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The Gatekeepers & How Companies Are Keeping Away From Innovation.

With all the social media breaking walls of society and getting people more  connected. I have noticed that individuals and companies have been more and more locked away in a social media prison cell. Community managers and individuals handling incoming communication or connection requests are now in the category of the gatekeepers who keep away people rather than listen to them.

This growing phenomenon is from a personal experience, when trying to get heard by companies or individuals that I have information for. You might not know me, but that does not mean i don’t have something you want to hear. The problem lies with the people who are tasked to handle these incoming responses, they personally and psychologically think that they know what is best for the company or the individual I am trying to reach. I work in communications, specifically in branding. I believe when a person is solely coming to you for something, that means they truly believe in your brand whether it is a personal brand or a corporate brand. When I got shut out from all the people and companies I tried to reach, I honestly believed these people have a mission to keep the company away from good ideas.

People are people, and not everyone in the world is privileged with being a high ranking executive or a billion dollar bank account, most of the people want a humble life with a morning to wake up to and a thing they do everyday that they love. I am sure that these gatekeepers don’t know that it is a proven fact that; Humans when ignored, gives the same traumatic effect like a physical injury. Ignoring a mention on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn causes that trauma. The most is when you don’t get a response by an email or a lucrative mechanical response from someone in the company who has nothing to do with the companies future growth. Do companies know how many people they injure daily and how many causalities there are out there, trying to reach out to them? Companies today are embarking into social media, thinking this is a new Marketing tool that helps bring the customer closer and level up loyalty to the brand. What companies failed to understand to this day is that social media is exactly what it means ” Social ” and that’s based on socio-emotional elements to it. Social media has given an embodiment to your brand, given it physical ear and eye to hear and see what people are saying and showing. Mechanical responses and robotics do not make your life easier when you decided on becoming a part of this worldwide phenomenon.

Let’s take for example my case, I have three darn good idea for three companies very famous to the world. I just want them to give me a chance to hear me out for exactly 10min. Can you imagine, I’m not asking for the stars, just ten minutes of an open ear. I know big shot CEO’s I’ve reported to them for the past decade of my professional life, they can spare 10min to hear one person a day to get the creative juices flowing in the company, especially when traditional ways of doing things are dying out in a matter of minutes with new technology and innovation. I don’t know how to make all the financial forecasts and business plans for these technocratic people, all I’m asking for is to hear me out and you work out the numbers to make it happen, because I’m no expert CEO who’s done it before.You might say Mark Zuckerberg made Facebook from his dorm room or Steve & Woz made Apple in a garage, yes that’s true. However if you fast forward in time and think of it in another perspective, this is what could have happened to them.

If Mark was an economics student, at Harvard. Living his daily life as a normal college student and one day he got a revelation about Facebook. I mean the whole nine yards. He doesn’t know how to code, algorithm, make a site or fund his site. What would he do? He’d be in the same situation I am in, no one is willing to hear him, gatekeepers will shut him out and his great idea of Facebook would just be locked up in his head. What if Mark went to Hi5 and said I can turn you around and make you a multi billion dollar company, listen to this ” We rebrand Hi5 into Facebook ” and it would do exactly this …, Hi5 now would have been the Facebook we know today, Mark would have gained the same fame he has now and the owners of Hi5 or MySapce would be richer and grander.

In my case I am no developer, I can design the hell out of an App but can’y launch it with all its servers and capabilities, all I need is a VC or the three companies I’m targeting to give me those 10mins, I’ve got the visuals, I’ve got the design, I’ve got the whole works. I don’t have the ears to hear me out. Mind you, the three ideas only work for these three companies I cannot mention.

If someone out there knows any VC, Angel or Direct contact with big companies who could get to the companies I am targeting let me know, we can sign an NDA and join forces and get make this dream come true, it’s actually the three companies dream come true as they are publicly looking for the answer to their problem, and I’ve found the solution.

contact me on http://www.beyrouti.me

How being a tech geek makes you a better brand custodian.

Im my years of Creative Branding, Mobile Media & Communications. Ive learned that being a tech geek has helped a lot. Especially in the tech industry. 

