Gulf Cup 19 - Muscat

Less than 12 hours separate us from the opening match of the Arabian Gulf Cup 19. We Omanis have waited for that moment ever since Ismail Matar scored the winning goal against us in the Gulf Cup final back in 2006, in Abu Dhabi.

To the people in Oman, the gulf cup has started a few days or a week earlier. The preparations people have made from decorating their cars with Omani flags, slogans and pictures to decorating their houses and streets with the Omani flag and so on.

I really do hope we win this, we have it all this time. We have a great coach, we have the supporters, the crowd, the people, the land. This time we are playing at home. We gotta win this. We all should pray for the team to win this. We all know for a fact that everyone of us is expecting our national team to win this, we are all expecting to be in the final. That won't happen if we do not support the team and pray for them. Even if they don't, we should still be behind, supporting and thanking them.

To all of us, from Yemen to Iraq, Saudi Arabia to Oman, Bahrain to Qatar, Emirates to Kuwait. This Gulf Cup has a great value to us. To us, it counts as a World Cup. To us, it's the World Cup. This is the most valuable sporting event for us citizens of the Arabian Gulf.

I hope this Gulf Cup brings a lot of success, not only for the Omani national team, but it would be wonderful to have the most successful Arabian Gulf Cup to be achieved in Oman. I hope it is all positive no matter who the winner is, as long as the whole thing is a success.

To us Omanis, this is the time to grab the cup. We are hungry, ever since Doha 2004. We want this trophy and this time we have it all. Nothing can stop us but our own arrogance, the players should not get on the pitch thinking they've already won the match. Nor should they fear their opponents.

I wish you all a wonderful time at this Gulf Cup. Enjoy it while you're in Oman. All of us who are studying abroad want you to have a piece of it for us. Make it up for us. Sure it is hard to not be in Oman at this time, to most of us I think it would be once in a lifetime experience and have missed it.

Let's keep praying for Oman, let's keep cheering for Oman and finally..Let's paint the whole world RED, Green and White!

عمان نبض واحد

Discounts...Oh Really?!?

While my shopping continues, I come across one after another shocker from the retailers in Muscat...this time it's the BHS outlet (Oh yes, the graphic details will not be withheld this time!)...

First they use a conversion factor of 0.9-0.95 for the Sterling to the Omani Rial (by converting GBP 50 to OMR 45 and GBP 40 to OMR 38)...and this time they've just gone too far, even if for a single product...

I went to BHS a couple of weeks ago...and saw jackets over there...there was a grey moleskin jacket for OMR 45.000....no surprises except that it was converted from GBP 50...

Now they put up a sale with good discounts on quite a few jackets...except that the only sizes you see on the racks are S,M, and then 2XL...there was no trace of L or XL in all designs except one...looks like they take away the nice ones when the discounts go up....not surprising to say the least...

And to top it up, the grey moleskin jacket is now tagged as...any guesses? here goes:

Was 90.000
Now 45.000

surprise surprise...the jacket was NEVER ever at OMR 90...in fact 45.000 is the price it was actually selling for without any discounts.

Have ethics and morals disappeared from these idiots? If they dont want to discount it, they can just stuff it with the other non-discounted stuff and say "Not included in sale"...but the deception to lure in the customer with "discount" that is not at all there is nothing but deceit and cheating. Simple as that.

I think the Ministry of Commerce should look into such dishonest practices...the retailers need to get Ministry approval before putting a sale...they should also submit price lists to the ministry and specify the discounts etc...

Other than that, there's little way out other than consumer awareness...perhaps some of the media houses should highlight such practices?

Ruwi Cinema Closes Down

"Ruwi Cinema, one of Oman’s oldest cinema houses, closed down yesterday as part of Family Shopping Centre’s expansion plans. The management of Ruwi Cinema said they were undecided on an alternative location or a temporary theatre that could show movies.

“We have not yet decided on an alternative location or on a temporary venue,” Hussain M.V., manager of Ruwi Cinema, told Times of Oman. He said the owners of the building had given a notice asking them to move out by December 31, 2008.

He, however, requested movie enthusiasts to be patient till the management comes up with a new location in a few months. “We have all options at our hand either to rent a building or construct one. But it will take several months for a new theatre to come up,” he said.

Hussain said if they get sufficient space, they might even consider building a cinema hall with more screens and also increase the seating capacity. “But you know the rent these days is very high and so we have to think seriously before committing on that option,” he said. Whatever be the reasons behind the closure of one of the popular theatres in the city that has been showing movies for 11 years, there is no doubt that the fans will be the worst hit." [link]

Happy New Year to all!

Here's wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous new year!

Funscrape.Com | More Happy New Year Comments

Nawras and UK networks??!!!!

Hello,

Just a question…

Why does Nawras have contracts and dealings with some UK Mobile Networks/companies and don’t have with others?

I mean it makes hard to us who are in the UK and those who are having Nawras mobiles to send and received text messages!

For example, any one with Nawras can send texts to any network in UK but they cannot receive from any network from UK…its so annoying…which means its either us in here having to change the network sim card or the people in Oman changing to Oman mobile…

Anyone, knows any explanation to this kind of arrangements?

No To Plastic Bags

Just thought of bringing this campaign by the Environment Society of Oman to the attention of all the readers of this blog.

Kudos to ESO on the great job.

Back To Basics

The Omani commentatorship webspaces have retaliated with admirable force to Majlis Al-Shura's recent recommendations regarding changing the weekend days from the current Thursday-Firday to a Friday-Saturday.

The idea was first introduced a couple of years back by royal decree, and little has been done to it's benefit since. A while back, the banking sector inaugrated the trial to the new system with less than satisfactory results. The frustration of the public is owed to the current 4 day banking week. This would not be the case if the entire country moved to the Friday-Saturday weekend, where the regular 5 day banking week is restored, but the trial shift had not in any way suggested that the transition would be smooth, seamless, or beneficial.

My argument is .. Why bother ? The benefits gained by the transition while valid, seem unattractive enough to make such irreverseible change. If anything, it's going to accelerate downloading more of the traumatized global economy to Oman.

This post, however is not about praising the merits of the transition, or griping it's faults, it's about the Omani web arena's very open contempt to Majils Al-Shura's initative which opposed the shift to grounds of social, economical, and religous technicalities.

It seems that a lot of people simply forgot that these people are elected officials. Electors voted for these representatives affliating themselves to the agendas presented to them during elections, rendering criticism to that very agenda a logical fallacy. Whether this was the way it happened or not, it does not negate the fact that these official are now morally obligated to push forward whatever they were elected for, and if that was absolutly nothing, then the fault is beared on the elector.

Collectively, Shura studied, and discussed, the banking trial and came to the conclusion that the shift is not to our benefit, and that business should proceed as it previously was. Their views are only influencive, and not decisive. It's now up to the case to justify itself, which it's not doing too well.

I think this is a very cowardly move. There's much to criticize about the way our government handles some things, but it remains the fact the public choses not to excercise and deliever this criticism for irrational fear of the concerned officials. I think it's cowardly, because the people who are criticizing Shura this vehemently would not as readily criticize unelected governmental officials who have more influence and blame to some of these shortcomings.

Not only is it cowardly, I think it's also stupid of us all. The Omani public, rightly so, assumes the problem of Shura being the fact that they do not have decisive power and that some of that power should be delegated to them from whomever has it, but we're too stupid to realise that no such powers will ever be delegated if there's no respect to the process itself. If the Omani people show that they strongly prefer, respect and encourage the contribuitive process of decision making, some of the decision making power will definetly be delegated to the Majlis. This is not an egg and chick question, so we should stop making it one.

My name is Mohammed, and I shall be here all week.

Growing Omani blogosphere?

Back in 2005 (I was still not a blogger back then, but I was a regular reader to many blogs), the Omani blogosphere had its own taste. There were many active Omani blogs, and blogging was just getting more and more popular in Oman. In 2005 there was even the Oman Blogs Award where The Muscatis got the first place. However, by the end of that year or maybe in mid-2006, these blogs suddenly became inactive for some unkown reasons. More and more blogs became inactive, and the hype of blogging was just lost and the Omani blogosphere became very dead. In 2007 and 2008 new blogs started appearing, especially in 2008. I think there is a very good number of Oman-based blogs today, especially blogs of expatriates who live in Oman and blogging about their experience in Oman. You might not agree with the "way" things are blogged in these blogs, but I think it's still good that the Omani blogosphere is growing again and now we have a fair number of active Omani blogs.

