPhone in Bahrain (and consequently creating more Apple Fans).

Now VIVA has done it again in 2012, but this time with Android. Its last offer is, get your a Galaxy Note, Galaxy SII or Galaxy Nexus for FREE and with HSPA and ready for this?, Unlimited Data package for just 30BD monthly for a year.

So geeks can now wonder anywhere with their laptop tethered to their Android hand-held devices and share the Internet love.

Although not everyone is happy with their service, I expect VIVA to bring an Android shower this year in Bahrain.

A while ago I wrote about how Batelco crushed Menatelecom with its When-able to-attack-you-must-seem-unable strategy. However, I think, Batelco should squeeze some marketing juice into its products in order to beat the Risk-Taker VIVA.

VIVA Bahrain creates a Tipping Point for iPhone, Smart or Rushed?

Despite the bad service VIVA is known for, it sure knows how to break into the market. VIVA is always knows as the big risk taker since its entrance in Bahrain. After unintentionally creating a tipping point for Nokia 1202 last year, it comes this year with an interesting iPhone offer that almost 85% of Bahraini citizens can afford. Creating another Tipping point for iPhone and iPad devices.

Batelco had an iPhone offer long before VIVA does but it didn't tip. That's because you need to be a 6 month post-paid client (later redesigned to be only 3 months) in order to get your iPhone as installments.

VIVA offer doesn't require you to be an existing post-paid client to get your iPhone. Just go and grab your device with a new post-paid line and service.

iPhone were once expensive devices that not everyone can afford when Nokia was the master. Now almost everyone has an iPhone in Bahrain especially teenagers.

That's big risk VIVA is taking here. Not everybody signed up for this offer can afford to pay, yet it made iPhone available for everyone. I know people who are unstable at their jobs who have VIVA iPhone.  I can see a potential amount of law-suits that VIVA will file against those customers who will fail to pay the installments.

An Idea: Batelco: CSV Downloadable Contacts for Smart Phones

Batelco is the leading integrated communications’ provider in the Kingdom of Bahrain with a very large customer base. It has a huge telephone directory.

When I want a number of a particular organization or restaurant I dial 181 and in a matter of seconds that restaurant's number is SMS'ed to my phone. Batelco made that service even cooler when they launched the Mobile Telephone Directory. All is free and easy to access. 

I have a suggestion that might make this service even easier and much user friendly. Categorize the telephone directory into groups (Restaurants, Banks, IT Companies etc..) and make them available online for download as a CSV (a standard format for all smart phones Comma Separated values). Now If I'm a frequent restaurant visitor, I can download the restaurant CSV to my Blackberry, iPhone, Andriod even Nokia and have access to all Restaurants in Bahrain directly on my contacts.

We have only one problem, telephone directory is dynamic. It is being updated frequently, so you need to download that CSV every now and then and resynch it back to your phone and you do not know if that file is updated or not. To tackle this, Batelco can create a different page to release only the changes (delta) so it is easier to download and sync. This concept is similar to the database replication .

Jobs is now Apple Chairman, Cook goes the CEO

Yesterday the 24th August 2011, Steve Jobs resigned from his position as Apple CEO and jumped as the Chairman of the Apple Board. Jobs has followed a successful base plan for Apple during his time as CEO. He is well-known for the iPod, iPhone, iPad and iMac.

I'm sure that Jobs did not resign before putting down a comprehensive strategic plan for the next 10 years for Apple. If Tim Cook (the new CEO of Apple) well executed that plan, keeping up some strong defense measures towards the raising giant of Android, Apple could keep on shining.

You might already know that Cook ran Apple during Jobs health problems. Will you still see an iPhone6 and iPad4? Will it be as sexy as the previous gadgets? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe even better.

Lets Cook some gadgets.

An Idea: Telecom Package Suggestion Engine

Telecom companies in Bahrain like Batelco, Zain and VIVA have packages for mobile services (postpaid and prepaid). Each package contains some features for a certain given price. Here is the postpaid table from the leading company in Bahrain Batelco.



