ToastMasters Competent Communicator Award

I recently received the competent communicator award from ToastMasters International after finishing the first communication track CC which is a set of 10 speeches each focusing on a specific skills to develop:

1) Ice breaker                                    07.04.2009           breaks the Ice

2) The development way                    19.05.2009           organize your speech

3) Reaching Out 1                             23.06.2009           Get to the point

4) Reaching Out 2                             21.07.2009           How to say it

5) Reaching Out 3                             18.08.2009           your body speaks

6) Operation Badr                              06.10.2009           Vocal Variety

7) Classification of Ethics                   17.11.2009           Research your topic

8 ) Three years in business                 12.01.2010           Get comfortable with Visual Aids

9) Ambition to meaning                      02.02.2010           Persuade with power

10) Take the first step in faith             15.02.2010           Inspire your audience

ToastMasters CC

Name of God Al-Muhaymen

Salam Everyone,

I’m starting or restarting to listen to an amazing series that helped me much in phases of my life, I wanted to make that restart long time ago, but things just worked out to b starting it just now.

The name of God I listened to this morning as Al-Muhaymen http://www.nabulsi.com/english-nab/ideology/names/names-13.php The following is some Twitter posts, I post real time from my head.

The meaning of the Al-Muhaimen can be summed up in: Ultimate Knowledge + Ultimate Capability + Knowing the future #Nabulsi

As humans we can have knowledge about something and a few of us would have the top knowledge in that matter, so that’s a point

Some of humans can be more skilled in something than the others, they’re capable of doing something more than the rest.

It’s very rare in humans to find someone who’s knowledgeable + capable in the same field, in the same situation #Nabulsi

You can measure that in anything you’re doing, you might have a great knowledge on how to grow your business but lack resources#Nabulsi

So with lacking capability while having the knowledge, you can’t go forward growing your business. Equation is incomplete #Nabulsi

While some others might have the resources you need the capability, they lack the knowledge to get things going. Eq. incomplete #Nabulsi

In life it’s rare to find someone who’s knowledgeable + capable in the same field or in the same situation #Nabulsi

Rarely if knowledge and capability met, always there are going to be insecurity about the future, no human knows what will be#Nabulsi

The name of God Al-Muhaymen means that god has the Ultimate Knowledge + Capability + Owns the future in every moment and situation #Nabulsi

The meaning of Al-Muhaymen is what calls us for submission to him and not anyone else or even ourselves #Nabulsi

Our lack of knowledge, ability and security about the future is what should drive us to relying on Al-Muhaymen and none else #Nabulsi

Human arrogance when we think we can be Muhaymen, when we think we can be in control by ourselves when we superficially own smthing #Nabulsi

Human arrogance can be shown in Titanic, the most knowledgeable eng. most skilled builders, so you think you’re in control? #Nabulsi

Human arrogance can be shown in Challenger; everything is calculated and under complete control? Complete in fire after few seconds #Nabulsi

Human arrogance is our daily situations, that me and you go through believing we owned it, we planned to it and we’ll surely get it #Nabulsi

That’s why our core is submission, the name of our religion and lifestyle we should have #Nabulsi #Muhaymen

We lose the path when we obsess upon something to the extend of forgetting that we’re created to believe & trust only #AlMuhaymen#Nabulsi

And that’s my friend when we need to be punished by bitterness in the heart to submit to #AlMuhaymen again https://www.abdomagdy.com/kvfba3

– Abdelrahman

#Flotilla so we should be sad?

Hello Everyone,

This is a collection of ideas I posted on Twitter concerning the Israeli attack on the aid ship heading towards Gaza in international water, how should we conceive it and should something like that make us sad or depressed as some people seem to be getting?

Let’s be positive, Israel is digging its grave. Level of hatred towards it never reached that level since its existence, right?

From the vid I’ve seen the Israeli special forces are paper tigers, hiding from civilians in a laughable way.

So here is what happened, 20 something beautiful souls met their lord Shuhada in the paradise happily rejoicing

What a dignifying death to be killed getting supplies to the poor & after ur death ruin enemies reputation and wake ur friends up

The ugly face of Israel is getting more clear to the whole world, losing the PR efforts since their existence

Now, ain’t it getting hard to get moderate westerners to believe the Israeli PR crap and lose trust in their media? We’re winning #Flotilla

Didn’t people forget sometime about #Gaza and #Palestine ain’t#Flotilla a reminder to keep it in head & puts +ve pressure on us to support

Ain’t #Flotilla bringing people together? The Turks are getting closest to the Arabs/Muslims since the fall of Islamic Khilafa.

