Hibr

Arab Social Media Forum Wrap-up

Malik Shishtawi, the founder of the Arab Social Media Forum and general manager of wunderman, gave a warm welcome speech and introduced the first speaker, His Excellency Mr. Marwan Juma, Jordan’s Minister of Information & Communication Technology. Speaking in eloquent and educated English, Mr. Juma gave an entertaining presentation describing his government’s efforts to use social media to make life easier for young entrepreneurs. Apparently, you can export anything IT-related out of Jordan, tax-free. Asked why he does not follow many people on Twitter since social media is about listening as well as broadcasting one’s updates, he replied that he is too busy. He was also not ashamed to admit that he is neither an architect nor a doctor, but rather a geek.

A barefooted Mark Comerford also gave an enthralling presentation, peppered with swear words, about how to “swim” in social media and the shift from walking alone to constantly having our networks with us. “Almost everyone has a mobile phone, [and so] you are continually in a bubble of communication; you always have your friends with you at all times, until you switch it off,” he told the audience. “And this is why social media is important; it changes the way we do things.”

In his presentation (available online on Slideshare), Comerford pointed out: “In the analog world, everything is private until we make it public. In the digital world, everything is public until you make it private.”

He stressed, however, that "social media won't make change, we make the change.” He also asked, “Where is the training for the trainers? We now have students who mentor teachers."

Later, Patrick Atallah, social media strategist, Managing Director of 90:10 Group of France, Italy and Middle East, spoke about the new way to market a product. Sylvie Cambie, who runs Chanda Communications and advises international organizations like the European Commission and the UN on social media strategies, talked about social media for social change. Compared to some earlier presentations, they included some welcome concrete examples.

Malik Shishtawi also announced that the second Arab Social Media Forum will take place in Saudi Arabia next year. Shishtawi says we will just have to stay tuned to know more.

During the day, there were mixed reactions to the presentations. Adel Shehadeh from Yahoo! told Hibr that he found “the quality of presentations at the ArabNet conference much better". A student who has worked with Aramex, Morad Abdelhalim, also said that much of the information being given is “somewhat old news”.

Also, despite this being the first Arab Social Media Forum, taking place in Amman, Jordan, the dominant language of presentations was English. Abdelhalim said that many people came thinking that it would be in Arabic, but Rani Dababneh, a search engine optimizer and one of the ASMF 2010 ambassadors, and Shehadeh were kind enough to explain their point of view. “English is the universal language, it is the norm. You find Arabs who speak English but it is rare to find foreigners who speak Arabic,” said Shehadeh. Dababneh continued, “we are still behind in this field, and it [social media] was created in English, we can use it first in English and then develop it in Arabic”.

The unreliable Internet connection caused much frustration amongst the technology fans in the audience. Rani Dababneh told Hibr “the Internet has never been this bad anywhere in Amman, so, outsiders, don't get the wrong impression [of Jordan]!”

One of the highlights of the conference was the live drawing of Nader El Ezz, who drew comic sketches on a board provided by Ketab Technologies. Mohamad Hijazi, one of the ambassadors from Lebanon, said “it was very cool that he kept illustrating throughout the whole event, and he was drawing things that were actually happening.”