Nur Ahmad Furlong

Tag: linkedin

  • Salam BC, an impressive new business network

    A few months ago I posted some designs on crowdspring.com for the re-brand of the social network which targets Muslim, Arabic and Middle-eastern interest groups. I won the contest and went on to complete a logo design according to the client’s very strict specifications. See Salambc.com Logo Design below:

    I signed up on the network a while back in the testing phase but only really started using it in the last few days and I have to say, Linkedin needs to take note of some of the features in Salambc.com’s network. Salambc’s profile’s work alot more like a facebook and creating and joining groups is alot easier than Linkedin.

    They’re described themselves in the following manner:

    The Salam Business Club is the world’s first social business network especially for the Arab, Asian and Muslim business world with members from 170 countries around the world. Join the hottest Internet startup and find old friends, colleagues, valuable business contacts and new markets for your products. Extend your network and connect with decision makers, freelancers, entrepreneurs and the managers of the future.

    I’d love to know if their backend is custom built or running on an open-source platform. Have a squiz at Salambc.com and sign up if ur interested in networking with Muslim/Arab Friendly business professionals.

    An aquantance of mine criticised the special focus of this social network saying no social networks should be specifically for certain groups. I had to dissagree, as  person with a specific set of values and ethics, I’m interested in networking with others who share my values and on a business level I’d like to network with other business people who appreciate that there are certain types of business practices I cannot promote, joining Salambc gives me this opportunity.

    Salambc is not exclusive though and even though it encourages doing business in an islamically acceptable manner, it invites all interested to join. If you do join though, know that there are rules to any game, so promoting business which does not conform with Islamic Business rules is not allowed, those being interest based financial services, gambling, alcohol, anything of an adult(XXX) nature or any unhealthy products or services.

    I take my hat off to theses guys and wish them every success going forward.

  • Back to work with a blast after my break

    I can’t really say I was on holiday as I was working in spurts throughout the last month, but I was definitely on a go slow. I cut myself off from all social networking as far as I could, even stopped drinking coffee completely for the first 15 days of Ramadhan and spent some time reflecting on deeper matters.

    The last month has not been without incident, not having worked much and also fighting with clients over payment has seen me experience a few challenges, but things are looking good, loads of new projects popping up as well as starting WordPress training again at Friends of Design this evening.

    As with many bloggers I’ve gone through one of those no posting periods as well so I have some major catching up to do. I’ve been toying with the idea of a major nomad-one re-design as well, which I believe is badly needed, but need to tackle some new business development for www.the-colab.com first.

    Last year this time I was experiencing a major drought but Praise the Lord things are looking positive, the pipeline is looking healthy and some great partnerships are forming.

    We also need to get cracking on planning WordPress Meetup number 4 (WPCPT#4). I’ll probably be in Botswana for the first 2 weeks of November consulting for a client up there but need to get a WPCPT#4 planning team together. I also need to get wpteacher.com moving, now that I have some more course notes. Time, however, has been working against me and so has procrastination.

    My Linkedin has experienced a blast of activity of the last 2 weeks, I put out request for recommendations and received quite a few which I’ve placed on my Testimonials page. I’ve also linked up with a ton of very well connected business people.

    So without further ado, lets get back into action for the year ahead!

  • The South African new media scene is hotting up

    The last few weeks have been an amazing experience for me as a blogger, designer and new media strategist though it’s been one steep learning curve. It all started when I quit my day job a little short of 2 months ago. I had been blogging for a while experimentally and on more of a personal level just writing about my own stuff, anything that interested me really. I never paid any attention to visitors, to rankings, search engines, all of that stuff just made little difference to me.

    I think it started when I first installed the stats plugin in my wordpress and started noticing some activity based on my posting. It was all pretty tame and just a few trickles of curious onlookers. When I decided to become a true nomad and take the plunge into solo uncertainty I knew I had to start doing something more serious with my site and had to start getting serious about networking as well. That was just less than 2 months ago, so I started clicking & reading, adding plugins, modding my blog, adding facebook friends, signing up for linked in & my genius, started linking all my social networks to each other, subscribed to a whole batch of RSS Feeds, set up my own feed, wrote more content for my site, designed my new logo … Wow. I can’t actually believe I did all this stuff in such a short space of time.

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