So, don’t be depressed, I think we’re perfectly entitled to celebrate that god hands are working in our favor

And yah, unfortunately, anger is temporary, real commitment and integrating the cause in our path in life is what really makes sense.

So, don’t get depressed. In the depth of the situation is benefits we might don’t see now, but if you have the eye to look to the future, you should really be seeing the end of this siege.

– Abdelrahman

Being Judgmental?

Hello Everyone,

Listen to PodCast:

[podcast]https://www.abdomagdy.com/podcasts/podcast2.mp3[/podcast]

This is from an angle an awesome reminder for judgmental people – I might be included, who knows!- that by touching the person and accepting them as they’re and then trying to notify them of what’s wrong and help them change is the only way to make a change in someone’s life. Even a tough robot like that one in the video completely changed when had been touched with someone’s understanding and tenderness.

Sometimes we need to take a solid situation against someone who ruins our community or make things clear to someone who need to see something wrong he/she is doing and even some other times we need to shock people to wake up.

While doing this we might might be the complete opposite of being judgmental to the extend of sacrificing our reputation or relationship with someone to help them become better.

On the other hand, if people are open for change and openly expressing that, in form like “tell me what’s wrong with me and I’ll change it”, “I’m just an old chuck of coal, but I’m gonna be a diamond one day” and we label them, then it’s not they who’s being judgmental.

Peace and Love!

– Abdo

Searching for an old love

I received the following messages from a German lady via a German networking site. Messages say it all. Sorry for the poor English, she’s not a native speaker and I didn’t want to modify the messages and just post as is ..

M. S. wrote 29.12.2009:

greetings from munich and i have a very important question do you have aknow about md,magdi abbas? computerhardware ingeneer?age 60-65?he worked for siemens a.moved in germany 83-86 please tell me if you can thank you micaela.

i forget, he live in cairo a.i was search him direct there in 89 but no result.

and his wish when he was young, was to be a airfligth pilot sorry for disturb! have a nice 2010!micaela

I was quite inactive on the site for a long while, got back and checked my messages to find the above, it was astonishing to see someone still searching for another who lost contact with for 24 years, I got back with a reply that I don’t know him but I find that inspirational and asked for more details about it and she responded saying:

M. S. wrote 23.04.2010:

Hello Mr. A.Magdy, now I was complete schocked to read the name Mr.Md. Magdi Abbas ,because today i should be not here about my 50 birthday!. Suddely looked the Name! At first thank you for answer me! Too, too long time triedto find out this man! Went to Cairo, such him -surch the post office, where my letters gone before! Many things done, only about him.So i came here to yasni Person surching -machine And as i saw your name, so my first thought was:You are his son may? Weloosed each other, it was my foult -not his!

He stayed at 1987 in Washington DC.- Maryland to reach anew Diplom as A Computer -Ingeneer.I think -it was hardware -technics-.That i try to find out all the name about him in Cairo,and all streetnames via mapcard –than i got a warning from egyptian gouverment.what i want and try here to find out.

Becaus one of a minister with the same name have.Thats about no informations more Yes, so again start surch from here Thats all slii ican explain You at first ! Only, that this man worked and moved around the world for siemens -ccompany! If intern or extern this question is out of my knowing,sorry.

He have one son and one dougther -she may one year older than son. Wifes name Fatme /Fatima. Now is only my qestion-he is alive and stay healthy or he is gone with angels ?? Thats all for the moment. i wait now 23 years -so never mind for few days more .Thank You, have a nice free friday up to next time! Ma selam

That was touching!

– Abdo

Sharing Link: https://www.abdomagdy.com/bse5nx

Practicing Parkour with EgyFlow

View on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL1X4LicEU4

Hey Everyone,

Last march, I started practicing Parkour with EgyFlow; an awesome Parkour team I first knew about via its facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=101307227731 despite the fact that I don’t have much time to invest weekly on Parkour, I’m maintaining a minimum of a session per week and enjoying it so far.

