Seriously though, I am in between jobs, things are quite hectic and I might be making the biggest leap of my life. I will try to squeeze in some posts every now and then.

Till then, stay safe and cheers! if you are looking for UX materials check the links, if you want some sarcasm and weird humor, check Cracked

Tomorrow, May 22nd, Pacman will be 30 years old. And this time Google is paying homage to Pacman with a doodle with a twist! Playable doodle! (and NOT in flash +1)

Over 200 levels to play with! (It’s being reported that the game will stay for 48 hours, so hurry up!)

What is really interesting about it is that it changes according to your query (duh!) making the whole “experience” smoother and better depending on what you are searching for.

In a more simple way:

1st query: Lebanon. You get “everything” along with the ability to filter, images, videos, news, blogs and maps. which makes sense, you are searching for a country after all.

2nd query: On the other hand, when you search for something “too generic” you only get “everything”

3rd query: Ipad. Everything, plus news, images, videos, blogs and most importantly “shopping”.  Smart search folks, excellent user experience, it beats me how competition will try to outsmart Google. Clean, crisp, usable and it’s giving us what we are asking/searching for. It can’t get any better than this.

Google makes me wanna search! and the “something different” is a nice touch! Graphics look more crisp and clean! Yummy page!

I will try not to bore you much, so here it goes.

We started at 10 o’clock in the morning (30 minutes late, just like in any Arabic event), a few word about the round table introducing the speakers et al…

First presentation was about branding, Joe Moufarej was explaining how branding affects the trust, loyalty, consistency, credibility, motivates the citizens, (all presentations will be available online soon!) It was pretty interesting as I personally think that government branding in the middle east STINK!

After an interesting discussion between Joe and the attendees about different examples and real case studies, it was my turn!

Here’s what I was supposed to talk about.

• Statistics and internet usage *yawn*
• What is web 2.0 *yawn*
• What is social media *yawn*
• Adapting social media in e-gov policies
• Why to use it in e-gov
• How to use it
• How to do it
• UX
• Case studies
• Missed opportunities
• *yawn*

Anyways, it was supposed to be a normal presentation, talk for 45 minutes or so, discuss, pack and leave home. It didn’t work that way…

I was sitting in a room filled with governmental folks from all over the Arab world, all of them, in one room, and they can only listen to what I have to say. This was an opportunity that comes ONCE in a lifetime, that’s when I unleashed my fury in a very polite way.

Excerpts (in no chronological order)

• I started off by making a statement: in all civilized countries, the governments fear the people except in the Arabic world, the citizens fear their governments and unless we change this, no miracle would work in this region.
• How do you know what the citizens are talking about other than having “moukhabarat” (intelligence services)?
• How do you expect people to trust you when someone who speaks his mind out he gets arrested (Mohammed Erraji? Fouad al-Farhan? Karim Arbaji? Abdel Kareem Soliman? Bashar Al-Sayegh?)
• Government employees, presidents, ministers, army, police, every “official” figure is actually an employee of the people, they are paying for their salaries, they work for them! Citizens should be taught that, officials should be reminded of that.
• Failed attempts in social media, Dubai in denial and never admitting that there is a financial crisis. Social Media is not about lying, social media is not politics.
• No citizen doesn’t love his city or country, it’s the practices of the government that makes them hate the government,  not the nation/country.
• Queen Rania rules
• Queen Rania really rules
• Queen Rania like really really really RULEZ!
• Minister Baroud rules
• Minister Baroud really really RULEZ
• No transparency no communication no information from ministries to the people.
• Governments need to shape up and be really transparent.
• Knowing information about how to open up a business is not a state secret, it should be available.
• A citizen has rights and duties, he won’t do what he has to do unless the government is working for him not against him.
• You are not the user, you should design for the user and not what the director/manager wants.

A small excerpt of what I talked about, of course, emphasizing on all these points to show how social media would work, how we (they?) should start from scratch, clean up their image, build/regain trust…yada yada yada.

I got a few frowns, I got some people to smile, I had people nodding in agreement, lots, tons of questions, if I had the time we would still be sitting and talking. I loved the fact that they were talking and asking about their failures and how to rectify it. The most positive vibe was from the Emirates group, one guy actually showed me a printed email from the VP Joe Bidden smiling and being all excited that “he took the time” to answer him personally saying with a firm tone “this is what we need”, an ex-intelligence officer smiled and said yes you should work on that, I smiled back at them and reminded them that they are the official figures.

The last presentation was about security from a hacker’s perspective, Karim Barbir generated some sweet funny vibes, loved every bit of his presentation. And I learned about a new security feature…fire extinguishers…whenever I see one I’ll crack a smile!

Lots of bashing of the iPad is going around, a twitter friend is waiting for me to sell the iPad (which I don’t own YET, but the spoof post lead him to think I did).

the short answer to the whole commotion about the iPad… it is not for everyone!

Just like a “smart” car is not for everyone! what Apple does, and they are really good at it, is releasing products that the masses will use (iPod/iPhone anyone?) the user experience is covered in details, no stones are left unturned.

When it comes to products not targeted towards the “power users”, Apple is doing a great job.

