If you live outside of Lebanon and surrounding regions, the title above can be taken for granted. I know I did. When living in Toronto and London I didn’t really give Broadband any thought, except for the occasional slap on the wrist from our systems admin when I wanted to watch live sports on streaming TV. But that's because I was hogging bandwith. There are lots of daily norms that when taken away, we feel somewhat naked and exposed. In Toronto, when the internet was down we couldn’t work, period. Broadband wasn’t a necessity there, it was a given. It wasn’t a luxury, it was a right. Here, Broadband is neither a luxury or a right… its a distant myth, or promise if you will.
Interestingly enough, many people in Lebanon don’t really feel AS internet destitute as others. They don’t have to adapt, as I do. I remember once when I was a kid and a friend of mine asked me, what if all of a sudden we stopped having music or if we never had music at all from the first place? I thought of it then and came to the conclusion that having something that is so embedded in our lives being taken away is far worse than never having it at all, as there wouldn’t be anything to miss or to adapt. Same thing applies here with my Broadband woes. The majority of folks around me at BBDO don’t feel the pain as much as I do because they have never been exposed to the wonders of fast connection speed, plus they don’t spend 100% of their time at work on the internet as I do. So here I am, trying to adapt and dodge the occasional horror when I have to showcase a piece of work online, that never loads on time, only to be left in silence with nothing but the sound of crickets.
Enter Broadband Lebanon. A group of highly invested stakeholders working for the betterment of Lebanese infrastructure online, in relation to social development and economy. Good cause? You betcha. Likely to manifest? Here’s to hoping. My role? To work as a point of contact for all things strategy with a pinch of account management in our efforts to get 10,000 Lebanese people to sign the Broadband Manifesto.
We also have a designated blogger who is as incisive and tell-it-like-it-is as it gets. His most recent post, "Whose fault is it anyway" can be found here (http://www.broadbandlebanon.org/Blogs.aspx?pageid=6&PID=1) and is an excellent tale of the status quo, accountability and priority.
Mona Chammas
More than a career, Mona¹s passion for all things Web 2.0 and beyond is indicated via her active online lifestyle including a personal blog (www.thisismona.com), which was featured in March¹s edition of ArabAd, and an account on Twitter (@mmonaa)
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