One Educator = $1

We are launching the "ONE EDUCATOR = $1" Campaign!

We are raising funds to help us distribute Abraham's Children to educators and get the film into as many American classrooms as possible. Act! and help us achieve our goals. $1 pays for a postcard to an educator and we are sending out over 3,000 cards. Share, educate and contribute!

Donating is easy. Go to our "Donate" page. One dollar, hundred dollars, what ever you can give. Get a DVD copy of Abraham's Children, a "thank you" credit on our website, a poster and we have other cool thank you gifts. Check it out.

What is your message?

"When does the wisdom of crowds give way to the meanness of mobs?" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/science/12tier.html.

Interesting article, but really what caught my eye was the first sentence. As I spend quite a bit of time with social networks, updating the Abraham’s Children website and blogging I sometimes feel like I’m losing sight of what I should do.

What should I do? These days, it’s getting a film out into the world.

Am I relying on the wisdom of crowds, or am I delivering myself to the madness of crowds? And where does “madness” start?

I’m building a brand and getting a message out – does that scream cliché or what? It would be easiest so say: “watch my film, its awesome”. That’s like Pepsi saying “drink Pepsi, its good”. That’s not a brand, not a message, not a life style, nothing exciting and why should you bother? There are millions of films out there and roughly 6,000 documentaries alone are produced in the US alone each year. Gotta do better than that.

What I learned in the last few months is nothing new but I never had a chance to put it into action with ONE PRODUCT (or service) in hand. Having only one product, my film, I had no choice but to concentrate on IT – obviously.

My first instinct was to create more product. As making another film is not practical I started thinking about merchandising. How do you merchandise a documentary about Muslim children? How do I pay for that? What is the risk of money spent upfront versus potential income? It didn't seem worth the risk, so I ditched that idea.

Long story and many detours later I (re)-learned this: Focus: one message, one goal, one product. If you manage to get that one message over right; minds open, opportunities arise and people HEAR you. Once you’re there – you can go back (gingerly) to being your enthusiastic supporter of your own film with ideas to boot.

Once you have your message and your product all primped and ready – then you can unleash the crowds – because now you know where you are going and what your vehicle is. You still will possibly lose yourself in one mad crowd or the other – be it virtual, real or imagined. But at least your message is always the same and your product has integrity.

With your message straight you also have a better gauge when you are being taken over by the crowd(s). How many hours are you spending on Twitter, Facebook and your blog, when you could be making very targeted phone calls?

Run a test by announcing something that requires feedback, a sign up, anything where your 'crowds' need to act. Do they act? That only works if your message is on target. Otherwise your contaminating your social media 'trials'.

So, either you change your message to fit your crowd or you change your crowd to fit your message... and sometimes you just bang your head against the wall - I did.
What is your message? What is your goal? What is the integrity of your product?

For Abraham’s Children?
→ Abraham’s Children bridges the gap between the Muslim world and the West.

→ Our goal is to get Abraham’s Children into as many classrooms as possible in America.

→ Abraham’s Children is beautifully produced, wholesome and its modular set up is ideal for a learning environment.

The Difference Between Recipe and Restaurant

A thought brought forward by Chris Brogan (link) on his daily blog on social media and business. I might use that the next time I have one of those “why does it cost so much to make a film” discussions. It’s a great analogy for a bit of a foodie.

KFC vs. Nobu, anybody?

Talking of which, the new DOUBLE DOWN? What was KFC thinking? Two deep fried chicken pieces with bacon and cheese and don’t forget, the sauce, Colonel’s sauce, oh sure. “Only” 540 calories, and more sodium than the dead sea.

Did anybody at that company listen to Michelle Obama, or watch “Supersize Me”, or “Food, Inc.” or “King Corn”, or “What’s on your Plate”….. It’s like a spit in the face of everybody who’s trying to get America off its obesity ride. It’s not the fact that the Double Down has “only” 540 calories – it’s about the message it sends and it’s all totally wrong – as far as I’m concerned.

When you know too much

Innocence IS bliss. But I knew that already, we all do. Starting a business or a family, shooting a film, or getting involved with that community board: the “had I known” realization. But what about the second time around? What do we hope to do better, different, more efficient, or with more compassion? Or is the first time so daunting that we decide: never again.

I remember my dear brilliant friend in Ireland who is also a filmmaker ask me if I was ready to spend the next two years of my life with my (first) documentary and I bravely said ‘yes’. The conversation in my head was a bit different. That was more along the lines of “yes, BUT…. won’t be full time, have clients, won’t take that long, etc.”

HA! Had I known! But now I DO KNOW. What does that mean for the next project? NEXT PROJECT? Are you kidding me? You’re still knee-deep in this one. Yeah, but this is a chance to get it right this time. Set it up differently from the get go, make sure you align yourself even better with people who do what you don’t do well brilliantly, allocate the budget differently and most of all: PATIENCE. Where does that leave the gut feeling and instincts though? To me, those two are paramount.

So here I am, trying to figure out not only a new awesome topic, angle and story, and something to be passionate about, BUT something where I can align myself NOW with the right people, groups, organizations and causes for three years from now when the film is done. Yikes. But you know me, I have some stuff cooking – I’m just afraid to serve it – pardon the metaphor – the ramifications are now clear beyond finishing the film – that was the easy part, remember. I also have to make sure to get the film OUT into the world. Will the second time be easier, or will it be harder? We shall find out.

Abraham's Children Magazine Review

Elan The Magazine, posted a review of Abraham's Children, by Imran Khan. In anticipation of this article I've started reading Elan and find it totally entertaining, amusing and often thought provoking, although I couldn't be further from their target audience - or at least: I'm definitely neither in the age-group nor in the cultural-religious group their targeting, but it crosses over beautifully. Below their mission statement and I would put a very big emphasis on "sarcastic" and actually call it irreverent. Give it a try.


elanthemag.com is a daily, online publication on global Muslim youth culture. Formerly known in print form as elan Magazine, elan offers witty, engaging, thought-provoking and sometimes sarcastic takes on the issues that matter to our fellow young, hip Muslims. In addition to daily commentary from our bloggers on topics ranging from entertainment to politics, elan includes feature articles from prominent voices within our community, round table discussions by young Muslim leaders on hot topics, photo-essays, videos, profiles, special sections like “WTFatwa” and “Policy Shift,” and much more.