Building the Power of Disruptive Youth

Matt Perez (00:09):

Hi, good evening, or good morning, or … where are you at? My name is Matt Perez. My partner Jose Leal is in Portugal right now and is probably having dinner or sleeping or something. So, I think I'm going to be in this one alone. And today we have our guest about Abed Baidas. And he's going to tell us what, and then we'll try to figure out our alignment with radical concepts and stuff like that. But we're talking a little bit in, in behind the scenes, and it seems like we're, we're in the right, in the right path here. So a lot. Abed, thank you. Thank you for coming, and thank you for making time. And why don't you start by telling us about your business and the extent of its stuff?

Abed Baidas (01:06):

Thank you for inviting me this evening. Appreciate this opportunity to have this conversation or this discussion. My name is Abed Baidas, as it's appearing. I'm the founder of Identity Branding Forum company that started in 2007 to build the culture of branding in the Arab world that became today. Its Arabic name is synonymous with every project that runs in the region for branding. And throughout my life, I've been just known to be a very disruptive mine. I like changes, I like challenges, and I come heads-on with challenges. Years ago, a very good friend of mine, used to enjoy coming to my office, telling me for just one reason because he like to see my optimism and when, and to him, I'm like a bulldog. When I put my teeth into something, I don't let go unless I finish with it. And it's true to my nature to travel the world from the UK, in 76 when I was, I went to, to college to finish a, my A level to the United States, to Brazil, when we used to own a chicken slaughterhouse In my very early years Samsung Company Limited, which is Samsung today, where my company's agent representing us for with the tenders that are running for the National Korean Livestock Federation, the building of their livestock. So, been fortunate to, throughout my life with the experiences that I have been exposed to the different cultures that I have traveled, the, the nature of the leaders that, that I've been dealing with just is, I, I can, I cannot say anything, but very pleased with it. And when I started with the Identity Branding Forum, because there was something missing, especially in the Arab world, the Middle East, Africa, Asia in a number of countries around the world. We talk about branding, we talk about the differentiations, the logos, and the likes, but we didn't even touch the very much touch the, culture behind the brand, how to build that mentality that aligns with it. We had masterminds in branding behind the certification program that made us be the where, and we still the only organization in the world that offers branding certification for professionals that would be completed the for five years and keep refreshing it with that experience is licensed the number of universities worldwide. And, and this is in brief where what we about our identity branding forum and being positioned or stationed in Dubai today makes me very, very optimistic in terms of the things that we are allowed to do, the freedom of building the things, and where the world all over is coming to, to Dubai. We are interactive, we are learning new things, and able to do a lot of things I will be sharing some of them with you this evening. Thank you, Matt, for the opportunity.

Matt Perez (04:31):

Oh, thank you. So, so what, what does the branding identity pending firm do? Does it build branding for the people, or does it give advice or what is it that you do?

Abed Baidas (04:43):

Okay. We do a number of things. Identity branding. We started as a service provider for branding services to our politicians, individuals, companies, communities’ cities, and education institutions and that's a focus. And then we expanded when we realized there is a gap nobody else is filling, which is in the training and the certification, executive training, the programs for high-level companies and the leaders in those companies. We also saw a huge gap in building disruptive, sustainable brands. And that really led me to really start searching the different protocols, and the different models that exist around the world. And the last of it was the SDG or the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations that most countries or companies are trying to pursue. And I didn't find that enough meaning that it, it deals with the side effects, like, for example, poverty. It's a side effect. What causes poverty, right? It deals with violence. Okay, that's a side effect. What, what causes violence? It deals with poor education, but what leads to it youth or kids prosperities and the likes all over. So when you go through the 17 of them, you're looking at the causes or the side effects of the real causes, and while the real causes are not addressed. So I didn't see a real value, and that's why we haven't really moved much anywhere in the world. So I started searching with that. And the basically is to find my pursuit in a verse in the Quran, which is actually a broken-down individual's life, life, life cycle into four parts weak to powerful, to weak, to wise, basically. And when I started Sigma, creating the, understanding what should an individual from birth to the, to the 18 years old, weak being dependent on, everybody should learn how to they be progressing. So, I started, we started looking at the environment to be created for that kid before coming to life. And what happens from the, they one to three years from three years to eight years, when they start going into society from eight years to 11 years to 11 years, that's when they started going out to the schools in, into the higher market. And then from 12 years to 18 years, when they start framing up their future and their ambition, what they're having from 18 years to 40 years and, and on. So that help allowed them to create a sustainable human development protocol. Meaning that every, when the person is growing creates new opportunities and new demands and new needs, that's disruption. That's the, the, where I found the disruptions. And when you connect companies like our clients or our trainees to people's lifelong journey, that's when we were able to really having, creating real meaningful sustainability. So now we are providing that protocol the training for companies for sustainability. So, these are the services that we provide as an identity branding forum.

