Story of hope story of change
Posted on | January 27, 2010 | No Comments
I keep running into people who are doing these amazing things, I like to call them my own private TED talks.
Last night I met Natalie Carney on Nightline and wow what a story!
From Facebook to YouTube this woman is really bent on bringing a face to the forgotten victims in Afghanistan, the orphaned children.
How do we make a difference?
By doing something!
Listen to the conversation last night.
And beyond sending 2 tonnes of clothing and toys what are Natalie and her friends doing?
They have created a calender, a beautiful calender of head shots of the orphans they have met and they are using that vehicle to raise badly needed funds to help create change in a particular place and time in Afghanistan.
Imagine if we all JUST DID one little thing for a cause we believe in!
Imagine! And now go find your love and do something, anything, right now.
Tags: afghanistan > carney > forgotten > kabul > natalie > orphans > victims
Reading a Jewel
Posted on | January 25, 2010 | No Comments
Reading, hard copy, and for the simple pleasure of ideas on a printed page.
Who would pick up a book about U2 and think they would find a motivational text, an entrepreneurial guide, a students handbook and comic tease all wedged into one package?
Well this is just that book!
I picked up the book because I really enjoy the music of U2 and to be honest the book was on sale for 5 dirhams (just over 1$ American).
The book is a collection of interviews, so the band is talking about their story in their words.
The art of teamwork might be a good title.
Against all odds might be a good title.
Hold on to your morality might be a good title.
The point is simple, we can find all sorts of inspiration and even lessons from the stories of others.
Whether you like U2 or not this is a great book to help you put your own life, love and obsessions in order.
What is even more amazing is how the story of the book is the story of the music and the story of the band.
The take away? Be you no matter what!
Talk, listen and wonder was it worth it, UAE conversations
Posted on | January 24, 2010 | No Comments
Dubai’s unwritten social contract
Dubai is not unique because of its world-class infrastructure or business-friendly climate; these things can be replicated. It is unique because of its ability to accept people from around the world with different, and often contradictory values
By Mishaal Al Gergawi, Special to Gulf News
Published: January 24, 2010 http://su.pr/1itm4v
Everyone has heard about the case of the British woman who was celebrating her engagement with her fiancé in a Dubai hotel on New Year’s Eve. The next day the woman claims she was raped by a staff member of the hotel while lying semiconscious in the toilet.The couple reports the case to the police and, upon questioning, admit to having consumed alcohol and having sex out of wedlock. Since this is illegal in the UAE, the police charge them both with illegal drinking and adultery.
Things become further complicated once it becomes clear that the woman is Muslim and so her actions contravene Sharia law. Of course, the original rape accusation is also recognised as a separate case, but this charge was proven to be false after reviewing CCTV footage.
LawAre the police wrong to file two separate cases? No, not technically at least. The official statement has made it clear that such admissions to breaking the law cannot be ignored. But is that really what we’re talking about here? No. There is a larger issue at stake here. I have heard that unmarried couples who had vacations to Dubai planned have been reconsidering.
Are they overreacting? No. The rape factor is insignificant here. The message that comes to any tourist’s mind while planning a vacation when considering Dubai is this: There are hotels that are licensed to sell me alcohol but I can be arrested for consuming it. There are hotel rooms that I can check into but I can be arrested for having sexual relations with my partner in them. Is this really the Dubai we know? Is this the city that prides itself on tolerance and harmonious coexistence?
It is one thing, though still controversial in my view, to prosecute unmarried couples who cohabit or have extra-marital relations. After all, they are residents in your city and by choosing to live here they must observe its values. But it is a completely different thing to prosecute tourists, people who are coming to your city for a short vacation, for consuming alcohol in licensed bars and restaurants and having sex privately in their hotel room.
What is the big idea here? Are we telling the world only come if you’re married? Why do we expect people to come to our country and completely abandon their personal values? Yes, these are personal values.
