Friday Breakfast – the spread

Friday Breakfast – the spread, originally uploaded by malyousif.

We’re so happy to have our eldest daughter Amna back with us for her university summer break. To celebrate (well, and an excuse to pig out too!) we prepared a full Friday Breakfast spread. What you see in this picture is the traditional heart-attack food, and then some. I’ll highlight the dishes and what their called on Flickr, so please click on the picture to view the notes.

The spread includes the local Bahraini (or Iranian) unleavened bread called Khobiz (center), some vegetable samboosa (or samoosa as some call them), cheese samboosa, aloo (deep fried potato dumplings), curried tomatoes, chopped tomatoes, scrambled eggs, curried tomato with scrambled eggs, labna, gaimer (thick cream, we normally eat this with a little salt mixed in, some like it sweet so they mix it with sugar), chick peas and yogurt.

If there is something left of this, I normally get more samboosas than could be inhaled in a single sitting, they keep well in the fridge for several re-visits through the day.

I hope you enjoy your breakfast whatever it and I hope too that you have an excellent Friday and weekend my friends.

Killing with PowerPoint

In business, the quickest way to lose a prospect is to kill them by PowerPoint. Believe me I have seen that happen. Countless times. But presentations are a fact of life and is one of the best ways to impart your knowledge and experience.

The trick; though, is to engage your audience regardless of how sexy your slides are and however many pictures, animations or videos those slides contain. And, if you want to do this – presenting – successfully, then you’d better learn from avowed experts in the field and emulate not their content, but their style and mold it to your own.

TED is probably one of the best sites you can not only learn how to present from – by emulating the excellent people who have been invited to share their thoughts in their various forums – but much more importantly to get inspired in a very wide range of subjects by as well. Believe me, you will be a better person by opening your eyes, heart and mind to almost all the presentations and presenters contained in TED.

Not unsurprisingly, they have a “ten commandments” which successful presenters will want to stick to for any topic (yes, that also translates to sales):

Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.

Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.

Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.

Thou Shalt Tell a Story.

Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.

Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.

Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.

Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.

Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.

Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.

In order for you to watch how these rules are applied, read the list on Garr Raynold’s Prezentation Zen blog and watch his recommendations. I assure you they are worth your while.

Yeah, I have a bit of free time and I’m almost fed up of being limited by Facebook, so, I’ll blog whenever and wherever my fancy is tickled… just – please – don’t expect miracles. Life does go on.

Happy, DK?