Image via Wikipedia

This is one of the interesting questions I’ve read this weekend on Quora!

Here is what I summarized as an answer:

“Yes! Multimedia in Khan-Academy-like portals can add great value education specially in this mobility age.

The only way this could happen is by educating teachers to produce and curate educational content to fit their educational needs and requirements. Apple’s iBook 2.0 approach is just an example of evolution of ebooks from plain PDFs to multimedia rich interactive ones. Google and others will not leave apple alone there and should innovate to keep their competitive edge in this evergreen business.”

To see this answer and other answers, you can go here!

Related articles

• Khan Academy Had 4 Million Unique Visitors Last Month (businessinsider.com)
• iBooks is not the education revolution you’ve been looking for (venturebeat.com)
• Learning on Speed (blogs.hbr.org)

As social media continues to gain more traction worldwide, it is time to celebrate it around the world. A group of activists in jordan decided to join this global movement and organize a spacial celebration in Jordan in sync with 100+ other countries. Ready to join?

Well, it’s not another meetup! Here is how it will be different and special:

The Venue:

Have you been to Abou el Abed Al Hakawaty? Its a Lebanese restaurant with a modern twist, named after the popular Abou el Abed – the most talked about comic character in Lebanese jokes. Google him now lol

The Sponsors:

The event ad is packed with logos of great sponsors and partners who believe and use social media for their own purpose; wether it is marketing, political reform, social change and many other reasons. Sponsors are: Royal Jordanian, Gate2play, D1G, Convo2, Spring2sky and others…

The Speakers:

Right after the opening, we are going to laugh to death with standup comedian Nadim Masri. Followed by 9 active community members talking about social media impacted their life. Micheal Nazzal (Chairman Federation of Tourism Associations), Roba Al Assi (Blogger, designer, internet geek), Raghda Butros (Hamzet Wasel Organization Director) and others…

Prizes and surprises:

looking for cool accessories for your iPhone or iPad? Dont you need an ipod to take your favorite music with you? It is your chance to win! Thanks to isystem for sponsoring these awards.

The Theme:

We’ve received some unconfirmed “rumors” that participants are going to wear 6arabeesh labeled with their twitter names. Would be really cool if they managed to bring 200+ 6arboosh.

Last and most importantly, the Audience:

Yes, you are the ones who will make it a very special event. You can Check the rsvps on Facebook to know who is coming and put your networking plan. We are really excited to meet you all there! Are you?

See you today… Happy Social Media Day

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve started my day with a TED talk about the Hidden Power of smiling Here is few of the very interesting facts you can learn from such a short video:

• Smiling is contagious so make sure to work/live with smiling people around you! (smile + frown = smile)
• Babies spend most of the time smiling inside the wombs of their mothers.
• One smile can generate the same level of brain simulation as up-to 2000 bars of chocolate.
• last -and most importantly- Smiling can make you healthier and look good in the eye of others.

Related articles

• John Park shows bright smile at his autograph signing session (allkpop.com)
• The Genuine Smile or fake one? (bhls.wordpress.com)

Every week, we have an exciting meetup @ N2V Amman’s office, where we open a discussion, enjoy a presentation or screen a movie…

A month ago, we decided to brainstorm about the definition of Food 2.0 -as we were a bit hungry Here are few of the interesting outcomes:

• Healthy food! as the first (Food 1.0 used to junky!)
• Food that is ordered and delivered automatically (through a tweet maybe!)
• Could be something “interactive” like fettuccini!
• User-generated food (you put the recipe!)
• highly-customized food.
• food-centric social networks and forums.
• Could have in-food advertising (you can find a marketing message inside the sandwich!)
• Food that you cook without a recipe (you try it on the spot utilizing the ingredients you already have!)
• always fresh and at optimum temperature.
• Food that tweets with every bite
• Encapsulated food! just like what astronauts eat during their trip to the moon!

So, what’s your own definition of Food 2.0?

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook has recently announced a new cool feature on mobile devices for check-in addicts; Event Check-ins.

Now, you have another way to increase awareness of events such as important announcements, store openings and special sales. Anyone invited to an event who responds as “Attending” or “Maybe Attending” will be able to check in three hours before the event starts and until it ends. When they check in, the action creates a story in their friends’ News Feeds, spreading awareness of your business and your event in an organic way.

The new option on the Events page is just another way the social network is working to expand Facebook Places. The company has also been pushing a Facebook Deals feature that takes on Groupon with coupons for users who check-in when they’re mobile.

Related articles

• Facebook Adds Check-Ins To Events (allfacebook.com)
• Facebook Reportedly Testing Event Check-ins (thenextweb.com)

Image by dpstyles™ via Flickr

A year ago, A friend of mine figured out that we are neighbors when he found my house as a spot on foursquare.. what a small world!!

Definitely, this is not the objective of such location based applications, but I think it is an indication that such services have started to go beyond its common basic usage.

