Why have one job when you could have more fun doing 3?

The last couple of weeks have been pretty manic, without even time for blog posting which is always a shame. The main reason being that I acquired a couple of other jobs as well as the day job for EAI. Our CEO is also Chair of the Board of the Institutes of Applied Technology, a unique organization which provides technological education in a variety of different ways. The IAT schools in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah take students at Year 10 and teach them in 'clusters' which focus on science, engineering and ICT alongside the normal high school subjects. It's a novel approach which encourages early specialization in these important areas and they teach in English which fits students better for higher education. They also have a mandatory community programme and every student has a Mac laptop and an on line education system. Under the umbrella are two specialist academies in Aviation and Logistics, which offer tertiary education, an HE nursing college and a boarding school for boys interesting in vocational subjects who struggle with conventional education. IAT were keen to develop a cohesive strategy to marketing and had approached a number of professional consultancies in this area. Our CEO discovered my education marketing background and offered my services to develop this project on a pro bono basis - several of the EAI professionals offer this kind of support to IAT and other Not for Profit organizations which the CEO is involved with. It's a great opportunity and my kind of thing - it's certainly made a change from careers fairs, gifts and business cards. The biggest difficulty is that I still need to do everything else as well so it's been hard to squash it all in. In the meantime the CEO lined me up for another freebie for Emirates Skills, again right up my street but we are running out of hours in the day!
Meanwhile we won a contract as an organization to recruit soldiers and technicians for SOC, the special ops for the UAE military and yet another organization to provide a marketing plan and talent acquisition strategy for! I took a brief about 3ish on a Sunday, having already worked up a plan but the plan was of no use as they'd decided to attend a recruitment event the following Sunday so, from a standing start we had to produce a pop up stand, a brochure and 700 gift items by Thursday. Unsurprisingly it did all get done - I wrote copy for a brochure which we translated into Arabic and we managed to sort out a stand and 700 credit card USBs with their logo on. In the real world this might be cause for celebration but here I am still struggling to get the supplier order signed off for the USBs (fortunate that he and I went ahead without one!) because I don't have a piece of paper with the SOC logo on signed by them to say I can use it, even though they gave it to me in the first place and I have emails from the Colonel, no less, approving the designs! We also got into trouble because we didn't actually go to all the exhibitions and 'pop up' the stand for them. Since we weren't given the information about when and where the exhibitions were it would have been tricky but I expect we just weren't making enough of an effort. I also got called to a meeting by the CEO in order for a large number of us to work up the overall recruitment, assessment and training plan for this project - seemed a bit late in the day to me since we not only had a plan ready, but also gifts, stands and brochures but there we are. There were at least 20 people in this room, some of whom were not altogether sure why they were there and I was the only non Emirati present although not the only woman. Once we'd had the briefing from the CEO no further action appeared to be taken, no minutes were taken and there has been no follow up. I assume once we'd had this meeting we all go off and do our separate things and never see each other again! Still there were a lot of very nice dates and I felt very honored to be included in such an august gathering, even if I didn't feel it would be appropriate for me to contribute.
The National, the main English newspaper for Abu Dhabi is very keen to talk about us (nice things, you don't get too much nasty stuff in the press round here). This is another source of amusement and frustration for me as we have a very definite 'no comment' approach. This can be partly explained by the defence nature of much of our work and partly the natural reticence of our senior managers, but even when things are in the public domain they refuse to say anything. The media were invited to the recruitment events so they were very keen to run a story about the SOC campaign - I've spent most of my career begging media to run stories relating to recruitment and now I'm having to fight them off! Despite the fact that we were actually exhibiting I was told that it was far too early to run a story in the media! This week the National ran a story about local companies working with the defence sector - and yes there are others - of course we got a large mention via our partners Raytheon, EADS and Thales but my carefully constructed words, aimed at telling people about the breadth of our work and our ambitions were given the red light. It'll be funny to go back to the opposite and remember how easy it would have been to get coverage if only I'd been allowed to!

Masdar Institute - a green university is born

These pictures show the amazing building which is soon, hopefully, going to be the home of the Masdar Institute. An incredible piece of architecture (Norman Foster) and a world first in terms of sustainability and renewable energy. All being well (Insha'Allah) it will be ready when the second year of students arrive in the Autumn. What an achievement.

Al Ain Careers Fair

I hope you're suitably impressed by these pictures of our spectacular booth - round here they do the best exhibtion stands I've ever seen and ours, of course, has to be the very best, thanks to Nidal with a little help from me. At 9.30 pm the night before we still had a long way to go but you can see that it all got completed in time. We even got a vist from the Sheikh who spoke to our HR Director Mr. Mubarak and he was also interviewed by the TV on the stand. Hopefully we managed to recruit some people as well but from a marketing perspective it was a triumph!