I have also seen a number of new Omani blogs in Arabic. In the Internet, there are only three major Omani forums in English and countless of Arabic ones. But for blogs, it's the other way around. About 15 months ago in our first bloggers gathering, Kishor asked me how does the blogging scene look like for Arabic Oman-based blogs, since he is a non-Arabic speaker and obviously will not know about Arabic blogs or forums. I told him that there were only a handful of Oman-based Arabic blogs, but countless of Arabic forums. Now, many Arabic blogs from Oman started appearing, and they're very active, to some extend. I think most of these bloggers used to be active writers in big Omani forums and they just saw that it was better to document their thoughts in their own blogs rather than forums! Either that's the case or not, it's very good to see a growing number of Arabic Oman-based blogs. Everyday I discover a new Arabic blog from Oman, and that's the very first reason why I'm typing this post.

Is the Omani blogosphere growing again? I think yes. And there's even a new flavor in the Omani blogosphere today, something that was not there back in 2005. Now we have expatriates blogging about their experiences in Oman, and we also have Arabic blogs that are very active. This is a new flavor, and a nice one if I may add. Below you will find links to some of the Arabic blogs from Oman. Since English blogs are easier to discover and they're pretty much known to almost everyone, I'm not including them in the list below. Whenever I discover a new Oman-based blog, I try adding it to the Blogroll of this community blog. But for the growing number of Arabic blogs which is a new thing to the Omani blogosphere, I'm creating this post for them. I hope we remain having these active blogs and have more active blogs in the Omani blogopshere so it becomes as effective as the blogosphere of neighboring countries in the Gulf region.

Links (in absolutely no particular order):

- Hamad Al-Ghaithi

- Muawiyah Al-Rawahi

- Oman name (عماني ممنوع من الكلام)

- Omani1970 (ليت لي جناح)

- Bin Mrhi

- Said Reviews (Said Al-Maskari)

- alwarda

- Fashkool2008

- Wahiba Sands

These are just the ones I discovered recently. Each day I discover more blogs, and someday I will try adding all these blogs to the blogroll here. I will even try separating the Arabic blogs from English ones, for those interested.

By the way, Blue-Chi blogged about a similar topic a couple of days ago, talking about his love with Arabic literature today due to the growing number of Arabic blogs from Oman. You can find it [here].

ReBlog : On Publication & Media

At a very desperate attempt to reignite attention to the sad misanthropic episodes that my blog posts are, I am reblogging a post I wrote entitled "Under A Rock" which briefly discusses themes relevant to Publication in Oman, and New Media.

I haven't posted it here, only because it starts off being slightly personal.

For the faintly interested of you. The post can be found here. I will take comments both here and there.

Thanks.

Dubai: Has the bubble burst?

Nov 27th 2008 | DUBAI
From The Economist print edition

As the sheen comes off glitzy Dubai, the other Gulf states are getting nervous too

http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12684897


“THEY said you couldn’t create islands in the middle of a city,” shouts a property advertisement over a jammed Dubai motorway. “We said, what’s next?” The range of answers has become gloomier by the week, as the debate moves from whether the Dubai property bubble will burst to just how bad it is going to get. Some nervous bankers think property prices could fall by 80% or so in the next year or so. A few months ago, rich foreigners who had bought villas in Dubai were complaining about the quality of the sand on their artificial beaches or the difficulty of getting water to circulate around the twiddly fronds of the man-made island shaped like a palm. Now prices for some smart developments have been cut by 40% since September, shares in property firms have lost 80% of their value since June, and big developers are laying people off.

The region’s banks will suffer too. Gulf policymakers are still making cheery statements about the region’s limited exposure to subprime loans but are quieter about heavy investments in inflated local property markets by regional banks, particularly Islamic ones. But worried banks are sharply reining in their mortgage lending. A series of arrests of senior businessmen as part of a fraud investigation is also making people twitchy. There is even talk of a coming “Gulf Enron”.

While the stunning opacity of government economic data is increasing the air of uncertainty, Muhammad Alabbar, who heads Emaar, a giant state-controlled property developer, took the rare step of telling people how indebted the country is. Together, the government and state-owned enterprises owe $80 billion—148% of GDP. Dubai still has a far larger stock of assets, at least some of which are likely to be sold, to cover the debts, to Abu Dhabi or the federal sovereign-wealth fund of the seven-state United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the two richest.

The rest of the Gulf has met Dubai’s phenomenal boom with a mixture of envy and emulation. Now there are hints of pleasure at the idea that the epicentre of bullishness may be humbled. But there are worrying questions for the others, too. Could the Dubai property slump prove contagious? Will the Gulf Co-operation Council pull together to protect the region’s economy? Should its planned monetary union be set aside as governments focus on protecting their own currency?

Who do we listen to now?

Since everyone else has been trying to copy Dubai, it is unclear how economic policy should be reshaped if the model has to be rescued. Advisers who have been preaching free markets and foreign investment will have a tougher time as economic power shifts back to the more conservative, oil-rich governments such as Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.

Political stability may be affected too. A worsening economy may encourage political reform, on the assumption that people can be more easily bought off in times of plenty. At a recent BBC debate in Doha, Qatar’s capital, on whether Gulf Arabs value profit over people, young Qataris said critics of their countries’ poor treatment of foreign workers should look on the bright side; local citizens benefit from large gifts of land and free university education. Since the oil boom began in 2003, mega-rich Qatar has ramped up public spending by an average of 28% per year; the less well-endowed states have had to make do with annual rises of some 15-20%.

Several GCC economies will go into budget deficits next year for the first time since at least 2002, including Saudi Arabia, whose budget is based on oil at around $50 a barrel but excludes the cost of Saudi Aramco’s massive programme of capacity expansion. Unemployment will rise as thousands more young people, many of them graduates with high expectations, enter the job market. Social unrest is likely to brew. The question is whether governments will meet it with repression or political concessions.

Obama tells his kids.....on the day before election

Remember those unusual but wonderful letters to Mrs. Gandhi from Nehru? I was reminded of them when I read this online. This is apparently from Obama to his daughters: Malia and Natasha (aka Sasha).------------------

Tomorrow decides your future.

Daddy will head off tomorrow to a tiny little booth knowing this.

I have watched. I have consumed. I have weighed. I have analyzed (mommy would say I should add “obsessed” to this list as well).

But I have done all of this because every day I look at you both as two little humans capable of limitless goodness within and unlimited greatness in this world.

I want each of your dreams realized.I want your hopes fulfilled.I want you to look at the person leading our country and aspire to be like him or her, not someone you support because he’s (or she’s) “just like you.”

I know that tomorrow I hold in my index finger the power to push a button — along with millions of other mommies and daddies – that can help to make these hopes a reality.

But please know, regardless of the result, that little index finger of mine is guided solely by a vision of a better place for you.

You both are my world. 

And tomorrow, I hope that I can make your world a better one.

Love,Daddy

Watch a nice Family Movie.

Muscat Confedential Not Blocked

Updated. Muscat confidential Not blocked anymore. May I proffer my most profound Oppologies to you all.

It was blocked for at least an hour this morning, but comments indicate it's Omantel incompetence as opposed to a delibrate action.

The immedaite assumption that the bock is an incursion on our already limited freedoms, is pretty valid when one considers Omantel's habit of blocking websites they think we are too stupid to be exposed to.

Once again, Sorry for Jumping the gun!

Oman Mac Users Group

Any one here a Mac user?

Would you be interested in joining up with other Mac users in Oman to set up an Oman Mac Users Group?

The goal of the user group is to begin as an informal group where members can get together occasionally and share experiences and advice regarding Macintosh platform. Eventually the group should set up an online presence and expand its membership and promote increased Mac usage in Oman. The group can leverage membership with the official Apple distributors in Oman to gain discounts on purchases for its members as well.

If interested please reply here.

BLOGGER Meet in real world

Hello all Bloggers and Blog readers,

How about a casual meet?

All bloggers, blog readers, enthusiasts (even curious ones) are welcome. Hope to see some masquerade too!

Choose your dates: 17th / 18th / 19th December (just timing between eid hols and AGCC meet). Do make your response post here.

We are watching this space and taking a head count. Depending on the number location will be fixed and informed later.

You could also suggest what we can be in the Agenda. (Apart from refreshments :-0 )

Oman Blogosphere is calling you.............................

PS: Bloggers please post this news in your blogs too to widen the Net scourge. Tks.