The other point around is that my company will be taking care of the team’s website http://EgyFlow.com as soon as the materials get ready.

Here’s some photos I took during some training session.

we were actually running on here ..

team members practicing

Stay tuned, I guess I’ll be taking more videos and photos during our trainings .. wanna run after me?

Thanks

–  Abdo

Serving as VP of Public Relations, Cairo ToastMasters Club

Serving as VP of Public Relations, Cairo ToastMasters Club

Since April 2010, I had been serving as VP of Public Relations at Cairo ToastMasters Club. The only ToastMasters Club in Cairo and during this period, I’ve utilized different social media channel to establish the image of the club and generate interest within this group to join ToastMasters while keeping members updated.

Today our ToastMasters Page I started on Facebook has 600 users and we have more than 180+ followers on Twitter, beside 8 videos produced from speeches within the club.

For me, is Twitter replacing blogs?

Hey guys,

@ArabicRihanna on Twitter asked a question from a while wondering if Twitter is replacing blogs? I’ll try to give an answer to that from my own perspective and leave the judgement to you.

In the last few months I had been more active on twitter than any other online tool, my first tweet had been Nov, 11th 2007 http://twitter.com/abdome/status/404692242 the point that you can get in touch with someone in 140 character and get to know others through that, which is amazing I guess.

As they say on Twitter.com themselves the current use of Twitter hadn’t been what they had in mind when they started the web service, so its developments seems to be community-driven and user-invented as people start and idea the site adopt it and make it much more easier, such as @user and the HashTags # which is amazing.

While a lot of people mention Twitter as a great tool for mainly; wasting time, others claim knowing some amazing people, building friendships and expanding their network through it.

I’m a social media professional and I’m getting paid for my advice helping clients use the tool to get business and give a good impression about the brands or individuals I work with. I’ll leave all the professional terms and just get a bit personal about my view point about Twitter and whether I’d leave blogging  to Twitter. You can find a lot of resources about that online, that’s why I’m entitled to my own experience.

Quality vs. Quantity?

When I first joined Twitter back in 2007, I knew it through Ecademy which is a business network, so my initial view of it has been an interesting new social media marketing tool.

As a Marketing tool, that in somehow have to do with business, I joined and followed a lot of business people until I got my stream flooding with impersonal posts, in most cases marketing pitch – anyway, that didn’t really encourage me to invest that much time on it, so wasn’t that active there.

I started really being motivated to use it with the #MuslimUnity campaign during last Ramadan the idea of connecting people in a practical activity seemed to made a lot sense. Real Personalities? and Genuine individuals to befriend? there is different opinions but it’s not the position to discuss that here. I personally hope to be more cautious!

I fall into the mistake of posting lots of Tweets in specific topic then getting back to the blog to collect them and create a post out of these Tweets, which seemed not awesome to my followers because of the nature of Twitter, it makes it seem like impersonating their experience and I’m stopping that with time. The point is that you have the ideas in mind and the fastest way to get it out is to Tweet it, but it’s not the most effective way.

Briefly, twitter is a great tool, it might take over sometimes and we give more attention to it, but at the end communicating real ideas needs more space than the 140 character that Twitter offers and thus still real content should be posted on Blogs and I’m taking that path here!

Thanks

– Abdo

Clear Sharapova Online Campaign

Clear Sharapova Online Campaign

Worked on Clear “Sharapova” Campaign during the period from mid-February 2010 to mid-March 2010. Tasks included website design, database development, members registration, Flash & GIF Ad design for YouTube, Facebook Ad design and Managing the campaign Facebook page, including FBML coding.

Contracted by: Lane-8.

CLEARmen Online Campaign

CLEARmen Online Campaign

Worked on CLEARmen online campaign, the preparations and management took place during the period from mid October 2009 till the end of December 2009. Tasks included website design, database development, members registration, Flash game, different flash Ads and creating social media extension for the campaign (YouTube & Twitter specifically).

Contracted by: Lane-8.

Footage from Cairo Tower during #CairoTweetUp

Hey All,

Last Friday, March 19th I went in a little #CairoTweetUp – Twitter users meetings – and recorded that footage to downtown Cairo. I uploaded it unedited to YouTube, hoping that the annotations there would make some sense.

