Labels

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

This Week in Palestine: One of Ours By Jane Masri

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]


One of Ours
By Jane Masri


I don’t think you can find an English speaker in this country who couldn’t identify This Week in Palestine at 20 paces. Sani Meo, in the jargon of our shared industry, has created an iconic brand. His monthly chronicle of Palestinian perspectives set the standard for graphic design when he put out the first issue 15 years ago. Then and now, Turbo Design is a benchmark for young professionals in the communications field.

Sani and I are good friends. For two challengers who compete head to head for business in a very small market, this is a very strange circumstance indeed. I can’t speak to why Sani likes me (perhaps he likes my jokes), but I know exactly why I like him.

Sani is an entrepreneur and an idea man, in equal measure. This Week in Palestine’s most elemental function is as a slick, well-presented tour guide of Palestine. It’s a trove of valuable information for ajanab (foreigners) and locals alike, with good maps, restaurant reviews, a monthly list of goings on about town…and much, much more.

TWIP’s foundational business model was, and is, rock solid. Sani could have stopped there, and, arguably, he might have sold the same number of monthly ads. If he had, TWIP would be like every other magazine you see in hotels and restaurants all over the world. But he didn’t stop there.

Sani decided that TWIP’s content would showcase local and guest authors. Each month, he invites them to hold forth as they see fit on a certain theme. This month might be politics, another month might be cuisine, yet another might be landscapes or hikes. We’ve seen light-hearted pieces, tales of personal sadness or loss, sarcasm, info-mercials - you name it, someone’s covered it through the years in TWIP. And throughout this process, we have succeeded in documenting this Palestinian journey of ours from every imaginable perspective and point of view. I say “we” because we are the writers of This Week in Palestine - as much as he is. That’s the genius of his vision. From scratch, Sani built a successful business that adds value to his community - and he made us all shareholders.

Jane Masri is a founding partner and director of communications at Publicis Zoom. She has lived in Palestine with her husband and two children since 1998.

 
See PDF www.thisweekinpalestine.com/i188/pdfs/article/one_of_ours.pdf  

***
The main objective of TWIP, as many of you already know, is to document and promote Palestine.

Message from the Editor
Imagine a place where your ideas can roam free, un-judged, but respectfully critiqued; discussed and passed on from one person to the other, with no prejudice or dislike ...READ MORE
 

No comments:

Post a Comment