by Sören Stamer October 25, 2006 at 05:31 PM

Letzte Woche hat München noch die Medienbranche begrüßt. Diesen Montag und Dienstag war es nun die Welt des Mobilfunks, in der augenscheinlich ein Umdenken einsetzt.

Während auf den großflächigen Bannern des Veranstalters noch vollmundig von der „Revolution of 3G“ geschwärmt wird, sprechen die Branchenvertreter mittlerweile lieber etwas dezenter von einer „Evolution“. Das lehre die Lebenserfahrung.

Am meisten überzeugt hat mich diesbezüglich René Obermann. Der Vorstandsvorsitzende von T-Mobile International hat sich nicht nur zu vergangenen Versäumnissen der Mobilfunkanbieter bei der Vermarktung der eigenen Produkte bekannt, sondern ruft gleichzeitig zu einem radikalen Perspektivwechsel seitens der Anbieter auf. Der weit verbreitete Abwehrreflex, die eigenen Umsatzbringer durch „walled gardens“ zu schützen, sei irreführend. Neue Dienste wie Mobile E-Mail oder Instant Messaging seien im Kern gerade nicht als Gefahren für die eigenen SMS-Umsätze anzusehen, sondern als starke Treiber fürs gesamte eigene Mobilfunkgeschäft. Die enge Vernetzung der Dienste ergebe Sinn, denn Kommunikation schaffe Kommunikation. So führe jede sechste SMS zu einem Anruf; jede elfte Mail und jede 21ste Instant Message ebenso.

Ergo: Evolution zu verhindern, ist ein aussichtsloses Unterfangen. Unternehmen wir lieber etwas und nutzen die Chancen im Sinne unserer Kunden. Sonst machen es andere Mitspieler, möchte man noch hinzufügen. „Respekt!“, denke ich bei mir für diesen Mut zum revolutionären Umdenken. Und ich bin in der Tat gespannt auf die konkreten Auswirkungen dieser Entscheidung.

Eine Auswirkung konnte ich derweil schon beobachten: Die Marke T-Mobile wirkte schon unmittelbar nach dem Panel ein Stück sympathischer und innovativer auf mich.

Ins gleiche Horn wie Herr Obermann stieß übrigens auch der Vertreter von Skype. Ihm fiel dieser Schritt allerdings deutlich leichter, steht zu vermuten. So rief er auch gleich alle MNO-Vertreter auf, mit Skype zu kooperieren statt ihre Kunden vor Skype abzuschirmen. Seine Andeutungen ließen übrigens die Deutung zu, dass T-Mobile, E-Plus und Hutchison 3 ihn sogar bereits erhört haben.

Insgesamt hat das Mobile Summit 2006 mich enttäuscht. Von Gipfeltreffen konnte dieses Jahr kaum die Rede sein. Ganz im Gegenteil übrigens zum letzten Jahr und den gerade vergangenen Medientagen München. Dort konnte man nämlich mehr und mehr Vertreter der Mobilfunk- und Festnetzanbieter treffen.

Und was lernen wir daraus? Konvergenz kennt tatsächlich nicht nur Gewinner.

by Sören Stamer October 21, 2006 at 04:45 PM

So ein jährlicher Medienkongress ist eine schöne Sache. Einmal im Jahr trifft man sich an einem schönen Ort und redet über das Mediengeschäft. Altbekannte Gesichter treffen neue Un-Bekannte. Gemeinsam diskutiert oder monologisiert man über die Medienlandschaft, Gebühren, Trends, Deals und Visionen.

Und oft hört man in Bezug auf Web 2.0 offen auf den Panels oder im Vorbeigehen an den Tischen: "Alles schon mal da gewesen. Alles nichts Neues."

Witzig, denke ich mir. Als die Münchner Medientage das letzte Mal tagten, war YouTube allenfalls eine Idee, jedenfalls kein Unternehmen und schon gar kein Geschäft. 12 Monate später wurde YouTube mit einer schnöden Website - rein technisch meine ich natürlich - und über 50 Millionen Nutzern für über US-$1,6 Milliarden an Google verkauft. Klingt teuer für Google, könnte man denken. Dr. Martin Fabel von AT Kearney weiß es besser. In Wirklichkeit habe Google auf Schlag US-$ 2,5 Milliarden "plus" gemacht, da Google nur die Aktien bezahlt habe und Googles Börsenbewertung im selben Moment um ca. US-$ 4 Milliarden gestiegen sei. Ein schönes Geschäft denkt der Aktionär und freut sich auf mehr.

Sollte uns das zu denken geben? Ja, sagen viele: Google und der Aktienmarkt spinnen. Ja, sagt der Rest: Wir erleben gerade eine "Revolution". Einige sprechen auch von dem schönen Begriff "Paradigmenwechsel". Ich übrigens auch - und das gleich mehrfach.

Die Medien sind in Bewegung. Ich bin schon gespannt auf die Medientage 2007. Welche Megadeals, Verrücktheiten und Vorahnungen werden uns dann beschäftigen? Neue Runde neues Glück.

Dann hoffentlich auch mit größeren Räumen und mit freiem WLAN.

by Sören Stamer October 13, 2006 at 12:49 AM

The annual MEDIENTAGE MÜNCHEN are nearly on us, starting on October 18 next week. One expected topic – perhaps indeed the most important one – of the many crammed into those three days, will be Web 2.0.

Indeed, this year I will be given the signal honor of being allowed to introduce the panel discussion “Web 2.0 – how is the Internet changing?” following the keynote of Jonathan Miller, Chairman and CEO of AOL. And I’ll do this by challenging some basic assumptions, since I don’t think that this is the question that we should be asking. For the foundations of the Internet, its concepts, possibilities, and standards, are not really being changed by Web 2.0: all of these had already been invented by 1990.

If Web 2.0 means change, then it’s not a technical change, but first and foremost a social one.

In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan taught us that “the medium is the message”. If I’ve understood him correctly, this means that the true significance of a medium (its message) lies in its effect on society – an effect that is hard to overestimate. The printing press, argues McLuhan, did not simply enable mass distribution of a great diversity of texts and bring about the birth of the paper industry: at the same time it fundamentally shaped the way we think today. Accordingly, the ability to think through chains of effects and evidence results from the serial structure evidenced by books. Shaped in this way, we were effectively unable to imagine anything else – until the mass distribution of hypertexts became reality.

The Internet is thus another one of McLuhan’s powerful mediums: it is changing the way we think. And this is one of the senses in which Web 2.0 can be understood: a change from a paradigm of planned hierarchies to one of dynamic self-organization. Put bluntly: Wikipedia beats Brockhaus.

I’m convinced that this paradigm shift will have serious consequences. It will fundamentally change us all: our private lives, our jobs, how we do business – and society itself.

The cornerstone of my argument is this: in at most five to ten years, businesses based on the classical, hierarchical paradigm will be in serious difficulties. Young consumers, recent graduates and candidates for senior management will all expect the company to involve them more and regulate them less, and to offer up its opinions freely on both internal and external company blogs. Feedback, freely given, will be unavoidable. Companies that seek to prevent this will be able to read the inevitable criticism from customers and employees somewhere on the Internet. Those who try and stop this are doomed to failure: at the end of the day, both customers and high potentials will simply vote with their feet.

By the way, dynamic self-organization is the driving force behind Linux, Skype, Del.icio.us, eBay, science, free markets, evolution, and life as well.

by Sören Stamer October 02, 2006 at 06:26 PM

Dieter Rappold is an Entrepreneur. He truly is. You can feel it instinctively when he is around. Dieter's self-confidence and optimism, his openness and curiosity, his reflectiveness, and his way of communicating both directly but also analytically make him special.

Dieter has the rare gift of seeing the best in people, and takes pleasure in seeing others fulfill their potential. Take a look at this personal feedback and you’ll know what I’m getting at. I am still amazed.

I met Dieter last week in Hamburg for a little less than 30 minutes. We instantaneously established rapport – it was a great meeting. I guess we share a lot of our core values.

What astonished me most were the similarities between our two companies. Dieter founded Knallgrau in 2001 - a pretty tough time for an internet company. But tough times create strong companies, since you have to be smart to survive, focus on the right things, and learn fast. Those who survived learned a lot. And I am sure Knallgrau did. I also remembered our first four years at CoreMedia. We had a lot of enthusiasm and a lack of money. Finally, both companies succeeded.