As customers we choose packages arbitrary based on the total package price thinking we would save more. However, this is not the case. Customer preferences differs from one to another. For example I make a lot of international calls or a lot of calls to a certain local number. But I really might be in the wrong package which eventually costs me more money I could easily save if I was on the right package.

The idea is to design a service that will run through the customers database each 3 months or so and analyse their calls/sms etc and project it on their current package. 

For instance, if the customer is making too many international calls it would be great to send her a report in an email that she will save 200BD yearly if she changed her package from Super10 to Super30 and then you attach the math. Or even better, you can send her an SMS: "Fatima, we noticed that you make so many local calls to this number, if you add it to your favorite numbers' list, according to your billing you will save 69BD yearly. Shall we add it?." Make it easy for her, reply Yes or No.


This way your customer will really know how much you really care. They will stay loyal in the long run and your customer defection will decrease dramatically. Simply because this act is remarkable.

How free Anti-Virus Software make money

Ever wondered how a free AntiVirus software can make money besides advertisement? Well, continue reading.

Imagine you are game manufacturing company. You spent tens of thousand of dollars to develop a computer game. Weeks later a cracker releases a patch to break your computer game so users can illegally play it without license.

What do you do?
You can spend more money making the game uncrackable (and that's difficult)

OR

You pay Anti-Virus software companies (like avast) to add that patch/crack to their database as a trojan-gen (which stands for Trojan general category). Below is a picture of a patch for all Game House games. Avast treats it as a general trojan, although I didn't notice any internet activity from the file.



Now users with these Anti-viruses cannot use the patch to crack your game up. This creeps them out and maybe (just maybe) they will be forced to pay for the game.

Now this is Customer care

Authentication has become a serious issue nowadays with customer support. Companies use technology to SPAM their customers with ads and offers.

We feel customer care as more like an advertising firehose. The company doesn't really know us and frankly doesn't really care about us.

We miss the human interaction, handwritings and the spelling mistakes in emails.

Last month I was in Lebanon for work. I go almost everyday to have dinner in BOBs Dinning - Verdun, and I leave my comment after each meal with my email address. I remember once writing that the Grilled Chicken was cold when served to me.

In the 17 of May I received an email from the Guest relation officer of Bob's, addressed to me. This was the body.
"

Dear Mr. Hussein,

Thank you for the feedback that you mentioned in the Comment Card filled at Bob's-Verdun.



We want our guests to enjoy their dining experience, so your comment regarding the "Grilled chicken" platter is a serious concern for us.



Let us express our deepest apologies. You deserve only the best service and food quality, especially when you visit Bob's.



Therefore, I would like to ask of you to give us more details as to whether you informed the waiter about it, did he replace the item, … so that we can know exactly what needs to be improved.



If you do not mind disclosing your contact number, I would truly appreciate you emailing it to me so I will be able to better assist you in the future.


Waiting for your feedback,

Regards,
Rita Mehanna
Guest Relations Officer

"


This email is not sent by a computer, because my comment was carefully selected, my email has been fetched from the comment sheet, and the problem is carefully and specifically addressed in the email as you can see in the email. Computers can't do that.

I don't know about you, but I'm gonna continue eating in that restaurant.

My First Video Log - BlackSwan

This is my first video Log, I talked here about the theory of BlackSwan.

Enjoy

VIVA Bahrain creates a Tipping Point for Nokia 1202

Just after the buzz over the launch of VIVA Bahrain starts to drop and their remarkable offer ( Free SMS/Calls to any VIVA number) coming to an end soon, U noticed lot of people start carrying a second (or third phone). 90% of the time this phone was Nokia 1202.

This small pattern reminded me of a book I read 2 months ago called the Tipping Point for Malcolm Gladwell. The tipping point is a point at which things get nuts without any apparent or enforced reason. For example sales goes up suddenly without any Marketing campaign, Crime level gets low without any increase in the police force, etc. Usually the reasons behind a tipping point share 2 properties, randomness and effectiveness.