HM's speech in the opening of Majlis Oman

Part 1:


Part 2:


For those like me who missed His Majesty's speech in the annual opening of Majlis Oman (Council of Oman), it has already been uploaded on YouTube and you can see the full speech above. Beautiful speech.

May God bless His Majesty the Sultan and keep him for this great country. =)

KOM's blogging seminar on November 10

MUSCAT: As part of Knowledge Oasis Muscat's (KOM) quarterly Digital Nation program and in partnership with Omania e-Commerce; Nawras; United Media Services; and Infocomm, KOM will host a free seminar on blogging scheduled for 7:30pm, Tuesday, 10 November at the Muscat Inter-Continental Hotel. (more)

The panelists for the seminar:

1. Abdullah Al Jufaili (Intilaaqah)

2. Raed Dawood (Nawras)

3. Haitham Al Busafi (Sultan Qaboos University)

4. Zaid Zabanoot (German University of Technology in Oman)

New era for Fixed-lines in Oman

Oman’s Telecoms Regulatory Authority (TRA) has finally awarded the second fixed-line license tender to PCCW - Awaser Oman Consortium, and it’s coming to an end of monopoly for the majority state-owned Omantel. Pacific Century Cyber Works (PCCW), an Hong Kong-based telecom company joint venture with a Omani partner and Nawras, the 2nd mobile company had lost the bid tender.

That's means new job will be created soon for the Omani Market beside the five mobile reseller companies.

Representing Oman

Many represent Oman in something to be proud of, be it our national team, tennis players, musicians and the list goes on and on... but this way?

I seriously find this annoying and so downgrading, insulting and offending to Oman and its people..Pictures speak a thousand words..


What would your view be on an Omani who appears on TV modeling some Bikinis and other revealing dresses?

Blogger Back!

Quick one, Updating to say that as of last night, blogger appears to be working again.

The outage was due to Omantel Incompetence, I assume.

"Accidentally" Blocking blogger (for, um, like four days!!!!) was not a particularly good move, because it looks like something sinister, no matter what the actual reasons.

Anyway, We can all rejoice now because for the moment at least, blogger is up and runing again in Oman.

Blogger Blocked,

Either Deliberately, or through thier legendary incompetence Omantel has Blocked Blogger access. If you know me, you will already know what I think about this sort of behavior, but since this is a community blog, I'll leave it to your imagination.

I suspect the block will be a temporary, and extremely annoying experience. I am praying for the AP or Reuters to pick up on the story and rain hell down on whatever moron thought this would be a good idea. Accedental or deliberate, it makes Oman look backwards, and puts us in the same league as fabulous places like Saudi, China, North Korea. Oh, wait, we're already in the same league as them on issues like Human Trafficking, so why not freedom of speech as well?

Blue Chi, or others who write for global voices, now would be a great time to update with this news. Please???

Some bloggers have already circumnavigated the block, others will figure it out soon enough.

Kishore has suggested sending emails to Omantel and the TRA, you can read his post here I have sent emails, and it would be great is everyone near and far could be kind enough to do the same.

I am ranting and raving about over on my blog, which you can read about Here

Muscato has also noticed that google services are acting a little funny.

The Undercover Dragon, in a psychic turn of events, posted a list of good ways to get around Omantel's rather feeble attempts to block our access to the outside world. Read it Here, before they decide to block the page entirely.

I would ask for your comments and feedback on the matter, except that they have also managed to block commenting functions on the blogs. SO even if somebody knows what is going on, they would have almost no way of sharing it.

If you want to keep updating your blog despite thier rather pathetic attempts to block access, check with Kishore, Read the Dargon't blog, or drop me an email OtherOman At Gmail dot Com and I"ll let you know a few easy ways to circumvent the block.

You could also migrate your blog to somewhere like wordpress, but then everybody will have to update thier bookmarks.

If you wish to allow commenting on your blog to continue, you can use a programme called Haloscan to replace your standard comments. www.haloscan.com

Good luck guys. And don't forget to email Omantel and the TRA.

Eid Greeting to all!

Here's wishing everyone a very happy Eid Mubarak!

Funscrape.Com | More Eid Mubarak Comments

May this joyous occassion bring for all happiness and prosperity!

