The challenge for businesses today is not just selling products and services, but rather enhancing and amplifying the perception of the brand. This is done through crafting positive and emotional brand experiences that meet the customers’ expectations. Anytime, anywhere.

More in the below presentation:

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They died because we knew all this,
and still glorified you.

Until we change,
Until we change you,
they will keep on dying.

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Let us stop with the rise like a Phoenix analogy.
We really don’t want to keep rising from the ashes.
Frankly, we do not want to die in the first place, let alone rise again in a life of hardship that viciously repeats itself.

We want to live and celebrate life, not death.

We, the people of Lebanon, have lost drive, purpose, and ambition, and most importantly, hope.

We have been turned into refugees in our land, no different than the people who lived here thousands of years ago. I am not talking about the Phoenicians, at least they were merchants and had a good economy, I am referring to those who lived in dark caves, those whose only purpose in life was to survive and make it to the next day.

Why is it that we, the Lebanese people, are the most successful ex-pats in the world, but the worst citizens in our own land?

Why are we able to successfully run a global multinational organization but are unable to run a simple public office without corruption?

Why are we able to speak 3 or 4 languages but cannot seem to understand one another?

Why are we law-abiding tourists but live under the law-of-the-jungle in our country?

Why do we claim to be a democracy when we accept and idolize tyrants?

Until we stop supporting the same incompetent and corrupt politicians that are responsible for everything bad that has happened and still happening to us.

Until we vote for new public servants that work for the people, ones that can be held accountable for their actions.

Until then, we are as responsible and guilty for everything that has happened to us as much as the people in power, because we gave them this unlimited power over us.

Until we revoke this power of attorney and claim back our true destiny.

Beirut, forgive us, for we knew what we were doing.

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Jordan is one of the greatest living-brands and can be labeled the father of modern-day influencers.

Everyone knows Michael Jordan, whether they were old enough (like me) to have seen him play back in the 90’s or a teenager that queues in front of a store to get the latest pair of Jordans.

Back in the 90’s, there was no Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat and no Twitter. Way before the Social Media era, Jordan became the most prominent and global influencer, he turned into a walking brand. Whatever shop/logo was seen in the background of any photo of Jordan, became an instant worldwide success.

Products flocked to be part of his success, and Jordan turned into a household name. His face, his gravity-defying flying silhouette logo, or his Chicago Bulls number “23” was on practically every printable surface you can imagine. All brands wanted to associate their names with his, but it was Nike that got the best deal in town and established the Jordan / Air Jordan brand.

Today, MJ has a follower base of around 30M across his official social media channels (these accounts mainly represent the business/retail part). This is not a lot compared to some famous stars. But, unlike any other celebrity, Jordan does not need social media to be famous or stay famous.

Succesful brands = Highly Emotional / Respected brands

Today, no brand can surpass the challenge of time and stay relevant for so long without being highly respected and loved, and Jordan is one of the most respected and loved brands in the world.

Michael Jordan did all this without any social media support, can you just imagine if social media existed when he was still playing?

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As a Lebanese, this triggered a few “HOW” questions of my own, hoping that Google can help me find some answers:

– How is it that with each year forward, Lebanon moves several years backward?
– How can we get electricity, water, and internet at the same time?
– How did we allow the level of corruption in government to reach a point of no return?
– How can politicians understand that they are public servants and not public lords?
– How can my little girl have the same opportunities in life as her brother in this macho patriarchal society?
– How can religion stop affecting every single civil decision we take?
– How are we still paying two bills for everything? One for government and another for neighborhood service provider.
– How can we elect people for a four-year term and prevent them from forcefully staying in power for nine years?
– How are we aiming to extract oil and gas from the deep sea, when we can’t remove the garbage from the streets?
– How is it still possible that after many years, dozens of protests, and hundreds of sick people, the garbage situation and – the pollution level is worse than ever?
– How can we drink noncontaminated water?
– How are we still calling Lebanon a green country when there is not one green space left?
– How is it that Lebanese are model citizens outside the country, while in Lebanon they fail to respect any law?
– How can we stop texting while driving and endangering other people’s lives?
– How is it that our streets are the most dangerous in the world? They are in terrible conditions and not lit at night?
– How are we still burning our trash and dumping the garbage in the sea?
– How is it possible that we still don’t have high-speed internet in 2018?

The list can go on and on, but the biggest question remains:

How are we still letting all these things happen again and again? I guess we can only blame ourselves. In physics, they say that for every action, there’s an equal an opposite reaction.

We are living the consequence of our actions, if we vote for the same people, we will always get the same results.

How can history not repeat itself in 2018? It’s up to you and me.

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This new feature will roll out gradually to all users. Currently, it is being tested by a group of select active users, most famous of them all is the President of the United States, referred to online as the Tweeter-In-Chief for his overly active account.

