Jordan based Pulp Magazine published a list of the “Most Popular Blogs In Jordan”; people who are showing Jordan in a more interesting light.
And guess what? Subzero Blue is on the list.
The entry goes as follows: “He’s Tunisian, but he used to live in Jordan — He touches on all that is interesting around the world during his travels.”
Here’s a link to the full page.
I’d like to thank Pulp Magazine for including me on their list, it’s really a pleasure, I’m flattered.
More and more sustainable buildings, packed with a bunch of eco-friendly innovations, are popping up all over the world.
I just came across this list of the world’s top 10 greenest skyscrapers, of which three are in the Arab world:
1.The Bahrain World Trade Center Towers, Kingdom of Bahrain
2. The Pearl River Tower, Guangzhou, China
3. Bank of America Tower, New York City
4. The Lighthouse Tower, Dubai
5.The CIS Tower, Manchester England
6. The Hearst Tower, New York City
7.The Burj al-Taqa (Energy Tower), Dubai
8.Waugh Thistleton Residential Tower, London
9. 340 on the Park, Chicago
10. The Urban Cactus, Rotterdam
[Via: Arab Environment Monitor]
The other day we were shopping at one of the big stores, and I went on to pick up a bottle of skimmed milk; I was just checking the expiry date and other stuff when I found a little something I’m not used to finding on Tunisian products.
There was this little message informing customers that the same company also sold 0% Fat Yogurt with different flavors.
This isn’t a form of marketing you usually find on Tunisian products, even though I find it one of the most targeted, unobtrusive and interesting forms of advertising and marketing around because you’re talking directly to a customer who is surely interested in the other product you’re selling and who has already given his confidence to your company by choosing one of your products over the competition.
This is all great, it actually put a smile on my face seeing that Tunisians were getting smarter about marketing and advertising their products, and I went to check out the advertised product.
This is where they messed up whatever effort they made and advantage they got through their targeted marketing; the product was nowhere to be found, neither in that store not any other I’ve been to ever since.
So even though these guys have a great way to market their product to the right people in the right market segment, they fail to distribute their product well and lose everything they worked for, maybe even generating customers that are frustrated because of a product they haven’t even tried yet. That would mean that their good marketing push is actually generating the opposite effect to what anyone would wish for.
All this to say that one missing link in the chain is enough to spoil everything for the customer and the company, especially when that link is distribution.
So please, don’t market a product that doesn’t exist or is never available. It works against you and annoys the customers.
K. Stone posted over on LifeHack, offering a number of points that will help you overcome procrastination once and for all.
The overall idea is as follows:
– Know your most important goals and values.
– Only do tasks that contribute to those goals and values.
– Mentally link tasks to the pleasurable outcomes you seek.
– Plan your day & week.
– Do, but don
I just finished reading Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services by Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist at Apple Computer and current Venture Capitalist, in collaboration with previous coauthor Michele Moreno.
This is the first book I’ve read by Guy Kawasaki, and I know it won’t be the last; I really liked his entertaining light style of writing, that is clear and straight to the point.
The book is divided into three parts, whose titles alone show the book’s style and tone.
1. Create Like a God: This part discusses the way that radical new products and services must really be found, thought of, developed and updated.
2. Command Like a King: This one explains what kind of leaders are truly necessary in order for such revolutionary products and developments to succeed, the best way to market them and how to avoid the usual big mistakes.
3. Work Like a Slave: This last part focuses on the kind of commitment that is actually required to beat the odds and change the world, and how clients should be dealth with and treated.
A concluding section presents us with a bunch of entertaining and inspirational quotes on topics like technology, transportation, politics, entertainment, and medicine that illustrate how even some of history’s most successful ideas and people have prevailed despite the scoffing of naysayers.
This book is a very interesting read that I recommend for everyone looking to create a new product or service; it really has some very useful advice and tips.
Check this book out: Rules For Revolutionaries (Guy Kawasaki)
I found this interesting post about ten ways you can have a happy work day, and who wouldn’t want one of those.
