Why To Run?

This is the shirt that I usually wear in marathons. Although I am not an athlete, but participating in a couple of 10 km fun-runs made me think of sharing my jogging reflections.

Committing to marathons helps maintain one's fitness level, the festive atmosphere of the marathon might even help you discover and unleash hidden potential. One good thing about marathons is that part of the participation fees would support charity. However, you can also promote a  good cause yourself by wearing your own shirt (for me I have Nosochi2014.com on my shirt). It feels awesome to participate in your first marathon and it feels great:

• To challenge yourself and beat your own record
• To convince a friend to participate in their first marathon
• To cross the finish line where your persistence helped you 1 km at a time go through the whole distance; continuous minor efforts sum up to a considerable one.

You can run or walk in a marathon, but you can never underestimate an individual effort.

The 3 Stages of Enhancing Knowledge

Have you ever tried to explain/write a topic that you already know to somebody else? How did it feel? Did it improve your understanding of that topic in anyway?

I try to keep this blog less about myself, but today there will be an exception as I will be confessing my reasons for blogging. About four years ago, Dr. Samir Bata taught me the 3 stages of enhancing knowledge:
1. If you learn something

2. & understand it (or in other words; apply it)

3. then teach it (share it), it becomes part of you.

When I started blogging I did not tell anyone about it, I did it for myself but later found out that my humble blog helped me learn something new each month and to some extent became part of my brand. And it feels great when you leave a good impact on others because of one of your post; it was indeed worth the time and the effort.

3 as in bus stand number three, 3 as in the three stages of knowledge.. oh and 3 as in happy 3-year birthday 7aleva.com! Thank you Dr. Samir.

Google Sync: Contacts & Calendar

Similar to how Windows runs on a computer, Android is an operating system by Google that runs on mobiles. In this awesome day I will present two of my favorite Android features; Google Calendar Sync and Google Contacts Sync.

Sync (or synchronize) means regardless if I edit a contact or add a reminder from my mobile or from my computer it will appear on both. To enable this feature on an Android device go to Menu > Settings > Account & sync then choose your gmail account, check both Sync Contacts and Sync Calendar.

Google Contacts (www.google.com/contacts)

One place for your phone book and email addresses, this way if you lost your phone or if it gets damaged you will automatically have a backup for all your contacts that saves you some drama.

Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar)

Although I still use my pocket dairy to manage day to day tasks, I use Google Calendar to markup the events I cannot afford to miss and for recurring events (birthdays, blogging reminders, monthly fees..etc) it can even be useful in inviting others to a group meeting. One useful Android application is called Smooth Calendar, this widget shows upcoming reminders on home screen and serves as a shortcut to the calendar.

Not an Android fan? No worries, you can still sync Blackberry, iphone, Nokia and Windows deveices (here are more details www.google.com/mobile/sync). This time my special thanks goes to my lovely nieces Tala and Layan.

The Lesson I learned from Blogger & flickr

In case you have noticed, my blog is hosted over Blogger (which is a Google service) while the images used in posts reside on my flickr account (flickr is owned by YAHOO). Despite being a Google fan, Google and YAHOO are both considered two internet search giants; or in other words competitors and most of the time competitors put hurdles in each others' lanes.

Well at least not in the case of Blogger and flickr where both encourage cross collaboration and eventually benefit from spreading the two services. On the one hand Google has its own photo sharing platform called Picasa but that does not mean it prevents using images from flickr, on the other hand flickr uses shortcuts to ease blogging of any image.

This could relate to Google's slogan don't be evil, or it could have to do with the popular proverb if you can't beat them join them, yet the bottom line is; your competitor does not necessarily have to be your enemy.

The W Technique

This performer of London's Covent Garden will help me today in introducing one simple yet helpful presentation skill called The W Technique. I have been using this technique for more than 5 years, and I can guarantee it works regardless of the number of attendees or the type of the gathering (Business and Social).

As you can see, our friend has managed to grab the attention of the audience (ok, maybe except that girl wearing purple on the right). Keeping eye contact is the key to keeping attendees' attention. The whole idea is to slowly scan the audience from one end to the other -back and forth- with your eye contact as if you are drawing a W letter with your eyesight.

This might be a mini-post, hence I will share with you this bank of presentation skills [ www.lifeafterpowerpoint.com ], enjoy your day!

What is cc ?

You might have been introduced to the Ⓒ copyright symbol, but what's up with the double C's ?

