Friendships

If you walk along any road in Dubai, you may every now and then see two men or two women walking along together, holding hands. Nay, this is not a public display of a same-gender relationship. Rather, it's much more common here that friendships between a man and another man or between women includes such signs of closeness.

Imagine two bankers in Frankfurt walking along the shopping street Zeil like that. A bit hard to imagine, isn't it? On the other hand, it's said to be much less common among nationals here to see close friendship between men and women.

Traditionally, men and women tend to be much more separated in the public space anyway, as I hear. In a restaurant, I recently saw a 'family room' exclusively for single women, married couples and families. There are 'women only' days in beach parks. And I noticed last weekend that, in the evening, much more men spend time outside, for example waiting in line to cross the Creek in an abra, or standing or squatting in front of shops or on the sidewalk in small groups, chatting.

Getting iPhones in the UAE

Another interesting piece of news I read today: Etisalat, the big telecoms company here in Dubai, lets new customers or customers switching from competing provider 'du' to Etisalat pay more for the iPhone than existing Etisalat customers. Which kind of surprised me. My first thought was: why not try to use this attractive device to snatch away customers from competitors and increase market share by making the iPhone as readily available as possible for anyone willing to sign up?

The story behind this business-section-front-page piece of news: Etisalat has been a monopolist for years. The market is being deregulated, even though I don't think there's more competition than from the company du at present, which is by some seen as having the less well developed network coverage (but don't hold me accountable on that one).

So it seems Etisalat's marketing focus is to KEEP long-time customers. They have their customer base and seek ways to keep it that way. Maybe I should ask a colleague what he thinks of this in terms of PR. Etisalat is a client here.

How much do you like the cold?

I found this funny gadget here on blogger, with which you can create a customized mini poll. So please take two seconds today to vote below, at the end of the blog entries list.

Looking for the perfect date?

Many people here are; and indeed go to great lengths for it. Even though one should be wondering why this should be an issue at all. I mean, this multinational place is just THE country for any date you could possibly imagine, from the worst to the best. If you just take a moment to look around here... Dates are literally growing on trees: There are an estimated 40 million date palms across the UAE.

So it's not surprising that Arab researchers submitted a third of the applications for the Khalifa International Date Palm Awards to be presented soon in Abu Dhabi. Said one Professor Abdelwahab Zaid from the award committee in today's edition of the English paper 'The National': "The award is aimed at establishing the UAE's leading role in the cultivation of this valuable tree and the development of date palm research worldwide."

If you consider how important Phoenix dactylifera traditionally was and to some degree still is - as a provider of fruit as well as of all sorts of material for building and other purposes - it is understandable that such a campaign is considered so worthy that the award was launched under the leadership of President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2008.

If anybody really wants to know - the awards cover three categories: best research/study, distinguished producers and distinguished figure in the date production industry. The winners will share cash prizes totalling Dh 2.1 million ($571,700).

Emiratisation

Diversity appears to be a management topic all over the world. Usually it means having or striving to have a diverse workforce, i.e. including different "sorts" of people. In Germany, some companies I know mainly discuss women's career opportunities under this label. As far as I know, it is a slightly broader concept in the US, also entailing different races. Here in Dubai, one related topic appears to be "Emiratisation".

This means that the government is trying to increase the number of nationals working in companies active here. The officials have an "Emiratisation plan" which, as far as I understood, requires companies to hire a certain number of UAE nationals. Someone claimed this, in some cases, leads to nationals being hired for the sole purpose of fulfilling the quota. And there's an annual award by the Emirates Institute of Banking & Financial Studies (EIBFS) recognising companies for their efforts regarding Emiratisation, and a special national career exhibition. So is is little surprise that companies bend over backwards to proof their good corporate citizenship by also offering special career opportunities for Emiratis. So this is why I drafted a press release for a major bank in Dubai today announcing the bank's participation in the fair as well as their winning the EIBFS award.

What we expect is: the Arabic media could be interested. The English ones probably less. Because everyone is going out with the same messages. It's a bit like saying you're a global leader in your field and offer exciting career opportunities for high potentials, producing innovative products for sustainable growth, at the end of the day.

