Twitter – That Astounding Social Network

Social Media … WOW … someone in Belize (didn’t even know it existed a while ago) factory unlocked my iPhone 4 that was on Gevey Sim. Just IMAGINE the probability of that happening a decade ago (yeah OK there was no iPhone then either but you know what I mean). It’s just so mind-boggling.

I wasn’t a fan of twitter until just recently. And I met the most fun / cool people along with losers the likes of which I didn’t know existed. Below are some of my fav ppl on Twitter:

Nadeem Farooq Paracha
@NadeemFParacha (BTW he has blocked me *tear )
Have loved the guy since his sindi topi-wearing days when he would critique local music. I used to be (still am minus Salman Ahmed) a huge Junoon fan and loved how he would praise them. Some call him Brother Grim for h is constant sarcasm but I find it entertaining. Plus, it doesn’t hurt anyone personally.

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Nabiha Mehr Sheikh
@NabihaMeher
The lady rose to fame, at least for me, coz of a blogpost on eTribune where she publicly ‘fessed up to being bipolar. Then had a huge fight with some guy on Twitter accusing him of inciting others to “do the unthinkable” to her. Love how in her passion for feminism, she constantly picks up offense over the silliest of things, pushes the boundaries between being a women-right activist to being a male-antagonist).

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Shiraz Hassan
@ShirazHassan
He is a journo but anyone who knows me knows just how much I love reading papers. I enjoy his photos. He goes around the country taking pics of places no one has heard of. many of the places he photographs I have seen and passed by but have never had the time to really LOOK AT and ADMIRE.

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Saadi Sattar 
@SaadiSattar
Every time I get stuck using WP this guy is the one I turn to. The kid runs a popular tech blog that he started at the age of … hold your breath … 14. So if you have a question about using wordpress, blogging, Nexus, or any gadgets, ask him. Chances are, he WILL respond and be helpful.
Blogs:
Android Muscle
Lolzz

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Amara Javed
@Amara807
Want to follow someone who will NEVER EVER tweet about politics or history or philosophy and just make you think the world was made of rainbow colored marshmallows with blue-haired, techni-color girls singing wearing disgustingly expensive designer clothes she is your gal. Have seen her grow from a 9-6 office registrar to the top fashion blogger in Pakistan. Sub-continent, Paris, NY, London, ME, she has it all covered.
Blog: Pink 2.55

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Dani
@iPhone5_nerd
In case you are curious about the guy that factory unlocked my iPhone, this is the dude.

 

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Miserable Madge
@MiserableMadge
This account is hilarious. Sure there is repetition but whoever is posting is doing a great job. Get my daily dose of laughter from here.

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Imtiaz
@Inspirex
An extremely helpful Pakistani marketing strategist. Stuck with a questions about SEO?  Or trying to decipher GoDaddy? The guy despite being next to a complete stranger offered to help and spent a good ten minutes explaining it all. Hats off to the innate goodness of people.

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Maham Ali
@mahamali05
Recently discovered her. She is hilarious & that’s enough for me to love her.

 

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Sana Saleem
@SanaSaleem
Meet my wife (inside joke u would only know if u were on Twitter). Don’t understand her activism tweets or posts but she can talk nonsense with girlfriends and hence she is on this most prestigious list.

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QZ
@Natrani
Met at Kuch Khaas – that most snobbish of places in Islo. Changed my perception about NGO/activist types. The chocs she fed me helped as well. Love her to bits.

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My Shiny Lights People – in other words, entrepreneurs or those involved with them

Azhar Rizvi
@Azhar Rizvi
My mentor.My brother. My friend. He believed in me when everyone else just laughed and even scorned. MITEnterprise Forum Pakistan’s Vice Chair. Founder Angel Fund Pakistan.

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Jehan Ara
@Jehan_Ara
Stalked the woman shamelessly for 3 years. An inspiration for Pakistani women. President @PASHAorg. Witty. Foodie. Techie. Loves all things “i” and “G” (go figure).

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Badar Khushnood
@Badar76
Google country head for Pk. Only G employee in Pk. Extremely humble and a thorough gentleman.

 

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Atif Mumtaz
@amumtaz
An entrepreneur. Cofounder of the first job portal in Pakistan, Brightspyre. Working on an International job portal now. A friend and advisor.

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The Pushtun-This-and-Pushtun-That Types (Journos, Bloggers, Media peeps)

There were too many here that I really like to follow. The title is a compliment so no Twitter wars please. (or why not!)