Matt Perez (08:18):

So, so it sounds like you have a process, and you have training associated with that, based on this versus the crown, and it's really the lifecycle of a, of a person. And you said something passing, I don't know where you said it, but it resonated to me because you were talking about roots, going back to the root of things. What causes that? What causes this, what causes the other? And the, reason we use the word radical in our way of describing a system, and it's a system there many is radical going back to its roots, not radical that we want to kill people or anybody, although sometimes we feel like it. But going back to the roots, so we were talking earlier backstage on the, you know, the fiat, the system we live in now, we call fiat. And fiat is because I said, so that's it. Move that box from here to there, because I say so. But really what's behind that order is the threat of force, and what's behind that force is the threat of pain. And so you're talking kind of the same, about the same thing. So how do, how does how does knowing, okay, how's being lectured on, on their art make a difference on people? It doesn't, I mean, people can listen to and go, yeah, yeah, and pass the test, but that's it. They don't get anything. So how do you, how do you manage to do it?

Abed Baidas (10:13):

Okay. How we mastered it the other way. Just like you said, the fiat model is what's being forced upon people, the SDGs, for example, model that everybody trying to be forced to it to find in the end, it's not working. Nothing is going to happen. We try to follow the World Economic Forums, indicators, okay, these are models and examples of somebody else because what works for Microsoft is not going to work for me in Dubai, for example. As a small individual. Exactly. Or what works for other people. So we try to mimic other leaders not behind ourselves. So, we're trying to copy everybody, but really not unleash what we really, really want to want. And to get to do that this is why I started looking at different customers. For example, years ago when we went into the chicken business, our major competitors were pursuing the mom and dad that goes to the supermarkets to make a decision what chicken they want to buy. And what we did back then is really, we targeted a different type of a client kids. So we designed our chicken bags targeting kids. We had the road runner coming out of an egg back then in the eighties. It was a very popular cartoon show to this day, still my favorite, still being my hero. But anyway, so back is, so our, and that actually helped to get our chicken home, because mom and dad don't care what chicken they want to buy, as long as the kid wants that bird coming out of that, on that bag, coming home with them. So, we, we, so we started really focusing here on terms of the and trying to start under seeing really we with how to find that client, that little client, the little power or what I call it, the power of littles to really take me home to, to these people. So, we started today, what we've done with the sustainable Human Development protocol is to look at the solutions differently when everybody is focusing on what expert is going to be doing something. Well, I realized la especially after the COVID 19 pandemic, that what I knew, or if I'm an expert of something by 12 o'clock at, at, at in the no at noontime. I'm no longer that expert by 12 o'clock in the morning because the new ideas just came out faster and spread all over the internet faster than I can learn new things. So there is no experience. There is, nobody's an expert. I, so I eliminated the process a lot of my mind that nobody's an expert except one person. That one person is the one who is free of biases. And I couldn't find that in business. I couldn't find that in colleges of absolutely. Where can I find that? And I found that in kids, little kids youth years ago, very popular fashion design, fashion designer, consultant. He used to tell me when they want to get their ideas, they go to kids, they get what their imagination unleashed. How do they think, how do they want to see their mom and dad dressed? How do they see their teachers addressed? So they picked up those little ideas from them. So what we have done through Talents of Endearment, we created Talents of Endearment to platform a dynamic platform that actually focuses on enabling youth to empower business. So we reversed the way we have been addressing it, or reviewing youth. We have been really underestimating their capabilities, their minds, ideas that they can produce to the world. They have been really, we talk about them, but we really never give them any considerations, what they think they want to do, how they, how they see addressing the problems. And we talk about them being the future, but actually, they're eliminating anything being considered for the future. Right? Right. And preparing them. So what we have done through Talents of Endearment, is created the platform that actually creates an open space, free space free of all biases. Not textbook. No, no experts. Nobody's an expert in that platform where youth, kids from high school level to college where they're able to come in freely interact with others from around the world to col to collaborate crowdsource ideas, and actually freely work on those ideas and bring them out with the full supports that we will give them. And then we grew with that to the, to the points where well, how do we take it? How do we help them leverage it? Okay. So we went, we helped them leverage it by the experiences they learned on two things, two, two services that we'll provide, discovering big, big ideas out of the box for companies of third parties as a third party. And solving marketed challenges from their own perspectives, because how, how we help them to get connected in, connected to people, to the community, to businesses engaged with them, to understand their aspirations and actually work their imaginations, finding out the ideal solutions from their own perspective, giving them a chance to talk. So, we became that platform that allows youth from all over the world to really be themselves, to think themselves, and to have that opportunity to actually make a living through another platform we created to complete the program, we can actually become solicit.