It is no secret that Twitter has been struggling for the past few years as many influencers and celebrities like Ed Sheeran have moved away from the social media platform.

Although two of the initial founders, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone came back to Twitter, no major improvement in user growth and engagement has happened on the platform yet.

Even with the introduction of live streaming, customer service bots, sports-focused content, and now the 280 extended character limit. Twitter has continued to trail behind Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Today, Twitter has lost its status as a “social” platform and transitioned into a news source. News agencies, wires, politics and politicians and Donald Trump are what’s still keeping the platform alive. The problem is that the younger generation has already migrated away from Twitterland.

Will 280 characters bring them back?

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In a Twitter conversation with Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes, The Tesla CEO upped the challenge when asked if he was able to deliver the 100-300MW battery storage farm in the mentioned time: Musk replied, 100 days or it’s free!

I guess the only way to solve the electricity problem in Lebanon is to challenge Elon Musk to do it in one day.

Dear Elon Musk:

We, the people of Lebanon, all 4.5M of us, have been struggling with power failures and blackouts since the end of the war in 1990. Of course, the addition of around 2M Syrian and Palestinian refugees to the overall population made the issue harder to solve, but they are not the main cause of the problem.

27 years, 12 Ministries, and more than $30 Billion later, were not enough to get Electricity Du Liban (EDL) to solve Lebanon’s electricity problem and get 24hrs power coverage for this tiny country of 10,452 km².

Lebanon pays over $2 billion annually to purchase fuel for EDL and the Lebanese citizen pays at least $300 dollars monthly to cover both electricity bills; to EDL and to the local neighborhood generator. These private generators provide around 900 MW or 38% of the electricity consumption in the country.

So, Mr. Musk, if you believe you can fix the power network of a 984,377 km² area in 100 days, then 10,452 km² can be easily fixed in a day. I guess you can understand our frustration after 27 years.

Sincerely,
A Lebanese Citizen

More details on the topic can be found in the below links:
Daily Star, World Bank, Gino’s Blog, Al-Monitor, Transparency-Lebanon 

The post Dear Elon Musk: Can You Pass by Lebanon on Your Way to Fix Australia’s Power Problems! appeared first on Techie Dad - Creative Technologist.

It doesn’t matter if we start on mobile and complete the action on a bigger screen. The decision to be interested in a topic or not has already been taken on that smaller mobile screen.

The Turning Point:

A few months ago, we witnessed a turning point in the worldwide internet usage. StatCounter reported that for the first time, mobile internet usage exceeded desktop and accounted for 51.3% compared to 48.7% for desktop.

As per Google, more people search on their mobile devices today than on their desktop computers, spending an average of more than 3 hours per day on their smartphones. Google also revealed that 70% of mobile travelers had done travel research on their smartphones and that time in front of the TV has declined in favor of mobile, with 18–49-year-olds‘ time on YouTube jumping 44%.

Today, mobile is more mainstream than ever, and businesses are depending on this platform to boost their revenues. An App Annie report showed that consumer spending had reached $52 billion on mobile app stores and a staggering $77 billion in gross on mobile in-app advertising.

How Does That Affect The User Experience?

Most of the online traffic, especially informative, social and entertainment content platforms like news and blogs, have shifted from direct homepage visits to referrals from social media platforms.

People’s first entry is now via mobile; they are mainly on a social media platform, they see something interesting, they click and get redirected to an internal page on that website while still on their mobile device. The challenge from that moment on is to get the user to stay for the longest time, browse more, subscribe and keep on coming back.

Q: Where Do We Start When Planning, Designing And Building an Online Platform?
A: Mobile First.

When we start mapping the journey and the user experience of any online platform, we need to take into account all the many screens at hand. All the different laptop resolutions, tablets, phablets, and smartphones. So many devices to think about and adjust accordingly. We shouldn’t forget to adapt to different technologies, like having to create a mobile app or a TV app when needed.

UX/Designers have always started building the desktop website first. it always looks better; they have plenty of digital real estate to work with, the design can be visually differentiated from other sites as they can focus on design details, large visuals, interactive features, etc.

Today, this has changed. The homepage is no longer the single most important element. Of course, it still is crucial, and it needs to look great but what is more important is the user experience, our primary focus is to make sure that the user gets the best out their short visit to the platform.

To guarantee a better online presence, we need to make sure to take the below steps into consideration:

The 3 U(s)

User Journey:

It is crucial to define the user journey first, map out all the touch points that a user goes through to interact with your product. Think about situations, locations, time of engagement and platforms.

User Experience:

The User Experience (UX) is the single most important element in the whole process. The UX is the blueprint for everything to follow: Business, content, design and technology.

