Pakistan Risk Review – Editorial for the second issue As we wrapped up work on the second issue of Pakistan Risk Review, I sat down and took a few minutes to look back at my relationship with risk over the last decade. Just as this publication has evolved dramatically over the last 12 months, my…
Mothers, wives and sisters
Ammi’s is in Liaqat on account of emergency knee surgery and Fawzia is staying over with her tonight. It’s only when mothers, wives and sisters are away that we realize how strongly they hold a house together and how helpless us lesser mortals are without them.
High hopes…
What do Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy, Ants (the movie), Sesame Street, Taha, Jehan and the rest of us ordinary mortals have in common? Next time your found, with your chin on the groundThere a lot to be learned, so look around Just what makes that little old antThink he’ll move that rubber tree plantAnyone…
An abridged history of the technology industry in Pakistan, three
When the time came for us to graduate things had started to get exciting. GUI tools were getting more impressive. Borland was getting the whacking of a life time at the hands of Microsoft in everything other than development environments and was returning the favor in IDE’s (Integrated Development Environments). The era of Word Star…
An abridged history of technology industry in Pakistan, two
1991 is the year when the world changed for me forever. At the beginning of my fourth term at FAST ICS my father went out and bought me an Intel 286 DTK computer. He borrowed 30,000 rupees from two elders in my extended family. For us as a household, it was an unthinkable amount and…
If I could give away the Nobel prize, or Taliban bogey II
When it comes to combining objective writing with scathing sarcasm no one comes close to my honorary friend, Sepoy, at Chapati Mystery (actually we have never met and have exchanged all of two emails over the last 24 months). But the gent in questions writes such lovely prose and says exactly the things that I…
An abridged history of technology industry in Pakistan – one
Every now and then someone comes along and questions how far we have come as an industry or what have we achieved as a group over the last two decades. I have been thinking about doing this post for a while but a recent exchange on CIO Pakistan reinforced the urge. Here goes. Early impressions,…
The Entrepreneurship crash course comes to Karachi
Jehan arm twisted me again to teach the dreamers course I teach at SP Jain, Dubai, in Karachi and Lahore. I had spoken about running something similar back home a few months ago and she had been on my case to do this sooner than later. So this weekend, I will be running a two…
The things one needs to do in this country to get reviewed
One of the joys of having an office in Karachi is Adnan Haider’s company when he drops in town to get away from all that is Dubai. In the few days that it takes for him to quickly get Dubai-sick as well as Karachi-sick (not necessarily in that order) I am normally able to twist…
Building your brand, Engro Foods and Omore…
Donald Sexton‘s International Marketing class was scheduled for Thursday evening, an hour before happy hour at Columbia. In 12 sessions spread over twelve weeks Don planned on teaching us everything we ever needed to know about building global brands. Each class would start and end with Don’s personal collection of the best advertising done in…