As a futurist, I’ve composed this interesting list of future applications for location-based services:

• Cafe 2.0
  Imagine if a badge is printed for you automatically when you checks-in a cafe with showing your twitter name  and the short bio (@mkhawaja). You are curious to know the mayor? A screen behind the cash shows his avatar and who has been there recently. (Maybe it can be located next the employee of the week board!)
• Advertising 2.0
  Prices of billboards and ads will be affected by number of check-ins taking place around it (maybe it can include a counter on the frame counting (1253 check-ins during the last 3 hours!)
• School 2.0
  What if teachers stopped using the manual check-in for students in class. Students need only to check in to prove that they were there! The mayor should get extra marks!! and students can check “tips and to-do’s about the class from their peers in the previous semester before joining a class
• Pet 2.0
  Pet can now socialize and become mayors! the “badges” they may get can be printed and placed around on their bodies!
• Space 2.0
  As trips to the space will be more affordable in the future there will be places on the moon and satellite stations to check in. imagine calling me in 2031 right after I check in the blue valley on the moon! (If my mobile is roaming on Zain, I will be charged for the call more than what I budgeted for the whole trip!!!)
• Shoes 2.0
  For sure you will not go anywhere with bare feet! So, why not to buy a Nike shoes that do check in wherever you go!? It would be fantastic to marathon runners, canyoners and adventurers (your shoe will vibrate whenever you get into a new zone to notify/welcome you)

Maybe this is fiction for you nowadays, but many of such dreams did come true after some time

Related articles

• Foursquare and RadioShack offer up check-in deals all over again (intomobile.com)
• Building Brand Loyalty One Check-in at a Time (mediamindedkid.wordpress.com)

The-Question-Company at DemoCamp Dubai 2010

DemoCamp Amman is an opportunity to showcase all of the cool interesting technologies being built by the local community. It is also an opportunity for you to meet geeks around the country and network with them! but, for sure, you don’t need to be a software developer to attend! The format of a DemoCamp is pretty informal. The idea is for a group of geeks to meet up and demo the fresh out-of-the-box projects and products to the community to get feedback and approach potential investors. The demos can be of research projects, open source projects, commercial products, mobile apps, web apps, desktop apps or whatever you think might be of interest to the attendees. Here are my reasons to join DemoCamp Amman:

1. Get inspired by cool entrepreneurs and innovators revealing their latest innovations!
2. Enjoy a PowerPoint-free event (again it’s a DEMO), with thunder-light internet from Zain
3. Find partners and co-founders to start your next big “THING”.
4. Network with the brightest geeks in town who can design, code and innovate the best world-class applications.
5. Meet angel investors, who can contribute more than cash, to help you grow your startup and transform your prototypes into real-life products.
6. Connect with bloggers from the region like Saud Alhawawi, Samer Marzouq, Osama Romoh, Ali Alhasani, Motea Alwan and more who can help you create buzz around your products.
7. Meet the craziest Jordanian entrepreneurs and learn from their success – and failure.
8. Get to know who are the future leaders in ICT in Jordan after 10-20 years!
9. Enjoy networking session… smart people and delicious food
10. Meet Hanan Khader, Muhannad Ebwini, Rami Al-Karmi, Ibrahim Manna’, Ala’ Alsallal and other great entrepreneurs in Jordan. (check the event page)

Ain’t this enough for you to join this first-of-its-kind event in Jordan?  RSVP now!

When you invite someone to connect on LinkedIn and the other person accepts, you receive an email about the successful connection. Within that email, LinkedIn provides insights about the other person’s network by showing who they are connected with and which companies they follow.

• Check the suggested contacts to connect with. You now can find a solid reason to invite them to your network and ask them to join your company’s group or attend your upcoming event.

• The Companies list is very important, as it allows you to easily learn about the 4 most important companies mentioned in his profile. Following these companies should help you reach competition, predict employee movements, find the right company to outsource to do and much more! read about other advantages here.

• Ask your “close friends” who connected with you recently to forward the “new-connection” email that talks about you, to you to know what others read about you as soon as you connect with them on Linkedin.

• I’m not a big fan of Hotmail, but 2 weeks ago, Linkedin released a new feature that gives Hotmail users the chance to take multiple actions directly within email. Which means it’s much easier to connect to people you may know or follow companies that you’re interested in “without leaving that email”. Read more details about this feature at Linkedin blog.

Next time, don’t skip the “New Connection” email notification, you can now read between the lines!

Going through the photos of “The Trip to Innovation” on facebook made me excited to write this post. Thanks to @mAzzam1988

Everyone is born innovative, ain’t we? and everyone can learn how to innovate by simply looking at existing innovations and asking the simple question of: What makes it innovative? that was part of what I learned few years ago during the time I was at the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship as we organized several workshops discussing the mind-blowing science called Systematic Innovation.

I’m not going to talk about systematic innovation, as I’m planing to focus on “The Blend Strategy”; which is another systematic approach to innovate!

Many successful companies, products and services have emerged from this strategy; for me it represents the art of taking two different industries and mixing together the best parts of each to come up with a new cool innovative outcome! Very simple… very effective

Image via Wikipedia

Look around and you will find so many great examples. One interesting example is the Cirque du Soleil; which is a great mix between the acrobat world and the circus industry! Cirque du Soleil ended up making $700 million in sales and seen by 10 million people every year in different parts of the world. WoW!

To be a successful “blender”, you should use your imagination! huh!?

Look around and bring the best of different products and services all together to solve a problem and/or create a new opportunity. To cut the long story short, watch this cool video by The Toilet-Paper-Entrepreneur talking about how blend strategy can make a better basketball. Enjoy!

Innovation Is Everywhere from Obsidian on Vimeo.