29Jan

It’s official

Kategorie Werkzeuge | TAGS

I’ve deleted the SecondLife client from my home Mac. Freeing 160MB of disk space which I desperately needed. So that was it. The end of last year’s biggest tech hype has reached my home. Actually, it was over before it even started. Never came far beyond installation, choosing a phony nickname, creating an avatar that looked worse than me on a Monday morning and walking around the default island. SecondLife lacked ease-of-use, attractive design, a stable desktop client and above all a real benefit for the user. Hailed as the coming of the “New Internet”, it didn’t live up to the hype, never served a real purpose and in the end lost its users quarter way into it.

But hey, it was a spectacular PR success. Let’s see who or what will be able to match it.

25Jan

The Social Corporation

Kategorie Events, Menschen

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Jeff Jarvis writes this on his blog (referring to German elder publishing statesman Hubert Burda and the DLD conference in Munich he hosts):

“Burda is the most social corporation I know. That’s no doubt because its chairman, Huburt Burda, loves people and playing host to them. I’ve been to dinners and parties from New York to Davos where he and his lieutenants bring together incredibly diverse and interesting bunches of people. They’ve just brought 1,000 people to Munich for their conference. I’ve seen that being a gracious host pay dividends to Burda. They bring in new ideas and talent and relationships. Most companies I know are not at all social. They live in their own buildings and worlds. Not just people are becoming more social. Companies must become social.”

Not only do I wish I had been at DLD which I read on so many blogs and heard from clients was a very inspiring event, I also find the idea of the social corporation very intriguing. It was called networking a while ago, but in the end it’s what humans are all about. Talking to each other, getting to know new people, being introduced to new people, expanding one’s social reach and pushing intellectual boundaries, too. Technology is just the extention of social events, not a substitute. It’s great when a visionary like Mr. Burda invests a huge amout of money once a year to bring together a mix of people that are there to open up their visions, exchange ideas and make new connections. Like synapses in the brain, these people create new links between each other and their ideas, just from being in a confined space for a couple of days. Now would someone invite me to DLD next year, please!?

(stumbled over Jeff’s post via Haltungsturner)

25Jan

Jugend wählt

Kategorie Events | TAGS , ,

Kommentare deaktiviert

Ausnahmsweise mal ein Post zu einem Kunden. Mit Piczo.com, der Online-Community für Teenies zwischen 13 und 17, veranstalten wir am Sonntag eine Online-Wahl parallel zu den Landtagswahlen in Niedersachsen und Hessen. Das ganze steigt ab Sonntag 8 Uhr unter www.piczo.com. Bin sehr gespannt, was dabei herauskommt!

22Jan

Quiet Finns / Schweigsame Finnen

Kategorie Zeugs

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The publicised wind blowing in Nokia’s face these days is freezing cold. German tabloid BILD acted as the little man’s advocate and engaged in Nokia-bashing, after they said they would close down their production plan in Bochum, Germany. Such stories are good for personalisation and BILD went on to call Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, “Mr Nokia – The Job Killer”. Quite simple so far. No doubt, when BenQ/Siemens closed, they faced the same public fury. However, I’m detecting a strange undertone in the current debate. It sounds something like this: “We thought, the Finns were nice people. They wouldn’t do such things, would they?” There is disappointment in the air, people’s image of the successful yet very modest Scandinavians has been shattered. Suddenly, the Finns are in for the profit only and pocketing subsidies whereever they can.

The mechanics of media allow and maybe even needs stereotypes and phrases like “the quiet Finns”. But why should a global corporation from Finland act any differently in Germany than a global corporation from Korea or the US? Defining company values and sharing them with employees is good practice. Unfortunately, these values just reach so far – up to the point where the interests of the entire corporation (and capital’s) can no longer be matched with the interests of the employees at a certain plant. Humanity in company leadership is alway a compromise between what’s desireable and what’s doable. Keeping the Bochum plant, Nokia says, was no longer doable. From a PR point of view they should have added that, with regards to their company values, it would have been desireable.

The consequence of this being that the stereotype of the “quiet Finn” backfires hard. And a top manager who acts with foresight in the interest of the company as a whole becomes as job killer in the public eye.

PS: Yes, I’m half Finnish and no, I don’t own a Nokia mobile, but I do own a few shares that sit on my account since they dropped after the first bubble burst.

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Der mediale Gegenwind, der Nokia in den letzten Tagen entgegenwehte war eiskalt. Die BILD machte wie immer auf Anwalt der kleinen Leute und betrieb Nokia-Bashing vom Feinsten und personalisiert die Sache gleichmal: Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO von Nokia ist “Mister Nokia, der Job-Vernichter”. Soweit so einfach. Klar, BenQ/Siemens ging es auch nicht anders, aber mir scheint zur Zeit ein sonderbarer Unterton mitzuschwingen. Der klingt in etwa so: “Wir dachten immer, die Finnen wären nette Leute. Die machen sowas doch nicht!” Man ist enttäuscht, sieht sich in seinem Bild von den erfolgreichen, aber sonst sehr bescheidenen Nordländern erschüttert. Die Finnen sollen plötzlich profitgierig sein und Subventionen abgrasen.

Die Medienmechanik erlaubt und braucht wohl auch Stereotype und Halbsätze wie “die schweigsamen Finnen”. Aber warum sollte sich ein finnischer Weltkonzern in Deutschland anders verhalten, als ein koreanischer Weltkonzern oder ein amerikanischer? Unternehmenswerte zu definieren und im Umgang mit den Mitarbeitern zu kommunizieren wie es Nokia getan hat, ist gute Schule. Leider reichen sie an bestimmten Punkten nur bis zu einer gewissen Grenze, wenn nämlich die Interessen des Gesamtkonzerns (des Kapitals mithin) sich nicht mehr mit den Interessen der Mitarbeiter an einem Standort vereinen lassen. Menschlichkeit in der Unternehmensführung ist immer ein Kompromiss zwischen Wünschenswertem und Machbarem. Bochum, sagt Nokia, war nicht mehr machbar. Sie hätten aus PR-Sicht sicher deutlicher sagen sollen, dass Bochum , im Sinne der Unternehmenswerte, wünschenswert gewesen wäre.

So fällt nämlich das Stereotyp der schweigsamen Finnen auf Nokia zurück. Und aus einem vorausschauend agierenden Spitzenmanager wird in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung ein Jobvernichter.

PS: Ja, ich bin halber Finne, und nein, ich habe kein Nokia-Handy. Dafür ein paar Aktien, die seit dem Platzen der ersten Blase im Depot dümpeln.