فى هذه المحاضرة الرائعة التى ألقاها رائد الأعمال اليمنى عماد المسعودى خلاصة لما نحتاج له فى عالمنا العربى كى نتفوق و نصبح من الأمم الراقية اقتصاديّاً

التعليم و الوظائف و التمويل

التعليم : خان أكاديمى و كورسيرا و غيرهما لم يتركوا حجّة لمن يريد أن يتعلم و يقول أنه لا يستطيع

الوظائف: مواقع الوظائف الحرّة بدايةً  من أمازون ميكانيكان تِرك مروراً بـ Elance و وصولاً لأكبر المواقع التى تحتاج لمهارات علمية و إبداعية معقدة مثل innocentive و justAnswer تتيح لك فرصة العمل مع شركات و عملاء أجانب و تتقاضى أرباحك بالدولار.

التمويل: منصات التمويل فى ازدياد .. للمشروعات الصغيرة التنموية لدينا Kiva.org و للمشاريع الإبداعية لدينا KickStarter و فى وطننا العربى سمعت أنا منذ أيام بشركة جديدة فى وطننا العربى و هى ذومال و التى شارك فيها أربعة من شركات استثمار الأموال الكبرى بالوطن العربى إحداها شركة Sawari

إسم المحاضرة راجع للمقولة الشهيرة لسيدنا عبد الرحمن بن عوف حينما عرض عليه أخوه من الأنصار نصف مالِه .. فقال له سيدنا عبد الرحمن بن عوف بارك الله لك فى مالك و أهلك .. و لكن دلّنى على السوق

للشباب العربى .. السوق موجود و ها هو عماد فى هذا الفيديو الرائع يدلّكم عليه .. فهل من مبادرين ؟

Today I met this nice picture about entrepreneurship from MIT Entreprise Forum, Pan Arab Region.

Actually you might think of entrepreneurship as a way of living a restful life where you are the master and all your wishes come true. If this is your imagination please do yourself a favor and look for a full time job.

Entrepreneurs suffer much more than employees. It's NOT easy AT ALL to live as an entrepreneur. Cause this brilliant quote is so true

" Success is like pregnancy, everybody congratulates you when you're pregnant but nobody knows how many times you were fu#ked to achieve it "

Same here with entrepreneurship. You fail 100 times and nobody knows or cares but when you make it everybody thinks that you're lucky. It's not about luck, you just don't see the failures which by all means are much more than the successes.

If you're not ready to fail and fail and fail and try harder and smarter every time then don't waste your time, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND GET A FULL TIME JOB!

OLPC initiative in Afghanistan, From OLPC website

I live in Egypt, which is considered one of the world's developing countries. We have  problems with education. We have a high percentage of illiteracy around 28% according to Wikipedia. I read years ago about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. It's a modest laptop for children that helps in revolutionising the educational sectors in developing countries.  It's a laptop that was targeted to be less than $100 and it's resistent to destructive behaviours like pouring water, falling on the floor, filling with dust. It's amazing. Watch this short video by David Pogue demoing the laptop back in 2007.

OLPC has developed a lot in the previous years, even the name became XO, and now they even announced a tablet under development. A tablet designed for kids and will be sold for less than $100. They promised that this tablet will see the light in 2012 and we hope to see it.

Simply this is amazing. But why didn't our governments adopt such great initiatives to improve education?! .. I believe they're paid to improve the country and make it better every single day but unfortunately I didn't touch this in the past few years.

I wish that someday we will have many geeks/developers/scientists from developing countries and I believe education, specially for kids, is the way to achieve this goal.

In your opinion, what does this laptop/tablet need to offer to be able to shift the education from its miserable state today to the state that we're dreaming of ? 

One of my interests is user experience design.  User experience design is not only about the shape and look. Steve Jobs had a very famous quote concerning design and I believe that it is very true.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works

It seems that not many companies understood this principle. One of these few companies that understood and followed this principle, in my opinion, is Dropbox.

Dropbox has focused on a two points since it was launched. Ease of use and Working everywhere. You can now find dropbox clients almost for any platform you're working on. And Dropbox is dead simple to use. You don't have to learn or remember anything about it and this,in my opinion , is the secret sauce of Dropbox success.