Hotels and skyscrapers

Atlantis hotel on one of the artificial islands, "The Palm", and the entry to the tunnel leading to it. Of course the hotel comes with a whole bunch of superlatives, but I remember only the number of imported dolphins living in its lagoon. It's 28. Now, if anybody feels like counting the windows - feel free and let me know. This way, I don't have to look it up and can still provide some more big sounding trivia next time.


By the way, if you feel like owning your very own island - I hear that islands of the group "The World" (as you can guess, artificial islands together forming roughly the outline of the world) are up for grabs, starting at around US$100,000. A true bargain, especially with a strong Euro...



Big Daddy. The "Burj Dubai". At more than 700 meters, the 160 plus-story skyscraper surpassed the former highest building in the world, the Taipei Financial Center, by more than 200 meters in height. Apparently, many construction workers would sort of camp for a certain period of time on the various levels of the building under construction, as it would have been too troublesome to climb the tower again every day. Remember, the 58, 10-meters-per-second elevators would not yet be running for them... There's a whole blog on building the tower, if you care to read more about what fans hail enthusiastically as the city's new iconic landmark and critics call the new tower of Babel, go here.

Dhows and mosques

These ships are called Dhows; even today they're used for shipping goods in and out of Dubai, anything from clothing to electronics.

Jumeirah Mosque, one of the most beautiful in town and open to non-muslims on selected days

Souks and the Creek

There are many markets, called Souks - this one is part of the textile souk; but there's also a famous gold souk, a spice souk, and souks in some shopping centers.

A look over the Creek - a natural arm of the Arabian Gulf separating the two old areas of Dubai, Bur Dubai (where I live) and Deira on the other side. The small boats are abras - water taxis that take you across the river for just one Dirham.

Where the Beep is Dubai?

By the way, just in case you may also have just a very sketchy idea of where Dubai is located (just as I had before considering coming here, to be honest) - here's a little map of the UAE. As you can see, Abu Dhabi is by far the biggest of the seven Emirates, followed by Dubai.

Some work, some don't

I wanted to put up some pictures on flickr.com as well. But the site is considered inappropriate here. Having said that, I don't want to forget to mention the developments over the past years.

Since the late 1980s, early 1990s, the United Arab Emirates are significantly relaxing their policies that some from Europe, coming from a different culture, may consider to be restrictive at times.

For instance, there is a wide spectrum of media today covering basically anything they want. Before, journalists often had to ask officials for permission if they wanted to write about something a bit more critical. So the newspapers would be full of handshake photos from His Highness the Sheikh (of course this is still of interest to a high degree today) and related positive news. The famous Arabic news TV station Al Jazeera played an important role in the recent developments, as well as a new, CNN-like reporting style in the Gulf War and many international media; but also, if I understood that correctly, encouragement by the rulers themselves.

The tendency of relaxing some rules can be seen in other areas of life as well. While you generally need a local sponsor if you want to do business in Dubai as a foreigner, one part of Dubai's Success formula has been to establish free trade zones within the city such as Internet city or media city where other nationalities can own companies for 100% and revenues may also be fully transferred to other countries, all of this without having to pay any taxes. Something similar applies to buying real estate. In areas such as Media City, foreigners may today own flats or houses, while in others friends of mine here are not allowed to buy the house they live in if they wanted to do that because they're not Emirates. They would, striclty speaking, also not be allowed to share a house with other people if those are not family or live with their partner as long as they're not married.

Please be aware: these are just some superficial observations, I'm not judging.

Also, such things are important to be seen in perspective: there are other countries on the Arabic peninsula where attempts by a company I'm in touch with that tried to establish local business dependencies outside of the UAE failed because one key employee is a woman and she doesn't get a visa from the country in question unless she's accompanied by her husband. While it would still be inappropriate here to walk around in shorts even as a man and especially women should also be sensible with how they clothe themselves in public, Dubai is quite international in such things - maybe one of the main new global melting pot of cultures, with a high degree of tolerance.

Dubai impressions

Already now I'm hopelessly falling behind what is happening with writing this blog.

That's because there's quite a lot to do - after contributing to a website text last week, I wrote my first Dubai press release today about an additional service Air Arabia, a Middle East low-cost airline introduces, and there are also things to take care of back home for my usual clients.