SAbaseen
@SesapZai
Blogger at BBC, Express Tribune, SesapZai.wordpress.com. Intellectual pushtun woman living in Canada and moving to France. She sketches and paints. Thinks I look like a younger (skinnier) caricature of Fauzia Kasuri and yet I still love her.

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Iftikhar Firdous
@IftikharFirdous
Journo at Express Tribune. Only vegetarian tribal pushtun I know (or that exists).

 

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Takhalus
@Takhalus
Jumps into random conversations between people. Shows off about his vast knowledge of history (yeah that kinda includes everything). Super secretive about his identity. As if anyone cares. Blogs at http://www.takhalus.blogspot.com/

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Usama Khilji
@UsamaKhilji
Claim to fame? He is my teacher’s son. The only teacher I was ever nervous with and made me feel like an idiot. Something called a Citizen Journalist. People seem to listen to him. Talks politics.

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Some International Tweeples

Alec Ross
@AlecJRoss
Met Alec at the US Ambassador’s residence in Pakistan. You remember him, right? Or let this jog your memory. Yeah the same guy. I like going through links he shares and his “This day in history” tweets. Plus, he is not hard on the eyes.

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Lukas Biewald
@l2k
I need this kid to sit up and take notice of me and my work and let my workers / service providers have access to CrowdFlower. Yes, I said NEED. Imagine the difference Rs. 4000 or $40 can make in the lives of a huge untapped workforce in rural Pak. Sigh!

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Dave McClure
@davemcclure
Cofounder of 500 Startups. ‘Nuff said. *SwirlyHearts*

Ok I think I am done. Once again – these are ppl I like to follow. Doesn’t mean this is an exclusive list of best tweeples out there. If you are here take it as a compliment and don’t read too much into anything.

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OK BYeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

P.S. No offense intended to anyone at all. If you are on the list, it’s a compliment from me – honestly – no side-dish of sarcasm served with that. Thanks

P.P.S. had to add the annoying lines coz otherwise the pics all ran into one another.

Idea for an App, Maybe?

We badly need a repository of all startups (between 0 and 5 years old).

Also, a database of ratings for these startups as well as freelancers.

This will enable startups to collaborate and bootstrap each other. Will also help people like myself find freelancers for various tasks based on their skillsets and work ethics.

Yeah. I think it can be done via a simple Facebook App. Maybe the Pakistani Freelancers community can help. Badar Khushnood, you listening?

An app that all members of the page are required to sign up for. A rough mindmap would look like this:

Freelancers => First Name => Last Name => Skills (any 3)

I see a lot of people looking to hire for various projects. These people can also go to the app and see which freelancers offer what skills and they can directly connect with them. Once they find right person, they will check the freelancers name … something that shows s/he has hired xyz for xyz skill. At the end of the task, s/he can then leave a rating and comment.

This way, I am guessing we will have something that at least shows if service providers actually have the skills they claim. More importantly it will also solve a big problem where workers simply leave in the middle of a task or don’t do quality work.

What do you think? Is it too simplistic? Can it work? How much would it cost to build an FB app like that?

Croak Croak … Croakun

This is a long over due post about the latest buzz in social media marketing and analytics.

Croakun [...] provides real-time social media analytics and personalized actionable recommendations to improve your online presence, engaging better with your customers while being more competitive than the competitors.”

Huh?

OK to simplify, you can watch this video. http://youtu.be/Zbl8K9ANlgg Dear ol’ Govt of Pakistan has put a ban on YouTube so can’t embed. If you are in Pakistan you can STILL watch it using this proxy site (no, don’t worry it’s not Hotspot Shield). Just go to www.Vidproxy.com and paste the above YouTube URL into the QuickLinks box.

Better than this, let me share some screenshots from the beta site. Yes, I have beta access since the founder, Kai Feng, is a friend and a client.

In. Your. Face. HA!

But ahem …

So suppose you want to keep a track of your Twitter conversations. Sure you can use Hootsuite but then how do you make any sense of all that data right in front of you? If you are a big business or an SME you will have to hire media experts (*eyeroll) to go through it and make some sense of it. So, you end up not only spending on the tool but also on your “experts”. Here is what croakun does.

This is where your Twitter stream shows. You can see on the left you can change between Twitter, Facebok and even G+ and LI I believe.

Geo Demographics tab takes all your data and puts it into neat charts based on languages and locations. Imagine how awesome this would be for an International Brand or a brand focusing on clients say in the US who speak both Hispanic and English. Possibilities are limitless.