So What happened?
When VIVA launched their offer, people start getting the free SIM card. Looking for a temporary cheap phone available, they all seem to stumble upon this Nokia 1202 with a cost of BD 9. They buy it, mobile shops noticing this particular phone sell the most, order even more creating an epidemic.

I know this barely affect Nokia profit, but it was a pattern worth noticing.

I really find the Tipping point is just another alias of the BlackSwan introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. A theory I will write about in another post.

So you think you are Special?

What is the difference between a bear in the South pole and a one in the Amazon jungle?

The development of animals are part of their built-in intelligence. They adapt with the environment they currently live in, and if they fail to adapt; They die.

This has been the case for few billion years ago in the Earth. The strong survives and the weak who fail to adapt dies.

So how are you, as a human being, different from animals?

We happened to have the most intelligent engine among all creatures. We call that engine , the Brain.

Look around you, we build houses to avoid the rain. We used to build them horizontally, then when we run out of space, we created vertical housing technique. Thus we had story buildings.

We created communities, systems, politics, cultures and thousands of Arts. We interconnected the Earth with the tool of the Internet. Now anyone in Earth can connect with anyone in matter of seconds.

God must be proud of us.

That's why we dominated the entire Earth in only few thousands years. Something all creatures whom have been living in Earth for more than 14 billions years ago.

And our development is raising exponentially.

Hence, we are special, smart and yes the strongest. At least for now.

But are there other creatures out there in the unlimited universe who out smarted us and have developed even faster than us? Are they trying to reach us?

Who knows.

Emotionally 1 + 1 = 1

Applying emotions in Business is like applying it to War. If you decided to launch a War, you should defeat your enemy in order to win, but still you should (not must) have mercy to your enemy.

Success is very difficult with emotions in place. However its not impossible. I'm not suggesting in this post any solutions but rather clarifying some vague point.

In Business (especially banks) this comes into practice that someone can't pay his debt because of lots of personal financial troubles. The bank (or lets say people who work in the bank) have to make this tough decision. They can take his house or they can give him an extension.

This is similar in saying that 1+1 = 1 because the first "1" is having financial problems and its out of the bounds of the moral law to take his "1" and give it to somebody else just to earn 2.

All goes back into the human himself.

You Choose. Just remember

Who are you?

Brainstorming is about Quantity not Quality

Usually when you hear your boss carrying a brainstorming session you panic. Now you have to come up with great ideas or just simply, shut up.

Brainstorming is defined in our work as the process of getting smart ideas and through the junk ones. If an idea that is infeasible the group will start criticizing the owner.

Patrick Mcdermott the author of Zen and the Art of System Analysis propose a unique way to perform Brainstorming.

Brainstorming is about filling the board with crazy ideas without limitation. The most important key is having fun. He insists that Brainstorming is about Quantity instead of Quality. As long as your teams are freely shooting their ideas without any criticism or BUTs/Howevers/NOs. You should get the best out of it.

The more your teams place ideas on the board the more you exercise their brain to produce even more ideas. The quality doesn't matter at this stage. You can later select, combine, remove ideas to create qualitative ideas.

Patrick says he measures the success of his brainstorming sessions by how loud his team laughs and the number of complains he get from the next rooms!

I would love to fail

The last thing we want to do is to fail. I don't get on the stage and present because I might screw up and the audience will laugh. I don't write a book because some of my friends who think I'm still young will make fun of me if my book sold zero copies. I don't dance because I might make a fool of myself.

We fear failure because its embarrassing. So we have built this behavior that failing or being wrong is the worst thing we can do.

We live in the world of TV and movies where heroes don't make mistakes and do things perfectly. A simple equation that always apply, if you fail, you suck. No room for mistakes, quitters are losers, winners never quit.

Good judgment comes from Experience, unfortunately, Experience comes from bad judgment and failure. - Jim Horning

So we have only one source to good judgment and its experience. And Experience comes from failure the very thing that we afraid of.

Let us all pull our strength from this little girl
The Little Girl Story
There was a school girl who don't pay attention to classes. One day in the drawing class, the teacher noticed that she is really focusing on her drawings The teacher approached her and asked her.