What I saw for myself the past weekend, going on a full weekend discovery tour round the city: Dubai is a fascinating place. Less in the sense of history - because, while there were first settlements already in the 18th century and members of the current ruler dynasty came to Dubai in the early 19th century, a lot of history is being written now. But the fascinating thing is how this place skyrocketed over the past ten to 15 years. It started with the discovery of oil in 1969, and two years later, the United Arab Emirates were founded. It's a federation of seven Emirates, sharing central institutions but each with its own government and ruler. And Dubai soon decided to reinvest the oil revenues in education, infrastructure, and the building of high value services in tourism and trade and others. And behind all was the drive of the current Sheikh who not only urged everybody to come up with ideas for a future of Dubai, but who was also very insistent in following up on the promises.

I"m not going to bore you with figures now, you have all heard about at least some of the gigantic projects that have made headlines over the past years - from the Burj Al Arab hotel (see picture) to some of the few artificial structures in the world that can be seen from space - the Jebel Ali port and The Palm, a huge collection of man-made islands in the shape of a palm. And then there are dozens of huge shopping malls, uncountable skyscapers, six-lane-motorways, an indoor year-round skying facility, world-class golf ressorts in the middle of the desert... The most fascinating thing about Dubai perhaps is how unlikely it all is.

Of course the economic downturn affects Dubai as well - to the extent that some foreign media almost show schadenfreude at seeing how the priced newcomer appears to stumble too (with a minister now suggesting at a bankers' forum that maybe Dubai should detach itself a bit from the global financial market, as he considers the troubles to be imported. Everybody is free to make up his/her mind about what to think of it if a prime winner of globalisation wants to -de-globalize). At a party in a Jumeirah beach club on Friday, I couldn't feel much of anxiety. People were lining up all the way along the street to get into the place, and too many expensive cars to count blocked the street, honking and pushing their way through the people. But I heard that many hotel rooms are unoccupied, as thousands of Russian tourists who usually come to Dubai stay at home now. And I spoke to people who had lost their job. And apparently, there are now thousands of cars parked near the airport of people who just drove them there - parked them, and then took a plane out of the country as they couldn't afford paying the debts anymore they took for buying their vehicles.

I'll tell you more about my first weekend here soon; also about how taxidrivers from Pakistan and gold traders from India feel about their lives here. I need to go home now (hungry!). By the way, if you want to see some pictures - check out my photo album on facebook.

Wake up-call and the office

The mosque opposite of my hotel. See the tip of the spire? This is were the loudspeakers are... And yes, the blue sky is quite typical right now. Even though the fantastic skyline with the Burj Dubai which you see from some office windows (I'm facing the wall, by the way) has been slightly blurred by sand in the air for a couple of days.


And this is Spectrum building in Oud Metha, which Asda'a shares with other companies. Must be several hundred people in there all together, they just kept flocking out of the building during the fire drill this week... Unfortunately, it's not a good shot. I made it when I left the office one evening.

Airport and my room

Inside the airport

My room - what you see at the back is the kitchenette and the exit, and there's also a table and a sofa. The view from the window is nothing special, but the pool on top of the hotel a bliss! Swimming outside in the middle of February!

First days

The first few days are full of conversations with people, some of a more official nature such as the HR manager discussing organisational things with me or Asda'a Burson-Marsteller's head of the region taking me through the company's credentials presentation. They really have an impressive list of clients (or, as they emphasize, great client relationships; a seemingly small difference - at first glance) and are doing extremely successful work. Just one that struck me in its simplicity: ever heard about the exact height of Dubai's Current Top Model, the Burj Dubai? It is quite possible you didn't. This is because Asda'a didn't want you too. In order to generate interest over a long period of time, these guys suggested keeping the height a secret until the building's official opening. It is said that media even contacted building companies outside Dubai involved in the project trying to find out... "It's creative if it works" is one of the guiding ideas on display in one of their conference rooms, all of them very quotable.

"Asda'a", by the way, is a very strong Arabic word and means "echos" - which is what the agency wants to achieve for their clients, and I'm being told this is a very strong positioning in the market.

