Archive for January, 2010

Pakistan Macro Economic Update – January 2010

The figures for July- December 2009 are guardedly encouraging as there are some signs that the economy is on the road to recovery. Trade deficit has narrowed due to a decline in imports (because of reduced oil and commodity prices in this period as well as the slowdown in economic activity) which have outweighed the [...]

January 31, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Karachi, Liquidity Risk, PASHA, Pakistan, the economy stupid  No Comments

The Caltex, PSO, Shell Challenge…

Good petrol pumps (gas stations for my friends from an earlier life) are hard to find in Karachi. Good petrol pumps that will give you consistent mileage weeks after weeks are even harder. After painfully experimenting with almost every brand and every locality I have now built my own list of three pumps that I [...]

January 31, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Karachi, Pakistan, the economy stupid  One Comment

Talent ,Technology, Management

Ages ago for an upcoming PASHA career expo I did a piece on hiring. A few months earlier I had done a presentation on knowledge workers at Zayed University Campus in Abu Dhabi. Today at the Nutshell forum I used ideas from both pieces to do a different take on talent management within the technology [...]

January 23, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, I can't hack it, Karachi, PASHA, Pakistan, Startup, Startup Insiders, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  2 Comments

Travel log

Travel long enough and you will someday hit an incredibly lucky day or an incredibly interesting one. And every now and then you will get one that is a bit of both. So yesterday’s trip to Dubai started off interestingly enough! I reached the airport late and while I was fretting if Emirates would let [...]

January 18, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Personal shit  No Comments

Taha

I don’t know where he goes when he looks through me. His don’t disturb me, I am thinking look… If he is sitting with me, I can feel the transition and the change. The momentum shifts, he slows downs and settles, like our Civic adjusting to the fourth gear and cruising at 60 miles an [...]

January 18, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  One Comment

Friends, finally…

It’s 8:40 am. I am standing outside Taha’s class waiting for him to make his grand entrance and he is waiting for Naureen to catch his eye and Naureen looks up. She whispers a few magical words and the entire class of 5 year olds streams out of KG-1B and there are hugs and kisses [...]

January 14, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

The Zong Recall…

I have gotten in trouble before by professing my weakness for the Zong campaign on this blog before. I think it’s time that I start another round of excitement. What do you say about the power of a brand recall when my 5 year old hyperactive attention deficit child with selective recall, who speak only [...]

January 14, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

How to change the world in one easy step…

Adnan (Iqbal, not Haider) first pointed me towards Khan Academy about a year ago. I took a quick peek and was suitability impressed. Then this evening Nida sent in a small note with a link to a slice of MIT article describing the work Salman has been doing and then a Google search dug up [...]

January 10, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  2 Comments

The Larry Ellison Fix in Karachi…

The first car that I ever wanted to drive was a Honda Accord. Don’t ask me why, there is a long convoluted tale behind that desire that goes all the way back to Abdullah Haroon Road, traffic duties as a prefect and my school days. Twelve years later the car I first learnt how to [...]

January 10, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Karachi, Pakistan, Personal shit, Taha  One Comment

Looking Back II…

But despite the misery, it was a great year in many ways. It was the year… Taha learnt to write his name and graduate from therapy to his Kindergarten class at CAS. It is also the year in which he started making eye contact and speaking in clear sentences and statements. Fawzia, Taha and Salwa [...]

January 9, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  2 Comments

Looking back…

Seasons come and go, markets move, react & retrench but every once in a while you get touched (more like hit) by a year that will mark you for life. And so it was for 2009. Admittedly, things were already quite bleak for us in December 2008, but it was in mid 2009 that this [...]

January 9, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

What a year…

If 2009 was tough, the first week of 2010 seems to indicate that this year is going to be so much tougher. Different kind of pain though. While ’09 was depressing as our businesses self destructed around us, ’10 at least from initial appearances is going to be about staying power and persistence; hard work [...]

January 7, 2010   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments