by Sören Stamer November 03, 2007 at 05:11 AM

Professor Randy Pausch gave his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon university. Well, this is not the usual last lecture since Randy Pausch already knows that he is dying from pancreatic cancer soon.

Please don't miss his lecture called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". It is one of the most inspiring and touching speeches I have seen in my life. Randy's talk is full of brilliant humor, wit and wisdom. His big heart is touching.

PS: Kudos go to Tobi. Thanks for the hint!

by Sören Stamer September 07, 2007 at 12:34 AM

Sich selbst in einem Video zu sehen, fühlt sich seltsam an. Noch immer. Die Gewöhnung lässt bei mir noch auf sich warten. Dennoch sehe ich in Videos im Unternehmenskontext mittlerweile ein sehr wertvolles Werkzeug.

Ein Video-Interview hat nämlich schon seinem Wesen nach einen besonderen Wert: Es zwingt mich meine Gedanken direkt und unmittelbar auf den Punkt zu bringen (siehe auch "Über die allmähliche Verfertigung der Gedanken beim Reden"). Und gleichzeitig gibt es mir nachträglich die Gelegenheit mich bei dieser Übung auch noch kritisch zu beobachten und dabei meinen blinden Fleck zu verkleinern ("Nuscheln wird als Stilmittel deutlich überschätzt"). Wirklich erhellend!

Das Ergebnis des letzten Experimentes dieser Art ist gerade unter den Creative Commons Lizenzbedingungen online gegangen. Ulrike Reinhard und Lutz Berger haben meinen Kollegen Henrik Schürmann und mich letzte Woche zum Change Management bei CoreMedia interviewt und das Ergebnis zu einem ansprechenden Video-Format zusammen geschnitten.

Hintergrund des Interviews ist die SCOPE 07 - The Future of Learning Conference. Da das Thema "Kollektives Lernen" CoreMedia bewegt und vielen bei uns sehr am Herzen liegt, haben wir uns entschlossen die Konferenz als Sponsor zu unterstützen und uns gleichzeitig inhaltlich einzubringen. Wir sind gespannt.

Herzlichen Dank an Ulrike Reinhard und Lutz Berger. Das war bereits im Vorfeld der eigentlichen Konferenz eine sehr schöne (Lern-)Erfahrung.

by Sören Stamer August 20, 2007 at 12:44 AM

I wish I was a student or a PhD student again. It seems to be the best time ever to think about the future of enterprises and our whole economy. So, it couldn't be more interesting to study Business Administration, Economics or related disciplines.

The paradigm shift labeled "Web 2.0" reached the shore of conventional enterprises mainly build upon hierarchies. Digital Natives enter conventional enterprises and the fun begins. They demand to work in the new paradigm and cause change. So, it would be good to be able to answer one important question: Why should any enterprise make intensive use of social software and transform itself into an Enterprise 2.0?

Well, I have been thinking about this for a while now and did what I had to do: I started to transform CoreMedia into an Enterprise 2.0.

The change management was all about changing the corporate culture. At the beginning, the use of social software was only a minor point. By now, it has emerged to a central aspect.

Through my own experience I came to the conclusion that the main aspect of Enterprise 2.0 is raising the order of connectivity between all stakeholders. And here is my hypothesis: With more and better connections between employees, managers, partners, customers and to the rest of the world, an enterprise will be more aware of its environment. It will be more agile and more creative. It will be more competitive and, therefore, stays longer alive. Well, at least on average.

I really like to put this hypothesis to a test through a study. I expect to find evidence that the rate of innovation and the customer orientation raises along with the order of connectivity.

And I expect to see some evidence "being connected" means "staying alive" in a networked economy and society.

Anyone interested in making this topic the topic of her/his thesis? Please contact me directly or through this blog.

by Sören Stamer June 04, 2007 at 01:40 AM

Die überaus sympathische Carmen Ullrich-Nolte vom Fischmarkt- bzw. SinnerSchrader-Team half mir kürzlich noch ein paar Gedanken zum bereits geposteten Enterprise 2.0-Vortrag auf der Next07 einzufangen und ins Internet zu schreiben. Eine sehr schöne Gelegenheit, für die ich mich herzlich bedanken möchte. Es geht um Werte statt Macht, ein Thema also, das die Welt sicher noch beschäftigen wird.

by Sören Stamer May 25, 2007 at 07:32 PM

Most of us believe in centralized structures to coordinate things and solve important problems. The results are omnipresent hierarchies. Someone (string leader) has to decide in the end, right? Really?

Professor Thomas Malone from the MIT thinks not. Actually, he believes that the opposite is true. He makes the compelling case that we create better organizations and a better society if we use highly decentralized structures instead. I strongly believe we will. The great thing is that he also explains why.

Pleasel enjoy his interview about leadership and his own life: The Power of Decentralization: Discovering the New Physics of Organizing. It is from May 2001. However, it has a lot to do with Enterprise 2.0.

Henrik, thanks for the hint. Awesome!

by Sören Stamer May 15, 2007 at 03:36 PM

Being an entrepreneur means being creative. You have to be creative to start your own company. You have to stay creative to keep your company going. And - in a highly complex and dynamic world like ours - you also have to create an environment that nurtures the creativity of everyone involved to stay alive and kicking.

Furthermore, creativity is our only tool to create a desirable future for all of us and all of our children.

But why do most grown-ups lack the amazing creativity of our children?

At TED conference 2006 Sir Ken Robinson made a compelling case to change our education system fundamentally. He says, our existing system undermines creativity, instead of supporting it.

I am pretty confident that you will enjoy his brilliant speech at last years TED conference (Markus, thanks for the hint):

You won't be surprised to hear that Sir Ken Robinson was my personal highlight at IBM PartnerWorld 2007 two weeks ago in St. Louis. Thank you big blue.

Not surprisingly, nurturing creativity in my own company through diversity, open space workshops, Enterprise 2.0 software and our corporate culture is one of my top priorities at CoreMedia to stay competitive. And to be frank, there is always room for improvement but it is really amazing to work in a team where people are able to rediscover their creative power.

by Sören Stamer May 13, 2007 at 12:32 AM

I am still amazed when I think of Prof. Muhammad Yunus’ keynote speech at the 12th Trend Day in Hamburg earlier this week. The Nobel Peace Price Laureate 2006 shared with us his wonderful vision of a world without poverty. He told us about his fascinating journey to become Banker to the Poor, his strategy to do the exact opposite of what “normal banks” do, and his stunning truth that being poor is not the fault of poor people.

Prof. Muhammad Yunus made us think. In a special way he opened our eyes and showed us the shortcomings of our society, the limitations of our perception, and our misleading basic assumption about enterprises.

We tend to believe that enterprises are only made to maximize profits. But is this true? Is maximizing profits really the final goal of an enterprise? Is it a good idea to shape our perception of enterprises like this? Is there nothing else?

After you had the opportunity to listen to Prof. Yunus you might think differently about enterprises. You might even search for Social Business Entrepreneurs in your environment.

As the founder of Grameen Bank, Prof. Yunus uses microcredits to help millions of poor people in Bangladesh to start businesses. With his strong believes in a better society he already helped millions of people to escape poverty.

Dear Mr. Yunus, thank you very much for your wonderful thoughts.

This was my first Trend Day and I really do regret to have missed all the other ones. Congratulations!

by Sören Stamer May 10, 2007 at 04:19 PM

Letzte Woche durfte ich auf der next07 in Hamburg über meine persönlichen Erfahrungen mit Enterprise 2.0 bei CoreMedia zu sprechen. Eine wirklich spannende Erfahrung: In all meiner Begeisterung ist mir beim Vortrag komplett das Zeitgefühl entglitten. Aus geplanten 30 Minuten wurden laut sevenload.de stattliche 47. Dankenswerterweise wurde ich dennoch nicht aus dem Raum getrieben. Es bleibt mir zu sagen: Meinen herzlichen Dank für die Geduld und all das nette Feedback.

Link: sevenload.com

Besonders dankbar bin ich Mark Pohlmann und Martina Pickhardt. Mark hat mich eingeladen, auf der gelungenen next07 zu sprechen, obwohl CoreMedia vorher kaum "im Web 2.0" sichtbar war . Und Tina hat mich als Moderatorin bestens gecoacht und mit viel Geduld ausreden lassen. Merci Euch Beiden! Das war 'ne runde Sache.

by Sören Stamer May 10, 2007 at 03:22 PM

Andrew McAfee makes an important point: "Busyness" doesn't fit into an Enterprise 2.0: The Pursuit of Busyness

I could not agree more. Every time I heard the phrase "I have no time to write a blog" was a clear indicator to me that something was wrong. Over the past two years we invested time and effort at CoreMedia to change this behavioral pattern within the management team and the whole company. We introduced spare time for peer groups to be used on their own account, plus quarterly open space workshops with the whole team. We encouraged people to write blogs and we changed our own behavior.

Well, it takes time to accept this freedom and I am sure that we have still room for improvement at CoreMedia.

by Sören Stamer April 26, 2007 at 08:19 PM

Germany loves Italian food, soccer, and cars. And Germany loves pets. Some parents complain that Germans might love their pets even more than their children, which sounds like a real tragedy.

But a small group of people seems really unloved in Germany: Entrepreneurs.

Klaus is one of those German entrepreneurs. He is a friend and a former colleague of mine, who first founded his company in Cambridge, UK and recently relocated to Hamburg. (Attention: I had to update the link due to a fault. Klaus founded Sierra Sensors after leaving Akubio.)

I met Klaus on Tuesday and learned something about one of my blind spots: Klaus told me that being an entrepreneur in Germany feels a lot different than in the UK. It was amazingly easy to start his company in the UK. There was only a little bureaucracy, helpful support by the government (even at the weekend!), and – most important – the good feeling to be respected by society.

Klaus does not feel the same since moving his company to Hamburg. He seems to be somewhat frustrated talking about all the jealousy and envy he receives day to day. ‘Entrepreneurs are not welcome in Germany’ is his alarming conclusion.

Well, I love to be an entrepreneur. It is such a great experience to build an enterprise that makes a difference for all the people involved – even in Germany.

It seems that I am so used to Klaus’ experiences that I am hardly aware of them anymore.

However, we have to change this poisoned attitude. I think it is dangerous for our society. It harms our ability as an open society to innovate and create a better life for all.

I vote for ‘Intrapreneurship’ (Thanks Ed for the hint). It looks like a far better model for the future. It works well not just for entrepreneurs.

by Sören Stamer April 22, 2007 at 03:18 PM

"NO ASSHOLES"

Everyone who is interested in a healthy corporate culture should have zero tolerance for assholes. Those who have the guts to stand up against certified assholes make the difference.

So if you want to work in a healthy corporate culture, fight for it!

by Sören Stamer April 02, 2007 at 07:53 PM

Does your company still surprise you - in a positive way - from time to time? Regularly? If so, when was the last time that you were deeply amazed by your colleagues?

Well, I recognized a fundamental change at my own company CoreMedia with regard to positive surprises. Since we started to transform to an Enterprise 2.0 my own perception is full of these and it feels absolutely fantastic.

Fortunately, the latest set of surprises at CoreMedia becoming an Enterprise 2.0 were documented by Axel Wienberg, a highly respected colleague of mine. Please enjoy!

I tend to believe that within a well-functioning self-organized environment positive surprises are ubiquitous - especially for the CEO. And this is good, since he or she won't limit the potential of the company by his or her own personal creativity anymore.

This feels so amazing. You will definitely know that you work for the right company if this happens to you.

by Sören Stamer March 28, 2007 at 12:21 PM

Die Computerwoche schreibt über Corporate Blogs in der Krise und Klaus Eck hinfragt schnell und gekonnt die journalistische Qualität ihrer Recherche. Was ist also dran an der Krise der Corporate Blogs aus Sicht eines bloggenden Unternehmers?

Kontrollverlust?

Zunächst einmal hat die die Computerwoche vollkommen recht: Für Unternehmen bedeutet der Erfolg der Blogosphäre einen spürbaren Kontrollverlust. Jeder Mensch mit einer eigenen Meinung – oder auch ohne – kann in Minuten einen Blog einrichten und sie für alle nachvollziehbar veröffentlichen. Andere können seine Aussagen in wenigen Minuten aufgreifen, unterstützen, hinterfragen, ablehnen, widerlegen, zerpflücken oder schlicht ignorieren. Die öffentliche Meinung bahnt sich ihren Weg – frei und unkontrolliert. Zukünftig wahrscheinlich noch schneller und intensiver als heute.