People here in the office are extremely nice and open, the culture, it seems to me, is relaxed (that might be different in crisis mode, of course!) but with great determination and pride in quality work. So far, I don't notice much about strict hierarchies, at least within direct teams. Of course the leaders are very respected, as far as I can see not just for their position but for what they stand for and for what they do. The office leader, for instance, is widely viewed as a pioneer in PR and one of the outstanding people in this region's PR industry. On a different level, the head of regional operations truly gives you the impression of seeing "the world from above", with a long-term perspective and an acute sense of what the differences in the different local markets are on the Arabian Peninsula.

Regarding media, there is a range of print and TV that is very diverse - from Arabian language to English papers, business (the largest with a circulation of about 150,000) to yellow press, and from TV channels with soapy Bollywood productions to subtitled English movie channels or hard news programmes such as the famous news station Al Jazeera which has an English version that challenges BBC World News and CNN (both of which can be watched too, of course). As part of Dubai's strategy to become independent from oil (by the way, neighbouring Emirate Abu Dhabi with the federation's capital of the same name produces much more oil), Dubai has set up several dedicated development areas among them Dubai Media City, which has become the place to be for many regional and international media in the Gulf area.

Although the media appear to be free (funny enough, a government-owned paper is seen as one of the best), there is censorship to some degree: as we are still in Arabia even though you could easily forget that at times with the international flair here in Dubai, even a woman's nacked backside was made unrecognisable in a normal US movie; and apparently, you can't access certain internet services such as skype. Generating coverage appears to be relatively easy in some papers: while, as I was told, journalists see PR as something that stands between them and the true stories, they also recognise that PR gives them access to interesting people and information. Very often, media would print a press release almost word for word. Unusual in a foreigner's eye as well: there is a static information page in some TV channels telling religious people it's time for evening prayer - just when you hear the muezzin's call from outside (by the way, maybe I'm getting used to the morning call to prayer - at least I did not wake up this morning at 5 am, even though there is one mosque just opposite the hotel. And the loudspeakers in its spire really do a great job sending the muezzin's words out...)

As you may know, weekend here is Friday to Saturday. So this is the last day of work for this week. Over the next two days, I intend to start looking around the place. For starters, I'll meet up with a friend who lives in Dubai for more than two years now and we want to go to a nice bar next to the famous Burj Al Arab hotel.

So write to you on Sunday, if you wish. By the way: if you feel like it, leave a comment or a question, which I will try to answer. I'm also open for suggestions or interested in hearing about your experience around here. Bye for now!

Breaking News: Silberhorn spotted by famous journalist!

Being discovered by star reporter Jo Klein despite his ingenious disguise, Silberhorn (third from right) seems to be happy even in the midst of the global economic downturn. We will keep you posted on any new developments!

Arrival in Dubai

Hi There! It's already the third day since my arrival in Dubai, and I can say I've already learned a lot - largely thanks to several people giving me their time.

The flight to Dubai was smooth, cruising at top speeds of about 950 km/h at roughly 10 km above the ground for five and half hours, even though we had an hour's delay from the start - and of course there was a big lady sitting to my left and reliably blocking the way snoring whenever I needed to get past her...

Apart from that, it was reading the German newspapers for a last time and catching up with background about the region's culture - especially the business section: how you should not use your left hand when passing things to someone (as the left is considered dirty), that small talk is maybe even more important than in Western cultures, with first meetings often covering more private life than what we consider actual business issues, that people here tend to be more flexible with time and so forth.

Even though I get more than just a distinct feeling that for the sort of people I'll be working with, the sort of details about Arabian manners is not too relevant. There are many expats in the office and in Dubai in general; in fact, 80 percent of the population here is said to be from foreign countries such as Pakistan, India, and basically from all over the world. Dubai is different from the rest of Arabia, a true modern melting pot of people and ideas at the junction of Europa, Africa and Asia.

The immigration was easy too: a turban wearing officer in long white robes sternly looked at me for a while, asked me why I'd like to enter Dubai and where I would stay, mumbled something incomprehensible into his black beard, and gave me a stamp in my passport (free of charge, by the way).