However, success will demand change and change will create new challenges.

Dieter's new challenges are totally different from those in the past. Since Knallgrau is operating in a booming market now, organic growth seems easy to achieve. However, organic growth might be difficult to manage. When CoreMedia was roughly the same size as Knallgrau, I made a mistake. A big mistake. I am still grappling with the consequences.

With a staff of just 35, our organizational structure was simple. We were all on the same big team and we met for a joint breakfast every Monday. Everyone shared the same goals and communication was easy. The whole team was flexible, customer-oriented, innovative, and fast moving.

Unfortunately, 35 is pretty much the maximum number of people that can enjoy such an informal organizational structure – and fit round one breakfast table. Therefore, we had to change.

We introduced more formal and stringent management structures. We established clearly defined departments like Research & Development, Professional Services, Sales, Marketing and Internal Services. It seemed the right thing to do. Actually, it was the only concept I knew of at that time (a shame, really, after completing a Diploma in Business Administration). But, with hindsight, it was a really stupid idea.

Unfortunately, the new structure worked well at the beginning. We grew to more than 100 employees and enjoyed an annual growth rate of more than 100 percent in revenue for several years running. But after a while, I started to recognize the downside of our department-oriented structure. As time went on, and with every new member of staff, it became more and more dysfunctional. Our organization became incrementally more rigid, more inflexible. After a while we had nearly lost some of our greatest strengths: our strong customer-orientation and our ability to innovate. Our departments developed what you might call chasms between each other. On occasions, sarcasm replaced the trusted communication between the members of different departments. And the members of the management team worked as if they owned their own private empires. Suddenly, it was all about power.

I believe my personal management style was also part of the problem. As with the early days at university, I wanted to stay an equal member of the team. Actually, this is a stupid idea for the CEO of a company. It might be possible within a very small team, but it is dangerous in a fast growing company.

As a result of our strong corporate culture, and the enthusiasm of our employees, CoreMedia at the time was still successful and growing 20-40 percent per year. And we won the Best Innovator competition run by A.T. Kearney in Germany, in 2004. On many occasions we simply ignored the official organizational structure to achieve the success we wanted. Unsurprisingly, most of our greatest achievements were therefore the results of projects that did not fit into our official structure. In fact, we were successful in spite of our structure, not because of it. Hence, I became convinced that we would do much better with a different corporate structure.

So I started to think about a better organizational structure. I met other Entrepreneurs, talked to business consultants, and worked with a personal coach. In one year I learned a great amount about learning organizations, organic growth, leadership, corporate culture, social dynamics and cultural change.

Change management became my new profession. And I started at the top - with myself.

When I realized that my strengths are the strengths of the company and my weaknesses are CoreMedia's weaknesses as well, I decided to actively develop my personality. Fortunately, it wasn't too difficult once I got started: I've started to ask for personal feedback whenever appropriate and discovered a lot of my blind spots. By analyzing my behavior and my underlying basic assumptions, I was able to challenge these assumptions and, in the end, managed to change some of them.

My own personal development triggered a change process at CoreMedia. In the next phase, our management did pretty much the same as I did. Together, we analyzed the way we work as a team and started to improve it - step by step. We developed a new process-oriented structure, introduced a project organization and dedicated competence centers. We defined standards for working in our teams and introduced self- and third-party assessments with full transparency.

Our joint goal was - and remains - achieving organic growth more successfully. We are dedicated to building a fast-learning organization with a high degree of self-organization, flexibility and robustness.

I am sure that CoreMedia's new organizational structure, with its corresponding corporate culture as embodied by the CoreMedia people, will be our biggest USP as a company in the Web 2.0 era. It is a perfect fit since our new structure is based on some of the same principles as Web 2.0: transparent feedback, self-organization, and reflection. Put simply: CoreMedia's new organizational structure is organic.

Today, I am the CEO of a company with 150+ employees and my role is a completely different one than in the early day of CoreMedia. It is more about change management and coaching than ever before.

Dieter, I wish you all the best for your change management at Knallgrau. It is a fascinating journey and such a great experience. Let’s stay in touch and see if we can support each other.

Live is a learning experience.