The ability and choice to have a relationship with someone in a private space is an extremely personal value. This is completely different from the now infamous public beach sex case of 2008. This was sex that occurred in the privacy of a legally occupied hotel room.
How did this private action offend anyone? And to demonstrate the inherent contradiction, I wonder why the hotel allowed them to check into the same room in the first place. The same applies to the alcohol situation. That’s akin to Switzerland’s ban of the minarets because it offends the Swiss Christian population and France’s proposed legislation to ban the burqa because it is un-European to cover one’s face.
Tolerance
The issue at hand is much more than the unfortunate application of the UAE’s law. The bedrock of Dubai is an unwritten social contract between the government, its locals and residents where the latter two groups are free to conduct their lives in as liberal or conservative a fashion as they please as long as it doesn’t upset Dubai’s delicate identity; this balancing act is the essence of Dubai’s appeal.This is why this incident and the message Dubai is sending by prosecuting this couple is more dangerous than the ill-timed and ill-managed debt standstill request by Dubai World just before the holidays.
Dubai is not unique because of its world-class infrastructure or business-friendly climate; these things can be replicated. It is unique because of its ability to accept people from around the world with different, and often contradictory values, provided they adhere to the lifestyle range that Dubai is willing to accept in the public sphere.
It was always understood that this would not be exercised in private spaces and spaces designated for specific activities. If this case is actually the beginning of a campaign to end this understanding then we will be living in a very different city very soon.
Dubai is not a melting pot, it is a tossed salad. No one changes when they come here; they simply apply Dubai’s dressing which makes it work. Now if someone starts changing this salad, removing the tomatoes, citing that cucumber and lettuce are enough, then I’m not sure the salad would taste the same. I like my salad just fine, please don’t reinvent it for me.
As for the police, who remind us that they cannot ignore such offences, I in turn remind them that they, and we, are better off focusing on clamping down on what seems to be an untouchable reality. Yes, I am referring to prostitution. I would like to see the police focus on this before arresting foreigners who do not even live here for simply having different values than their own. Dubai doesn’t need such misguided vigilance. I have no doubt that the couple will receive a pardon because if they don’t then much of what we’ve heard would’ve been rhetoric all along.
Mishaal Al Gergawi is an Emirati commentator on socio-economic and cultural affairs in the UAE.
Friends,
My column this week has gone viral faster than anything I’ve ever written before; nothing comes even close. I expect that some controversy will emerge out of my views so let me make my motives very clear: Dubai works because it doesn’t judge. If Dubai starts to judge then it better find itself a new name because it won’t be recognisable to its own people, let alone those who are not. This is a very difficult time for the city that is my hometown. I do not worry about the financial ramifications very much, there are far greater things at risk here. The people who have put it at this risk do not understand the far ramifications of what they are doing; they believe they are performing a long overdue clean and regulate service to it. Make no mistake, I support those two notions very much. However, the execution is completely off target. This weeks’ piece is devoted to what I fear is the beginning of this ‘cleaning’ campaign, next week’s will cover the ‘regulation’ aspect. Regardless of whether you agree with my views or not, it is important that you understand the stimulants of my views.
I expect my views to be received with special reservation from the more conservative demographic of Dubai. I want them to know that I would be just as incensed if the opposite happened (yes, it’s hard to imagine) and private conservative activities were persecuted. This article is not about sex per se, it is about the underlying freedom in one’s own legal private & specific activity spaces that are legally designated. I will write this last part in arabic to ensure that this point comes across very clearly to whoever reads this.
Finally, I have never ever wanted to be so wrong about something as much as this. Ever. Pray that I’m wrong. Pray that I’m over reacting to an ugly horrible yet one-off mistake.
Sincerely,Mishaal
Everything has a price how much are you willing to spend for what you believe?
Branding for Women
Posted on | January 18, 2010 | No Comments
For the last few years I have been very interested in how we brand ideas and concepts for the different segments of the population.
The mud on the wall method of delivering content, if some sticks it is ok approach, is simply not good enough.