The list goes as follows:
1. Eat breakfast
2. Get plenty of sunshine
3. Get Aerobic Exercise
4. Avoid RSS, Email or phone before 10 am.
5. Think positive thoughts not negative
6. Take breaks
7. Go for a mid-day walk
8. Avoid gossip
9. List your top 5-7 objectives for the day and break the list down to 3
10. Be slow to react to other people
Now here’s one creative thing to do with a mobile phone when you have a lot of time on your hands…
Bernocco took advantage of his idle time while commuting to and from work by train, writing his 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers), on his Nokia 6630 phone, using the phone’s T9 typing system.
By dividing his manuscript into short paragraphs, Mr. Bernocco wrote his novel in perfect Italian, not your typical text-message shorthand, and saved the paragraphs on his mobile phone. Mr. Bernocco then downloaded them onto his home computer for proofreading and editing. The book took him 17 weeks to write.
Source: CNW Group
Amazing, I can’t believe how much patience this guy has to write a whole book using a mobile phone; I barely use text messages because it’s annoying, so imagine having to go through this. Bravo.
Tunisia will launch an international tender soon for a fixed-line telecoms licence.
The news was published by Reuters, based on an article by Tunisian newspaper Le Quotidien.
This move comes upon a recommendation by the Tunisian President to speed up preparations so as to open up Tunisia’ s telecommunications sector.
A team charged with this project in the telecoms ministry is preparing an international tender to select a second fixed-line phone operator, thereby ending Tunisie Telecom’s monopoly.
State-controlled Tunisie Telecom still holds a monopoly in fixed-line services and controls 72 percent of the mobile market. Dubai’s Tecom holds a 35 percent stake in Tunisie Telecom after outbidding France’s Vivendi.
This is one of the best pieces of news I’ve heard in a long time, I can’t wait for this to come true and for Tunisie Telecom’s monopoly to end. Their service has been pretty mediocre when it comes to my case and their customer support is one of the worst I’ve ever had to deal with. I know a lot of other people who have the same problems as I do with Tunisie Telecom, but I’ll resist the temptation to generalize, even though maybe I should.
Anyway, the new company can count me as one of their first converts, if not even an evangelist.
So many people underestimate the power and importance of a smile, that simple little facial expression characterized by an upward curving of the corners of the mouth.
A smile has many meanings: pleasure, friendliness, welcome, amusement, and many more; and it is part of a universal body language that doesn’t need any extra interpretation.
Plus a smile, with all its simplcity and beauty, can be a very important factor in many aspects of our lives:
– You fall in love with a new country you visit because its people greet you with a welcoming smile everywhere you go; other countries you just don’t like even though they might have more history, nature, entertainment and whatnot because their people don’t seem so friendly or accepting.
– You feel like buying from a certain store when the vendor welcomes you in with a smile, sometimes even if you wouldn’t intially have bought anything; and in other stores, even though they have exactly what you need or better, you decide to walk away because the vendor doesn’t look welcoming at all.
– You want to give a waiter a good tip when he serves you with a smile, even if the food turns out not that good; on the other hand, sometimes you’ll have some of the best food ever, but you won’t feel like giving the waiter a tip, even if you do, because he was grumpy.
More and more examples from our everyday life show how much a simple smile can change everything.
Forever engraved in my mind will be the smiling faces of the people of Thailand, the friendly pizza delivery boy, the welcoming supermarket vendor, the nice cashier at the bank, …etc.
It is these smiles that keep me wanting to go back, and that keep us all wanting to go back; looking at it from another view, if we break it down using business sense, a smile is one of the most effective means to generate sales and develop customer loyalty.
On top of all that, a smile is a very simple and easy thing to do, so it amazes why no one bothers to do it, it not only makes the person in front of you better, but it also makes you feel better as well, and I’m not making this up, it has been psychologically proven.
Personally, I’d like to see more smiling faces in this world; in the airports when I enter a new country, in companies, government agencies, restaurants, hotels, banks, everywhere; and I think it is up to governments to campaign about this, and even make it obligatory in certain important places like airports, hospitals, hotels…etc.
Let’s all simply smile 🙂
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
