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