Mobile operators in the Middle East have great people, but some have no geeky side to them. I’ve met a few and especially senior ones, you can say they are good at theoretical marketing but are not marketing power houses. As displayed in my picture, I believe no one at STC from the CEO down to the tea boy would ever know that the image on the main page is taken from a product called Speck and that the super imposed image they used was not rightfully used or authorized neither by Speck or Apple ( in this case as the Speck Case is for the iPad 2 – PixelSkin HD )

Because I am  creative branding professional, a marketing communications nut bag and tech geek to the bone. I immediately saw it, picked it up and just had to communicate about it. This is not the first time I come across this, once upon a time a multi-national award winning American advertising agency tried to pitch to me a Google I/O campaign that was for Google Maps in Europe. During the presentation as they finished, I said ” this is wonderful work ” in a very excited tone. They agency guys were all going to wet themselves with joy. Then I said the statement of doom ” Did the campaign do well for Google? ” turned my iPad and started to flick the various images i found on Google Search. I didn’t get a response from the agency as each one scrambled to a phone a started calling in a frantic manner. Not their fault, they are just account managers, very spineless and no tech creativity.

Here is what I saved the company, a disaster from bloggers who will eventually pick up the copycat campaign, our reputation will go down the drain also the product credibility will be forever shattered. People like me are perceived as the “A holes” excuse my language. However being that has made me better at what I do and more creative than the monkeys with no competency. 

In all cases, this is still the problem with corporate culture, HR who have no clue who and how to hire, and management who can’t take being shown how incompetent they are. I would rather look like an idiot, than be fired and look ruined.

Good Luck STC, you need creative branding people who are tech geeks.

The iCosystem:

Today the world runs on things we didn’t anticipate a decade ago. The introduction of the iPhone, social networks to location based check-ins and status feeds keeping us up to the second. Now I say up to the second, because saying up to date is now old fashioned, actually Stone Age. We want information real time and in seconds, with new network technologies and devices that give us outstanding speeds like LTE and beyond.

How does a brand jump in this Eco-system? As you may know a brand is not a logo, but a brand is an all encompassing belief. One strain of this belief will cut away in the brand appeal and make it less and less believable. I’ll give you an example, Imagine yourself in the beginning of the millennium, you’re a top bank and you’re welcoming the world of digital with a fresh website to the digital immigrants or people who knew the world before the Internet. A few years pass by and the world changes again, those digital immigrants settle in and naturalize and become accustomed to the digital world. Their demands change and their brand belief changes, a bank without on-line banking is an old fashioned bank and the brand belief lessens. The world changes again as the world welcomes the first generation of digital natives; young individuals who don’t know the world before the Internet.

The mobile device today is a companion and inseparable entity in our daily lives. The mobile phone is no longer a device to send and receive calls. It is your life line to the world, the digital world that keeps your entire world in your pocket but most of the time your hands. Three years ago I did a technology work shop and introduced the concept of generation “T”. The last era saw the formulation and growth of Generation X, these are the baby boomers of World War II and then their children brought in Generation Y, the rebel generation that we all admire. However Generation T or the “thumb” generation has grown hundreds of thousands of times faster than any generation in recorded history. I labeled it as the thumb generation or generation T.

Generation T is the only generation that has taken previous generations X&Y put them on a time-machine and transferred them into the future. Now what do brands have to do here? What do brand agencies have to do here? The framework has fundamentally changed and there is a culture embedded in today’s mind set. Today we live in a world wide global culture of “is there an app for that?”

Application development for a brand is not about the core functionality of the company’s operation. Meaning what the app does isn’t what reflects the brand. However what the app feels and looks like is the essential part of the brand promise. UI ( user interface ) and UX ( user experience ) is what makes today’s world of Generation T appeal to the brand. An example, brash brands has taken branding to the next level, this fine art of logo design, brand identity and architecture is like no other. However when the Dubai Mall the world most talks about mall in the world has the most destructive App in the market made the Dubai Mall’s brand appeal less then average. The belief that Dubai mall is sophisticated and up to second has been all thrown down the drain. People today believe in surprise, they don’t know what they want until you show it to them. The Dubai Mall app must be designed to give at same Wow experience they give in their facility.

Here is an example of how the app should work :

The App should be designed with the fundamental elements of fluidity they designed the mall itself and basic concepts from their parking lots too. It must be re-designed to feel like a mall, from when you enter the mall and leave it, and when you enter the app and leave it.

The App should project the same experience of the mall, your walking and shopping. You can do that in the App at a much better rate and have the same mall experience from the comfort of your thumbs.

Location based wifi or navigation tagging. Inside the mall, being inside the mall would help you pin point your location, know where to go and plan your shopping trip within the App. This would create an experience never seen in the world. I always get this, ” where to now” imagine you plan your Dubai Mall experience a day before, plan out your routes and shops you want to visit and have it take you to the place you wanna go.