The airport itself is a flashy modern building showcasing what we all think we know about Dubai: big, extravagant, expensive. A representative from the hotel came to pick me up, very convenient especially with a long flight in your back. Just a quick dip into a telecoms shop to get a pre-paid sim card, then off to the hotel. The hotel is quite nice - located in an area called Bur Dubai (not to be confused with "Burj Dubai", the world's largest tower since March 2008), very close to the mouth of the Dubai Creek which divides the city in two parts. Restaurants and shops nearby, and a comparatively (in Dubai terms!) easy car ride to the office.

Last time in Frankfurt office for three months

Finally. Everything done. The last remaining texts sent to the clients, all my hours are in the system. About time. Now I'm almost ready to go.

One of the interesting things on this last day here in the German office (at least for three months) was a call regarding a potential new business opportunity, we will see what comes out of it. Quite pleasing, in a way: the caller had remembered us from a project two years ago and called again now with something else. So she cannot have been too dissatisfied with our services in 2006 ;-)

Nice as well: a presentation about how young people communicate on the web, and how such insights could be used for the election campaign of a German political party. One of the presenters was a colleague's son - who did a great job!

And later some drinks in our common room. It was a bit emotional saying good bye to my colleagues here this evening, I'm going to miss them, and by far not only the rest of the "boy group". One guy might actually come visit me on a stopover. Would be great. And I'm going to miss playing table soccer as well ;-) I wonder what people in Dubai do for a bit of office distraction in the evenings...

For a while it had not been 100% sure if all would work out with my trip to Dubai, now it all happens almost too fast - certainly for my girlfriend, who just realized that the city is quite far away from where we live now.

Write to you soon!

Lots of things to do

Marhaba! With several deadlines looming from work, finishing up all I need to do before leaving for Dubai is a true challenge. And then there's all this last minute stuff - insurance for my luggage, copying passport and driving licence, securing essential data files to carry along with me... And all the packing still to be done tomorrow. Maybe I should just buy everything on location. Heard it's real cheap to have shirts taylor-made in Dubai anyway. Good I got help with changing money (1 Euro is about 4.6 Dirham). It still seems a bit unreal that I'll be a six hours flight to the South East by Monday, insha`allah ("If God permits").

Get ready for take off!

Hi there! Thanks for reading this. One word of warning before you read on: This blog may turn out to be totally pointless. Or boring. Or both. I have never kept a diary, so we will see if I feel like keeping this up after a first few tries.

I'm Daniel, and I'm a PR Consultant from Germany. The reason I'm starting this: On February 15, 2009, I'll temporarily move to Dubai to work from there for three months for my company, Burson-Marsteller (internal exchange program! The Dubai office is here if I got the address right in Google Maps). And maybe this is a good way to keep those posted who want to know about what I see and experience.

So February 15 is - in three days. I'm quite excited about this, as I have never been in the Arab world so far, and I'm curious to experience the "can do" spirit of Dubai myself and explore what is behind the glitter surface we usually hear about - the skyscrapers, the artificial islands, the indoor skiing, huge shopping malls. I've done a bit of reading, and it seems there could be a lot - religion, a special sense of heritage, how people live and work together, modernity based on and mixed with tradition... Professionally, I can hardly begin to imagine how PR really looks like in the country of "wasda" - the value of good relationships - and a media landscape I know very little about so far, there in a place of trade and tourism right between three continents... How similar and how different will PR in the Emirates be from what I know from Germany or the UK? I'm determined to learn as much as possible, and also to have a good deal of fun on the way!

Good I learned today about the place I'll be staying at and a few other useful things. Such as: getting a visa when entering Dubai may cost me zero US-Dollar. Or 300 US-Dollar. Depending on the officers on duty at the precise time I'm trying to get into the country. And I have to leave the country after some time and re-enter to get a new visa. It is clear the culture is very different from the one in Germany, everything from society to how you do business. A supposedly important saying: "God invented time. He said nothing of haste." And I also like this one: "Grass doesn't grow any faster if you pull at it."

Departure time is Sunday at about 3pm, which brings me to Dubai at half past eleven at night. Good I don't have to be in the office until 3pm the next day... And luckily somebody will pick me up at the airport and drop me off at my hotel. Thanks, guys from our Dubai office! This is definitely one thing I have learned about them - they are extremely nice and helpful. I think it will be a pleasure to work with them.

But now it's time to log off - after all, there is still a lot to do tomorrow. Good night. And write to you soon.