Blogging Problems

Do you guys face a problem when trying to publish a blog? It takes a few days to get an article published sometimes and others its on the spot. The only way to check if the blog is not erased / lost is to go the Dashboard area and look for it in the edit section. How do you fix this problem?

It is increasingly becoming difficult to get a house for rent in Muscat. In all the major news papers you will find more people looking for house, than the people looking for a job. Is this house hunt going to end at any point in time? Is there a workable solution for the same?

There has been a trend seen in charging an exorbitant amount as house rent, in addition to that one may have to pay 1 year / 6 months / 3 months advance. House owners even go up to taking post dated cheques for several months.

It makes me wonder if the situation is going to worsen…Is there an issue to shortage of houses? Its so unlikely, a long walk in the evening would make you realize, there are good many number of houses however very less takers, due to the challenges involved in taking a house for rent. When I think aloud “very less takers” may mean that there are houses that are bigger than you want and smaller than you wish…

Are people able to manage? Well, some may feel, yes – people are able to manage, and others may say otherwise. Whatever may be the thought, its going to be clearer day by day……

Ramadhan Greetings to all!

It's almost time again when we enter into the blessed month of Ramadhan...

In Melbourne, Ramadhan starts from 1-sep-08 (Monday) and should finish by the 30th of sep...(runs over the course of September)...I'm not sure about timings for Muscat, but estinates point to a start from either the 1st or 2nd of september...

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone Ramadhan Kareem...with a prayer that May the blessed month bring for all peace, tranquility and happiness... And May the Almighty accept out endeavours to gain his blessings and mercy. (Ameen)

Excerpts from Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System

A recent trend in some of the private companies in Oman is “Communities of Practice”. Below are the excerpts regarding the same. Dr. Etienne Wenger is a globally recognized thought leader in the field of learning theory and its application to business.

You are an engineer working on two projects within your business unit. These are demanding projects and you give them your best. You respect your teammates and are accountable to your project managers. But when you face a problem that stretches your knowledge, you turn to people like Jake, Sylvia, and Robert. Even though they work on their own projects in other business units, they are your real colleagues. You all go back many years. They understand the issues you face and will explore new ideas with you. And even Julie, who now works for one of your suppliers, is only a phone call away. These are the people with whom you can discuss the latest developments in the field and troubleshoot each other's most difficult design challenges. If only you had more time for these kinds of interactions.

We all recognize knowledge as a key source of competitive advantage in the business world, but we still have little understanding of how to create and leverage it in practice. Traditional knowledge management approaches attempt to capture existing knowledge within formal systems, such as databases. Yet systematically addressing the kind of dynamic "knowing" that makes a difference in practice requires the participation of people who are fully engaged in the process of creating, refining, communicating, and using knowledge.

Even when people work for large organizations, they learn through their participation in more specific communities made up of people with whom they interact on a regular basis. These "communities of practice" are mostly informal and distinct from organizational units.

Defining Communities of Practice:
Communities of practice are everywhere. We all belong to a number of them—at work, at school, at home, in our hobbies. Some have a name, some don't. We are core members of some and we belong to others more peripherally. You may be a member of a band, or you may just come to rehearsals to hang around with the group. You may have just joined a community and are still trying to find your place in it or you may be a leader of a group in your company or college. Whatever form our participation takes, most of us are familiar with the experience of belonging to a community of practice.

Members of a community are informally bound by what they do together—from engaging in lunchtime discussions to solving difficult problems—and by what they have learned through their mutual engagement in these activities. A community of practice is thus different from a community of interest or a geographical community, neither of which implies a shared practice. A community of practice defines itself along three dimensions:
What it is about – its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members
How it functions – the relationships of mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity
What capability it has produced - the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artifacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.

Communities of practice develop around things that matter to people. As a result, their practices reflect the members' own understanding of what is important. Obviously, outside constraints or directives can influence this understanding, but even then, members develop practices that are their own response to these external influences. Even when a community's actions conform to an external mandate, it is the community—not the mandate—that produces the practice. In this sense, communities of practice are fundamentally self-organizing systems.

Day 1 @ Oman Community Blog

Dear All,

My Name is Vipin Kumar. This is my first day in Oman Community Blog and am very exited to be a part of the community...!!!

Its been a little over 2 months I am in Muscat, however I feel as if I share a strong bonding with the soil....I am sure there are many people who share the same feeling about the city and the country.

I have done my graduation in Computer Science and Electronics. I started my career in MphasiS BPO, as a trainee customer service executive. MphasiS has an exceptional character as a company and I gained a lot in my 3 years tenure, grew as Unit Manager within 2 years, expanded my horizons into services sector, learnt to lead teams into achieving goals, motivating them, the number game of the industry.

The opportunity knocked and I moved into consulting as a HR Manager, worked in Zygon, Focus Management Consultants at various positions. Interacted with clients like IBM, Accenture, SAIC, EDS, Genpact, Professional Access, Zensar, GE.

With my specialization in recruitment, I am here to test my skills and add value to my company and the country (I would be very happy if I can accomplish this).

Photography being my passion, Oman is the best suited place for me, as close to my heart as my home country...

Thank you all...

Sultanate of Oman to embrace the Idol franchise

In few months time Radio Sultanate of Oman and Al Sawadi Beach Resort will lunch its first singing talent show ‘Oman Idol’ as part of Idol franchise such as American Idol and Super Star, for residence of Sultanate of Oman only. The Shabiba wrote an article about it.

Sheikh Saud Bahwan Passes Away

Al Mawaali, over at the Be in Oman Blog broke the story late yesterday.

The Arabic papers were sold out by the time I got to sultan center this morning, but the Times of Oman ( Here and Here) and the Tribune both had lovely eulogies, Far better than anything I could write here. In particular, the papers highlighted Sk Saud's many charitable endeavours. I think you all would agree, that he was a man of extrordinary generosity and business acumen.

According to the papers, Prayers will be performed at the Abu Bakr Mosque, Wattayah. His body will be carried to Al Amerat graveyard and condolences will be accepted at the mosque. In mourning, all the offices, divisions and branches of Saud Bahwan Group shall remain closed from August 20, and shall resume operations on Sunday August 24.

I counted 36 full pages of advertisements from various businesses in the English papers alone. I assume that these are being run instead of the regular adverts, and possibly at a discount. The rates for a full page b/w advert in Al Wattan are roughly 1,200 rials per day before any discount. Assuming a 40% discount, with six newspapers carrying 72 full pages of advertising , That's Maybe 51,000 Rials for Today's edition of the papers. I would expect just as many adverts in tomorow's edition . Call me a cynic, but I can't help wondering if the advertisement divisions of the newspapers high five one another every time someone important dies.

It seems to me that a better way to honor a man and family who gave so much to philanthropic endeavours would be to pull the advertisements for the day and instead donate, quietly, the amount that would have been spent on the advertisemsnts to one of the charities Sheikh Saud established. 100,000 rials in two days would improve the lives of countless disabled children, Diabetes patients, and the less fortunate famalies among us.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon--we belong to Allah and to Him do we return.

One Step Forward : Omantel

Another step towards the right direction from Omantel...according to this article in the Times of Oman, Omantel is revamping the tariff scale for local calls and lowering IDD rates...

Bloggers gathering - August 2008

We had yet another small gathering this evening at D'arcy's Kitchen in MQ. This gathering was unique, though, because we had an honor guest; our fellow blogger MMK080 from Qatar. He was in Oman during the weekend for his first time in the Sultanate, and on his last day in Oman we thought of having a small gathering. It was indeed nice having him between us, and it was an honor meeting him in real life. Hope that he liked his stay in Oman and enjoyed the special Omani hospotality. :-)

Anyways, the gathering was all organized quickly and just via e-mail in the last couple of days, when MMK080 announced last Tuesday that he will be in Oman for the weekend. I quickly e-mailed the bloggers I thought would be interested in meeting up, and they all responded. Everyone came except Muscati who was really looking forward to coming but couldn't make it since he was in Dubai, as he explained to us from the beginning. The bloggers who attended the gathering are: Al-Maawali, Kishor, Blue-Chi, MMK080 from Qatar, our great chief Del_Yahi from the Omani Cuisine, Conceptoo from Oman3D and of course, myself.

And guess what? Blue-Chi and Conceptoo, the founders of Oman3D, gave away some free t-shirts in the gathering carrying Oman3D's logo. So it wasn't only a nice gathering, but we got free t-shirts as well! :-p ..

Again we hope that MMK080 had enjoyed his time in the Sultanate. :-) Wishing to see him again in the future.