Für mich als Unternehmer hat diese Entwicklung einen sehr interessanten, weil weitreichenden Effekt. Man könnte sagen, sie ändert die „Regeln des Spiels“. Die Blogosphäre funktioniert wie eine riesige, extrem schnelle Feedbackschleife. Das Verhalten der Unternehmen wird laufend beobachtet, Abweichungen werden umgehend markiert und Fehlverhalten wird schonungslos aufgedeckt.

Ich bin mittlerweile überzeugt davon, dass Unternehmen durch die Blogosphäre in gewisser Hinsicht zu besseren Unternehmen werden. Unternehmen werden durch die Auswirkungen der Blogosphäre ehrlicher und kundenfreundlicher werden müssen, um zu bestehen – und das unabhängig davon, ob sie selbst bloggen oder nicht.

Unternehmen können natürlich versuchen, gegen diesen Kontrollverlust zu kämpfen. Doch das hat wahrscheinlich denselben Effekt wie schnelles Strampeln im Treibsand.

Hat man sich erstmal an den vermeintlichen Kontrollverlust gewöhnt, kommt man als Unternehmer recht schnell zu der Erkenntnis, dass man zwar keine Kontrolle über den öffentlichen Diskurs hat, aber dennoch Einfluss nehmen kann. Und zwar mit dem gleichen Werkzeug wie alle anderen: einem eigenen Blog. Dort kann man ebenfalls frei und unkontrolliert Themen setzen, Stellung beziehen, Aussagen hinterfragen, Dinge richtig stellen, den Dialog aufnehmen und sich bei Bedarf auch entschuldigen. Und einen Journalisten, der das dann dankenswerter Weise druckt, braucht man dafür nicht mehr.

Mit einem Corporate Blog gewinnt man eine Stimme in der Blogosphäre und kann sich eine eigene Reputation erarbeiten. Die Kontrolle erhält man natürlich nicht zurück. Doch das ist nicht weiter schlimm, denn in einer nicht mechanistischen Welt gilt sowieso: Reputation schlägt Kontrolle.

An dieser Stelle sei auch gesagt, dass ich keinesfalls alle Auswirkungen der Blogosphäre für wünschenswert und gut erachte, sondern einige Aspekte ablehne. Aus der Anonymität heraus andere zu beleidigen, ungerechtfertigt zu beschuldigen oder böswillige Gerüchte über sie in die Welt zu setzen ist eine Plage. Hoffen wir, dass es zukünftig zunehmend von Bloggern erwartet wird, dass sie ebenfalls zu ihren Aussagen stehen und sich als Individuum zu erkennen geben. Erst dann ist ein fairer Dialog möglich.

Engagement Einzelner?

Auch die Feststellung der Computerwoche, dass die Corporate Blogs in der Regel noch am Engagement Einzelner oder Weniger hängt, ist aus meiner eigenen Erfahrung nicht von der Hand zu weisen. Noch ist das vielfach so, auch bei CoreMedia.

Doch das wird nicht so bleiben. Gegenwärtig sammeln eine Reihe meiner Kollegen im Intranet erste Erfahrung beim Bloggen. Es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis sie auch „nach draußen“ bloggen und der Corporate Blog vom Engagement der gesamten Mannschaft getragen wird. Ich freue mich schon sehr auf die ersten Postings von Kollegen auf superdistribution.net.

Agenturen als Ghostwriter?

Von der Betreuung von Corporate Blogs durch Agenturen halte ich überhaupt nichts. Das wird aus meiner Sicht kläglich scheitern. Wer Authentizität aufgibt, entwertet seine Stimme vollends. Dann sollte man lieber nicht bloggen.

Geringe Resonanz?

Das ist richtig, doch das wird sich ändern. Auf den ersten Websites der Unternehmen in der Mitte der 90er Jahre war ebenfalls kaum Traffic zu finden. Heute ist ein Unternehmen ohne eigene Website kaum vorstellbar. Es macht sogar einen recht zwielichtigen Eindruck. Ich überlege mir zweimal, ob ich dort zurück rufe.