App should generate revenue, companies today are not really looking into how to make the app make money to sustain itself. Imagine this, you take a fee from shops inside the mall to advertise in the app, which would take them to the shop, present a special coupon placed in their Apple ” Passbook”. Apps are media spaces to promote daily, and hourly specials. Engage the Mall visitor,( ” beep beep” seems your close to Mango, get there in the next ten minutes and receive a 25% discount, if you get there on time) activate timer? The timer ticks you get there in time, press check-in and the geo-location accurately ensures your in Mango. Boom! your 25% discount is in your pocket.

Points and loyalty? Let me give you a sniff of what you can do with brand integrate technology. The Nike fuel band today is a device that every person is adopting, Nike has whole heartedly released its API for the device and developers now can make Apps that can talk to the device. Now imagine, the Dubai Mall app is synced to your Nike Fuel band. Briefly, I would say ” hey, since your at Dubai Mall make your Nike points count, score 2000 points in the mall sync them on our Dubai Mall app and get your free healthy lunch at Subway. Subway pays for the integration, visitor is engaged and created an affiliation with the mall, the Dubai Mall is a personified brand that actually talks to the visitor. Overall it makes my mall day worth while. Needless to say Apple just acquired an indoor GPS company called WifiSalm, this should be a big eye opener to big retail facilities like Dubai Mall and others.

I am not talking in the year 2050 we can do this today! We need companies to believe, brands are just more that what a brochure or identity can do, Branding agencies should make brands of the future. Let’s change everything…again and again

The Digital Cloud Braid

In my years of being a tech Geek, i’ve applied technology to my life daily. With the emergence of cloud computing, personalization and reliability is key. Now not to forget about security and down times. Cloud storage and computing is essential.

I have come up with a system at home that I believe will be the future default of every Geek and possibly everyone’s standard set up. I called it the Digital Cloud Braid or just ( Braid ). Needless to say this setup I distinctively say its not a hybrid as it is more of a braided merge of the same tech, yet with a marriage of two hardware & connectivity applications.

Let’s get into it now. I have setup a personal cloud via an off the shelf live storage device and also merged in it my online cloud ( Dropbox & Google Drive ) needless to say of course I have iCloud which is not married into this setup for security reasons as I have kept my iDevices securely running in iCloud.

The personal cloud and public cloud braided into one applied system running from my MacMini server has given me peace of mind on where my information is stored and full control of its connectivity and hardware. Today you don’t actually know where you drop your files on the cloud as they could be anywhere distributed across the globe. We all know drives can be hacked and even files can be extracted even if the drive is formatted. However knowing your drive is at home or the office gives you that sense of peace.

Cloud Braiding will be the future standard setup in the very near future as all these devices are now available, however the consumer market is still not aware of its ease of availability. Now here is what you need to make a standard Cloud Braid, depending on your budget you can go as big and fast as you want.

1. Minimal of 5Mpbs Connectivity to the internet via an Ethernet or WiFi Connection. A fiber or ADSL line is recommended for uninterrupted connection to the internet.

2. A Cloud Based router, DLink offers the best cloud routers in the market, with easy set-up and access via your iPhone & iPad with a free App on the Apple App Store.
– The Cloud Router lets you manage your devices remotely and also enables you to see what devices are connected to your router and using the internet or LAN.

3. A Personal Cloud storage device, I suggest DLink or WD Live. DLink Cloud Routers also offer a USB port to connect an external HDD if you do not wish to have a personal cloud device. I recommend a Cloud storage device as it is independent from the router and offers an extra firewall for security. Also Cloud storage devices connect only via Ethernet for superb speed and security with firmware protection incase the drive was stolen.

4. Mostly all Cloud storage devices have Dropbox, Google Drive and other public cloud integration. So install the public drives to your Personal cloud. All this can be simply done by just enabling the service and inserting your username and password and the personal cloud service does the rest. Whats amazing you can do this all on your iPad or iPhone too.

After all this is done your ready to go and your Cloud Braided system of personal and public cloud is fullyl integrated into one place.

How this helps you in the future. For me all my Data on my MacBook pro Retina is placed on the Braid, my 500GB flash drive can only store so much and being a photo junky all the pics I take are stored on my iPhoto App, however placed on the Braid. So when i sync my Photos they sync on my iPhoto root file on the Braid. My work also however when i need to send something I place it on my Dropbox and send a public link for a limited time. But when the information is too sensitive i create a public link to my Braid and control who when and for how long the file can be accessed.