Teacher: "What are you drawing?"
Girl: "I'm drawing a picture of GOD"
Teacher, amazed: "Okay, but, no one knows what GOD looks like."
Girl: "They will in a minute."

The girl didn't put any restrictions, its in her nature, she just want to try everything. She didn't care about failing. I previously wrote an article about thinking like kids. Here it is if you are interested more in this subject. Maybe they can teach us a lesson.

In your next project hire an Actor

Most Projects overrun both in time and funding due to many reasons. Among these reasons is the not my job mindset. The concept of an employee not welling to break the chain of his knowledge that is tying him down from seeing the big picture. This phenomena leaves developers apart from engineers and engineers apart from managers.

If an Engineer gives a developer a set of requirements to develop a simple tool, the developer will simply slam down the requirements one after the other as code. Lets take an example.

Example
* Create a tool that will allow the user to select a Transformer and display the customers being fed from this transformer in a pop-up form.

The developer will simply do the simplest logic possible and show the customers he will show all the customer information (SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS). He doesn't care if the engineer need all or one of those fields.

If in this case the developer tries to put his shoes in the engineer (i.e. acting like an engineer) the results will be different.

The developer will say, if I am an engineer, what I want to see in the customers form? I need to see each customer address but most important I need to see how much each customer is consuming from that transformer in terms of percentage. Perhaps I should show that information on the map and make it more sexy by adding some color coding, red are high usage customers, green light usage customers.

Now some of you will say, developers hardly have the time to code what they have, they won't find the time to think like this and waste time. I say exactly the opposite, impersonating the client actually speeds up the development process. The reason is there will be less fixing and iterations and ping ponging between the client and the developer. Moreover, it will increase the quality of the application and promote your developers in seeing the pig picture instead of their own narrow space of sight.

This process is called Empathy. Try going to an acting class, I took Dan Pink's Advice and did go, I am really am improving in seeing

Batelco: When able to attack you must seem unable

By Sun Tzu from the Art of War

When able to attack you must seem unable

When you are in the battlefield it is wise to make the enemy feel you are not able to attack to let him gain confidence and go arrogant while you hide your winning cards for a counter attack. That's what the giant telecommunication in Bahrain (Batelco) did.

When menatelecom launched their 8Mbs speed Internet service in Nov 2008, at that time Batelco had only a 4Mbs.

Some of Batelco's customers churn defected to mena. Batelco enabled mena to enjoy this quick small victory and go arrogant.

Batelco waited few more months before it launched a 10 Mbs package even cheaper than mena's 8 Mbs and much more reliable.

Later we learned that this 10 Mbs package was already implemented by Batelco and was under testing when mena came to the market.

Now mena is struggling with the growing numbers of their customers and their service is getting worse everyday. Flip-Flop Customers are going back to Batelco.

Great strategy and a direct hit

P.S. I am not a fan of either side, I just admired Batelco's approach.

Randy's 11 Time Management Tips

In his book the Last Lecture, Dr Randy Pausch has listed a great time management tips that I love to share with you guys.

1. On your desk have only one task in front of you
With this you will have no distractions, and you can learn to focus.

2. Get a speaker phone
Now you can be productive when on hold

3. Telephone - Keep calls short
Keeping the calls short will save you more time. Stand during call

4. Telephone - Start by announcing goals for the call
If you set goals to the goal you will simply try to accomplish them by the end of the call and hence finish the call quickly.

5. Telephone - Don’t put your feet up
This is the comfort mode, aka more time.

6. Telephone - Have something in view to do next
So you can rush the call and do it.

7. Telephone - Have an excuse ready to get off the phone.
If the call dragged so long, slam that excuse.

8. Telephone - Prepare something fun to do after the call
So you are motivated to finish quickly.

9. Best time for Group calls
11:30am (before lunch) and 4:30pm (before quitting time) so people will not stay on the phone long.

10. Write hand written thank you notes
Its always faster


11. Make your office comfortable for youand optionally comfortable for Scheduling Yourself

You don’t find time for important things, you make it
Everything you do is an opportunity cost Learn to say “No”

TO DO List