Matt Perez (15:34):

To start working with adults. Can you bring work

Abed Baidas (15:37):

Works for adults, yes. Correct. We created, we, we created another platform called the Pepsi, or the Talents of Endearment smart business intrapreneurship, that, that actually goes into companies that allows them to start learning how to interact with the market, to connect to the market, to engage, to start figuring out people's aspirations and how to actually leverage helping companies to leverage employees relationships, community relationships, to actually start finding out what the market really is about. What is the expectations of that market?

Matt Perez (16:08):

An interesting thing as you were talking because I'm very much the same. I've been saying that for a long time. The kids, the thing that kids bring to the fore is playfulness. Kids learn by playing with things. And you know, you, you, you write this way with this step, but they, they suck on this step. And they turn around, they play with the thing, and they go, no, it only writes this way. Now. They ignore it. They really know it. Right? And the problem, and what we do in schools, unfortunately, is take that out, tear that out of there. It's like, no, no, no, you're here to play, you here to be serious. And when we get adults out of schools, out of college in particular they, they, people no longer respect the idea of playfulness. They think it's for kids. And I don't do that. And when the boss says, jump, you say how high. You don't ask which way to jump or how to jump, or if should I do it with both legs or one leg or whatever. So playfulness is really, really important. And I, I'm, I'm hard and soul with you that is really important and, and I'm, I'm going to plug some of our thinking here and the problem with businesses today, and you're solving some of that problem by kind of sneaking your way in. But the problem with business today is they, themselves too seriously. And they don't allow play, for the most part. They don't allow play. And they're, I call them business hostiles practices. And one of the business practices is that they don't allow play. They don't allow learning. They don't allow any of those things. It's just doing what you're told for the most part. Just do what you're told. A few people will get to do different things, but eventually get fired. And, and that's very much against what business is all about, which is to trade and, and create things and stuff like that. So yeah, indeed. We're, we're along the same, the same lines. You so, so the other thing that you mentioned that that could be understood out this, it's change. You think change is good?

