Attack from all sides

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Momekh

It is very easy to lose hope these days. Hope is a rare commodity it seems.

Let us have a quick look:

  • Pakistan is right now the world’s 10th failed state
  • Religion is a loaded word now. It used to mean things like ‘believing in God’ and ‘being the best you can be’ and ‘dealing with humility and compassion’ and other old fashioned values like ‘honesty’ and ‘bravery’. ‘Understanding the Word of God’ is now replaced by ‘Promoting and defending the word of your school of thought’. Now it is considered the only point of difference. You are not a Muslim, you are either a Barelvi, Wahabi, Deobandi or a Sunni or a Shia. Muslims are becoming harder to find.
  • Most of the politicians are a joke, who believe corruption is their right. Unbelievable.
  • Pakistan is lead by Zardari. Enough said.
  • Pakistan has been hit by the largest flooding in recent history, not of the country alone, but the largest flooding in recent history of the world! One fifth of the country in inundated right now (that is larger than the land mass of UK). More than 20 million people have been displaced. A catastrophe of highest magnitude indeed. (For donations, please, please click here – Imran Khan is of one the VERY FEW trusted persons alive in Pakistan right now, and fortunately, for all the right reasons)
  • The political forces at play in Pakistan are lead by ‘old school’ parties that know how to play politics, and have no clue how to lead. Nawaz Sharif vs MQM vs PTI vs PPP vs PML-Q vs ad infinitum. Pakistani are divided by 5 main sects when it comes to religion (a much touted and oft-repeated claim) whereas the country is divided by almost 200 sects when it comes to political ‘leadership’. We don’t get to be a top-10 failed state for nothing!
  • Mob violence, whichever way you try to justify it, is a clear sign of people losing hope in all forms of justice as provided by the State or Government.

But that is not all. Continue reading →

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Significance

Posted on June 19, 2010 by Momekh

"hamaari auqaat"

Thankfully, significance is a relevant term.

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Do you need a website, or a blog?

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Momekh

Short version: the two are the same. But there ‘is’ a difference between a website and a blog, and you’d be better off knowing that difference.

Some basics: When you put up web presence for your business online, you do it via a web host. That is web hosting. For an address you need a domain name. But how would you upload content to your website? And how would you update, maintain and add to that content? That you’d do via a Content Management System (CMS). There was a time when these CMS’s would sell for a lot of money, but now, thanks to Open Source mostly, you get the best CMS’s for free! Case in point: WordPress. WordPress is a CMS for blogs, hence a blogging platform. There are other CMS’s like Joomla and Drupal that are used for this purpose, but you as a business owner need to know the essential detail and i.e. a WordPress CMS is the best CMS you can have for your website.

What is a blog?

A blog is short for weblog and was designed for just that, logging your thoughts on the web, like a diary. Most of the blogs still serve that purpose for millions of bloggers around the world. But given the ultimate focus of blogging i.e. to get as many novice computer users online as possible, the blogging platforms are inherently easy-to-use and automatically play well with search engine optimization and social media sharing.

What is a website?

Well, it is any page on the Internet. So a blog is a subset of a website. All blogs are websites. A forum online is a website. So is an auction site. These are all examples of different types of websites.

But what does my business need?

Your business needs a blog. And more specifically, your website needs to be set up as a WordPress blog.

Here’s why: WordPress as a blogging platform is very flexible. You can set up a blog, like this one here, or you can set up a blog that behaves like a website (like www.Kemaak.com for example).  But you being a business owner, should:

  1. Get a WordPress self-hosted blog on your domain name.
  2. Start off with just a simple website model (i.e. an About Us page, your Product or services page(s) and the all-too-important contact page)
  3. Slowly, but surely, start putting up content on your website. Putting up content will be very easy for you because you already have a blogging platform running your website. That blogging platform (i.e. WordPress) is specifically designed to make content sharing easy! You will automatically be Search Engine Optimized (search engines like Google and Bing play nice with blogs as compared to other platforms)
  4. Also, putting up content on your website, is THE NUMBER ONE REASON you should have a website for your business in the first place. Having relevant content up on your website is what will engage your user in a non-spammy way. Then the possibilities are endless.

This will let you get comfortable with the whole online ‘attitude’, and let you interact with your online customers in a more meaningful way. There is nothing worse than a ‘never updated’ blog, so putting up a blog as your website just because it is the ‘in thing’ is just not the right thing. :)

But remember, blog is one of the best, if not the best, way to interact with your customers online. You as a business owner, should always consider your customer, and the best thing you could do for your customers online is have a healthy, relevant blog.

Any questions?

—

Click here to find out more about the WordPress blogging platform.

Posted in Business, Entrepreneurship, Pro Blogging, Social Media, The Net, Tutorial | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The end in mind

Posted on June 12, 2010 by Momekh

Recently I was having a discussion with one of very dear friends, about visiting Saudi Arabia for Umra. Two months right after the month of Zil Haj, the Saudi government does not issue any Umra visas, and this understandably reduced the number of people performing Umra. So much so, that instead of thousands of pilgrim at the Holy Kaaba, only a handful of residents and visitors are performing Umra during that time. One local had told me that hardly 40 to 50 people are in the Kaaba at any given time in those two months, and this is the perfect time to just ‘relax’ and really try to connect with the place. You know, just you and the Lord, that kind’a stuff. So I have been trying to get a visit visa for Saudi Arabia so I can visit the place during those two months.

“You can get a business visa to Saudi and get to be there during those two months,” he said.

“But that would be untrue as I will not be going for business there,” I said, “but as I ought to get a Visit Visa so I can perform Umra. Getting a business visa to perform Umra, I think, would be cheating, which is something I rather not do.”

“But who are the Saudis to not allow me to visit the Holy Place? If they can make unnecessary laws, then I can conn them to do what my Lord wants.”

“But that is cheating!” I said, “God is clear that we ought to follow the law of the land if it doesn’t interfere with our moral duties!”

“Listen,” said he, somewhat impatiently, “you are already conning them by applying for a visit visa to perform Umra, all I am saying is that you can apply for a business visa instead, which is somewhat easier to get, and then perform your Umra in those two months.”

“No, getting a Business visa means that I am going there for the purpose of business, and I know that I am not going there for business purposes. But going there on a Visit visa means just that, I am visiting the place! If I had some business there, I could go there on a Business Visa and then perform Umra, as the Saudi government does not stop me from doing that. Likewise, if I am there to visit the place on a Visit Visa, the Saudi government does not stop me from performing Umra.”

“But you are still conning them,” said my friend.

“How is that?” now I probably was frowning, “I am not lying about my purpose, and I am availing an opportunity,” I stressed the word opportunity, “that has presented itself!”

The conversation ended soon after. We finished our cup of tea, predicted winners for the World Cup and talked about other ‘important’ stuff.

I’d say we both had the ‘end in mind’ i.e. to perform our duties towards God. Maybe my friend has not placed much importance on the direct order by our Lord on ‘following the law of the land’. Maybe I have misunderstood something.

At the end of the day, it is not what you do, but why you did it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the scariest thought.

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Target reset

Posted on June 12, 2010 by Momekh

We need a target reset once in a while.

Commitments, like the battery of your phone, needs to be recharged. Sometime you need new batteries. And sometimes, a new phone.

Sometimes what you want loses importance. Sometimes it doesn’t. Regardless of the everchanging environment, you yourself need a reset. A recharge. A slight tap on the head perhaps. “So, where were we?”, “Where are we going?”, “What the hell are you doing?”. Normal questions, all of ‘em. Ask them often.

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Spam. No Spam.

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Momekh

You already know what spam is. It is not fish and it clutters everything up. One can not do enough to stop this Billion dollar ‘industry’ run by con men and what have you. And thanks to spamming, you and your company may get written off as a spammer.

I had this happen to me recently.

On Twitter, I searched for ‘blogging’ in hope to reach the right people who can use Blogstarta. I know, I know – there is a thin line between spamming and selling (compare it to you walking into a store to buy a perfume bottle, or a guy walking up to you while you sit in your car to try to sell you deodorant). Well, I found a tweet that begged for a reply. That’s how I saw it, as the way to start ‘a conversation’. You know, how ‘brands’ should start a ‘conversation’ with their ‘potential’ customers and the whole shebang? Well, here’s how the ‘conversation’ went:

And to this tweet, I replied (as @blogstarta)

See? A relevant comment. It is directly addressing the person and is specific to the theme of the original content. I was sure I had made an interesting point. Till…

The guy thinks that I am spam bot. A mighty smart spam bot if I say so myself. Although the comment makes sense, as agreed upon by the person, he still links it to spam. That in itself is proof as to how difficult it is to be authentic. That is the keyword here, being authentic. Being real. If your company, your personality and/or your brand is too polished, it may come off as something doctored, something ‘made up’, something like the Spice Girls or the Backstreet Boys, a formula cooked up in a board room of full of spammers and scammers.

So I played it as ‘real’ as I could, and I told the person that I am not a ‘mechanical turk’ but a real person. A few tweets exchanged and it worked…

…but the point remains, “be authentic”. In fact, a more important point is that not many people would say it like the person did, and not many technologies are available like Twitter that can let you know what is being said about you.

You be authentic by not trying to be authentic, how about that for a paradoxical type of statement!? But that is how it is. Being authentic demands that you change your attitude, your ‘core’ to reflect via your interactions and outlook. If you try to brush up your outlook only, you will sooner or later get caught. Then you will be a spammer.

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Pro Blogging, marketing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Decisions

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Momekh

Life is about the choices you make. I never get that. That is a wrong use of a word, when a better one is available. Life is about the decisions you make, on the choices that you are presented with.

You are at the crossroads, go right, left or just wait for someone to make the decision for you. These are the choices. Choices confuse you. They force you to think. And decide. Decisions inherently put you on the spot. It is your game then, your chin that may take the uppercut or your shoulder that might get a satisfying pat. Decisions is what depression, anxiety is all about. Getting them right is what happiness and a life fulfilled is all about.

And do not make this philosophical please, remember, philosophy is for people with armchairs made of oak wood that creaks. Yes, oak that creaks.

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