I wonder if a futurist in the past ever predicted the affiliation of an average consumer with its brands. We have seen how the followers of one religion disagreeing with the beliefs of another or fan of one sports team ridiculing the fans of another or the public reaction on the policies of their governments or representatives. But what’s new or different is the end user’s reaction on technology releases, their sacred association with certain brands and how they love to whine about their technological allergies in public. Shouldn’t be a matter preference?

With this question in mind I attended Microsoft’s blogger meet up last week at Microsoft Innovation Centre in Karachi. I always learn something new and fascinating whenever I got the opportunity to attend Microsoft organized events. My admiration is not limited to MS product releases but the community work that Microsoft is doing in Pakistan to promote computer literacy (Microsoft innovation for All), bridge the gap between Urdu and English literates (Urdu version of MS products) is commendable.

I got to the event early enough to land myself a seat in the front row. I was handed over a cool t-shirt (Covering live events have its fair share of perks!) which said: I blog, therefore I am! As soon as I tweeted about the shirt, series of tweets overflowed my (tweetdeck) inbox requesting for the t-shirt.

The entire seats in the FAST University City campus, auditorium got filled with technology loving bloggers. The first half of the event consisted of the presentation demo on Windows 7. MVP Zafar ul Islam highlighted different features of this most talked about Operating System, how it’s better, faster, reliable and convenient for all users (easy plug and play). Win 7 the product was developed keeping into consideration the needs of the end user and the feedback they received from their previous OS releases (Windows Vista). No wonder the tagline for Win7 goes like: I am a PC and Windows 7 was my idea!

Highlights:

· Most interesting part for the bloggers was the Live demo of Microsoft Live Mesh (Beta) using any mobile device (HTC Touch Diamond 2 Windows Phone in this case). The downloaded images were then animated using Windows Live Movie Maker and uploaded on facebook and Windows Live writer. That all within 5 minutes!

· But the demo that really moved me was “Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007 R2”. Looking at the growing business need, OCS is going to be one house hold name.

· Naveed Bajwa, DPE Lead, Microsoft Pakistan shared many ongoing and upcoming initiatives from Microsoft for Pakistani academia and developer Community.

· Jibran Jamshed, Microsoft Pakistan technology consultant answered many pointing question as he was demoing IE8. It was funny to watch the love hate relation of the participants with this web browser.

Out of all the product releases and initiatives being taken by Microsoft the need for a platform where all these action are highlighted is definitely needed at local level. Until than all of this will remain unnoticeable and MS will remain underrated.

Photo Credits: S.M Khan, Zafar ul Islam

Popularity: 15% [?]

Circling the underground music scene for the past few years, I came across T2F (The Second Floor), a project by PeaceNiche (a not-for-profit social entrepreneurship organization), determined to revive the coffee-house culture, that gave voice to such progressive writers  and poets like  Sa’adat Hassan Manto and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi in early Pakistani literary history, but seemed to have faded with time. From the fifteenth century coffee houses of Damascus and Cairo, the coffee house phenomenon has had its share of ups, downs, revelations, bans and revolts. But as long as people choose to think, the cycle will go on. Bringing live music to coffee houses can be credited to the 60’s American political/folk musicians like Dylan, which served as a great idea for young musicians to find small audiences in intimate settings.

T2F reminds me of the 90’s hit show “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, where young Afro-Americans found home at coffee houses for raw expression to vent out decades of suppressed emotions, rather than taking it to the streets. And we can’t help but relate to that, considering the rapidly deteriorating socio-economic/political conditions in our own country.

The recent Open Mic event was another example of how much nurturing the artistic side of our society needs and how these artists go widely un-noticed due to a lack of similar platforms. We keep cursing the music industry for having lost it’s stature within the international music scene, and for musicians who can’t play their own songs live, let alone improvise… but watching these young musicians pour their hearts out that night helped me regain some hope.

The multi-talented comedian-cum-musician host Saad Haroon made sure that there was never a dull moment, keeping in place the rhythm of the whole event, and keeping the audience occupied while each group went through sound check. His Meera jokes, of course, sent the roof flying off with roars and laughter.

The highlight of the evening, for me, was when Sax player Miqdaad Mohammad played “Hey Soul Sister” with a little help from ADP (Aunty Disco Project) member, Ali. His melodic saxophone notes complemented with a strong vocal style made a perfect combination that helped lift the audience’s spirits. Another noticeable act was the duo “Saada Khushboo” that played their own unique blend of acoustic blues and upbeat percussion’s.

The Viccaji sisters, with their soft tones, had their own individual flavors to bring to the audience and their harmonic chemistry was definitely applaudable. An un-announced pop-in by Haniya from “Zeb and Haniya” was also a pleasant surprise. The closing band ‘Bell’ played around with their improvised instrumentals and got multiple encore requests before the night could end. And last, but not the least, hats off to Omar Bilal (better known as OBA) from ADP for bringing together all these people in one room.

A little over 10 pm, the gig seemed to have ended too soon, even with more than a dozen acts. But that’s just one of the perks, unfamiliar to us Karachiites, of actually starting on time (:

- Contributed by Saqib Ahmed

Photo Credits: Jamash

Video Credits: Jehan Ara

Popularity: 22% [?]

Does School, colleges and universities really stop you from thinking big? Are they preparing you for an office job when you can aim higher and think way bigger? Let’s first hear 17 year old APICTA and Pasha Award winner Zayd Inam who according to some, is Pakistan’s Steve Jobs in the making.

So this young man believes that schools play a good part in killing innovation, as they are always about exams, grades and assignments. Knowledge is essential but without practical implications, an individual will lend up with an average job in some office. Now, something that took me 16 years of formal education and 2 years of working experience to understand came naturally to Zayd. It got me thinking about the number of courses that I took at school, colleges or at university level that never ever helped me in anyway, I am sure you share a similar experience. Now if you take those credit hours and subtract them with your educational period, the number that comes out will surprise you or make you angry in my case.

When I put up the same question on twitter, I got many interesting answers. Munir Usman (MVP and Entrepreneur) who by degree is a telecom graduate but pursued his career in the software industry. On my question, whether schools are responsible for killing innovation among students, replied:

“Ideally they are not meant to kill innovation, but looking down at the quality of local education. They are not only killing innovation but are responsible for destroying a good amount of time of the students. Instead of giving proper education to help innovation, they waste time and money in useless courses and activities, as a result students end up doing Ratta (memorizing course lectures) for exams.

When I asked Sabahat Zakariya the same question, she gave quite an interesting reply:

Schools only have meaning when an extremely rare teacher not yet jaded by the system and the administration comes and inspires you. All schools care about are grades for they are quantifiable, abstractions have no meaning in a school ’system’.

On my question to Sabhat and Shahrzad (teacher from Iran) on how we can improve this situation in schools, their reply was:

Stop nurturing mediocrity in faculty. Stop ostracizing teachers with opinions, passion and a voice – Sabahat

Students should be motivated to discover, arousing sense of yearning to learn instead of giving them some formulas to pass the exams- Shahrzad

During my initial experience at work, I met a business man who used to teach entrepreneurship at Pakistan’s top business school; IBA. According to him once an individual passes early 20’s the chances of becoming an entrepreneur almost diminishes and sadly these top business schools are not making leaders but labors. This was a very strong statement coming from a teacher who was very much involved in the business market. On my question to Munir on whether Universities should encourage or teach entrepreneurship at graduation level, his reply was:

Yes the course should be mandatory in every degree but the million dollar question is, who will teach this subject? Most teachers won’t qualify to teach this subject

Muhammed Nawaz (IT Consultant) coined following views on the same question:

Yes Of course they should. One thing important to understand is whether they consider self confidence a virtue or taboo Self confidence raises the chances of people actually taking decisions in their own hands and doing what’s right for them. At the same time, ensuring that with all this virtue comes the aspect of responsibility So when they take a decision, they know what the impact of their decision would be. Accordingly take a step forward.

So if Schools are not doing their jobs right why the parents are desperate to enroll their children in the most expensive of schools. But can you blame them for doing so? Their aim for getting their children admitted in popular schools is to get an admission in a good college or a renowned university, so their children end up with a secure future and a job that pays off well at the end of every month. Not every family can afford an entrepreneur in their house; somebody has to pay mortgage on regular basis. So it’s more about economics then learning or getting education.

Conclusion:

Dropping off from college or Universities is not a preferred option, not every kid is as bright as Zayd or Steve Jobs for that matter. A lot of us might start off slow but end up being a successful individual and professional. Having said that there should be a regular check on the curriculum of college and universities, considering the dropping standards of local educational boards like HEC. The need of having a quality educational body has become inevitable. This independent body will work like a bridge between educational institutes and business market.

Popularity: 39% [?]

The New York Time video report ‘Tuning Out the Taliban’ after its release started a new debate in the Pakistani literary corner. Are we living in denial? Is Taliban not Pakistan’s enemy number # 1? Are the newcons trying to de Islamize Pakistan? Has Ali Azmat gone nuts? These are few of the many questions that we all ask ourselves in the current situation. But one apparent trend that can easily be spotted among these pseudo intellectual debates, is the thirst for change in our masses especially in the thinking young generation. The generation before us gave us the legacy of nothingness. The oldies were married to their traditions; they made no significant change in their time and the mess that we live in today is the gift of their laziness and pseudo-traditional-religious bull crap.

But wait, if the new generation hates all that then why people like Zaid Hamid are attracting these young minds. Why the man in the red cap who is the Wikipedia of “Islamic historic achievements” and the google of conspiracy plans (cooked by the Zionists against the great Muslims) is getting popular among the masses with his rhetoric narrations. One theory states, that for every nation that wants to evolve from the ruins should be reminded of the very foundation the nation stands on. Therefore the young minds should be reminded repeatedly of Islam’s past achievements and traditional enemies. Even for a second if we approve the mentioned theory, even then Zaid Hamid’s rhetoric’s falls flat. Because we can’t hide the fact that Islamic history despite its achievements had a brutal not so pleasant past. One big example is the assassination of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) grandson in the hands of men who claimed to be Muslims, that one incident created a rift that resulted in the number of sects the religion has today. But was this predicament ever address by Zaid Hamid or any religious cleric or critic for that matter?

This negligence resulted in another apologist point of view that allowed an individual (who claimed to be religiously righteous, wore a long beard and pointed every apposing entity haram or biddat) to be supreme even if that person committed great crimes including the killing of innocent lives. One historic example is Mughal King Aurangzeb who put his father behind the bars, and killed all his brothers just to be on throne. Aurangzeb just because of his apparent religious inclination is considered to be righteous and humble. The same apologist theory was preached during Zia regime in Pakistan and the American aided Afghan war was labeled Jehad. The same apologist theory today is endorsed by people who believe that a Muslim cant carry out a suicide attack and in other words these terrorists are not Muslims neither Taliban. It’s a big black (water) American/Zionist conspiracy. If you ask me today how many people in Pakistan support Taliban; my answer would be 1 out of every fourth individual is a Taliban supporter one way or the other. Reason, pointing fingers is easier then solving the mess in your backyard.

We are desperately in need of a practical leader who will be an example and lead us out of this mess. Yes Islam had a glorious past but the inglorious part of Islam which was never addressed in the past has now become the ugly part of our everyday life. We find justifications for Taliban if they blow up girl schools or conduct a suicide attack in Peshawar every day. People like Zaid Hamid or Israr Ahmed never in their own lives did anything practical that changed the lives of others for good.

If we look up the recent history:

I would like to play the role that Zaid Hamid plays in his programs but instead I will look up the history that actually matters today, and not the one that can only make me feel good.

In January 1996, two Stanford University PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin changed the minds of every internet user with their research project which they named “Google”. On October 23, 2001 Apple Computers publicly announced their portable music digital player the iPod, which for every one surprise changed the life style of millions and expectations of an average user from electronic gadgets. YouTube (an online video sharing and viewing community) was named Time Magazines Invention of the year in 2006, nobody at that time knew that one website will completely revolutionized the preferences of tele viewer in the coming days.

These are the few inventions that made it big among the masses in the past 10 years. Ten years is a long period to decide the future trend and historical influences that led to these inventions. All the mentioned achievements came out of west, by individuals who spend their lives in a modern environment and getting education from the west, where religion played little or no role. In contrast we gave the world Al Qaeda and Taliban. Moon sighting is still an issue in our country. When these religious sheriffs cant solve a simple issue, why should we allow them to decide the fate of our lives?

Popularity: 44% [?]

Back in the day when I was in my teens and cable TV just started gaining popularity in the masses, it was the first time I got introduced to the term Reality TV and there was no other show that appeared horribly REAL then the Jerry Springers show. Bunch of low life Americans (the term given by rich Americans to not so rich Americans) were called upon the show to discuss their personal affairs. Each episode of the show focuses on topics such as adultery, divorce, homophobia, homosexuality, incest, infidelity, pedophilia, pornography, prostitution, racism, strange fetishes, dwarfism, or transvestism . The audience (spectators is the right term) was often encouraged by the host of the show to ridicule these guests with their taunting questions. No issue on the table ever got solved and the show always, yes always ended in a catfight.

Now back in the day I used to wonder why people like watching trash TV, what kind of entertainment a normal person gets by watching other people getting ridiculed, beaten up and humiliated on the tele. What form entertainment is this and does this even qualify for amusement. I used to enjoy this (false) sense of moral superiority on the west; “We are poor and our national reserves might be empty, but when it comes to socio cultural values, people in the West should borrow a thing or two from us.” But unfortunately it didn’t take long and the reality bit me in the ass with Pakistan’s very own independent media.

Low budget but high profile, politically charged talk shows took over the entire prime time entertainment. Who saw that coming eh? Humayun Saeed (actor) was replaced by Sheikh Rasheed (pimp/politician) and Maria Wasti (actress) was replaced by more annoying Marvi Memon (politician) but the popularity level only increased. As a result, Pakistani viewers today, know more politicians, lawyers, ISI agents now than they ever knew anything about national hockey team or Lollywood.

So what went wrong?

Well, Jerry Springers happened to the Pakistani media. After Musharraf stripped off his wardi (uniform/skin) and CJ Choudary got restored there was no issue left worth fighting on the tele. News channels needed content for their talk shows and politicians needed scandals to keep them in these shows. So a new trend started where blaming, ridiculing and cursing became the entertaining features of these shows. You hardly ever hear a good news on these news channels. The ratio of good news to a bad news is 1:1000, TV anchors continue to highlight gossipy issues and common man (boring) problems are conveniently ignored. We all witnessed how the Saad Khan case was deliberately covered up by the mainstream media who claims to have “har khabar per nazar” (Eye on every news). TV anchors bluntly refused to bring Saad Khan’s case on their shows and the excuse they gave was lack of evidence but on the other hand a retired ISI member was allowed to use Pakistani Television as a confession box (no evidence was required there eh?).

A recent event that shocked every TV watching Pakistani, was the conversation that took place between two members of the national assembly Dr. Ferdos Aashiq Awan (PPP Minister) and Kashmala Tariq (disputed association with PMLQ) in a political talk show. In this show Ferdos Baji accused Kashmala of things that even a punk on the streets will think twice before uttering. And the language she used made me ask this question to myself:

“Why on God’s green Earth did I vote for these people?”

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not anti democracy or wish to see media getting controlled by the Govt. But aren’t these people professional enough to realize that what kind of conversation is allowed on the Tele when you are holding a public seat or running a national channel? But did any of the two parties learn anything from this shocking incident? The answer is NO, because soon after this show more TV channels invited the same guests to have another round of catfight and Baji Ferdous is anything but ashamed of what she said. This brings us to the conclusion that elites who are running this country are no better than the low lives on the streets in fact worse. As for the media , get ready for the time when they will be reporting about your personal life and the crowd will be chanting “Jerry Jerry!!”

Popularity: 46% [?]