Abed Baidas (18:46):

Absolutely. Okay. You see, like an, like Einstein said, he, he's a man of curiosity. He lived his life being curious about things. And like you said, with kids love to play things. They don't just love to play with things. They're curious actually to learn things. When, if they hold a, a plate of eggs, for example, not because they want to break it, but because they want to figure out what it is they're learning. It's, it's their nature. This is how they are created. And we killed that in them. When we start telling them, no, no, don't, don't digest, as you said, we actually reduce their level of intelligence and engagement with the things that they touch in their life because us being responsible for it there is a number of studies back then is the level of intelligence of a kid by the age of a three is 97% by the time they hit col hit college and graduate college is s went down. Why is that? Because we tell them, this is how you should be doing this. Yeah. Funny, I want to share one funny story. A friend of mine who is, is telling me that was in college. And he went to his instructor telling him, asking him for his notes for the class that he missed. They have to prepare for the exam. And the professor told him, and he says, why don't you borrow it from your, one of your friends? He says, no, because normally they don't copy everything. I just want to learn to copy it and I'll bring it back to you in the morning. And he said fine, but make sure you bring it back in the morning. So he brought it back, comes the exam. He finished the exam very quickly in less than an hour. And when the results come out, everybody got their marks except him. And he says, sees the teacher? He says, what did I do wrong? Okay. The guy did everything that was in the notes. So he goes back to his teacher and he says, where did you get your answers from? He says, what do you mean? He says I didn't teach this in class. He says, yeah, I got it from your notes. He says, no, it wasn't in my notes. He said in your notes, the shortcuts were in your notes. So the professor looked back in his notes, and says, actually it was there. It just was used to something that it, it trying to force on people. And this is exactly the problem, even in the education system all over the world. You got to do this and you're going to do this. Years ago, I was in a master class, I was teaching in media. And when I walked into the class I didn't have books. I didn't have anything. It was actually based on modern learning methodologies. The name of the class was Media Planning, buy and Management. And the students, one of the students raised their hands and says sir, are you going to give us the, the, the syllabus? I says, yeah, I'll give it to you. But I had no syllabus, I had no papers, nothing, no books. And they started talking to the students. They're all media people. Okay. 13 students there. And then I start, he comes raise his hand again. He says, sir, I don't see any paper. Are you going to give us any syllabus that says, why do you need a syllabus? He says, to know how to pass the exam. He says, is that what you're here? Is that what you're here for? He says, no, I want to benefit. He says, let's have an agreement and ask everybody else why they're in the class. I say let's have an agreement, an unwritten agreement. And there was a professor actually being trained. And I said from the beginning of this semester to the end of it, I promise not to give you one single piece of paper and you will not give me one single piece of paper. And these are the three reference books, but I don't advise you to buy them. Completely disruptive, completely disruptive. I mean, through their brain. The guy, this is what kind of a freak is coming to teach us here for the semester. And they're in master's class. And, and, and you follow what I'm, the way I'm going through this class, and everybody will get the marks that they are, they desire. Three of them wanted to drop out, but they convinced the state to complete the class with me. Ended up they developed the projects around the ideas that they developed in the class. The Jordan television, for example, that wasn't in Jordan, that was run actually adopted a program that was developed by a director that was in my class with the idea that came out with the class. And all it pays about is asking questions about the topic and letting them discuss how to frame it. So, they became actually the authors of the ideas they come up with, this is modern learning. Okay? This is what we'll call disruptive learning. When you hand over the masterhood from the teacher to the students, and you just become a guide. This is a problem in the education system where we, and when we talk about the schools or colleges, when we still think we are the professors, we are the masters. The students have to follow what we say. And if we start changing that, giving them a chance to be the masters of the ideas that they produce, that's when we really start a change in the whole economic system. Social systems universally,

Matt Perez (23:54):

Let me jump in there because indeed schools are very much a fear hierarchy to go absolutely top. I say Dubai is in Africa, and Dubai in Africa, and the way to pass the test is to save Dubai in Africa. And Dubai is not in Africa, by the way. But so what made you this way? Then, the hair fall or, what.

Abed Baidas (24:22):

Actually, the hair fall is a result of what got me here. I love people and I love change. Traveling throughout the world, I see a lot of kids, especially in Latin America, I see a lot of poor kids living in the streets in Asia, in Africa. And the numbers of the growing numbers of pains like you said it earlier of Uno opportunistic youth around the world. You're talking about in the billions it's not a small number. 38% of the world population of youth really has no hope to go to, when you go to countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt even number, a number of other European countries, you the biggest problems actually they're facing, or the time bombs everybody's facing, is how to deal the future of youth worldwide. When you start seeing the number of high school dropouts worldwide, it's a frightening number. Nobody would believe to know. It ranges between 80% and 90%.

