Asking The Right Questions: If you had 20 seconds of a policy maker’s time, on the world stage, what question would you ask? How would you ask it? What words would you choose?

Me, not paying attention

Maher wondering why his glorious Mac keeps crashing. Omar is a PC guy.
On the night before…

Cheap seafood

The “Old” […]

So we just landed about an hour ago here in Sharm El-Sheik, for the World Economic Forum. I’m going to try and blog as much as possible, with the Black Iris being reserved for more personal posts and misadventures (which people complain I don’t do enough of) while 7iber will become home base for some […]

This post. Is carefully worded. Because words. Still matter.
They put you in a small room. Very small. No cell phone. No keys. Just walls. They send a soldier every now and then. He pretends to be your friend. He asks stupid questions. You give him stupid answers. They wait for you to get […]

I’m in. Are you?

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“In order to prevent unemployment rates from rising in Jordan, we have to create 80,000 jobs annually, or, in other words, a job every seven minutes,”. These words were recently spoken by HM Queen Rania at the opening of a conference in Amman on unemployment.
I always found labor day in Jordan to be a […]

Nadine is a coworker. One of the few that compel me to come into work on some days. She is young, a mother, a wife and a woman who doesn’t take crap from anyone, and God forbid you should have the misfortune of crossing her one day.
With that in mind.
Today she tells me in […]

To all Jordanian Christians, a happy Easter to you! The great thing about Easter this year, is that Safeway is selling those delicious Cadbury yolk eggs that you can usually only get in North America. But with a price tag of 1 dinar each, I think I’ll have to wait till Ramadan!

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Apologies for the non-blogging status lately, as well as the failed promise to do some live blogging from my Dubai trip due to technical difficulties. However, I’ve written a feature on 7iber about everything we did at the Learning From The Future workshop in Dubai these past few days, which I hope satisfies the curious […]

Watch 7iber dot com tomorrow for some interesting posts and a bit of live blogging.
My 6am Wake Up Call…

Purpose…

More Purpose…

The One and Only…

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When I came upon this picture it, for some reason, captivated me. I sat staring at it for a good 5 minutes, soaking in this moment, this sliver of humanity. Those moments are rare these days, amidst the anger, frustration; the mob, the maddening crowd. We forget some times in the midst of all that […]

Don’t get me wrong. I love Amman. But there are times when this city induces claustrophobia and therein lies the urge to get out in search of greener pastures. Luckily it’s spring time. So all you really need is some tea in a thermos, a camera, a tank full of gas, and a willingness to […]

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” - The Second Law of Clarke’s Three Laws
To Arthur C. Clarke, whose words fueled my imagination growing up (especially the wanting-to-become-an-astronaut phase). May God rest your soul.

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As I now enter my fourth year of blogging I thought it would be appropriate to do a bit of spring cleaning; an evaluation with the purpose of improving both the Black Iris and my blogging capacity. While I hate surveys and trust them even less, I do appreciate honesty. So I wanted to open […]

Earlier today I spoke at the United Nations University in Amman, in a conference entitled “Media in the New Global World Order: Media, Economy & Development”. The conference focused a great deal on leadership in the media sector, specifically with regards to economic reporting. The session I was asked to speak in concerned the challenge […]

Going to work on a Saturday, especially when most of the employees that don’t “have” to work are absent, just throws the whole week off. Saturdays become Sundays, and Sundays become Mondays, but by the time Thursday comes around, your mind is already sleeping in on a Friday morning, except it’s really only Thursday. So […]

There is a social trait in this country to shower people with flattery; it’s known as mujamalat. Most of it is insincere but then again, those being showered are well aware of that and participate in the masquerade. Having not grown up in Jordan, the concept of flattery for flattery’s sake is foreign to me […]