Monthly Archives: November 2009

New Phone, New Life

Posted on by
Reply

Finally cracked yesterday and decided I could no longer deal with a blackberry with the round ball thingy that does not move – rendering my blackberry a useless piece of plastic.I bought the Blackberry Gemini. It was exciting purchase in that it happened so fast – I asked for it at 11 (as I was just minutes from throwing the phone against the wall) and it arrived a couple of hours later totally unexpectedly.The good:

  • nice bright screen
  • good screen size and really light and thing
  • the new interface is slightly easier to use
  • the track pad

The bad:

  • although the shiny screen looks good, it dirty smudged really fast which is annoying
  • the layout of the keys is tighter than the old bb curve which takes getting used to
  • the keys are really hard and you have to press them making typing more work and slower (okay this gets really tiring…)

Overall I really like the phone although I really wish they would fix the keypad which is the most annoying feature.The bold goes for around 42,000 rps (almost double for a leather back, slightly bigger wider phone) so at 25,000 rps the gemini is a really good deal in my view.

A week of sickness

Posted on by
Reply

Been sick for almost a week. Aside would tossing and turning at night in fits of fever sweat and shivering sickness also means watching a lot of movies since I didn’t have much energy to see / do anything else. I don’t have malaria, but I tell you the P.dot virus is stronger than the Canadian kind because I haven’t been so sick in a long while.Here is a round up of the movies I watched:

Inglourious Basterds

So the thing I hate about Tarantino movies is his gratuitous violence (yes I know its Tarantino) and his apparent glee are showing women being violently brutalized. But ASIDE from that, I did like Inglourious Basterds. The mise en scene (thank you film studies 101) is beautiful and the plot line has choppy pacing that is great.Also, I’m not Jewish (obviously) but I can only image the deep rage Jews must feel (deep inside, festering, uncontrollable) about what the Nazi’s did to their people.  (Kind of like what most people of Muslim heritage feel when they see hooded prisoners, secret jails etc.) So the end action of the movie offers a great cathartic relief, as if you spend two hours fighting with the past and for once you’ve won.According to Wikipedia, all the movie posters / websites had to be changed for Germany since all Nazi iconography is illegal to use. Did not know that…I’m not sure if that good, or bad because it offers and easy way to not have to deal with your own past.

Madagascar 1 & 2

I can’t stop talking about the penguins in Madagascar – they are too cute. As a result, I liked Madagascar  2 better since the penguins get more screen time. My favorite scene is when the penguins are negotiating ‘with the commie bastards’ the monkeys, who want maternity leave.

Madagascar Penguins

Madagascar Penguins


Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince

I can’t believe Professor Dumbledore dies!!!By my surprise you would know that I didn’t read any of the potter books. They are tomes / tomes I tell you and I don’t have that kind of time or strength for fictional books. I think this episode was meh for the most part except – I do like that I could actually follow what was going on without getting super confused by the back story (i.e. who is the good guy, who’s the bad guy…) I am kindda getting sick of the whole ‘gosh darnnit – we 3 kids are always getting into trouble bit’ but I’m loving the sophisticated cinematography as the series progresses.

Mailer’s Barbary Shore

Posted on by
Reply

Finished reading Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer. Ok to be honest, I skipped maybe 30-40 pages in the end because I kindda got bored with the inquisition part of the book. Plus the copy I have is so old and tattered that there was pages missing and as I finished the last page the backcover disassembled from the spine.The book is definitely ‘of a certain time’; for the most part it was hard to relate to the Soviet/Communist interrogation as it feel like its part of such a long-gone time.(As in, my post 9/11 world had other concerns like secret prisons, Gitmo, Blackwater etc.)The best part of the book is the way the Guinevere manipulation of the main character are vividly and deliciously described. There are passages of double meaning in the book that make you re-read them thrice and leave my mouth gaping at Mailer’s ability to shape plain ‘ole words into beautiful art.

Marketing 360 gobbly gook

Posted on by
1

There is a very popular marketing forum in Pakistan called marketing 360.  Someone told me to get on the list when I moved here because this was apparently where all the marketing peeps connected. Here is a recent post:” The telecom company you are talking about believes in Ethic-ism rather than Intellectualism and ethics are beyond logic & reasons but based on pure experiential wisdom in other words one can call it mannerism of relationships. In ethic-ism its always a real natural benefit and embed in society and culture. Intellectualism is finding the reason n logic and creating a benefit which might be natural or forced when its natural in essence it works like great wisdom but when forced it’s meaningless hence increases the failure rate.Both ways are fine but ethic-ism is more stable, natural and beneficial to the adopter. My experience says ethics sells more!Kindest Regards,Ali Mirza “Now, I have been known to invent words myself – but umn? ” Ethic-ism “  what with the “ism” dude. Maybe you mean Ethicism?Never mind that, he goes on to say…  “ethics are beyond logic and reason” .. wha wha whaaaa?  In a 5 word sentence he’s  x-ed out a long history of moral philosophy that starts with Socrates – based on logic and reason.I can’t even understand what the rest of this mean means… “ethics are … based on pure experiential wisdom in other words one can call it mannerism of relationships”.What the hell is mannerism of relationships???Also, I hate to be nit-picky – but NOWHERE in the definition of “intellectualism” does it mean “finding the reason n logic and creating a benefit which might be natural or forced”.  WHAT?!I think the scary part of this goobly gook is the utter defeat your feel – you can’t really argue with someone if they have no logic in their argument.

