2010 in review

January 2, 2011 1 Comment

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Sami MalallahThe average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 132 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 144 posts. There were 179 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 376mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was November 17th with 135 views. The most popular post that day was Relationship Marketing – Coca-Cola in India.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, mail.yahoo.com, malallah.org, mail.live.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for problem statement, Acer SWOT analysis, whistle blowing, daily routine, and supply chain.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Relationship Marketing – Coca-Cola in India March 2010
2 comments

2

Acer SWOT Analysis June 2010
7 comments

3

Leadership Styles January 2010

4

Quantitative or Qualitative January 2010
5 comments

5

Research Overview February 2010
3 comments

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Sugar Coating

November 17, 2010 6 Comments


Listen to this postYesterday was my anniversary at work. I have been with the same employer for the past 30 years and I enjoyed most of the days I worked there. Now I am managing more that 700 employees and I have tried to be fair with them while meeting most of their needs, requests and demands. One of the best tactics the employees use for their complains is “Sugar Coating”. I am not saying that the complain is true or not, but the way it is presented to me is sometimes strange.

For example, an employee would take an appointment to see my Boss and then start his discussion by saying “This is not a complain, I just wanted to say…” and then he or she would exaggerate every negativity they experienced in the last 3 years! Another example is when the employee send an official complain to HR or my Boss, but then catch me walking by and start by saying “I wanted to talk with you about an issue I have … do you have a minute do discuss it?”

We all make mistakes and we should take our responsibilities to admit the mistakes and correct them. But using different ways to discuss the complain is not the best start to resolve any issue. Through my years at work I followed a good philosophy that goes something like this “Do not explain…and Do not complain” and it made my life very simple and peaceful. I am sure that my boss does not want me to explain to him why I made the mistake (or delay in an assignment). And I am very sure that nobody would like to set and listen to my complains. When I make a mistake I would admit it and do my best to correct it. If I have a complain or an issue with somebody, I would meet him or her and discus the issue face-to-face with them. Other than this … life is very simple.

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There Is Only 24 Hours Every Day

October 16, 2010 6 Comments

Listen to this postWe have only 24 hours in every day. I am sure that you know this fact but I just thought of reminding you. Some of us would like to have more hours everyday, while many people complain of boredom and say “I have nothing to do” or “I can not think of anything interesting things around me!”  I am one of those people who wish we can store time and use it when we need it most. But actually I do not have extra time to store for later use. I consume most of my time between work, exercise, family and study. Oh, yes, I forget to mention sleep!

Some days I come home from work at 5 PM to have my main hot meal then take a long nap ( or short sleep) and wake up at 9:00 PM to start studying until the early hours of the morning. Late night studying is very good because of the concentration. No distractions because everybody at home would be sleep or ready to sleep. The worst part of this plan is messing the quality time with the family and the uncontrolled weight gain. For those who complain of boredom I would recommend they read a book.

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My Wedding Ring

September 15, 2010 8 Comments

Listen to this postI got married ten years ago when I was 37 years old. Some of you would immediately ask why I was so late since the average age for marriage in Kuwait is 25. My answer would be in a future post. I am now happily married to a wonderful wife with three children. I have been through work stress, labor strikes, fire fighting, swim with sharks and raised children. Life is tough but with little patience all problems would pass way and will turn to be a distant memory. I like photograph and love to take pictures of roses and natural sites, but do not like to be photographed. I do not want to look at the pictures after 10-20 years and then say something like “Ooooh …I was so young” or “Looook how funny I was with that hair cut!”. I believe what had happened in the past should stay in the past, and we should live our lives they way we are now. It is like diving for many years then you find yourself in a place that you are happy with. The pictures form our live journey would not make much sense now. The picture on the right side shows my wedding ring which I always wear. I just took it off one day for cleaning and found the dents and beating it took through the years. The engraved artistic decoration had been wiped out through the years. The ring is a good indicator to what had happened in the past 10 years.

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Different Kind of Coffee

August 10, 2010 2 Comments

Listen to this postOK, this is might be my third post about my love of coffee, but again who does not love a good cup of coffee with that delicious taste and wonderful aroma. I was visiting Kingdom of Bahrain and was walking in one of the many modern malls when I stopped for a cup of coffee. I was looking for the usual international coffee shop brand but I could not located. I think the caffeine urge had overcome the coffee search so I stopped at this coffee shop. It is called “Caffe Vergnano 1882” and I would assume that this brand of cafe is operational since 1882 as the number suggest in the name of the cafe.  So I got the menu and kept it aside because I knew what I needed. So I asked for my latte and I got this unusual set of hot milk and espresso. I thought of drinking the espresso first then the coffee but then I noticed the big spoon. Which meant that I should mix the coffee with the milk and the seer it up. So, the taste was ….. sensational, unbelievable and much better than what I used to drink at Star…ks (you know the name). I think I will be a regular customer to this cafe whenever I am in Bahrain and would look it up in every country I visit.


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Life Without The Internet

August 5, 2010 4 Comments

Listen to this postIn the past two weeks I had to experience few days without the invisible wireless service of the internet. One of the reasons was my personal vacation and I wanted to stay away from my daily routine, the 24 hours connectivity and the virtual social network. I tried to stay away from the internet but could not. Many of us are addictive to the internet. Most of us use the internet for work and professional uses but we socialize from time to time on the Internet even during the working hours just to break out from the stressful work environment. During my stay in the hotels I had to pay the expensive and unrealistic internet fees just to stay connected. What I paid for few days in the hotel is enough to get me connected on a high-speed internet at home for a month, but again I am addicted to the Internet. The second reason I need the internet is to continue my commitment to the readers of this blog. I maintained my “three posts per week” through my most difficult times and tried to make up for the days I missed if that rarely happened. The third reason I need the Internet is my daily access to the digital libraries for my researches. I usually use this third reason to justify my need for the Internet but actually I need the Internet for the other reasons also. I have internet service on my mobile phone, on my iPad and I got wireless serves at home and at work just to stay connected all the time. I do not know about you, but I am hooked on the Internet.

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Top Ten Signs That You Are In A Good Hotel

August 3, 2010 7 Comments

Like you, I have traveled a lot and visited different countries. Dying my travel I try to select the best hotel I can offered. Most of us select the best hotels for security and safety reasons then look for comfort and  services. he following is my personal guideline to distinguish the good hotels from the bad ones.

Good Hotel Bad Hotel
10 Food come pushed into the room on a nice table. Hot food is in small hot box under the table. The food is carried in a tray and placed on your bed.
9 Telephone is answered with “Good morning Mr/Ms. John Dow, my name is ______ how can I help you”. They do not answer but if they did it will be “Yes!”
8 The room has a table and a chair that can be used as a small office for you to work from. You will be lucky if you have a chair in the room.
7 Rooms are spacious and you can add an extra bed without feeling crowded. You can nearly walk around in the room
6 Good quality paper tissue boxes are available in the bathroom and next to the bed. One box of cheep paper tissue box is available in the bathroom. The box is usually have 3-10 tissues only.
5 The shower water is cold and hot with sufficient pressure to massage your nick and back. Shower drainage is open to take all the water you can shower with. Shower water is in room temperate with pressure enough to push the water our of the shower head. Water level is building up on your feed while you are showering.
4 When you ask for direction in the hotel, the person will ask you to follow him/her until you reach the place you wanted. You will be lucky to find somebody to point his/her finger in the approximate direction of what you ask for.
3 White clean towels in different sizes are hanging in the bathroom at you arm reach On big (and sometimes another small one) is available and you are doubting if you should use the.
2 You have a quite room to sleep or work with a beautiful view from the big window. You laugh at you neighbor’s noise in the bathroom, and then you wonder if he/she is laughing at you also?
1 You need to mention the hotel name to the taxi driver and he will smile and start driving. When you mention the hotel name, the taxi driver will ask you to get out of the taxi!

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Why Do I Blog?

