It’s not really difficult to explain why I do what I do. I Love Qatar was always meant to be a vehicle to help show people that Qataris care. It’s easy to get a Qatari to love Qatar, so I wanted to get expats to love Qatar. The strategy is quite simple. 1) Support the local community and help charities. 2) Build a reputation based on giving the people a voice. 3) Show people what your true purpose is. (In this case, it’s to make Qatar a better place).

One of the biggest signs of respect in our culture is to kiss someone on their head. I’d kiss my grand parents or my parents for example. I’d also kiss the Emir on his head. I genuinly feel like he cares about his people. More than that, he cares about the future of the Middle East. He’s taken a lot of burden on his shoulders by trying to promote peace in the region. Qatar helped Lebanon. Darfur. Libya. The list goes on. So as a good citizen, no scratch that, as a greatful citizen, shouldn’t it be everyone’s duty to help lift the boulder of responsibility off of his shoulders? Shouldn’t we at least try to remove some of that pressure by helping to make Qatar the best country that it can be?

Some people know it and some people don’t, but ILQ uses profit generated to give back to the community. Loads of people from ILQ’s community group together to support causes like the Animal Welfare Society, Think Pink, Wear Something Yellow, Beat the Heat, World Environment Day, and the list goes on. That in itself is something to be proud of.

With everything that I do, I want to make my parents proud, I want to make my future children proud, and of course I want to make the Emir proud.

I’m seeing more and more young Qataris stand up and try to help shape Qatari their own way. Whether they’re focusing on charitable causes, focusing on entrepreneurship, or even focusing on helping other fellow Qataris be all that they can be.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m probably not going to change the world, so I’ll give making Qatar a better place a go.

I guess I should have posted this a while ago but I’m currently away for a bit of a vacation. Chilaxing in Japan at the moment. So far I’ve been to Osaka’s Universal Studios for the New Year count down, Gifu for snowboarding and now I’m hanging out in Nagoya. In a few days I’m going to be heading off to Tokyo!

I’ve decided to try out Vlogging and hopefully you’ll like it! If you do, I’ll keep going! Oh and don’t forget to visit the ILQ YouTube channel as well as Facebook page. The team and I have added some great stuff!

Oh! Almost forgot, yes the rumors are true the Intercontinental, Alive and ILQ are partnering up to bring over James Blunt on February!
There’s loads more to share but I need to cut it short!

Ma3asalama!

This isn’t really a topic that’s of super importance. It’s not like there aren’t better things to talk about, but I just wanted to share my views on the new license plates.

The reason we’re told that the plates have changed is because of an agreement that the GCC had to unify the look of the plates. Sadly, I don’t really see that because the only thing that’s similar is that they’re now in English. The overall design varies greatly from GCC country to country.

Now let’s get the first thing out of the way. Yes I know that the number system that the west uses is actually Arabic and that us Arabs decided to shift over to using Hindi numerals. I still don’t understand why we did that, but that’s the way it goes. You could argue that shifting over our license plate numbers back to the original numbering system is our way of claiming back what’s rightfully ours in a passive agressive sort of way, but trust me, you’d be thinking too much.

Back to the topic, here’s a quick image of how the licnese plates in Qatar have evolved. Check out www.worldlicenseplates.com for more.

In 1983, the license plates were actually quite similar to the ones in Bahrain.

Then we changed them in 1997 to what we all became accustomed to. It was quite special because the plate looked organized and used Arabic (Hindi) numbers.

On our facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/iloveqtr) we asked “Which GCC country do you think has the best looking car license plates?” to our 18,000+ page on Nov 9. We actually didn’t know the plates were going to change. What a coincidence! It was a 50-50 split between people voting for Qatar and UAE. Click here to see a dubai plate

Qatar then changed the new plates to look like this:

It kind of makes me feel uncomfortable… It’s like an inverted Qatari flag, the numbers are not centered, there’s a tiny hologram on the side (why… were people making fake plates or something?), and ‘Qatar’ is written in two styles.

I feel like it’s not organized anymore. It’s also sad that we don’t have the Arabic (hindi) numerals, it was a way of possibly educating a predominantly expat population. It probably wasn’t that easy to put together a design (perhaps one of the readers can show us how it’s done ), but I feel like UAE’s one now look’s much nicer

What do you guys think of the new plates?

I know I’ve been posting loads of videos, but that’s what I want see more of! Would love to see more Vloggers here in Qatar!
Alex Klim (@alexklim) is an ILQ user and he’s been making some great YouTube videos and inshallah many more for the iLoveQatar community too!

This vid was shot on a single Canon 7D, Editing, Color Grading & SoundFX done in FCPX.

It features Nina Heidenreich, Principal Second Violinist at Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. The short movie is a modern fairy tale about a young girl passing by a Music Store, getting attracted by a violin and falling into a dream, seeing herself as a talented violinist. Shot at several locations in and around Doha, State of Qatar, including the Cultural Village, The Pearl-Qatar, The Villagio Mall, Inland Sea and the Steinway Piano Gallery Qatar. Jules Massenet’s ‘Meditation’ from the Opera Thais serves as the main theme.

Nice? Think you can do better? Send your videos to contact@iloveqatar.net

Passed by lagoona mall and it’s now open. A few shops are open so far but I thought you’d like to see what it looks like.