The future of data is personal seamless controllability and not accessibility like the services available today from the online cloud based services. Except iCloud which is under the unique ecosystem of Apple and control is a key element you can enjoy via iCloud.

Picture courtesy of: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-random-braid-5-dan-gries.html

Hardware: visit Dlink and WD

Hrubieszów, Sochaczew, Rumia, Reda, Radomsko, Michałowice, Wejherowo… kto wie ile tych miast jest już na liście? To nie jest ostatni komunikat w tym roku w tej sprawie. Poznań jeszcze nie Wy

Co raz mniej zamkniętych okienek w naszym kalendarzu. Gdyby ktoś był zainteresowany to ciągu najbliższych dni możemy spodziewać się następujących darów losu:

19.12 koszulki do aplikacji z Google PLAY, dla 20 pierwszych klientów, którzy zakupią apkę z wykorzystaniem usługi dopisz do rachunku PLAY.

20,12 Samsung Galaxy Trend, bardzo popularny smartfon taniej. Przecena o 99 zł w Formule 4.0 Unlimited 49,99

21. 12 Równie popularny Samsung Galaxy Core. Przecena 119 zł -> 1 zł w FORMULE 4.0 UNLIMITED 69,99

22.12 Fitness PLAY – za darmo na 3 miesiące. Fani postanowień noworocznych będą zadowoleni.

23.12 HTC ONE z uchwytem samochodowym

24.12….brak informacji

Hrubieszów, Sochaczew, Rumia, Reda, Radomsko, Michałowice, Wejherowo… kto wie ile tych miast jest już na liście? To nie jest ostatni komunikat w tym roku w tej sprawie. Poznań jeszcze nie Wy

Co raz mniej zamkniętych okienek w naszym kalendarzu. Gdyby ktoś był zainteresowany to ciągu najbliższych dni możemy spodziewać się następujących darów losu:

19.12 koszulki do aplikacji z Google PLAY, dla 20 pierwszych klientów, którzy zakupią apkę z wykorzystaniem usługi dopisz do rachunku PLAY.

20,12 Samsung Galaxy Trend, bardzo popularny smartfon taniej. Przecena o 99 zł w Formule 4.0 Unlimited 49,99

21. 12 Równie popularny Samsung Galaxy Core. Przecena 119 zł -> 1 zł w FORMULE 4.0 UNLIMITED 69,99

22.12 Fitness PLAY – za darmo na 3 miesiące. Fani postanowień noworocznych będą zadowoleni.

23.12 HTC ONE z uchwytem samochodowym

24.12….brak informacji

Ten temat generalnie nie trafia na pierwsze strony gazet czy portali. Ot operator daje numer fundacji,  fundacja go wykorzystuje do zbierania pieniędzy. Wszystko działa i wszyscy są zadowoleni. Jedne fundacje widzą w tym duży potencjał i wykorzystują to narzędzie na potęge inne wcale, albo symbolicznie.

Operatorzy robią to w 100% charytatywnie. Robią to zgodnie i nigdy nie konkurujemy w tym zakresie – tutaj najważniejsze jest dobro społeczne i potrzebujący, którzy czekają na wsparcie.

Wspieramy w tym zakresie duże, znane fundacje, które działają w całym kraju, są rozpoznawane i darczyńcy im ufają i chętnie je wspierają. Chcemy pomóc zgromadzić jak największe sumy. Są jednak takie organizacje, które w zasadzie nie wykorzystują tego numeru. Tak jest z PCK. To nie jest żadna wiedza tajemna z zakresu marketingu – bez komunikacji ludzie dobrego serca nie dowiedzą się o Waszym numerze. Wyniki w tym i poprzednim roku były bardzo przeciętne. Jesteśmy przekonani, że oraganizację z takim doświadczeniem stać na więcej, na dużo więcej.

Nie żądamy reklam telewizyjnych, ale szanowni państwo z PCK, zróbcie coś, żeby ludzie zaczęli korzystać z tego numeru i wysyłali tam SMSy. Ten numer jest dla Was zerezerwowany. W każdej chwili kiedy przyjdziecie do nas z jakimkolwiek pomysłem na efektywne wykorzystanie tego numeru na pewno Wam z radością pomożemy.