July 18, 2010 7 Comments

Listen to this postI was asked by my friends the same question “why do you write in a blog” or sometimes they ask “what’s the point of writing a blog”. Well, there are many reasons for me to write in a blog and I hope you would agree with me on these reasons. The first reason is materializing my thoughts and ideas in a written form that I can document for myself and the others to read. I have mentioned my love of reading especially business books. From reading so many books I would come up with thoughts that can be integrated in a single idea. I would write this idea  in the blog for everybody to read. I sometimes write to answer a question that my readers asked or some of my friends had consulted me on a business subject. Many of the post are actually part of my doctoral program classwork and homework. I research them and write them for class participation but then I would post them in the blog for others to benefit from them.

This post is the 100th post since I started blogging. My target to write 3 posts every week to reach a minimum of 153 post by the end of this year. Reaching 100 post in the first six months is exceeding the preset target and I hope I can sustain this enthusiasm. I have written two books so far and plan to combine the posts in this blog into a book later on after I write enough information. Writing the book in small portions like these posts would relieve me from having to write the book on one go which will needs dedicated time and effort (and both are not available).

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Why I Chose English for Writing

June 30, 2010 8 Comments

I was asked by my friends and blog readers “why do I write my posts in English?” My immediate reapply is my typing skills. I learn typing when I was doing my undergraduate degree in the US. Most of the papers then were supposed to be word-processed. So I leaned how to type my school papers on word perfect which was the dominant word processing program at that time. From the start, I forced my self to use five fingers for typing while most of my friends were typing with two fingers only. I had slow start in the beginning but I became faster after couple of years while my friends are still struggling with two fingers. The second reason for choosing English for my blog is the globalization. Yeas, globalization but not the globalization you know. I wanted to reach the maximum number of readers in the world. I figured that most of the Kuwaitis can read English and English is a universal language, so many readers would stop by and read my thoughts in the blog. So far, the blog receives almost the same percentage of readers from Kuwait and the United States. The pie chart shows the exact numbers from around the world.By the way, I can type in Arabic but by Arabic typing very slow. I tried to write in Arabic in my other blog but that consumed a lot of my valuable time. People who know me very well knows how much I value my time. The red dots on the map (below) represent the site visitors. You may notice that most of the readers are from Kuwait, United States, Europe and India.

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Should I Travel First Class

June 16, 2010 6 Comments

Listen to this postThe prestige of flying first class is felt before reaching the airport. In your way, the taxi driver would ask you if you are flying first, business or economy. Once you replay that you are flying first class his attitude will change and he will stop telling you the usual story that taxi business is not so good and that live is difficult in this country, he was doing better in the other job …. ! So one of the advantages of flying the first class is muting the taxi driver. The first and business classes have their privet checking in counters where a representative form the airline would greet you in the way and introduce you to a friendly face who will check you in very fast. Then you move to the  fast-track security check. You would see other passengers waiting in a long que for their turn for the security check.

After passing through the necessary checks you would go directly to first class lounge which has comfortable chairs, big screen TV’s and free food and drinks. You would wait in the lounge until most of the passengers board the airplane then you will be called to join them few minuets before the Airplane’s doors are closed. The first class seats are wide, cozy and comfortable. On my last trip on the British Airways I watched a movie on the big LCD screen then I went to the bathroom. On my way the flight attendant asked if I would like to have my seat converted to bed, and I said yes. I found the seat became flat with bed sheet covering it and a fluffy cover on top of it. So I said why not try sleeping since we have 4 hours of flying until we reach our distention. I adjusted the soft pillow and closed my eyes. I thought I slept for short time when I heard the announcement informing us that only 30 minutes are left before landing. I must have slept for 3 hours without knowing. I went to wash my face to come back and find the bed set has been removed and the seat is back in the normal position.

I was asked if I would like something to drink before landing, so I asked for a late’ and something sweet to eat with it. I remember in the economy class that you will not get a glass of water or permitted to leave your seat if the plane is going to land within 45 minutes. The airplane landed safely and I was one of the first people to clear out of the passport control section and get my luggage in my way home. Does it worth to pay that much and travel in first class? I do not know especially when the cost of first class ticket is triple the price of economy class. Many of us pay one-third of the traveling budget for the airline ticket. SO should you travel first class this summer?

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