Again and again I return to Michele Miller and Wonder Branding.
www.wonderbranding.com is a great site!
What makes this site really useful is the amount of material available to think about how you are marketing to women, over 1/2 of the global population is women remember!
But what is really interesting is Michele herself.
So, when it comes to education, public policy, marketing… how much time to do we soend thinking about presenting the ideas to women in a way that appeals to them?
Exactly!
Time to begin thinking differently.
Food for thought from Michele Miller.
Tags: ad > Education > marketing > michele > miller > thinking > wizard > women
Just got back my time!
Posted on | January 17, 2010 | No Comments
For years my wife has been telling me that we are in the middle of one of the greatest con-jobs ever, time theft!
I am sure you are repeating those words, time theft and wondering what can I be talking about.
Well, if you are anything like me you spend a bit of time on the email. messages come in and people think, dream and hope really, that you will put your life on hold and tend to their needs!
Not so long ago, 15 years maybe, we got the mail a couple of times a day delivered to the office, a few memos and probably a stack of phone messages that we worked our way through and then re-started the next day!
Life was good, life was easy, life was organized and we lived with reasonable time expectations.
So why do we put up with the demands on our time that are unreasonable?
I want to go back to the better days!
Tim Ferriss author of the 4 hour work week he did this long ago, went back to the old way of dealing with demands on his time, he looks at his email once a day!
It is liberating in more ways than one!
This past weekend I did it!
Here is the new auto reply on my email account!
Thank you for contacting me via email.
I only look at my email account weekdays in the morning before 10am.
You can expect a response by tomorrow.
Alternatively weekdays I am in my office and can be reached at 00971 4-402-1455. Leave a message on the machine I do listen and return them.
I am also on twitter JAMESED_ME and Facebook, James Piecowye, these are alternative ways to contact me.
Again thank you for your message.
James
I cannot tell you the liberation I feel by just telling people that I own my time and I will get to their needs in good time!
And if a person really needs something they can call me, they can come to the office but they cannot just send an email and expect me to jump.
I fell like I have gone back to the future!
Tags: electronic > email > james > management > personal > piecowye > time
The new world of work
Posted on | January 14, 2010 | No Comments
THE 2009 DALTON CAMP LECTURE IN JOURNALISM
Listen
One of the toughest parts of working in education is knowing that you are teaching a group of students of which some will go into careers that at this exact moment do not exist.
So, the question has to be, am I giving them the skills they need?
Unfortunately, and I do mean unfortunately, there are many academics around the world who really truly have no clue and are prepared to teach what they have been teaching the same way they have been teaching it for the last 2 decades with no care in the world for how their students might use, apply or think about that content.
Of course part of the problem is rapid application change of technology.
Technology itself is not really changing that fast but the way we use and apply it is strapped to a rocket heading for orbit.
So what do our teachers and professors need to do?
Look and listen more actively to their environment, oh and dare to try something newer.
I am particularly interested in the changes coming about in journalism and really see the trade having gone full circle back to the personalized niche content it was way back when.
I stumbled, quite literally, upon the Dalton Camp lecture on journalism being delivered by Sue Gardner executive director of the Wikimedia foundation.
For me, anyway, this talk helps me understand how the study of technology and the application of it might be refocused in the classroom and beyond to at least hint at how students might use old and new tools being delivered in academia for their future.
The lecture was broadcast on Ideas a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program.
I would love to read your comments!
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/audio.html is where you can hear more Ideas programs.
Here are the details of the Camp lecture.
November 26
THE 2009 DALTON CAMP LECTURE IN JOURNALISM
Listen
Journalism is facing new challenges as it evolves in the context of online environments. Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation delivers the Dalton Camp Lecture at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.
Tags: aplication > camp > cbc > change > dalton > Education > foundation > gardner > ideas > james > journalism > lecture > piecowye > professor > student > sue > Technology > wikimedia
apps are the future.
Posted on | January 10, 2010 | No Comments
The 4th screen (your mobile/cellular phone) holds the key to your information world.