General view:

Trying to focus on main figures:

Pyramids and Nile View:

Ministry of foreign affairs:

Mohamed Ali Mosque and Saladin Citadel from Cairo Tower:

Cairo university main hall from Cairo Tower:

The guys: @ramezm @gr33ndata @humanzz @Haerviu and myself @abdome > getting down.

Provided that 3 members are from Alexandria, i get to know some new Alexandarian words.

Enjoy!

– Abdo

Birell Social Media Campaign

Birell Social Media Campaign

Worked on Birell Online Campaign, managing both YouTube and Facebook accounts for the Campaign with design optimization tasks and FBML coding for the Facebook page, the campaign took place from the beginning of January 2010 to the end of February 2010.

Contracted by: Lane-8.

Tweeting a work task for 12 hours

Hey Everyone,

work task on whiteboard

I just finished a work task for Lane-8 Creative Digital Marketing working on a web application for Unilever Egypt – the funny thing is that I shared the progress with some photos of my whiteboard and some ideas came to my mind while working freely on Twitter.

Don’t know specifically why, but it was just fund and after finishing the task, I can track back all what I have done in the past 12 hours getting ready for a deadline.

Have you every considered something like that, what’s your limits for Tweeting about your work and publicly sharing information about what you do.

– Abdo

Saqqara Desert Horse back-riding

Hey Everyone,

Friday, March 5th. I went with the amazing Weekedn Trips group in Cairo http://www.facebook.com/weTrips for horse back riding in Saqqara desert and enjoyed it a lot. Here is some videos I got during the outing.

I tried to take footage while riding, but when it gets fast it’s completely ridiculous to take footage and control the horse. There is some funny parts that I won’t share, but maybe later one.

There is 2 things I liked about that outing away from the excitement, there were 2 Hijabi girls who looked so decent and had no problem outing with the group, I was really proud of them – the second thing is that praying in the desert, was a bit tough especially prostration, but strengthened the feeling of praying anywhere, under any condition.

Getting out and getting ready to start, hear my sigh @ 1:45 HeHe

 

 

 

 

Finally, I love horses so much and enjoyed that outing a lot.

Have fun!

– Abdelrahman

Sharing: https://www.abdomagdy.com/87xnxb

Jason Mraz – Life is wonderful

Hey Everyone,

Amazing video I started my day with today and thought to share.

It takes a crane to build a crane
It takes two floors to make a storie
It takes an egg to make a hen
It takes a hen to make an egg
There is no end to what I’m saying

It takes a thought to make a word
And it takes some words to make an action
And it takes some work to make it work
It takes some good to make it hurt
It takes some bad for satisfaction

Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life goes full circle
Ah la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la

It takes a night to make it done
And it takes a day to make you young brother
And it takes some old to make you young
It takes some cold to know the sun
It takes the one to have the other

And it takes no time to fall in love
But it takes you years to know what love is
And it takes some fears to make you trust
It takes those tears to make it rust
It takes the dust to have it polished

Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life goes full circle
Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la

It takes some silence to make sound
And it takes a lost before you found it
And it takes a road to go nowhere
It takes a toll to show you care
It takes a hole to see a mountain

Ah la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la life goes full circle
Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la life is meaningful
Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la life is meaningful
Ah la la la la la la life is full of
Ah la la la la la life is so full of love
Ah la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life is meaningful
Ah la la la la la life is full of
Ah la la la la la life is so full of love

Sharing: https://www.abdomagdy.com/vnsh53

My ToastMasters Journey so far ..

Hi Everyone,

In this post I’m intending to present my personal experience with ToastMasters so far. I thought as the purpose of the club is sharing experience and helping one another become better speakers and as Linda said benefiting from the club as a personal development tool. I’m going to present how I benefited from ToastMasters so far and what I’m looking forward to develop with your help in the coming phase.

First, I knew about ToastMasters from an amazing joint outing between Xing Egypt Business Network and ToastMasters organized by Mohamed Alborno by the end of 2008 after which, I decided to give it a try, as I was in a very Geeky attitude in the last couple of years working as a freelance web professional so all what I do involves a computer for designing, coding and online business networking. Opening up and having more social activities while developing my people-skills was my goal.