Matt Perez (25:33):

But that's used in adult what?

Abed Baidas (25:36):

That's, that's including youth. Let's talk about youth.

Matt Perez (25:39):

No, but I I'm saying what kept that playfulness in you? I mean, you're very playful, and playful with everything you say. And so what, what caused that? I mean.

Abed Baidas (25:52):

What caused that is I saw that if I want to create a change, I really need to go to where the change is who can create the change, the people who are free of biases, who are not limited to, Hey, this is the way it is, this is the book, I got to do it by the playbook. No, when I was in college, I was never really a good book reader, really. I never really liked to, I cheated a lot when I was in college because I didn't like to follow what, what's what has to, but I have to do it the way that the master wants to do it. So I have to do it to pass the exam. Basically. So what I, in order to create a change, I had to look for an environment where it's free of biases. I couldn't find it in experts because experts are limited to the standards they created. They're proud of it, and they get paid for it.

Matt Perez (26:40):

But again, you thus US, the college students, what came before Because of the image that we have of the Arab world, and for a caveat, I'm half Arab. So the image that we have of the Arab world is that it is, you know, very strict and dictatorships. So what happened to you?

Abed Baidas (27:07):

I got, I was very opportunistic to travel the world when I was young from, so that made…

Matt Perez (27:12):

…a difference. That made a difference in traveling.

Abed Baidas (27:14):

Absolutely. It got me exposed to a number of things that I was very, I come from a very affluent family. We were living in Kuwait, that's a different culture. Went to the UK, went to the United States, went to Brazil, Latin America, went to Asia. I, I traveled the world. I saw different cultures get flavored. I felt the pains of the un unfortunate people in those countries around the world, especially kids. So I got more attached to the pains of kids than adults, basically. Because kids are helpless and, yet they're very powerful and nobody's giving them that opportunity and, and the chance. So what got me closer there, is that I love to help people. I love to touch the lives of people. And one story actually that stayed with me and helped maybe to frame that I was in Brazil years ago, back in 1982, we walked into a store called Dunking Donuts. Okay. And with, with a partner of mine back then. And there was a little kid sleeping by that door, 11 years old, okay? 11 to 12 years old, sleeping literally in, in the middle of, in the afternoon, walked in, came out, and the kids were still sleeping there. So I decided to walk back into the shop, picked up a couple of dozens of donuts, and he came out and put them next to the kid. I didn't wake the kids up because I didn't want to disrupt his piece so walked a little bit of a distance and stood there and watched what going to happen. And what happened then, people passing by looking, there is two bags of donuts sitting next to little kids, and he's not awake. He doesn't even know the fortune next to his head, basically an older gentleman walks by and stood by his head watching it. And my friend is telling me, let's walk. You already did what you, you did. I say, no, I want to watch what's going to happen. If somebody takes it, I'm going to go back and buy some more, but I got to see what, how this kid is going to react to, to something that he didn't ask for. And the older gentleman woke up this kid, pointed to the bags and the next thing that I saw will never, never fit my memory. The kid looks in there, the most beautiful smile you could ever see in your life, but this is not what made me feel great about what I have done, is when he took a few of those donuts out of the back and gave them to the older gentleman, closed the bags, and, and run from that day when I made a promise that I'm going to do something to help change the lives of youth worldwide. Wherever I can touch their life, I'm going to do it. And this is what really kept me going with this in my mind until I had the opportunity with the Identity Branding Forum to really get to do something about it for them.

Matt Perez (30:24):

That's, that's a beautiful story. And indeed very meaningful, very meaningful thank you. Is the sharing you first to share with him, and then he shares with the older gentleman and then realized the fortunate hand Dunking Donuts in 1982 in Brazil. That's interesting.

Abed Baidas (30:48):

This is, this is actually where I started having my passion for kids because I saw this kid was able to create a happy moment for that older gentleman. By giving him that chance.

