Davos09: What’s missing in journalism?--by Jeff Jervis

The media machers at Davos got together yesterday with three economists to ask what went wrong in financial coverage that did not warn of the crisis.

Like other leaders from other segments of society here in the meeting of the machers, they did not don hairshirts. I believe that will be the worst outcome of this year’s Davos: a failure to take responsibility for the failure of leadership. But blame isn’t the most productive priority. What’s more critical is to ask what to do about the failure.

I wonder...

Strongly recommending giving a look.

Where is Professionality?

Every person, in every field, in the social arena, needs to be recognized, in order to promote himself or herself. This is also true about bloggers who start newly to blog. Some time ago, I sent an email to a news web site to put my URL on its blogroll list; as, it itself, had invited so. But, after a few times try, nothing was changed, and nobody gave me an eye. I, a little bit, got angry about it, but, that was all. I never spat on nobody's face!

This is something happened to Micheal Arrington, the famous author of the technology and startup web log, TechCrunch, during his stay in Munich, Germany, for the Digital, Life, Design Conference.

Yesterday as I was leaving the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany someone walked up to me and quite deliberately spat in my face. Before I even understood what was happening, he veered off into the crowd, just another dark head in a dark suit...

Micheal Arrington has become a famous figure in the Online World, maybe too famous. He blogs about and covers startups, which could be really significant in the term of being recognized for the startups. But sometimes, some startups which are not covered by him, are got angry so as,

TechCrunch is a successful startup in its own right, and I’m proud of what we’ve built over the years. We are aggressive proponents of the startup community, and do what we can to give exposure to new ventures that previously had little chance at public exposure[...]

But I can’t say my job is much fun any more. Startups that don’t get the coverage they want and competing journalists and bloggers tend to accuse us of the most ridiculous things [...] as we’ve grown and become more successful the attacks have also grown. On any given day, when I care to look, dozens of highly negative comments are made about me, TechCrunch or one of our employees in our comments, on Twitter, or on blogs or other sites. Some of these are appropriately critical comments on things we can be doing better. But the majority of comments are among the more horrible things I can imagine a human being say.

He and his family have ever been threatened to be killed. This is really shameful! How could these people, doing such things, call themselves Professional. Professionality is something worthless and can not be called so, without ethics. OK, we have a lot of things to learn from such experiences.

What is this CREATIVITY?

What is "Creativity"? And, the thing that is so? How is it like to be? Are those things, being thought "Creative", really so?

"Creativity" is...

Elaha--be not worry! This is Afghanistan

At least, I have learned music for about seven years, and I can understand who could be possibly a singer or who can not. Elaha, among other girls of the previous round of the Afghan Star, has been the best. She is pretty, she is good-looking, she is tall, she is dignified, as well as, having a good voice to sing. But she is not got higher than 8th, why?!

A friend was always saying and still, "TIA", and then saying, "This is Afghanistan", meaning everything IS possible in Afghanistan! It is possible for an ugly boy or girl who has never, in his/her life, heard a note of a song, who has never sing a song, who has never appeared in public, who has never... to go and become "The Afghan Star"! And a prefect, pretty, dignified girl with a really good voice...

Alas! Yes, "TIA", This is Afghanistan. Everything is possible, and, sometimes nothing is possible, for a girl such as Elaha, who is not committed to anything, but people, but music, who is not dependent on anything, but herself, he voice, her prettyness, And not on the dirty support of Hizb-i-Wahdat, Mazari's followers, Khalili's, Mohaqqeq's, etc.

Alas! TIA--This is Afghanistan!

Admission done!

Today, I received an email from AUAf, about the acceptance of my admission:

Dear Mr. Rasouli,

The American University of Afghanistan is pleased to accept your application for undergraduate study.
On review of your application we have noted that it is complete...

May I be happy, please?!

AUAf admission to be done

Today, I am going to submit my complete application to AUAf. I also a few times more, revised the admission essay. It is as follows:
AUAf Admission Essay

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Essays Academic Work

You do not work for people!

One of my long-term ambitions in starting a business and being an entrepreneur is establishment of an ad magazine. I am not to talk about this ambition, in detail now, but, I want to just say this, that while talking about it to different people, and discuss the feasibility, the single response I have been, most of the time, receiving has been, "NO"!

The people, who most of them have had hands in journalism, responded such that there is no market in this niche in Afghanistan. They give me examples with available newspapers, magazines, etc. which are not, almost all, profitable. And, the reason often they suggest is that Afghan people are not interested in paying attention to print media, or this that print media has not been institutionalized in the lives of Afghans, and so, and so.

But, I am not blaming Afghan people, but looking for the reason among the media themselves--their function, management, policies, strategies, cultures, structures, attitudes, etc. They are not designed such to meet the needs of the people, i.e. they do not work for Afghan people, so how do they expect the people to work for them?

Read more about this, what Seth says.

TOEFL done!

I just called up the AUAF to ask about my TOEFL result. They said I have been passed in it. Congratulate me! But they didn't anything about the score. I have to visit there in person.

Elaha Sorour--fight for change

From time to time, I am getting into thinking about this that who, at last, would be possibly the one to become the pioneer of an evolution, or what I really mean, a revolution, in the minds of Afghans? Who would be the one to release my people from the prison of their minds?

There have been no answer, however, in my mind to this question, alas! These, are NOT intellectuals. They have already failed. But who else?

This is the 4th round of the Afghan Star--a show by Tolo TV, which is a contest between Afghan youths to put their voices into competition. In each round, there have been a few girls as well, among very many boys, showing and presenting freely and bravely themselves in front of eyes of millions of Afghans.

Elaha Sorour is one of these girls. She is one of the bravest Afghans, I know, who has accepted the excessive risk of anything, actually not to win the competition, but to fight, I believe. To fight against what is wrong in the Afghan society which is limiting her. To fight for change. Maybe she could be the one.

TOEFL

About a week ago, I took the TOEFL at the American University. It was not so much difficult, but so fast, and actually, its difficulty was in this case. I did not expect such a pace. I had only 10 seconds per question, in the 1st section (Listening) for example. I answered all the questions, though I got late to the exam hall, and that was another problem. I almost fill my name and other boxes of the answer sheet at the end of the test. Also, because of getting late, I was pretty panicked!

I did well the 2nd section, which was writing. It was quite easy. But the last section --reading-- was pretty long-- 50 qs. Though, after answering to all questions, I had still five minutes! which was put on writing my name.

The result is to inform within a few days coming. I am not so much hopeful, but no problem, I'm going to try it again, if I am not passed in it.

Want to manage Britney Spears online?

Britney Spears is on a few social networking web sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. And she needs someone to handle all "the hard work of posting and responding to contents" of her accounts. Of the requirements, the one interesting to mention is:

being addicted to social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, technology and social blogs, and playing around with new technologies such as ٔٔٔTwitter...

Read the full story on TechCrunch.

And Networking is...

What is Networking? And, How does it work in marketing? Seth says.

Steve will continue

Apple on January 5, released a press statement, as Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs about Steve Jobs' health, despite of "obvious distaste for talking publicly" about it. Steve says,

... As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors.

... my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

Don't Be +/- 10% of the admission essay word limit

A few days ago, I wrote that my admission essay got revised and considerably shortened by Bernie. It is now about 108 words, according to MS Word, considering also the 250-word limit. But today I observed another discussion on B-School Forum regarding the word limit to be observed in an admission essay. There is a point in there, that:

The general rule of thumb I've heard is you don't want to be more than +/- 10% of the limit. Of course, using fluff or filler will not win you points with the adcom, so make sure that what you add to your essay contributes more detail or other aspects of your candidacy.

NJMike4MBA

(The stress is mine) OK, I think this point also could be noteworthy to remember. I must add some other words to my essay. (Read the complete discussion in here)

How to fund MBA

Last night, I was thinking about how to fund MBA at Stanford GSB. I would need a $76,332 then. How could I possibly afford that? However, I must organize my financial issues, and plan from now, to saving money --which I don't think it could be so effective-- or to finding some other ways.

What about if each visitor coming to my Web log would click on each ad in here? Couldn't be that a good idea to help me make money to fund my MBA, without any expense for the visitors? But wouldn't it be also somehow panhandling?

Also take a look at this.