Recently I got email from Dropbox announcing a cool new feature which is Dropbox links.

Now you can make links to files or folders in your Dropbox. Quickly share your photos, docs, and videos with friends and colleagues — even if they don't have Dropbox!

Is this the new feature, I believe no cause I've shared items via dropbox with people who didn't have dropbox before but what's new is this

Click the picture to enlarge it!

Notice now how simple it is to share files and even complete folder to anyone. It's extremely simple. Dropbox UX Design team is genius, no doubt about it.

I recommend that you try this new feature and tell me your opinion

The Saudi mobile operator Mobily has lately announced its Mobile Apps Award for the year 2012 with prizes totalling up to $90,000. The competition has 3 prizes, each prize is $30,000 and there are three titles:

1. Best Application
2. Best App Idea
3. Best App Design

Hurry up cause the deadline is very soon, it's December 14th 2012. Developers from all over the world are allowed and encouraged to enroll.

Have you enrolled in alike competitions before? .. Let me know what do you think of competitions of this kind in the comments section below.

For more information about the competition check this link

I've just received an email from pinterest. I was hesitated about reading it cause it seemed to be long, but the content captured my attention as marketing loving person.

Instead of breaking the window and trowing the announcement through it, the sender told a story. And the not-too-short email felt a nice-to-read morning message. Here's the content of the email:

Hi, Bassem!

I had two thoughts driving home from the hospital with my wife, Divya. The first was, “I can’t believe I’m a Dad.” The second was, “I hope I can get our new baby, Max, out of that new car seat when we get home.” During the first couple weeks, we started to figure out all the little things that are second nature for experienced parents: changing diapers, swaddling a wriggly infant, and doing every household task with one arm. As usual, Divya was a few steps ahead of me. When our doctor suggested we buy a humidifier she said, “Oh, I already have one!” When I was getting Max ready for his first bath, she pulled out a neat homemade bath kit, complete with a tiny towel, comb and toothbrush. I felt like I’d forgotten to read a secret New Baby Instruction Manual. In an exasperated moment, I remember asking Divya, “How did you figure all this stuff out already?!” She looked at me and and cheerfully replied, “I just follow other parents on Pinterest!” Over the last year, there have been so many ways, big and small, that the Pinterest community has made my life better. I’m happy to say that I’m not alone. We’ve heard from teachers who use Pinterest to plan lessons, chefs who share recipes, and museums that pin their archives. We've also heard from millions of people who’ve been inspired to pick up an old hobby or try something new. It’s honestly more than we ever expected when we started Pinterest. We’re humbled to be part of such a positive, warm and creative community. Today, we’re excited to continue this tradition with a new feature we hope will make Pinterest even better—secret boards. Secret boards give you a place for things you’re not quite ready to share yet, like a surprise party, special gift ideas, or even planning for a new baby. We’re testing out the feature by giving everyone 3 secret boards. You’ll find them at the bottom of your profile. We can’t wait to hear what you think! On behalf of our team here at Pinterest, thanks so much for pinning, inviting your friends, and sending us ideas for how we can improve. Most of all, thanks for sharing your inspirations. With your help, we’ll make Pinterest a little better every day. —Ben & the Pinterest Team

Happy pinning!

And you read the story .. liked pinterest .. got informed about the new feature and felt that it's a valuable thing. Amazing, isn't it ?

Lately I've finished reading the book called "The 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding" authored by AL Ries and Laura Ries.
This book is awesome, showing 22 laws to follow when you're creating, growing and sustaining a brand with great examples, of known brands is the United States, of how some brands succeeded and others failed.

I highly recommend reading this book and in this post I'll put the 22 Immutable laws of branding to ease their access later.

