Week 10 : Khayyam Wakil

Khayyam 2

A bare personality, with nothing to hide and more to show for! He is definitely one of the nicest grown man, I have had the pleasure of interacting with and after receiving his interview, I am glad, we chose him for this week’s “Weekend Special” Twitter Spotlight Special!

A strong willed, conqueror of fate, who smiles at life’s bleakness and takes everything head-on!

A fellow person, who has experienced the down spiral of life and come out of it completely transformed into a go-getter. We would take this opportunity and add that, the best feature amongst these words he has written to us, is his smile and he comes out smiling to all his fellow followers and other readers here on this blog.

TweetFeat.com is proud to present, and associate with, Khayyam Wakil, a.k.a @iamkhayyam, as this weeks “Weekend Special” Featured Profile! We are short of words, to describe him and his take on life and his journey so far!

Khayyam, tell us more about yourself, what do you do? Where you come from? Where are you headed?

Ouch. Tough question. Where you comin’ from and where you at?! (lol) Let’s see…. What do I do?! I’m a vibe provider, a smile enhancer ? Originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada) where I was grain fed and brought up minding my P’s and Q’s. Had an uneventful childhood filled with the usual torment and shenanigans.

Spent most of my time in Saskatoon and then ventured off to Vancouver and Toronto. Came back… hid out in university for year after year so I wouldn’t have to face the real world and work ? I almost have a degree in Marketing, Engineering, Philosophy and Computer Science. The hiding finally stopped after my father’s passing. I ended up touring around India, Pakistan and Nepal on motorbike for a year. Long story short, got engaged, came back home, took a job at an agency, quit the agency, got un-engaged, started freelancing, got depressed and tweeted and ate my way out of it ? Did I mention I love cooking?! ?

And now I’m headed forward and up. Thought I was going around in circles for years and years, then took a step back to see the big picture. It was a circle all right, but it was in the form of a spiral and I hade chosen to walk down it. So one day I asked myself, what would it be like if I climbed up the spiral?! I know right? TSN Turning Point. Et voila! Life is full of choices. Make the good ones and just remember…

If there is no struggle. There is no progress.
Fredrick Douglas

What do you do? And What are you goals? What do you want to achieve?

Started out as a concert promoter. Was tired of paying someone to do all my artwork and paying out the wazoo… so I hacked a copy of Corel Draw and started at it! One thing led to another and I wasn’t doing shows anymore, just artwork for them. So became a self taught print and identity designer through the journey. Even made up a title for myself, Communications Architect. Nice one, ya?! Ha! That’s what I love in today’s world, you can make up your own job and title ?

Goals?! Umm… I haven’t play soccer for years ?

As for what I want to achieve, I’ll go with the standard Miss Universe answer of “World Peace” or just peace… that’ll be all right with me.

What is Your blog http://iamkhayyam.blogspot.com/ all about?

It started out as just a travel blog to keep moms and the gang in check when it came to my nomadic (mis)adventures while traveling. Then it took on a life of it’s own. I began writing and emotions poured through. It was a place where I had some sense of belonging in a world full of people, yet so alone. It was my sanity along my travels. And then I got back and had no idea what to do with it, so I attempted dropping some design links in there and then I wasn’t pleased with the way it looked and redesigned it on wordpress and have left it sitting since October collecting dust ? I was so lazy that I had a plugin conflict which gave an error when you went to go view the site… so I left it like that ? As you can see, I haven’t updated the blog since April. Since then I’ve been building a few sites to accommodate my growing network. I’ve got over a dozen of sites that are all works in progress, they’re my tinkerin projects ? You’ll see them pop up from time to time. I’m sure I’ll tweet about it ?

Why Twitter.com?

When I quit my agency job, I knew one creative director down in San Francisco and was going to beg her for a job and Twitter was the only place I had her in my contacts. So quickly went logged onto Twitter to message her and voila! I found her, she gave me sage like wisdom and then I was off on my way. First DM was from the CEO of Zappos with an answer to my query and that’s when I knew there was something special about this ridiculous thing called Twitter. That was October, and this is now. I think I’ve got the swing of things ? Plus I was depressed, remember?! ? Twitter is the best anti-depressant out on the market.

Tell us more about your Twittering experience.

I’ve been doing the same old same old for 16 years and finally someone built me the tool to do my work well. I was trying to hammer in those nails with a set of pliers and finally here comes Twitter with my new shiny hammer. At first it was fun, then it became competitive and now it’s back to fun. I ran so many analytics as to how I was “performing”. I remember I had 2106 followers when I hit 100 on Grader and shared it with @zaibatsu who also was 100 but with 47,000 followers. That’s a good 45,000 more than me and I was bumping heads with the Elite – lol. Then found out I was in the top 50 most influential people according to Twitalyzer and became 2nd most passionate and favored brands on Twitter according to the Brand Analyzer on Twitalyzer. Thought I was King Shit then ?. Then comes #followfriday ? I won’t go into any explanation other than to share with you my first Vlog on the subject:

#followfriday is dumb…

Once I saw how I had become one of those people in high school I despised I no longer tweeted on Friday’s. Through the course of all of this, it’s hard not to have an inflated sense of worth. And so I recognized to have balance between these two realms once must be grounded. That’s what Friday is for, to reconnect to all that is. Just check back in to all that is natural and real. It’s my holyday. A day of silence from the noise that has no signal.

How often do you twitter and mostly what for?

The question would be better placed if it asked me how often do I not use twitter ? I’m pretty much always connected in some way, shape or form. I use it mainly to laugh, cause trouble and to make smiles…

Any set goals with Twitter?

That is to telepathically tweet, of course! I’m getting close. I can stare at certain users’ avatars and they’ll tweet me. Just need to figure out how to tweet them ? It’s getting in tune that is the crux of the matter… the frequencies modulate until they find harmony Then we tweet…

Is twitter helping you get your message out in the open?

Yes. It’s safe to say that most people know I’m a habitual line-stepper – hahaa!

Do you use Facebook? If yes, which has been more effective towards your cause, Twitter or Facebook?

I used Facebook when I was traveling abroad to keep in touch with fellow travellers. Don’t think very much of it now and use it even less. I loves me some Twitter!

Rate your experience on Twitter, on a scale of 1 to 10.

My experience is 1010

Any message to our readers?

Bottom of pant seat flying should be left to those with nothing to lose Oh yes… and remember to create a beautiful day!

Your contact info on twitter, facebook and other social networking and connecting platforms.

http://tr.im/iamkhayyam
http://tr.im/iamtwitter
http://tr.im/iamfacebook
http://tr.im/iamflickr
http://tr.im/iamyoutube
http://tr.im/iamdigg
http://tr.im/iamdelicious
http://tr.im/iamstumbleupon
http://tr.im/iamalltheabove
http://putthetwitterdown.com

More Pictures of Khayyam

Khayyam 1

Khayyam 3

Khayyam 4

Khayyam 5

            

Tags: feature profile, iamkhayyam, Khayyam Wakil, twitter spotlight week 10, week10