I attended couple of meetings as my time permitted till I officially joined by March, 2009. I remember my first participation in the table-topics in my first meeting, in which we were supposed to pick a job title and present what we do, my job title were “independent investigator” and I found it really funny.

I gave my ice-breaker (first speech) 07.04.2009 which was a presentation of my background and my current activities and what I’m aspiring for in the future. Having access to the site after being a full member, I made use of the “Member Goals” section of the site, in which I thought delivering a speech per month would be a reasonable.

In the table-topics of a meeting after that, the discussion in the topic of developing Egypt had been opened. A lot of input had been added by both Egyptians and non-Egyptians and from here, I picked up the topic of my 2nd speech “The Development Way” which I delivered 19.05.2009. As the purpose of the speech had been to organize the speech.

I made a detailed structure for the speech which included lots of points, while I wanted to actually – after giving an introduction about the concept of development and factors affecting development (people’s attitude, leadership, education and freedom) I was supposed to emphasize on a project by Farouk El-Baz PhD that’s called “The Development Passage”.

There had been a lot of information to be delivered in 7 minutes – so I followed up from the speech with an Email describing the details of the project, I even kept a copy of it in my personal blog here: https://www.abdomagdy.com/2009/05/the-development-way/ And took a note that as a person who focuses on the technicalities of the issues, I usually have loads of information to share, the challenge is to decide which to keep and which to cut to suit the available time.

Speaking out especially in English in ToastMasters as a non-native English speaker, gave me confidence to start making videos for my YouTube channel after delivering couple of speeches in ToastMasters, so I made that YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk9D5XXo-wA and had the intention while working on developing my speaking skills on ToastMasters, I’ll be also making YouTube videos for extra practice.

As a web professional, I thought about sharing some of my experiences via ToastMasters speeches and thus started a series of 3 speeches and labeled it Reaching Out.

My third speech had been Reaching Out (1) – Online Networking which I delivered 23.06.2009. As a freelancer my main stream of prospects during that time were coming from online business networking sites, I was most active on Ecademy – a UK based business network and I still have my profile there: http://www.ecademy.com/account.php?id=268623

I shared my ideas about online networking while focusing on being straight and getting to the point. I also, decided to publish my ToastMasters speeches on my personal blog after I deliver it. There is a copy of that speech here: https://www.abdomagdy.com/2009/07/reaching-out-online-networking/

Looking to the feedback in the manual, I found while it had an overall positive feedback from Dhalia I still should have shorten the speech more. Which is really something to do with what you get used to, I’m a Geek – that kind of person with high level of technical understanding and with the eye for the details and it takes practice to change our habits, so that had been something to work on, even till now. As we all know overcoming habits that goes up to personal features takes practice.

My next speech the fourth continued the series Reaching Out (2) – Starting an Online Business – 21.07.2009. It was my first time to completely write the speech before delivering it because the purpose of that speech was “how to say it” which focuses on picking the right words and avoiding Jargon. I got an overall positive feedback from Gonar – who used to be a part of the club – with a hint to speak slower and clearer as a non-native English speaker, my pronunciation might swing sometimes.

As a result, I subscribed to a few YouTube channels that present English as a Second Language and Accent-Reduction advice like: http://www.youtube.com/user/rebeccalinquist and as I was advised by Mr. Hassan Osman to give especial attention to my P and B. Accordingly, I practiced with some online resources http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9zgE5tsFx8

I posted the speech here: https://www.abdomagdy.com/2009/07/reaching-out-starting-online-business/

The fifth speech continued the series with Reaching Out(3) – Making online videos – 18.08.2009 –

Links:
Ambition to meaning: https://www.abdomagdy.com/2009/12/ambition-to-meaning-finding-your-lifes-purpose/
Egypreneur videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsQ_lhYNc4
Lifestyle shift: https://www.abdomagdy.com/2009/11/lifestyle-shift-can-we/
First time toastmaster: https://www.abdomagdy.com/2009/08/first-time-toastmaster/

Two inspirational web companies for Entrepreneurs

Hi Everyone,

While getting ready to launch my company Al-Adham Web Solutions I was looking for inspiration about successful web companies. I didn’t need to go far from some tools that became essential to me. I’ll take you through a short introduction to the Two web companies I’m inspired with while thinking about my start-up.

First is Envato

Second is 37Signals