Mind Soup

Interview with Leila Khauli Hanna, a pioneer in social media adoption in the Lebanese classroom Leila Khauli Hanna is a full time Instructor of Marketing Management at AUB’s Sulaiman S. Olayan School of Business since the year 2000.  She holds a Masters of Business Administration with a specialization in Marketing and Econometrics from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Ms. Hanna has taught courses at the Undergraduate and Graduate level in the fields of Marketing and Economics in the US, Lebanon, and France.  She has introduced and coordinated several highly specialized and cutting edge courses at the school and was nominated three times for the teaching excellence award at AUB. Her research interest lies in the Creative Industry of Lebanon and the Digital Transformation of businesses in the region.  Ms. Hanna was the first to introduce full-fledged social media integration into her courses in Lebanon. Her students use these tools to com...

The New Renault Clio Design Competition Celebrating the Global Launch of the New Renault Clio, Bassoul Heneine and Renault Lebanon are launching a design competition aimed at inspiring and rewarding creativity, dreams, passion and individuality. The Theme:   The New Renault Clio: High on Emotion and Personally Yours The Mechanism: University Students majoring in graphic arts or architecture, designers, Renault Clio fans and the general public are invited to personalize the New Renault Clio on a full customization application, hosted on Renault Lebanon’s Facebook page, developed exclusively for the competition.  The Renault Clio Design Competition allows Fans to participate in 2 different ways:   Design students and professionals can download the Renault Clio package and design their Renault Clio on Photoshop, Illustrator or any other photo editing software. They later upload their design on the application.    Those who just love ...

NESCAFÉ recently launched its new product, NESCAFÉ® Dolce Gusto®, into the GCC market and was about to launch it in Lebanon. This is a relatively small coffee machine for the home. For this reason, it selected around 30 tweeps from the Lebanese online community to receive and test the machine and give their feedback about it on various social networks. Below are the pros and cons of this campaign. Pros: Who doesn't love free stuff? This campaign was received very well by the tweeps it concerned and most of them are happily engaging with the campaign, posting photos of the machine and the coffee regularly on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The packaging was customized to show each person’s Twitter profile and most recent tweets. The package did not only include the coffee machine but also 5 boxes of different coffee capsules to last two months. Each capsule box had a suggested tweep name on it to make it more engaging. For example: Have an es...

Sociatag Makes Offline Marketing via Social Networks Possible This article was originally published in Cloud961's November 2013 issue . Sociatag offers a new solution for offline marketing via social networks. It allows users to directly connect and share their experiences in exhibitions, workshops and seminars with their friends, using appealing boxes that can be deployed on site. It adds a whole new dimension for the events, shops or restaurants by taking them to the online community. The Sociatag boxes are easy to install and can be fully branded in accordance to the brands' guidelines. Boxes can be Facebook Post Likes, Check-ins, Photo-booth or Simple Posts. They can also be linked to Twitter to post a predefined tweet, or Foursquare for check-ins as well. LinkedIn boxes also allow users to follow companies, join groups, bookmark job postings or simply share posts with their network. Rating boxes are available as well to get direct feedback from users. The opti...

Piotr Yordanov: Start-ups in Lebanon Lack Maturity and the Online Community is Full of Hate Inspirational People from the Lebanese Online Community This article was originally published in Cloud 961's  November issue . In an attempt to promote inspiring stories about people from the Lebanese Online Community, we, at Cloud961, have decided to dedicate a monthly column to interview an inspiring figure that has left a mark in the Lebanese online sphere. For your suggestions for this column, feel free to email me on mhijazi@cloud961.com . Piotr Yordanov is a Lebanese (with Russian origins) software engineer who graduated from the American University of Beirut. He is an entrepreneur who writes code, does web design and creates musical art. Piotr co-founded Baytbaytak, the first MENA map-based real-estate website and is currently founding Beepl, a tool to bookmark people and organize them across social networks. Piotr is now participating in the Draper University fall ses...

Online Collaborative celebrates its 3 rd year anniversary with the support of Converse’s global ‘Get Loud’ movement as they take to the streets of the city Beirut, November 2013 - Online Collaborative, the student initiative bringing together online influencers in Lebanon, celebrated its 3 rd year anniversary in style, taking part in Converse’s global ‘Get Loud’ Movement.  The movement took over the country’s digital platform, through the hype created on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Through a series of events in Beirut, a number of the Lebanese youth were brought together and engaged in activities including street art, walking photo booths, and a rocking party until dawn.  Young uprising talents took to the streets of Hamra where they expressed themselves and got loud with their street art. Spectators around the area got excited and contributed to the drawings while the music rocked in the background. Meanwhile, sneakers got even louder in other areas of ...

Bayan Bibi: After a getting hit by a stray bullet and punctured lung, I am starting a social media campaign to promote positivity. This article was originally published in Cloud 961's November issue . Bayan Bibi is showing the world that she is still very strong despite all that she has gone through. She engraved the bullet that shot her and punctured her lungs just a few weeks ago while walking in Hamra and wears it proudly around her neck: A true act of courage and bravery. Instead of blaming her shooter or his political party, she is urging everyone to be positive and not hate. She has planned out a social media campaign and a web-series to spread her message. Here is her story as told by her! 31/9/2013 Lebanon – Beirut While people were celebrating some political thing, a stray bullet fell on my back while I was walking with a friend in Hamra Street. It cut through my lung and it jammed itself between my 3rd and 4th ribs. I was rushed to the emergency room...