Mein Fazit

Für mich und das Unternehmen, das ich vertrete, ist Corporate Blogging und der dadurch eingeleitete gesellschaftliche Wandel eine fantastische Chance. Je enger wir mit unseren Kunden, Partner, Aktionären und der Öffentlichkeit im Dialog sind, desto kundenorientierter werden wir arbeiten. Neben persönlichen Gesprächen sind Blogs dafür bestens geeignet. Ich bin überzeugt, dass wir auf diese Weise viel schneller lernen werden als bisher. Langfristig werden wir nur mit der Qualität unserer Arbeit und unserer individuellen Unternehmenskultur überzeugen können.

In wenigen Jahren werden aus meiner Sicht alle namhaften Unternehmen einen Corporate Blog nutzen, um mit Aktionären, Kunden, Partner und der Öffentlichkeit zu kommunizieren. So kämpft Jonathan Schwarz von Sun bereits dafür, auch seine Adhoc-Pflichtmitteilungen zukünftig fair und transparent über seinen Blog zu veröffentlichen. Es wird so normal sein, wie eine eigene Unternehmenswebsite. Vermutlich wird die Grenze zwischen Website und Corporate Blog dabei sehr fließend sein.

Die Unternehmenskulturen werden sich in der Tat ändern müssen, um mit den gesellschaftlichen Wandel mithalten zu können. Wir werden erleben, wie das organische Paradigma das mechanistische (kontrollorientierte) verdrängt. Das bleibt sicher nicht ohne Folgen. Ich bin schon sehr gespannt.

Und darauf wette ich, bzw. habe ich schon gewettet: Liebe Tina, unsere Wette gilt: In 9,5 Jahren zählen wir die Blogs der Top 100 Unternehmen in Deutschland und schauen, ob ein Großteil davon einen Corporate Blog betreibt. Ich freue mich schon auf den Preis: das „neueste Gerät von Apple“ im Oktober 2016 :-)

by Sören Stamer March 17, 2007 at 07:44 PM

As an entrepreneur it is always a very inspiring opportunity to listen to Ben Verwaayen, the highly successful CEO of BT Group. Ben has managed the turn-around of BT Group and made it a bright star in its segment. Fortunately, he openly shares some of his insights with all of us.

Last Wednesday was such a day to remember - Ben Verwaayen gave the Keynote Speech at the International CeBIT Summit: “Embracing Change – The Untapped Potential of Technology”. Here are some of the insights that resonate most with me:

Choices in a globalized business environment
If you are an entrepreneur, the choice is yours about going global. You can be global at once if you want to, since it is easier than ever to work with people all over the globe, and start a global business. Through the Internet we have more and more options to employ workforces or to buy components anywhere in the world.

The next big thing: “Your time” vs. “our time”
Customers will be in the driver’s seat in the future. They will decide on the right time to access a service. It’s their choice, not ours anymore.

“Open” vs. “locked in”
Services have to be open to enable others to build on top of them and add value. If you try to lock users in you will fail sooner or later. (In a way, Apple looks like an exception to this rule. Well, I tend to believe that Apple knows very well, when and how to open up parts of their closed systems to strengthen their competitive position.)

Demand for “Integrity of an organization”
While we see more and more loosely coupled social groups on the Internet – e.g. Wikipedia with all of their contributors – enterprises have still a very distinct role: they are able to keep the privacy of sensitive information, and they are able to agree and deliver against service level agreements.

Leadership
Every CEO and CIO listening to his speech (or reading blogs) will take a lot of different aspects with him or her. Leadership means to choose. It is the ability to say “No”. Ben made perfectly clear what he meant with this: “Be authentic in your choices and have the guts to follow your instincts.”

Change Management
With regard to successful change management Ben pointed out three aspects: people, tone and risk taking. First, you need the right people at the right places. They have to have personality and meet highest ethical standards. Secondly, the tone of communication matters a lot. Does your style of communication appreciate other opinions, or not? Thirdly, are you and your team willing to take risks?