100 posts and still going!

So can you believe that I've now made 100 postings to this blog? Bless you if anyone has actually read all 100. I enjoy writing about what's happening out here and even if no-one reads it I find it very therapeutic. However, it's about time there were some more pictures so here are some lovely ones of our trip to the desert, a happy foursome enjoying a glass of fizzy water (well!) on the Shuja Yacht and a view of the Arab Bank Building taking centre stage, viewed from the water which is not something I've seen before. It looks like an impressive address from most angles, but particularly from this one.

Ensuring a work/life balance

Despite the hectic schedule in the working environment we do try very hard to make sure we always have some personal life to remember about our time here.
We had planned a trip to Qasr Al Sarab to take Mum and Jo to the desert so John and I went on our own and it was as lovely as ever though it's getting pretty hot now for desert trips. I do think that the rooms there are the very best I've ever stayed in - they all have fantastic views over the desert landscape and the Wadi (a dry valley where the migrating Oryx are supposed to come and drink at the watering hole though both times we've been there I guess it wasn't a migratory time of year for Oryx!) But the rooms themselves, in terms of lovely comfy beds and amazing bathrooms with walk in showers and baths the size of swimming pools just have to be experienced. The first night we ate in the buffet restaurant, which was disappointing compared with some of the buffets in Abu Dhabi but we had lunch in the little restaurant by the pool and dinner at the rooftop Suhail which are both fabulous. Due to the heat we mainly lazed in and around the huge pool which certainly beats working. If I wasn't such a workaholic with a burning desire to contribute financially and intellectually I could spend lots of days lazing by pools but it just wouldn't feel right! We went back via Liwa and Madinat Zayed and John drove to I got to see a lot more of the country though there were hardly any camels on this particular route.
Last weekend we had plenty of jobs to do in Abu Dhabi so we found ourselves at the Mall and rushing around stocking up and generally ticking off a large number of items on the 'to do' list. However, we managed to enjoy lunch on Saturday at the Japanese restaurant at the Royal Meridien with some great sushi and we tried the Italian at the Millennium on Saturday night which was great once we'd persuaded them that we'd come for Italian a la carte and not the barbecue buffet! We were finally able to use one of 'buy one main course, get one free' from the Entertainer guide that Isobel bought us for Christmas. It's a tremendous idea this book, stuffed full of these vouchers and should save loads of money. However, I manage to find it a huge responsibility and never remember to take the vouchers with me or go to restaurants which aren't included so we've now got to May and haven't saved nearly enough money yet!
This weekend we had a short break in Abu Dhabi and went to the Fairmont on Friday afternoon through till Saturday afternoon. We've eaten here before but never stayed over as they have a Marco Pierre White Steakhouse and a Frankie's Italian. John is a regular visitor to the buffet restaurant Elements and waxes lyrical so I was keen to try it. We had a lovely break - the hotel is a wonder of modern architecture and sculpture with amazing water features. The room overlooked the creek with floor to ceiling windows and a 'wet room' with huge bathtub and shower in the middle of the room as well as separate loo and washing area. After dinner on Friday at Frankie's where the food is suberb, we enjoyed Saturday morning by the pool - huge and beautifully chilled and the staff were constantly bringing cold towels, fruit juice and fruit kebabs. It was like the nicest kind of holiday hotel though really strange to look out and see GHQ and the Armed Forces Officers Club - both places I have to visit for work. Out of the other window you could see the Petroleum Institute, where John works. It feels odd to be in a holiday location with holiday weather next door to your working environment - I can't imagine ever taking a weekend break in Hale or Solihull! After this I was able to sample the Elements buffet myself and John was absolutely right about it - great sushi, prawns and crab's legs followed by curry and an array of desert. He reckons it's even better in the week when it's less crowded but I thought it was great. We headed home after this and tried to catch up on the rest of our weekend jobs but it made a great break in our own city. Essential to try these places out so we can recommend them to work visitors or for corporate events. The Fairmont is rightly popular with expats, visitors and with Emiratis as well. So we do manage to keep sampling the best of what the city has to offer, crammed in between the endless tussle with an alien working culture.
We also discovered that on this unusual general election our time zone was best placed to watch the excitement as the results came in. By getting up at 6.30am (3.30am in the UK) and with it being Friday which is a day off for us we watched the BBC all the way through. It was also a great treat to get proper BBC talking about what was happening in the UK. BBC World tries very hard to cater for a global population by not giving precedence to UK news but I wonder just how much of its audience is expats like us who hunger for news from home. However, they broadcast election special in full which was great. We'd managed to arrange for a proxy vote and my Aunty Brenda nobly fronted up in central Manchester to cast our votes (and had to queue for half an hour which is not something I've ever had to do - how amazing in the UK). I really needn't have worried as our labour man had a majority of nearly 11,000 so I suppose a couple more or less wouldn't have worried him too much. Disppointing overall for the labour party and the lib dems but encouraging to know that despite everything, the economy, Iraq and expenses scandal the Tories still couldn't command a decisive majority. We watch with interest from our expat distance which, in my case anyway, leaves me just as interested in UK politics as ever.