Coco Channel + Tropic of Thunder

Posted on by
Reply

Watched the movie Coco Channel, no not the one with Audrey Tautou.From a movie perspective, it was the almost laughable cheesy. I really hated the narrative structure – the reminiscent flashbacks and the weird black transitions used.I did some research on Coco’s life. Apparently, some of the history is a bit glossed over; she had one sister and several brothers.Although the movie focuses on her life with “Boy” Chapel (and partially “Etienne” ) fast forward to her “later years” and ife in the second world war is also filled with a lot of intrigue and scandal.I also watched Tropic of Thunder and its a plot narrative – ahem and editing – and art direction – its a wayyyy better movie. I really loved the fake movie trailers in the beginning which are approved for ‘audiences’.Tropic Thunder – Fake Trailers!! – Watch more free videos

Pakistan Fashion Week

Posted on by
Reply

Went to the Friday night showing for the ‘First Annual Pakistan Fashion Week’.  Okay, I will skip all the general commentary about contrasts in Pakistani society, conservative vs. extremely un-conservative…blah blah blah.The show was good.(Un-conservative: that’s going to be my new work for opposite of conservative given all the heavy meaning and language politics words can have.)Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any “unauthorized” photographs (not that I would have anyways; way to look like a newbie) – so there isn’t much to post about.LOVED. This once girl (crowd) was wearing this lone vertically stripped poncho/long loose shirt off the shoulder type things. She also had a clutch in similar vertical stripes but thinner – which I LOVED. I was planning to pull a Sartorialist and be all like, I have a fashion blog can I photograph you? But the crowd after the show was insanely packed.Also loved the show for Sanam Chaudhry; it was full of flowing fabrics in amazingly vibrant colors. A lot of the peices were very vintage-y which I loved. Here collection was definitely very wear-able even if it wasn’t that innovative.I also really loved Maheen Hussain’s show which was basically scarfs and bags. I really loved the way she styles and showcased her products, and I the color combination were mouth watering-ly delicious.The last show was Rizwan Beyg and it was amazing – in all white with pearl embellishments and hand crafted his pieces were a work of art. Obviously, totally un-wearable but all about what clothes as art.The show was really well organized; even when the ‘bijli went out’ – the organizers did a great job. I also liked that they had awards for the best dressed women / men in the crowd. It was fun to get the interaction; an also all about how fashion is people own personal style.A LITTLE LESS LOVED.I was annoyed about the bored people looked at the time as if they didn’t really want to be there. Booo to the jaded socialite look. Also, boo to people that were clapping a little too loud and hooting! OMG.I was really enjoying the music too – especially whatever was playing during the Ismail Farid men’s wear collect. I can’t stop my body from moving when the beat is so good; but as expected everyone else was just sitting there with a bored look.Regardless – the fashion show was great. Hope to see a lot more of them in the future!

My life in a poll

Posted on by
Reply

Some of my peeps would know that I’m in a ‘virtual cold war’ with a certain someone.  I decided to do a survey of what my response should be….

Umbreen's Survey

Umbreen's Survey

The results are in. Seems like the consensus is that I should call it a truce of sorts. I have equal parts of peeps who would recommend I act like the US (impose embargoes) or like North Korea (truth bombs).

Survey Results

Survey Results

In reality I will attempt to write this certain someone a measured and thoughtful email. But I’m am delaying it for now….

If you haven’t heard: We are facing tough economic time(z)