(cc) stands for creative commons; a nonprofit organization that believes in the power of sharing creativity. Unlike copyrighted material that you usually have to pay for, using creative commons material is only controlled by a simple type of license (for example: some creators might not allow re-editing). Hence, if you intend to look for music, pictures or even videos, the starting point would be by going to: http://creativecommons.org/

So, what's in it for the author who uses (cc) content?

The author gets to use quality content for free.

What's in it for the original creator?

The creator could become famous by contributing for free. For example: All my pictures in flickr are shared under (cc), please have a look at the second picture used in this article.

Besides introducing the role creative commons seeks to influence culture in this globe, my goal in this post was also to share this inspiring concept. Can you imagine how great the founders of this organization are; who contribute something towards others without even expecting any return? Well if you want something good to brag about, now you may support creative commons and order from their store.

PS. Special thanks goes to Clara and Mithaq

Conceptual Consumption

This is one gorgeous Harley-Davidson motorcycle! According to Harley-Davidson their vision is stated as follows:

"We fulfill dreams inspired by the many roads of the world by providing extraordinary motorcycles and customer experiences. We fuel the passion for freedom in our customers to express their own individuality."

So, it looks to me that riding an HD is all about freedom mixed with a blend of being rebellious. Yet some would go for a Harley not to satisfy the freedom need, but to have the image of a freedom-loving rider and its associated lifestyle. Even in some countries where owning a motorcycle needs an exclusive sort of license, someone might buy an HD to indicate he/she has the power of making it happen; this type of behavior is called conceptual consumption.

While physical consumption is related to the core benefit or quality of a product (example: food in a restaurant) conceptual consumption is related to the psychological attribute of consumption (example: the exclusivity of experiencing that restaurant). Interestingly, a consumer might sacrifice a physical consumption experience for a conceptual consumption experience in order to impress others and achieve a self-fulfilling prophecy. For instance, buying a a high-consuming car to be associated with the authority and power of that gigantic car.

Conceptual consumption was introduced by Dan Ariely and Michael Norton (Ariely and Norton 2009)* and one sure thing is that it can be utilized in business to sell something and drive the desired behavior of the consumer. My special thanks goes to Dr. Phil Jones for introducing me to this term.

* Ariely, Dan and Michael I. Norton (2009), “Conceptual Consumption,” Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 475-499

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a strategic method which helps us make a decision or even solve problems. SWOT stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Strengths are our advantages over others

Weaknesses represent our disadvantages in relation to others

Opportunities are the positive conditions in the external environment

Threats represent the unfavorable external circumstances

Once we set our SWOT analysis, one of the wisest things to do would be to convert our weakness into strength or even the threats into opportunities. My favorite example would be of an Ethiopian named Haile Gebrselassie.

Haile grew up in a farm where he had to run 10 km each day back and forth to get to the nearest school. Nowadays, he runs with his left arm bent because of being used to holding school books while running yet the difference is that he is now one of the greatest runners of all time; Haile has set so far 20 world records and clearly overcame his weakness and threats and made them into strengths and opportunities.

Value Added Services

As you can tell I had some black olives lately, but is there any difference between the two plates? One plate has pitted olives and the other has sliced ones, the grocery store I go to sells them for JOD 3.35/Kg and JOD 3.9/Kg respectively.

Impressive! What justifies being charged an extra 18% for a sliced olive than the pitted olive. The answer relies in Value Added Services (or VAS). An olive is a core product, yet slicing an olive is an extra service.

If you are a seller, VAS can be utilized so that it gives more value for the money paid by the customer; in other words it might justify the price desired by the seller. On the other hand VAS may be used to present an exclusive component that distinguishes your customer than others or even increase loyalty.

If you are a customer you can also utilize VAS but it depends on your priority as buyer. If all what you care about is the standard feature, look for a product with minimum VAS possible as it will usually be more affordable (Remember the Postal Saving Bank example? No ATM + No Internet Banking = Higher ROI).

SMS, MMS  and GPRS are all popular example of VAS that are widely spread among the telecom industry.

SMART Goals

As we start the new year, it never gets any better than this time to set the new year's resolutions for 2011. Having SMART goals is the key, SMART stands for:

Specific

Measurable

Agreed upon

Realistic

Time-bound

The good thing about these goals is that you can deploy them anywhere; in your yearly job objectives, in your personal progress plans, or even in your daily life obstacles. Here is an example of a SMART goal: After five years (in 2016) I will be running in the New York Marathon!

By the way, due to the popularity of the New York Marathon, the primary selection criteria for it is by lottery. So, count your blessings if your guaranteed participation in a marathon is a piece of cake, because New Yorkers' isn't.