“Please the boss” vs. “please the customer”
Ben shared with us a great story about a weakness of BT Group as an organization. I guess this weakness is present in every other company as well. People want to please their bosses. Therefore, every idea and proposal is shaped in such a way, that the next level in the hierarchy should accept it. With every other level in the hierarchy things get worse. Therefore, a lot of innovative ideas will be crippled when they meet the eyes of the CEO.

Pleasing your CEO might sound like a good idea, but it’s not. If everyone wants to please the CEO the whole organization is just as smart as one person. “The limitation of your own brain limits the thinking of the whole organization.” You won’t get any unfiltered feedback.

As a leader you have to change this by encouraging people to think freely and have their own opinion. You have to be able to endorse things you do not understand. It is “the art of letting go”.

Harvesting the collective intelligence
BT Group has set up an internal video platform like “YouTube” where everyone can broadcast his/her ideas and get feedback from all over the world. Those ideas that resonate well with other have a good chance to be implemented regardless whether Ben might be a user.

The best input for CEOs
The best input you can get as a CEO is customer feedback. Customers that come to you when things go wrong will give you the deepest insights and an unfiltered view. Therefore, Ben has opened up his e-mail account to every one of BT’s customers.

Be unreasonable
As a CEO you have to stay totally unreasonable. It is a bad sign when you think everything is fine. You always need to have a bit of distance from your own company.

“Stars” vs. “movie directors”
Bosses should not be stars. They should be movie directors that help the stars to shine bright. The real stars are the people in front of the customer.

How to setup a global enterprise?
Distributed intelligence will outperform the client-server approach by far.

Dear Ben,
It has been a great pleasure to listen to your talk. Thank you very much for sharing your insights so openly with us. I am deeply impressed by your leadership and the corporate culture at BT Group. Therefore, I made a choice right after your speech: I want to win you and the BT Group as a customer and partner for CoreMedia. I share your vision and I am absolutely sure that BT’s and CoreMedia’s corporate culture will be a perfect fit.

Best regards,

Sören

by Sören Stamer March 17, 2007 at 10:08 AM

Are you part of the avant-garde, too? Those individuals that are always interested in visionary ideas, and innovations? Do you consistently explore the latest trends and try to understand their relevance for our future? Do you love change?

Well, if yes, you certainly know the biggest roadblock for great new ideas: denial.

In a fast changing world like ours, denial is still the rule and curiosity the exception.

The good news is: Peter Sondergaard from Gartner solved this problem for us. So you don't have to be frustrated anymore.

Recently, Peter gave a great speech at the International CeBIT Summit about the "Consumerization of IT". At the end Peter gave everyone in the room some good advice with regard to Web 2.0 and other trends:

1. Get out of denial.
2. Don’t try to stop this.
3. […]
4. Keep an open mind.
5. You ain’t seen nothing yet. (highlights by me)

Peter, thanks for this smart weapon against denial. I tried it yesterday in different situations and it really worked well. Most people opened up their minds and changed their perspective within minutes.

by Sören Stamer March 12, 2007 at 07:17 PM

Until a few weeks ago I thought content is king. It was one of the basic assumptions of CoreMedia. It made us successful in the first place. And it is still the holy grail of most if not all media companies as well. However, now I am sure, content is NOT king anymore. As an entrepreneur I recognized the importance of rethinking your basic assumptions constantly.

Eleven years ago I was a little nervous to have my first meeting with dpa, Germany's leading press agency. For me, dpa was an icon and still is. It is the most trusted source for German news in the world. Fortunately, the meeting went perfectly well. And with hindsight, I must say it was one of the most important meetings in CoreMedia's history.

Why is that? Well, CoreMedia was founded only a few weeks later and dpa became our very first customer. Being a spin-off of the computer science department of Hamburg University, the CoreMedia team had plenty of skills in designing and implementing superior software systems. However, we were still looking for a great problem to solve. Dpa told us about such a hairy beast: the future of multi-channel publishing. However, until we started to work with dpa, we had no clue about the media business at all.

At that time dpa was already in the heart of Germany's media for nearly fifty years. They understood perfectly the art and science of real-time news production and multi-channel delivery. And they made us think of information as a very valuable asset. We learned how to structure information to unleash its potential, how to manage it to process it in real-time, how to create value with content through distributed value chains and how to deliver it fast and reliably to every single customer.