The Volume tab is the cumulative tweets or facebook status by hours to see what time is the most active hour about a certain keyword!

Influencers – So if you are looking for influencers for certain keywords from your following list how would you know who are the most relevant tweeples and how they are ranked for that particular keyword? That’s where Croakun makes it all a piece of cake. Getting more and more excited?

Sentiments – ah, this gives you the pulse of twitterati. How are they feeling that day? Are they in a positive mood? This might be a great time to tell them about a new product launch. Bad mood? Yikes! Stay away – do not announce the new giveaway or what have you.

Can’t wait for it to go live.

In other news … I am well and as awesome as ever. Spending more time on Twitter than Facebook. Enjoying downloading torrents. Working with some great customers and service providers. Loving it!

OK byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Schmoozing

When you get invited to a US Embassy event to meet some guy working with the government, your reaction is?

Mine was … *blech

But today I was in GEEK HEAVEN I tell you.

So there is this guy called Alec Ross who is associated with Clinton and ran Obama’s election-winning Twitter campaign. Used to run a NFP. Wants to meet bloggers and ppl active in social media. The Embassy sends some bio that I skim through but all I see is “blah blah blah blah blah”. But I go anyway. I am soon moving to Peshawar (another story for another day … or  maybe not) and thought what the heck. I’ll go see the guy. And then I have never been accused of saying NO to free lunch. So that was a good incentive as well.

So I arrive at the Ambassador’s house. Am greeted by the Ambassador … had no idea who he was until much later during the conversation. Am introduced to this young-ish guy. We shake hands and he says, “Hi, I am Alec”. Me, being me, said, “Hi Alex, I am Maria”. KILL ME!

Small gathering – made me feel very fancy shmancy and important. Then Mr. Alec decided to come and sit with me and start asking about what I do. I give my very rehearsed pitch about WDL. And the usual “oh wow, how great, wonderful, excellent, fabulous” followed. Americans do that a lot, no? I have picked up on it too. “Mr XYZ, what do you do?” “I do blah blah blah”. Me: “Oh how wonderful!”

I was saying …

Yeah, I mentioned how I found most clients through LinkedIn. And he takes out his BB and says you know what – Reid Hoffman is my friend and he will be very happy to hear about this so I am gonna email him right now”.

OH 

MY

GOD!

I find it hard to type any more. My heart stopped for a minute and all I could do was give him one of my goofy grins coz I didn’t trust myself to speak. I knew I was gonna start screaming. And he asked, “You know who Reid Hoffman is?”

Gun – trigger – face – BANG

I don’t know who Hilary Clinton is but I sure know Reid Hoffman.

LinkedIn 

PayPal

eBay 

*drool

Just thinking he has my name in his inbox in an email which he will prolly lay his eyes on in the next … say … 3 hours (he is on US PT) does funny things to my heart. SHIT!

Emailing Reid Hoffman <3

I can’t talk any more. But just so you know – I wasn’t a complete idiot. I remembered to ask about PayPal. Dudettes, back me up on that one.

The land where unicorns graze in rainbow colored fields exists …

and that’s where I am gonna be for a while.

byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Do you Wanna be a Transformer?

Excited Finalists with Judges and the GIST Team

Remember GIST? The wonderful organization that was responsible for my annoying whining for longer than I am proud to admit? Yeah, the peeps who ran the “I Dare” business plan competition(BPC), the one where I had absolutely no hope of ever making it into the semi-finals never mind the finals, have announced a new competition called the “Tech-I“. It’s sorta like a BPC … actually its exactly what it is, but unlike “I Dare” where we had to submit full biz plans this one is asking only for an executive summary and a 2 min video pitch. Interesting, eh?

The flyer below will give you a good summary of the event:

If you click on the image above it will take you to the official competition page.

I am telling you, if you have a business idea and its tech-related, you don’t want to miss this. I had absolutely no hope of getting into “I Dare” but I did. What if I hadn’t applied? What if I had let my doubts and lack of confidence get the better of me? Well, for one I wouldn’t have had 2 free trips to the UAE … mwahahahahahahaha ….. and secondly, I would have missed out on a huge opportunity to connect with other startup owners, hear all about their plans and their challenges and realize how despite the geographical and cultural and religious changes all of us had almost identical problems.

With the GIST, MITEF Asia, and MITEF Pakistan Team
5 of 20 semifinalist teams were from Pakistan and 3 of them were led by women!