Posted on by
Reply

For most of my 5+ years of working career I’ve been on the media side, first on the classifieds end (BuySell.com) and then on the classifieds + content end (Autonet.ca ).On the media end your energy is divided between building interesting content (so that the people come), figuring out how to sell the advertising around that content (what do the advertisers want? how do we efficiently use all out inventory?).In between there is lots of planning, building and tracking metrics, internal politics and fighting for resources – much like anywhere else.Now I’m working on the agency side the experience has been very different and eye opening. I’m generally lucky to be working at a digital agency where we do both planning, buying, strategy, web applications, social media et al. so the work is interesting and varied for the most part.Things I wish I knew back that that I know now: (I dare you to say this 10x)The benefits developing a close relationship with the buying agency (And umn… no I don’t mean in the kick-back kind of way…)It always surprises me how little interaction the local media sites (for the most part) have with us despite the fact that we probably account for a large portion of the overall online buys.I guess it’s because generally the online industry is so small here, it’s not enough revenue to really matter. But if you are spending significant money to build an online platform – you should be spending at least a decent amount of time trying to figure out how to effectively monetize it!My non rocket science advice:1.    Please don’t place ad spots at the bottom of the page as studies has shown that fewer eye balls see them2.    Please try to make your ad placement in BigBox (or LREC as they call it here) because it offers the most design options.3.    I would also love to see some interesting creative size like the half page ad; I tried it on Autonet.ca where the ad spaces could support both a BigBox or a Double Big Box (for the same CPM rate!) but for whatever reason it did not become popular.  I guess you have to be a site like the NY times for an advertiser to want to make special creative for you. I know from out end; we would be happy to include it in the plan to see what the response was like.I do have some junior level rocket science advice (develop a network by partnering with other sites; find ways to track users and serve them ads! take over the world! no wait… scratch the last one) but that’s for another post.On the other hand I’m glad I’m NOT on the media side right now. As a digital agency we focus a MOST of our attention on strategies for developing engagement directly with the customer through both Facebook and web applications and connecting directly via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WAP sites, SMS contest, developing blogs or even content portals.Once media was such an important component; now it’s increasingly irrelevant.Tough economic times for my favorite sites like NYTimes and TorontoStar.Although I haven’t been to either site in at least two weeks; but I did spend most of my ‘downtime’ today getting to level 21 on Mafia Wars and streaming the new episodes from The Daily Show…

4 Indispensible Tools for any Marketer

Posted on by
Reply

1. Google ReaderIf you don’t know what an RSS feed is, learn about it now and start using them! For the rest of us, we all know the number one challenge (in any industry) is keeping up to date with what is happening in your field.RSS feeds make life 1000% easier since you can easily track the blogs/websites/people that you find most interesting.Google Reader is in my opinion the best way to manage and keep track of your RSS feeds especially you’ve got a built-in network of colleagues who are also using it to share items of interest. 2) Screen Capture ToolsBelieve it or not, I have three (3!) screen capture tools installed in my browser.Although anyone in the online field (online media, marketing, web development, product management) would I have more uses for these tools; I find it hard to imagine a job where there is no need to ever capture an area of the screen.

  • Notable App: I recently discovered NotableApp and have started using it. The best things about NotableApp is that it allows you to quickly and easily highlight certain areas of your screen capture and add notes. You can also email the link to the screen capture with your notes; though I generally end up saving and sending a pdf. The personal version is free to use, allows for up to 3 users and 3GB of storage. Noteable has a firefox plugin which makes it very handy. The big drawback is that it doesn’t let you grab an image outsize of your browser screen – and sometimes you need to include info on browser setting (i.e. for reporting bugs) or the date and time the screenshot was captured.
  • Aviary is a mind-bogglingly cool company. This have a full suite of tools online applications for editing including an image editor (Phoenix) a vector editor (Raven) and a newly launched audio editor called Myna. Given our internet speed; full-fledged image editing online is a little too slow; but this company is definitely going to be a game changer for things like Photoshop and Illustrator in the future. (Are they watching and creating their own competitive products? Hello… anyone out there?) Anyways, I mostly use their screen capture tool called Talon. Again it has a Firefox extension so image capture is an easy one-click away. Talon let’s you capture an area of the screen or the full screen and you can edit the image using Falcon which is an image mark-up tool, if needed. Again there is no way to capture info outside of the browser scree

  • Screencast is by TechSmith makers of SnagIt. In my previous job as product manager SnagIt was probably the most used tool. But since there is not free version of the tool I’ve had to go greener (cheaper?) pastures. Screencast needs to be downloaded and installed onto your computer. You can capture a whole page, visible page only or a portion of the page but the best part of Screencast is that you can capture videos. This is really handy if you want to explain an interaction to a developer, or need to capture an interaction. You also get space to store your videos on Screencast which is great as you can easily add links to things in presentations without blowing up the size of your presentation.

3) Delicious Using delicious is probably nothing new for most marketers, I add this to the list because it’s probably one of the tools I use every day. I’ve become a religious bookmarker and I save anything I find remotely interesting – creating presentations becomes so much faster when you don’t have to hunt for the right references and examples. Searching for your bookmarked items in delicious is usually pretty good as you can search based on title, tags or comments. Probably one of the under-used items in delicious is where you can explore other people public tags of things; it’s a good way to hunt out relevant pages/sites/things/ideas. 4) Brand Monitoring ToolsThere are tons of tools that help you monitor your brand online; totally indispensible if you are a brand / marketing / product manager. Although there are many, Viral Heat, PeopleBrowsr and more, the only one I’ve used is Social Seek because again its free.It takes less than 5 mins to download, install and setup SocialSeek. You enter your brand name and it will monitor it on a range of websites including Blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Images on Flickr.This is just my list; what would you add to it?This post was also published on PakMediaBlog @ http://pakmediablog.net/otherstuff/4-indispensible-tools-for-any-marketer/