Click here for pics

As interesting as asking people where they got the ‘Best Customer Service in Qatar‘, people asked me to poll where people consider to be the worst when it comes to customer service.

My question was simple, “If you had to name ONE place that has given you bad customer service, where would it be?” I now present you with the answers. (Not that many people were specific with their problems. In some cases, it’s specific branches that are horrible. It only takes one branch though to ruin a brand. Hopefully businesses will use this list to improve! Remember, these people don’t like you so much that they took the time to let everyone on twitter and facebook know!

Important note: these are just individual people’s opinions. There’s always the chance that one person had a really hard time, it doesn’t mean that each user speaks for everyone.

51 East (payment system) – @lauraosheadj

Karwa – @joeagdeppa

Digitek (Ramada Signal) – @vanish_forever

Pizza Hut (Caravan Complex Ramada) – @nyk990

Q-Tel – @DohaBen

Crono – @bradycreel

H&M – @Toryscott

Standard Chartered – @Quesjad

Mont Blanc – @Realmadrid18

Qtel (retail) – @shivasingh

Toyota (service center) – @SweetyMathewB

LuLu (near airport) – @MamtaSingh

Porsche – @ArendJK

DeJaVu Cafe – @nasnas_here

Jeep – @moha_doha

Cinque Sensi – @badaa2

Qtel (City Center) – @susiefoxton

(From here it’s Facebook comments at http://facebook.com/iloveqtr )

Shop Rite (Airport area) – MAshiq

Qtel – A-Althani

TGI Fridays – J.Oakes

Qtel – Markie

Ahli Hospital – Diana.R

Sephora (Landmark) – Amanda.B

Qtel – Saphal.K

Qtel – Fisher.M

Qtel – Shafiek.F

Qtel – Rida.A

Qatar Airways – Rub.M

Qtel – Jay.T

Oysho (both bra

Qtel – Kaser.M

Qtel – Arnaldo.S

Qtel – Chris.P

Two users gave me multiple answers. Next time one answer only please because I cannot choose from your list.

Hamad Hospital, Vodafone, Karwa, Etihad, and Bvlgari – Cindy Mus

Oysho (both branches), Range Rover, Doha Arrivals terminal, Qtel, Qatar Airways – S.Al.M

After doing a bit of searching on KnowYourMeme I presented with another viral sensation call NyanCat many months ago. I’ve now decided that it was time for NyanQat to make an appearance.

Original:

Qatar Version:

Check this old video out. Everything is so… different! No towers… seems like things were greener… belly dancing in the dessert was cool… ah the good old days

So I asked a simple question on twitter yesterday. I asked people to name ONE place that stands out in their minds where they got great customer services in Qatar. Some interesting results. Some I didn’t expect myself. Without further adue I present all the responses! (In no particular order!)

Nissan – Infiniti division – @iknw101

TableArts – @Shanti_eka

Grandhyatt – @haniarif

The Ritz – @bradycreel

Ritz @expatcookie

FFC @vanish_forever

Sushi Minto @jmugford

Vodafone Landmark – @_maricala

Khan Farooq – @theesal

VLCC @cameliacesin

GlowSalonDoha – @jodygryan

WafiGourmet – @halawala

Café Tasse – @abuarja7

W Doha – @MaryH_K

Jumbo – @rainydoha

BMW – @shivasingh

W Doha – @sweetymathewB

Yoko Sizzlers – @Qatarday

Carluccios – @dohaben

Woqod near the Mall – @jibbersindoha

It’s been a tiring three days at QITCOM but I just had to blog about this as soon as I got home!

iLoveQatar.net won best start up for 2011 and I won Qatar’s Top Entrepreneur as well! I’m so honored  for winning but even more so I feel energized and appreciate the acknowledgement that the people gave. Not only was it a panel of judges that judged the various projects but the public were the ones who voted.

It was something unexpected.

I’m disappointed with the fact that I was unable to attend the Gala Dinner. It had started at 8pm however I was wrapping up the ILQ booth at QITCOM, left at 8:30 and then was stuck in traffic for 30 minutes before deciding to go off to Central Lounge with Bassam Al Ibrahim (iLoveQatar.net’s co-founder), Moh’d Al Ibrahim (an awesome Director or Producer from DFI), and Josh Weiner (A seriously impressive entrepreneur himself!). We were recapping everything we went through and thinking about all the new ideas we had just shared with everyone (more to come on that!).

Earlier in the day we were Interviewed by BBC World, had an interview with QF Radio and I was in the newspaper for unveiling Vodafone’s latest project SouqIt.com.

We also put together a little video showing off the other start ups and business in Qatar and interviewed some great people ourselves. On the first day of Qitcom, the Minister of Business and Trade came on down to our booth along with Sheikha Mayasa, and commented on how proud they were of iLoveQatar.net and even gave us some suggestions too.

I feel so pumped! I can’t wait to show everyone the final video of what we put together for Qitcom. It truly was an amazing exhibition, you would never know that this is the first time it’s ever happened in Qatar from how buzzed it was. And I’m not just saying that because I won an award!

Qatar really is the place to be right now.

Update: I’ve just been told that we’ve actually won FOUR awards. One for Best Social Media website in Qatar and the other for a brand new idea we have to help match quality Qataris with companies in Qatar.