More stories from the parallel universe

Another interesting couple of weeks here in the alternative reality - once again on the face of things it all seems to get more familiar and pretty enjoyable. I am running around all the time with not enough hours in the day, people want things and quickly and we all try to accommodate them and generally get there but somehow you're never sure if what you are doing is the righ thing!
Yesterday I heard that I'd passed my probabation and had to sign the form today - all fine with fours or fives in every area but no discussion or chance to ask questions. Whilst I don't disagree, you wonder if only a four for 'knowledge of job' means that the boss genuinely thinks that after 25 years you don't fully understand the 'four P's' of marketing or whether (quite understandably) you can't argue with a booth builder in Arabic about the problems with an exhibition stand, or how to persuade HR to sign off on the staff newsletter (in which case I'd struggle to give myself a 1). As for a four for 'Results focused' I'm totally lost. I know that this is my main raison d'etre but I'm still trying to work out what the goals are so maybe that's a conversation we should try to have at some stage.
The last couple of days have involved a trip to Al Ain for a careers event - all very exciting with a new stand builder and for once the knowledge that sorting out the gift packs, 12kg of branded chocolates and floral arrangements would be key to success! It looks great though at 9.30 at night sitting patiently whilst Nidal argued with the booth builder in Arabic about what needed doing made me wonder what value I was adding and whether I could ever manage without her is a worry. Al Ain reminded me of Milton Keynes with endless roundabouts and shopping malls though it is the heart of historic Abu Dhabi. The fort was so small I missed it on several drive bys and the famous mountain is mainly famous because everywhere close by is flat! As I watched these groups of very glamourous Emirati girls wandering around with their gold plated blackberries and Gucci handbags I was stuggling to understand their motivation for working but I guess I'll get there.
I've had two fun experiences with going to meetings at military sites and on both occasions they did let me in but not without a body search and removal of blackberry, mobile and cameras. For both meetings, when I finally got in the meetings were conducted in Arabic so I did wonder why I was there but I had Nidal for one and Fatima for the other so I guess I was just a 'presence' though not much else.
I am trying to learn some Arabic and have picked up the pleasantries from Nidal 'kifack hebibby' 'janny' etc but when I try to sue them I'm told I'm using a Lebanese version so not very impressive! There are lot of words in English so I try to work out what's going on. At today's meeting it was clear that they were talking about the best ways to talk to 16 - 18 year old boys about careers - something I do know about even here, but when I discussed this with Fatima she assured me that it was gender, not language that stopped us from contributing to the conversation.
Last night we went to the dinner for the 'Women in Science' conference which was organized by Amahl. John's amazing female Emirati Professor. The guest speaker was Sheikha Aluman, another inspirational Emirati woman, who is Minister for Foreign Trade. She spoke passionately about the role of women in this society and there is no question that talented women are in abundance. Hopefully the culture will be able to change fast enough to make the most of this talent.
I was also lucky enough to be involved with the Emirates Skills competition, which we have been sponsoring and is organized by the Institutes of Applied Technology, whic our Chairman is also Chairman of. Especially as I was involved with the London bid to host the 2011 World Skills Competition with Investors in People. Another great example of last minute. The day before I heard that I had to be there at 10am and to write some words for the boss to say. It turned out to be 5pm and when I got there they needed a pull up stand as well. But Nidal had heard this an hour before and turned up at 4.55pm complete with a pull up that had been dried with a hair dryer and produced in less than 2 hours - only in the UAE. We did manage one overnight for the Now People pitch but that was a once off! When I arrived I discovered that we were signing an Memorandum of Understanding for an AED 1 million sponsorship deal in front of assorted press! However it all seemed to go fine - the boss read my words (translated in Arabic) verbatim and the pull up didn't stick to anyone's clothes! John was able to come along which I think was good for both os us as he met my Chairman and chatted to the Khalifa University boss and a few others. The best thing was the look on the winners faces as they won their medals.
It warms your heart to be involved in all of this but there's just always this worry that somehow you're not doing something that might be even more important! However, as I always say to John, it's got to be a lifetime of interesting stories!