Then of course there were all those mock pitching sessions with people from Google and Seed Startup and Etisalat. There were people with titles longer than their names; first, middle and last combined. Hell I even got some business from there; some real, other not. But Etisalat’s top honcho saying he wanted to do business (and then never replying to phone calls or emails) or Google UAE’s Mr. Big Shot telling me the same was enough to give me an adrenaline rush. I mean where else would I meet those people?

Look! You have nothing to loose. Just apply. Either you get through or you don’t. It will be one of the 2. If you don’t, eh … who cares. If you do … PARTAYYYYYYYYYY … TAKE THAT SUCKERZZZZ. Ahem!

And remember, when you get selected to go to Dubai, don’t forget to bring me candies from the Candylicious store in Dubai Mall. Also, I have developed a weird weakness for souvenir pencils and mugs. *hint,hint

OK BYeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Solitude’s Desert

I try not to let the ‘other’ side of me take over this blog. No – my doppelganger shall remain away from here. But I have to share this. Apologies in advance.

Last night, I and hubbie were mocking how a pop-singer had been given the ridiculous task of singing a real song. Then this came on the radio and we both thought it was a version by Iqbal Bano we hadn’t heard before. Meesha has done a terrific job. The way every word has a ‘melody’ to it that needs no accompaniment by instruments gives me shivers. *Gushing. Of course the fact this poem is written by Faiz Ahmed Faiz who is my favorite poet and sung by Tina Sani, my absolutely fav singer, this was a make-or-break test for Meesha and boy did she ace it or what! Love it!

Now this brings me to another reason why this caption is not as corny as I am being ↑. Sighhhh … told you about the GIST Competition in Dubai, right? NO DON’T STOP READING JUST YET! I am NOT going to tell you about the whole thing again and be wimpy. Am over it and as annoyingly giggly and optimistic as ever. The reason why I refer to it is because you see Dubai is a desert, right? Yeah despite (horrifying) buildings like this:

Tacktastic

and this:

Tallest building … yeah they couldn’t figure it out so stuck a steel pillar on top … yippppeeee … its like a woman wearing stilettos and saying I am 5′ 11″. LOL MOST RIDICULOUS THING EVER

and this:

Kill me someone

GOSH they were ugly! I was saying??

Erm …

…….. yeah ..

So there I was in the desert with goth-meets-Disney-meets-StarTrek structures all around and sheikhs with beautiful manicures and gorgeous sheikhas that made me want to go get a nose-job. Bored with Malls and grieving for the enchanting perfume-bottle-shaped trophy … OK I AM GONNA SHUT UP ABOUT THAT. So for whatever reason I wanted to go see something other than malls and fancy buildings. Someone suggested seeing Old Dubai so me headed out with Khoo (James) Chan Shiang. Khoo is from Malaysia and is founder of SecQ.me which is an app for smartphones as well as certain wrist watches that uses GPS and in-built security alert in case you are in danger. You can learn about it here. But to cut it short he is super geeky and you know that means he is my new best friend. Met his friend, Shafiu Hussain. Shafiu is from Maldives, married to a Russian lady whom he met in India and he currently lives in Malaysia, and to add fuel to the fire, turns out he is founder of TaxiMonger. TM is again an app and acts as a virtual call center for taxis (cabs, yo Yankees!). And we were in a place with bazaars called Gold Souk and Spice Souk (souk is “market” in Arabic) with little alleyways that let us into their heart and we discovered the most amazing secrets like a Sikh shrine and a street that looked like it was out of a market somewhere in Delhi.

Hindu Idols

Sikh Shrine in Middle of Nowhere

Looking at Gold Souk from Spice Souk across the river

As we sat down to eat biryani and chicken karahi at a place called Karachi Darbar we talked about what geeks talk about. Happens SecQ.me and TaxiMonger are collaborating and calling the mash-up TaxiMonger Bodyguard. What was Women’s Digital League doing there? Why of course providing social media assistance! But more than that, brainstorming ways the app could be launched in Paki-land. NOT talking more about it. Maybe nothing comes off it. Maybe something does. You will be the first ones to hear whatever happens, my lovelies … hope you know that.

But for now, go check out both apps. They are free to download and you can find out how form their websites at www.SecQ.me and www.TaxiMonger.com.

OK Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

P.S. Ummm … so am I the only one who thinks the title is awesome? At the end of the day it is just my opinion that matters here anyway. *hairflip

In World’s Longest Hotel, In front of World’s Tallest Building, At World’s Largest Race Course – ‘Coz We Are The Best!

Am back beautiful ladies from the GIST I Dare Business Plan Competition Finale in Dubai. Am past my initial disappointment – no, WDL didn’t win. No, not even the special Woman Entrepreneur Award. For a while it sucked. I let the disappointment wash over me – I sat in my room alone and grieved – I went to the Mall alone and sat in a corner and wept unobserved. For a while I was even bitter and a complete b**** to everyone. Yeah, everyone thinks I am funny so even when I am mean they are kind and think I am just kidding around but I was a pain for a while. However, finally, I got it out of my system.

Masters in English Literature. Secondary School teacher. From South Waziristan. That’s not who you would expect to be at a competition for tech startups. The surreal bizarre truth of the moment. I was sitting with people running the coolest tech startups being mentored by people from LinkedIn and Google and invited to Silicon Valley, and I was competing with them. And yeah, the 29-yr old Asian kid sitting next to me was actually a venture capitalist whose firm Neoteny Labs had invested in companies like Insync (love child of Dropbox and Google docs!!) and Game Ventures besides many others and was most coveted by startups in Asia and Middle East!!! James Chan was a jerk – that was my first impression after the very short menotring session we had. James Chan was an incredibly honest and forthright guy to be depended on to give you a very clear idea of where you stand in the market and also ideas on how you could make it better. Above all, he was human. Something I have always doubted VCs were. He likes playing video games in stealthy corners of the hotel, loves photographing his kid, and enjoys a simple chat.

Realized I have a bias towards female entrepreneurs / mentors despite being a woman myself. Was disappointed when I found out my one-on-one mentor was going to be a woman and she wasn’t even Asian! But Dr. Christiane Scholderer of Mind Talk turned out to be a blessing after how James Chan fried me (no hard feelings James ). She “got” me and WDL. Understood what I was doing and why I believe it will work.

After the results spoke to some judges and they, along with all my fellow finalists, were of the opinion that I need to talk more about the

eAid Team led by Rumaisa Mohani receiving the Woman Entrepreneur Award

women whose lives WDL will impact or has already affected in some way or the other. Here is my stance on the thing. I work in a country where “honor” is more important than anything else and its always associated with women. A man who allows his women to work is looked down upon as being unable to provide for his family. Its a stigma. Now if I go out and start talking about these women, even if I change their names and all, still, WDl becomes associated with helping “poor women who can’t make ends meet” and that can lead to a LOT of trouble.

Also, the idea is to work through organizations already active on the ground who have a trusting relationship with the communities because otherwise being a woman-owned business leads locals to believe we are NGOs here to radicalize their women and corrupt them. Being from the same kind of background I am more culturally sensitive to the way they think and act then most others. So, whether it gets me the dough or not, I can not risk showing “stories” unless the entire community’s elders permit it.

Wow – I sound so sane! *grin – WDL does that to me.

Almost All of Us (Sans me )

For the fun stuff, if you own an iPhone or an Android, ladies, download SecQme. Its a wonderful app that “secures” you. Here is a simple video that shows you how it works:

Will blog about it in more detail separately but this app is developed by a new friend, Khoo Chen Shiang from Malayisa who was a finalist.

James Khoo giving a demo of SecQMe on his Watch!!

Now Kai Feng Chew has a startup called CloudStat. CloudStat is a God-send for people doing social media. Its a way to manage all your social media in one place, collect retardedly simple to read analytics, and just figure out which social media channel is best for marketing your product or service. I strongly advise you go check it out.

Being a tech-geek these companies make my heart beat like crazy. On the other hand, being a social enterprise buff, am absolutely in love with GreenovationTechs and Pak Energy Solution. They also received first and second prizes respectively. The first makes buildings with a special kind of material that has “airconditioning” properties. Just what we need in Pakistan these days with the horrible power crisis. Pak Energy makes gold out of cow droppings!! As the founder said in his presentation, “If I told you you could make big cash from cow dung you would think, “Bull Shit!” ” LOL! But they convert cow droppings into biogas energy for producing energy.

I read on Women 2.0 that men get funded and women get mentors. I say, go right ahead my pretties. Get the mentoring. Absorb it all. Men do get funding but they also waste a lot of it ‘coz they get cocky. On the other hand, funding will come and when it does we will be ready to make the most of it. Duh!

