I’m a great believer in business networking. Relationships made in an informal setting away from the cold environment of the executive meeting room are often the most enduring and mutually profitable.
So I have to give an enthusiastic welcome to Alex Bleiberg, an American from Florida, who has come up with the idea of the GCC Business Council, a concept that could go big on the regional business scene.
Alex was a lecturer and consultant in business and management in the US, but saw a niche in the Middle East for a different kind of networking event. “There are very good organisations here already of course, like the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, the British Business Group and others, but they all deal more or less with the big guys.
“I wanted to do something for small to medium enterprises, and that’s the target audience I’ve tried to hit,” he says.
So once a month about 100 or so SME representatives meet at the Melia Hotel in Bur Dubai, chew the fat for a couple of hours, and see how they can assist each other in the competitive entrepreneurial space of the UAE.
Alex has plans to extend the concept to Abu Dhabi in due course, then to launch out into Saudi (rather more problematic) and other parts of the GCC region.
Each week, a smaller group meets for “speed networking” in the Dome Cafe in DIFC, my Zabeel office, where I first met Alex when he helped me with a computer glitch.
Thanks for the help, and good luck with the initiative. It deserves to succeed.
*****
The story of Peter Pan has always had a special place in my family. My two older children loved to have it read to them years ago, and now my five-year-old Amira has been bitten even worse by the Pan bug.
Her bedroom in our Dubai apartment always looks like there has been an explosion in a toy shop, but I calculated the other day that at least a third of the fluffy toys were Peter Pan-related, with Tinkerbell, the wilful but ultimately altruistic flying fairy, by far the most prominent. Tinks is her unrivalled favourite.
So of course we grabbed tickets for the production at the Dubai World Trade Centre Arena as soon as they came on sale. What a splendid night it was, equally enjoyable for a five-year-old and somebody the wrong side of 60, ie myself.
I bumped into an investment banker friend on the way in to the show, also with his two youngsters in tow. “I didn’t have you down as a Tinkerbell aficionado, Frank,” he laughed as he saw me, laden with official merchandise my girl had bullied me into buying.
He then took me to one side, while the kids got stuck into some candy floss, and told me a very interesting tale (although one I cannot repeat here) about a colleague at a rival bank and a ludicrously abortive attempt to ingratiate himself with the Dubai financial leadership. Another time, maybe.
The show was wonderful, full of fantastic singing and great choreography. My daughter was almost frantic with excitement when the cast began flying around the arena above our heads on barely visible wires.
The climax came when Peter, Tinks and the rest of the cast invited mass audience participation. Emiratis in dishdashas and abayas, middle-aged bankers and other respectable professional types were encouraged and cajoled to stand up and chant, along with the hundreds of kids: “I believe in fairies, I believe in fairies.”
Surreal, and absolutely priceless.
fkane@thenational.ae
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