And are we teaching app creation, management, imagination in our schools?
I suspect many teachers/professors have only a passing knowledge about apps given that they are not using phones that easily take on board advanced applications.
My advice to students, anyone really, don’t wait for the established education medium to teach you what you need to know just go a get the knowledge!
And bring the new back to the slower education you are engaged in to create a process that is nothing short of a powerhouse! Personal and institutional collaboration trumps either individually any time
I really like MotherApp when it comes to app thinking.Here is what they are all about!
We create mobile apps on all major platforms
Currently, there are six different mobile platforms on the market, none of which are compatible. To reach every mobile user, applications must be developed separately on each platform, which often requires outsourcing work to multiple teams.
MotherApp provides an end-to-end customizable app generation service, which enables you to create mobile apps using one source code for all major platforms. This decreases your development cost and time-to-market and simplifies the app generation process. With MotherApp, developing apps have never been so easy.
How it works
We use our patent-pending technology to automate the mobile app creation process across multiple platforms, saving time and money.
This to me is the essence of a WEB2.0 lifestyle.
Use tools that ENABLE you to create the content and let the techie do what they do best, and that is never content!
I look at MotherApp and wonder how I can use this to get my course content out to my students and a much wider audience! I have a plan in the germination phase. The problem until I found MotherApp was how to get my content onto the 6 platforms for Smart-phones at the same time!
Now there is no problem!
Let the fun begin.
Tags: app > content > Education > enable > james > motherapp > piecowye > university > zayed
Why we fail?
Posted on | January 10, 2010 | No Comments
One of our greatest problems today is the silo culture of education.
Business schools do not talk to design schools who do not talk to education schools who do not talk to IT schools and nobody is talking to the cooking schools.
Well, if the core elements of our education system are not relating to each other what chance do you and I have when we leave the ivory tower?
I try to keep up with Tom Peters (and others see the blog-roll on his site for a start) to be grounded in business think, TED to see how the divergent converge and I think it is working.
What we really need to remember is trust in ourselves, we never trust we have anything figured out.
Tom Peters talks about a few people who made trust and circumstance work for them, give it a watch it is very good!
So, what is stopping you from starting that thing?
Tags: career > Education > ideas > Innovation > thinking > tom peters > trust
Think Niche
Posted on | January 6, 2010 | 1 Comment
You want to know what our problem is?
We collectively think too much about the big picture and the latest and greatest technology FAILING to realize that we live, work and breath the small picture and that most of us are using old tech (over a year old) to do most everything!
Want to succeed?
1. look around, listen and watch
-try to get a feel for what people are doing and what they are using to do it
2. don’t be afraid of hype-local which also means hyper niche
-so many of us are blinded by the next best thing mentality that we forget that there are some old things that can be tweaked to be even better
3. play
-try stuff with people who are not afraid to experiment and fail at it, I find hanging around with students the best place to do this
This article from the New York Times really has me thinking about the 2 ideas of niche and simple and of course how we can bring, in my case education materials, to those right around where I live.
Are we back in the Commodore 64 era?
What we all see, I bet someone around you is using an old cellphone, is opportunity knocking on our niche and hyper-local application door.
Answer it!
Find the motivation $$$
Posted on | January 6, 2010 | No Comments
Stuart Flemming of enviroserve.ae spoke to me about how we can motivate companies to be more environmentally friendly!
A conversation with Stuart Flemming of Enviroserve.ae about motivating environmental change!
Flemming has just launched enviroAudits that make it clear how much you can save by making simple changes, it is all in black and white!
Once again what motivates us? Money.
Tags: audits > environment > enviroserve > flemming > james > piecowye > stuart > UAE
Mobile Access to JamesEd
Share JamesEd on Twitter.
Contact James
Categories
Useful Web Links
FriendFeed
Share JamesEd
Twitter Updates
Tags
Archives
Jamesed.com by James Piecowye is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at www.jamesed.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.jamesed.com.