The UX designer needs to understand technology, coding and design trends. A good UX document marries the business opportunities with the design and technical needs while making sure that the user’s journey is kept simple and least complicated.

The User Interface:

The User Interface (UI) or the design is the beautification process of the UX; every project needs to start with UX first before moving into UI. The technical and business requirements that the UX takes into account are not always known to the designer. If the UX document is clear and comprehensive, then the designers can do what they do best, draw a visually stunning design instead of trying to guess their way into the product.

Before Starting a Project Ask Yourself The Following:
What are my business objectives? How do I measure success?
What are the most important elements to showcase?
Who are my audiences and where do I find them?
Is the experience optimized across all devices and platforms?
Do I need all the devices and platforms?
Can my users easily navigate through the platform if their first entry was an internal page?

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Living in a country with bad, limited and expensive internet connection means that you cannot be entirely dependent on iCloud to sync all of the content wirelessly. The best way is to be selective: Mail, Notes, Calendars, Safari, Contacts, Reminders, and other simple app data are synced wirelessly via iCloud, while Photos, Videos, Music and device backups are synced using wire via iTunes on my Mac.

Photos:

I am extremely organized when it comes to saving and archiving my photo library. I make sure to organize and clean my pictures, rename them in finder, then import them to the Photos app where I store them in easy to find Albums sorted by events and dates. I have done that to all 128,000 photos in my 525GB library.

Unlike the original iPhotos, the new Photos app is very slow and painful to use; you need to learn your way around it because it is not user-friendly and intuitive. Example: After moving pictures to an album, you always have to delete photos from the Last Import folder manually; otherwise you end up with albums containing overlapping pictures from multiple events.

Initially, I blamed my 2013 (2.4GHz, i7, 8GB) MacBook Pro, but after upgrading to the new 15” MacBook Pro (2.7GHz, i7, 16GB) with Touch Bar, I realized that performance didn’t improve.

My real problem isn’t performance; I haven’t been able to sync my photos albums with my devices. Some devices just refuse to sync, newly formatted devices sync a portion of the data, on my new iPhone 7 plus it takes several hours syncing and copying photos via iTunes, but when it the task is complete, I open my phone to find no pictures on the device.

Notes and Reminders:

I’ve always used notes and reminders for as long as I remember, never had a problem before. But lately, notes are going crazy. Some notes remain on my Mac or iPhone and refuse to go to iCloud, other notes on iCloud are never transferred to devices.

I tried everything; Deleted my iCloud database as well as notes and folders and started from scratch. Still, the issues remain. After so many lost notes, I have decided to migrate to Evernote (a paid app).

Files and File Sharing:

Until date, there is no easy way to move files across Apple devices apart from iCloud and Airdrop sharing. If you are not connected or have a bad connection, it is impossible to move folders natively to and from your mobile devices. I am currently using GoodReader a third party paid app to do that.

For the past few months I was using Android (Samsung S7 edge) and one of the heavenly features of Android is the ability to transfer all files quickly and easily.

Overall

I’ve been an Apple evangelist all my life; I loved Apple because it had always put quality, design and user experience above everything else. Today, this is in question. Apple cannot assume that every user in the world can be entirely dependent on the cloud to sync their content. Offline syncing will not disappear anytime soon, at least for large files especially with Apple’s plans to expand in emerging markets where internet connectivity is still an issue.

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I am not only referring to individuals, but also professionals as well as news and media outlets. The amount of made-up, fake, inaccurate and hurtful news is just overwhelming; we see it every day on our timeline, and it was very prominent during the US elections period.

The question remains; can we say anything online and get away with it?

I’m not talking about freedom of speech, as the right to express any opinion without censorship or restraint is sacred and not in question here. But, intentionally hurting others is not free speech, it is unethical and simply wrong. My friend Najib had an interesting post on March’s website regarding the topic.

The rules are very simple; what works in real life, works virtually. If you can walk in a public space and just offend someone bluntly without any repercussions, then you can do it virtually. Writing something in the privacy of our home, behind a screen, doesn’t mean that no one is seeing. We might be encouraged to say things in a post that we usually don’t say in real life, it’s easier and less intimidating, but the outcome is the same.

If you talk to these people, their answer is always: If you are offended by what we say, then don’t read or follow! I wish it were that simple. When we post something on social media, it’s like standing in the middle of Times Square and shouting your opinion using loudspeakers.

Today, there are many efforts across the world, especially in Lebanon and the Middle East, to create laws and regulations to have better control over the virtual world.

The problem is that politicians and government agencies are drafting a majority of these laws, without the inclusion of the civil societies and human right groups. It is being done under the umbrella of fighting terrorism and crime. These laws are two-edged swords that could be turned into tools for censorship, oppression, and jailing anyone with a different opinion.

The solution lies in the ethical conduct of each one of us, simply, do no evil.

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