Just like it says in this presentation , Steve Jobs didn’t invent voicemail or text messaging…he just noticed that they were broken and he fixed them.

If you look at the Blackberry craze in Lebanon, teenagers cannot live without it. They are not using it for its “professional services” (just like someone likes to call it) They are glued to their BB to chat, post images on facebook and stalk people too.

And this is what the iPad does for the “non power users”:  chatting, emailing, listening to music, watching videos, playing games, browsing the web. and it does it in a simple intuitive and beautiful way! it has SOME multitasking features (google it folks).

When the iPhone was released, people bashed it, skeptics still fight it even after having sold over 40 million devices. Will the iPad be the same? I am betting my money on it. A piece of Apple that is cheap (money wise and not in Lebanon where it starts at 900USD from the ripoffs called Mac Shop at Virgin Megastores) that does exactly what the “non power” users need and want in a beautiful portable form.

The iPad is definitely NOT for me, but will I be getting one? yes! for a power user it’s an entertainment device, for the geek in me, it’s a cool device. I still didn’t get Kindle and now I definitely won’t! The iPad is my weapon of choice to read ebooks, newspapers and mags, to present mockups and wireframes to customers when on the move. Not to mention that the boring paper work can be done on iWork. Ah and I’ll be playing Need For Speed on the airplanes to kill the time.

The roads in Lebanon are ugly, it’s fact, just like the sunrise and sunset. It’s even more ugly with cars dating from Nebuchadnezzar spraying their fumes all over the air.

Here’s the plan:

New cars are tax exempt.

Cars that are two years old should be taxed 110%

Cars that are eco-friendly will benefit from extra reduction that the government itself covers (since the ministry of environment is in a coma state or their famous excuse “they are not letting us work”)

Plain, simple, effective, we clean up the roads (sights), and those who cannot afford to buy cars will be forced to buy “government-backed” eco-friendly cars and everybody’s happy.

just my two cents.

First panel for day two was about Online Advertising, it was moderated by Tarek Dajani…

noooooowwww! WTF DUDES? The guy was asking you for numbers, for “how to”, not for what you have accomplished! And he nailed them hard when he came back with a question, stating that they talk about stats, CTR, impressions, ROI…and they don’t have numbers! Go figure!

And one dude up there, a very impolite and rude person was sitting up there with his sunglasses on and his mobile switched on! He could have god knows what with his eyes, but he could’ve apologized and said that he has to leave them on! And WTF is up with the whole phone thing?! It was on silent mode and every two minutes it rang and messed up the whole sound system! Next Arabnet panel should be titled “SOCIAL MANNERS for dummies”  anyways, it was getting too hot for the guy, he started by rolling his sleeves up then taking off his shirt…anywhOO it stank.

The second panel was about the social media. The folks started with a strip in homage to Lorenzo Lamas from the first panel. Funny move.  It was moderated by Fawzi Rahal. To sum it all up, it was funny, alive, upbeat compared to the rest of the panels (both days!) Netlog/Facebook/Ikbis et al…

Gonna throw in some quotes (trying to be as accurate as possible folks!)

• 5 million users in the middle east on Netlog of which 2 million from the KSA
• There is a difference between a social network and a community (social network being Facebook, community being Netlog et al)
• Netlog is for young people finding new friends, not like Facebook for old people finding old friends
• If you are 16 years old you don’t hangout on Facebook with your 45 years old mother, that’s not cool.
• 15 to 20% of Facebook users switched to Arabic interface. 75% of Netlog users in the Middle East use the Arabic interface
• Google what? (in reference to Google buzz)
• SMEXbeirut: unfortunately, panel hasn’t acknowledged that activists, organizers, challengers pioneered the use of social media in the region
• The most successful applications on Facebook are the gaming apps…*yawn*

Jokes here and there, facts and FIGURES, dos and donts, it was good!

Third panel for the day was about gaming! I was excited like a 15 years old sneaking into his dad’s dirty magazines while he was away! And then…I dozed off, had a wet dream about Lara Croft’s pixelized breasts and ass and woke up! It was BORING (the panel, not Lara Croft’s pixelized breasts)!

Fourth, Mobile! What they did, what they explored, yada yada yada, I put my phone on vibrating mode, slipped it in my pants and started calling myself from another phone to kill some time..the Sony Ericsson dude explained what Augmented Reality is about…I’d like to thank ArabNet for setting up this panel cuz it turned out that some mobile “gurus” don’t even know what AR is…

Fifth and last..Content. Arabic content, the whole thing done in English. ‘nuff said. We need to create, we need to do we must, we should, we ought,  we could do with, it is required…yada yada yada…no solution.

Waited for the 30 minutes for the car after Omar gave the closing speech, had a short convo with the guy from Nokia, we both agreed that ArabNet was successful but…that will be my next post, an analysis of (personal view more like it) of the whole event.

• 100% of Ideathon 10 finalists were approached by investors
• 100% of Startup 10 finalists were approached by investors
• +600 attendees
• +200 simultaneous Ustream viewers
• +2,500 virtual attendees at live.arabnet.me
• +10,000 tweets
• Trending on Twitter globally (4th place)

There you have it folks! will post a resume of the second day of Arabnet some time later on tonight.