1. The Law of Expansion: The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope.
2. The Law of Contraction: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.
3. The Law of Publicity: The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising.
4. The Law of Advertising: Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy.
5. The Law of The Word: A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.
6. The Law of Credentials: The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.
7. The Law of Quality: Quality is important, but brands are not build by quality alone.
8. The Law of The Category: A leading brand should promote the category, not the brand.
9. The Law of The Name: In the long run a brand is nothing more than a name.
10. The Law of Extensions: The easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything.
11. The Law of Fellowship: In order to build a category, a brand should welcome other brands.
12. The Law of The Generic: One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name.
13. The Law of The Company: Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference.
14. The Law of Subbrands: What branding builds, subbranding can destroy.
15. The Law of Siblings: There is a time and a place to launch a second brand.
16. The Law of Shape: A brand's logotype should be designed to fit the eyes. Both eyes.
17. The Law of Color: A brand should use a color that is the opposite of its major competitor's.
18. The Law of Borders: There are no barriers to global branding. A brand should know no borders.
19. The Law of Consistency: A brand is not built overnight, Success is measured in decades, not years.
20. The Law of Change: Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very carefully.
21. The Law of Mortality: No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the best solution.
22. The Law of Singularity: The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness.

            

I believe that Arabs Got Talent, many talents actually. Programming talents, Design talents, Business talents, Engineering talents. But unfortunately these talents aren't important for Arab audience. A hot chick is always better to watch, fund and support .. Millions of voters for hot chicks, paying millions of dollars. But to fund technology startups or young bright minds , that's not a will of our audience .. That's why we suck :(

Making money must not be the soul purpose of real entrepreneurs. Either they have a meaning that they wanna deliver in this life or go fuckingly work for a multinational in Dubai and make tons of money. I believe money is a result of delivering value to customers.  You can deliver the most value when you are working on something you're happy to do even if nobody showed you the money. If you didn't find it just Keep Looking & Don't settle. If you're not a real entrepreneur just admit it and go to LinkedIn >> search for Dubai >> apply for the jobs :) , it's normal that not all of us are born to be entrepreneurs.

صادفت اليوم على الانترنت دليل رائع للأستاذ رءوف شبايك يوضح فيه كيفية استخدام الألوان فى التسويق

يوضح الدليل المكون من صفحة واحدة أهمية الألون و دلالاتها المختلفة و معانيها بالنسبة للزبائن 

إضغط على الصورة للتكبير

1. Apple is the largest startup in the world.
2. Teamwork and Trusting your teams
3. Empowering your teams and people to make decisions and have arguments with the boss, without the boss winning all the arguments .. otherwise good people will leave your company.

This man had a real bright business mind

in "Good to Great" Jim Collins introduced a very important concept.
This concept helps any company to be transformed from good to Great.
This concept is called The Hedgehog concept.


What makes the hedgehog strong, while being small and light?
IT KNOWS ITSELF BEST


when a hedgehog feels danger os gets attacked it becomes a ball of spines.
It's still small and light but you'll be afraid of touching it.


In business world the hedgehog concept is about "Knowing Yourself"


You must know 3 things to be a great company:
1.What are you deeply passionate about?
2.What can you be the best in the world at?
3.What is your economic engine* ?

*Economic engine = profit generation machine :)

So if any "opportunity" fails the hedgehog test. Say Thanks to it and leave it for its suitable hedgehog. 

Regards,

Bassem Elhawary

This is the WWDC 1997 Closing Keynote by Steve Jobs

This great link has 16 tips extracted from it. Aslo some text of the questions

Keep Shining :)

"It’s not about a single moment of inspiration or brilliance, it’s years and years of practice and hard work … Anything that’s really awesome takes a lot of work." .. Mark Zuckerberg

Enjoy this short video!

This is a must-see Google IO session for all mobile apps developers and respectable mobile apps development companies (companies that don't suck)

session title: 

Don't just build a mobile app. Build a business

This is the website they built for the developers

http://www.guidetotheappgalaxy.com

and this is the link for google Analytics for mobile

http://code.google.com/mobile/analytics

Special thanks to my Friend @MamdouhAlShamy for telling me about this great session.

Good Luck with your apps business!

In this TEDxRamallah talk Fadi Ghandour ,The legendary Aramex founder, is talking about Entrepreneurs role towards community .. Remember guys, it's not always about the money

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