Day One in Dubai

Note: As described in this post, I’m in Dubai as a member of the Global Agenda Council on Social Media for the World Economic Forum. I’ll be sharing some of experiences here on SMUG.

I arrived in Dubai about 7:30 p.m. Saturday night, feeling reasonably well-rested after the 14-hour flight from Seattle by way of the North Pole. The service on Emirates Air Boeing 777 was outstanding, as was the seating (or bedding) in Business Class.

Flying over North Pole

 

Flat bed Emirates

 

So the result was that I was energized for a big day yesterday. The coordinator for our Global Agenda Council on Social Media advised us that we should be sure to bring sunglasses and sunscreen, which led me into a few adventures on the way to the convention centre, inspiring this tweet:

For those who may not recall the cultural significance, see this clip for the background:

After a lunch during which our council got to meet face-to-face for the first time, and then an opening plenary session with all of the other councils, we settled in for an afternoon of brainstorming on what high impact projects we should consider for our two-year term.

This morning we have some cross-council meetings, and I get to participate in a breakfast discussing the global response to Ebola.

You can follow, and join in the discussion, on Twitter via the #WEFSocMed hashtag.

 

Off to Dubai!

WEF Global Agenda Screen ShotI’m writing this from the International Lounge at the airport in Seattle, as I am waiting for the boarding call for my flight to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

In September, I was invited and accepted an appointment to a two-year term on the Global Agenda Council on Social Media, which is sponsored by the World Economic Forum.

Most of our meetings are by videoconference, but we meet face-to-face once per year in Dubai. The first of these meetings starts Sunday afternoon.

I have a lot of reading to do to prepare, and thankfully have a 14-hour flight on Emirates Air in which to do it. We’ll be using the #WEFSocMed tag for our part of the Summit. As I get more info about other hashtags I’ll be updating. I think I’ll use #LeeInDubai for some personal tweets.