Matt Perez (31:01):

Yeah, no, it is, it is hard touching and, and the fact, okay, so I'll tell you a Brazil story. So, I was the founder of the company in 2007 that started as a self-man’s company. We didn't have, we still don't have any management or, or hierarchy or anything almost. And that was based on the writing of a Brazilian Ricardo Semler. And he wrote that book in 1989 or something, actually, it might have been around 82. So it, it, something came out of there as well that touched me and, and led me to this thing. And the company's like 900 people now, and it's still no managers, no hierarchy, no anything like that. And reason I said almost is because indeed my partner and I were the owners of the company. So, ownership is, is a very interesting thing is the right to exclude other people from the profits and this and that. And that's something else that we want to change with radical. We want to introduce co-ownership. And co-ownership means the people that create wealth, the people that make those donuts and can make somebody else happy with it, are the owners and they decide what to sell or give it or whatever it is. But a lot of the problems to this world would go away if you give everybody their own power. Not equal power. I don't believe, in equal powers. I'm, I'm <inaudible> I don't believe in equal power. And but power based on contributions, not based on whether your parents will roll off and mine weren't, and the other guys weren't. You know, that, that's happy, I'm happy for you, but it's a lucky thing, right? And but it contributions everybody can contribute. Like you say, kids can contribute more than, than adults because adults are already restricted, but kids are, are still a little bit fluent. And those contributions should, should be acknowledged and made tangible and, and celebrated and all those things. So, thank you, thank you for your time, and thank you for everything you brought to this, to this thing. What time is it? It's, it's a little bit past 10:30. I think we can, we can let it go there for a beautiful story. And I get to announce next week's guest is Leo Rayman, CEO of EdenLab, and there he is. He looks like the guy from one of the TV shows. And anyway, we're going to find out how he relates to the crazy ideas that we have in, in my, in, by the way, in my case, the experience of self-management is the experience of seeing people organize themselves and kind of break out of there, of, of that box that was, they learned to live in gave me hope in, in, led me to a lot of the ideas and my co co-writers to a lot of the ideas that in that book. And I have to, I, I'm obligated to say that that book is called Radical Companies Without Bosses or Employees, and there's another book coming up, but get that one. And you can go to radicalcompanies.com and get the book for nothing if you want to, but indeed it came out of watching people. In other words, they're not forever burdens to that box. They're not forever limited, but if you take some of the fear away, then can expand back to being playful and learning more and things like that. So there's hope and you gave me hope. I really appreciate it.

Abed Baidas (35:27):

Well, hope is always there. I mean, as long as we know exactly where it is that we really need to take care of it, helping kids be themselves, yes. They will actually be the ones who are going to help us. And the other ones going to be changing the future. Yes. And it's happening and it's already happening. And with the, with the limitations, with the, with the, with the few limited economic opportunities available to them in most big urban cities around the world, you're going to see those kids moving away to rural areas, creating their own beehives, using technologies at their disposal because, and they're much better at you using them than you and I are to create their own economic future, to create their own economic communities. We are going to see a lot of change happening in the future because we still haven’t really put a greater emphasis on youth, on little kids, and how to take it, to take advantage of the opportunities they can create for us. And we're still limiting them. They're going to take it away from us, and they will be the ones who are going to take control of their own destiny and the future by moving away from the urban cities and rural areas. And it's already happening worldwide.

Matt Perez (36:43):

Yeah. And things like the playfulness and the ideas and breaking the eggs to find out where eggs are, all that, all that stuff should be part of there, it's wealth that we, we inherit the whole community of people and that should be celebrated and should be made tangible for the future. Absolutely. They shouldn't be seen in the streets. They can contribute and they can contribute. Every human being can contribute. So, absolutely. I'm, find myself, I figure I'm lucky to meet you, sir.

Abed Baidas (37:19):

Same here. Thank you so much for bringing back a lot of good memories. Yeah. That I have. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Matt.

Matt Perez (37:26):

Thank you.