OK byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

P.S. Was late for my flight. Stranded at the airport. Emirates has the SUCKIEST customer service ever. Being a pushtun obvi I didn’t let them get away with comments like, “next time you are shopping remember this is an airport not a bus stop”. Gave them a telling-off they will never forget along with a complaint to the manager directly. Took a flight to Lahore and came to Islamabad on a Daewoo.

P.P.S Some Facts:

Longest Hotel = Meydan Hotel
Tallest Building = Burj AlKhalifa (That shoudl also be given the World’s Ugliest Building Award)
Largest Race Course = Meydan Race Course
Best Startups = Women’s Digital League etc

Gumroad – huh?

Eeeeeeeeeeeee …. this is exciting! Gumroad is a marketplace for selling your blog posts, poems, source code, and more. Best part?

1. It’s FREE!
2. It’s available in Pakistan
3. No long shipping info forms to fill
4. Gumroad charges only a 5% cut

For more, have a look at their video:

Social Enterprises – Disillusionment

Yes, your favorite entrepreneur is a little down. Disillusioned! Anyone who reads this blog (which isn’t every many people) know about my romance with social enterprises and with startups in general especially those related to the IT sector. But lately, things have been a little different …

Contrary to popular belief I am the MOST social person ever. I hate attending social gatherings. I don’t like visiting friends or family. Talking on the phone is torture. Even when I do meet people I am extremely awkward and do and say crazy stuff. People make me nervous. That’s why I love social media. I can stay in touch with everyone who matters and everyone who doesn’t matter at all but like to think otherwise.

But since May last year I have been pushing myself to go out there and meet people because it’s important for business. And people at the end of the day are just that, people. Humans! Which means, they are “humane” as well. Compassionate.

Sadly, I have started feeling like no one cares. I may be wrong of course but I don’t hear anyone talk about helping others. If you dare to do that they look at you like that kid in junior school who talks about becoming a doctor to help the ailing humanity. Stupid! Naive! Dumb! Value proposition means saving big bucks in the most innovative way. My biggest competitors are sitting in India and Philippines so I am asked, “We can get the same services at the same rates at the same quality from Gurgaon. Why you?” And I naively say, “Because WDL is a social enterprise. We do everything they can do for you but we also bring you personal gratification.” *Roll on Floor Laughing* right? No one cares. Maybe if I said, “They are doing it for $1/hr. I’ll do it for $0.50 which means these young women in some remote village will barely make enough to buy groceries but  hey, you’ll save a tiny bit more for serving fancier wine at that dinner party for 50 you have been planning for 2 weeks now“. Now THAT will bring in the work, eh?

Also, I have meet “social entrepreneurs”. Online of course. You know what the common thread is? Marketing! Marketing black and yellow faces to white ones. Posting big website banners with smiling photos of people in non-western clothes sitting in front of computers saying to the world, “Look, I am the new monkey specie in the zoo … see how I can hold a banana and eat it almost like you would.“

Here is what someone I have been following for a long time had to say on the whole social entrepreneurship thing:

To start, i have had a problem with the frame of “social entrepreneurship” as it is generally an elitist frame. “Cultural entrepreneurship” would seem to dig the hole deeper…. Who but the privileged? Do we not as humans all want to make a positive impact with our efforts? Lots of my colleagues living on less than $5 a day make a difference in their community with their enterprise, but wouldn’t be seen in this priviledged air. As this term has gained currency from funders, I find myself grudgingly in a growing market established itself around this “social entrepreneurship” frame. Secondly, as a change agent and an academic trained in cultural anthropology, the frame of “cultural entrepreneurship” as an innovation newly born in the context of capitalism is so disconnected from the many bodies of good work by practitioners in applied social sciences, that I don’t even want to get started.

Elitist! Feeding on others misery. Making money off it. Asking for their stories so they can manipulate them and do business. Make the next million for the VC breathing down their necks for return. If this is how I wanted to sell - telling sob-stories about my team – I’d be well on my way to making it into the Big League. BUT I AM NOT SELLING ANYONE’S DIGNITY FOR DOING BUSINESS! This is the whole idea behind WDL. Hire us because we are good at what we do. Not because of issues in our personal lives that you can milk for your next CSR campaign.

My way may not be the way taught by professors in universities. My way may also not be the fastest way. But I’ll get there and will keep my humanity intact as well.

For now, I go back to listening to soppy 80s songs and picking up online fights with random people over nothing.

Helping women in Pakistan

Helping women in Pakistan.

Women’s Digital League made headlines on She Says, a global network for women providing free mentorship and networking event to women in business. Click on the link to read more.

Happy reading.

OK BYEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee