"The future of media"

Just for a change, here's a plug for an event (we are not associated, contact Polaris for more info):

Digital Journalism: The future of media
Expert Panel Discussion

Date: Monday, 24th May 2010
Time: 7pm for 7.30pm start
Venue: Shelter, Warehouse 209, 318 Road, Al Quoz Industrial 4

The expert panel will include respected industry figures such as:

Mark Briggs--Visiting from the USA, Briggs is a blogger, journalist and authority on the media revolution. He is also the author of Journalism 2.0: How to survive and thrive in the digital age, and CEO of Serra Media.

Pia Heikkila--A freelance digital journalist at the forefront of the media revolution, and co-creator of the new SAE Institute Digital Journalism Course.

Nabila Usman--writer and journalist, business development executive at Newzglobe.com, an online portal that provides edgy, bold & quirky news from the region.

Khaled Khalifa - Head of Office, United Nations - Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) Middle East and Asia Bureau.

The discussion will be moderated by Reg Athwal, Co-Founder and Chairman of online television platform onetvo.com.

Just a thought

Has anyone at ITP proofread the programme for the Media & Marketing Show conference, which is hosted by ITP and Arabian Business? Would have been nice if they could spell Saatchi and Saatchi right, and I'm not sure Joseph Ghossoub would be particularly overjoyed to be plain ole Jo in the agenda. Delighted to see Martin Newland is giving a presentation on What it takes to survive in Middle East Journalism. But what I really want to know is: what the hell are Forenoon Sessions?

And before you start squealing about how we're always slagging ITP off, we're not. We try and post other topics, but you lot end up at the same conclusion anyway. But, to be honest, schoolboy errors like this one are just asking for mockery.

Now that's what I call news, volume 1

When is a newspaper not a newspaper? When it's the Cityscape show daily. The event doesn't start until tomorrow (it runs until October 9th), yet each day's edition is already done and dusted. The cut and thrust of journalism at the "world's largest real estate event"...

Truly inspirational

The latest heart-warming news to come out of ITP is the Inspire Awards - just 74 days away, according to the website.

Inspire Dubai is a celebration of our Emirate’s most amazing individuals – the unsung heroes and heroines who make Dubai what it is for the 1.5 million of us who call it home.

Hope there's a special category for the amazing individuals at ITP - the organisers - for managing not to gag as they wrote the copy. And another category to those ITPers who manage to go into work, time and again, with no praise and no thanks from their masters. DMO would love to sponsor that category....

And a special word goes out to the kind souls in Garhoud who are selflessly putting on this event. And selling sponsorship around it. Hope all the profits go to a charity other than the Directors' Bentley Fund.

Forum Bore 'em

This came from an anonymous submission:

"Poor Abdullatif Al Sayegh went down like a lead balloon at the Innovation Forum a couple of days ago. The moderator, BBC's Nima Abu Wardeh, interrupted him twice while he rambled on endlessly about Arab Media Group. After sharply ordering him to stay on topic, she then ordered him back to his seat.

"But it didn't stop there for Dubai's media chief. The first question from the audience was aimed at Al Sayegh, with the delegate asking why his presentation was not relevant to innovation or the business forum. Al Sayegh started blustering about how many ideas AMG has. Nima interrupted him twice to demand he provide an actual example of what these ideas actually were. He cited Shoof TV.

"The whole excruciating performance made David Brent look like Bill Clinton."

Parchment and quill, anyone?

It hasn't been a good day for technology here at DMO Towers. Firstly, we were very excited to hear that the Dubai Press Club had launched its website for the Arab Media Forum 2007. Until we realised that the website (dpcmediaforum.com) doesn't work.

Then, trying to read all about Etisalat's record profits (yes, du is really putting up a strong fight), DMO hacks were disappointed to see that not one of the links worked on the daily alert email from arabianbusiness.com.

Raining on prom night

A delightful anonymous submission:

Last November, a relatively new agency based in DMC specialising in marketing communications and trying to pose as new media representatives (more like wannabes) took to the high society of Dubai like fish take to water with an event that promised lots of exposure and a return in pr beyond measure. What the GM of this new agency did not expect is that his past experience in managing night clubs might not exactly translate as well as he had hoped into the foray of event management and buttering up diplomat's wives.

Things didn't go quite as planned and a million dollar wedding dress didn't quite turn out to be the show stopper it was expected to be. One has to wonder if it was the blue eyed 35 year old GM's preoccupation with every 5'9 blonde that crossed his path that interfered with his judgement leaving his staff high and dry clambering and running like chickens with their heads cut off trying to put things together at the very last minute. Or were the staff equally incompetent? All the king’s men couldn’t have helped.

Fortunately for those in attendance, backstage passes were not part of the package and the only complaint was “Did you notice that the chicken was a little dry?” However the same cannot be said for those that paid to sponsor and exhibit at the event. Imagine 12 luxury cars sitting at the security gate’s of Burj Al Arab waiting to be admitted because someone forgot to bring the security passes for the drivers. And just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, thunder and rain came down hard soaking entire racks of designer clothing left unattended in front of the hotel.

And just in case you missed the circus the first time around, the agency and its GM with all his wanna-be Don Juan stylings have promised to make this painfully amusing experience an annual event despite the lack of post event positive feedback in the papers from the backing party which begs the question if the Dubai Ladies Club don’t want it why should we?

Look for it next November. One can think of two or ten establishments that will not touch it with a 100 foot pole. Where’s that bottle of Moet when you need it eh?