Since then, CoreMedia's focus has been the development of software for real-time multi-channel content infrastructures. And the core idea of our software solutions is still the concept of Content being a very valuable asset as we have learned it from dpa eleven years ago. In other words: dpa has contributed a lot to CoreMedia's core idea by shaping CoreMedia's basic assumptions.

Last week I had the great pleasure to meet the team at dpa. Some of them are friends for more than a decade now. Christoph, Meinolf, Hubertus, Justus, Renate, Gerd and Kalle at dpa-info.com, a subsidiary of dpa, celebrated the tenth anniversary of our mutual project at Saliba, a very nice restaurant in Hamburg. It was great fun to meet them all, to tell war stories about the past and to think about the future. A great evening to remember. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Renate.

I am grateful for dpa's effect on CoreMedia. Now, it is time to reshape our basic assumptions. Let's do it together!

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.

by Sören Stamer September 22, 2006 at 05:29 PM

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwarz was in the news recently with his widely praised CEO blog. In the future, his blog posts will be translated into 11 languages to spread the news ideas even further. Jonathan takes blogging seriously:
"The blog has become for me the single most effective vehicle to communicate to all of our constituencies - developers, media, analysts and shareholders."

Dave Taylor has a different view: Why Jonathan Schwartz Should NOT Be Blogging.

"As much as I'm impressed by Jonathan's blog, I wonder how he has time to blog when he has a company that desperately needs management steered in the right direction."

And Dave made his point already last year: Why CEOs Shouldn’t Blog:

“The most important issue, however, is that the CEO is not the person in a company responsible for communicating with customers and the marketplace. Indeed, the traditional role of a Chief Executive Officer is to raise money. That's it. They're responsible for contributing to the strategic direction of the company, but most typically not the tactics.”

What about representing the company in public?
Well, I am with Jonathan. (Surprise ;-) Here is why:

Blogging is a force to be reckoned with. It is a social phenomenon that has the potential to change our society fundamentally. Customers, employees, shareholders, analysts, partners and even competitors will use it to express their views freely and with a personal touch.

CEOs do represent their company, and hence they do “communicate with customers”. In fact, they are the public face of the corporation. Think of Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Larry Ellison, Henry Ford, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates (everyone of these without a CEO blog, right?)

Will enterprises be able to ignore blogging? No, I don’t think so, just as enterprises were not able to ignore traditional media or the Internet in the first place.

Will CEOs be able to ignore blogging? In the short term, yes for sure. But I am convinced this will be different in the long run. Most CEOs are the public faces of their company already. And their CEO blogs are the logical next step.

Try to imagine business in the year 2020. Blogging is ubiquitous now. Nearly everyone does it, all of your employees, all of your customers and all of your shareholders. Enterprises have to deal with it. And you have to deal with it. Everyone uses a blog to communicate freely. Can you afford not to, when you’re the public face of your company?

CEOs make public announcements and CEOs give public speeches without lawyers dictating their words. That is daily business. Why shouldn’t CEOs post their opinions on a personal blog? Could be a great competitive advantage, if you do it right.

It is too dangerous? Well, life is a learning experience.

by Sören Stamer July 16, 2006 at 11:31 PM

My name is Sören Stamer and I am an Entrepreneur. Actually, I am CEO and Co-founder of CoreMedia and this is my blog. Well, it is not. It is more than that; it is my company's blog. So you will find postings of various CoreMedia colleagues including myself here. We will write about diverse topics from web 2.0 to company development and we share a joint vision: any content, anywhere, in a trusted universe.

Being an Entrepreneur for more than ten years now had definitely some effects on my thinking. I learned a number of lessons about leadership, the importance of a strong corporate culture and my role in it. Today I believe that these are the most important topics for an Entrepreneur anyway.

I tested three hypotheses:
1. A company's corporate culture is its most important strategic weapon.
2 The corporate culture has to be a core part of the company strategy.
3. The CEO's behavior and his or her personality strongly influence the corporate culture. To chance the latter the CEO has to change the first.

If these three hypotheses were valid a CEO has a difficult task to handle: proactively developing his or her personality.

And in fact today I am strongly convinced that these hypotheses are true. So I had to start with myself to make a difference. This insight was the beginning of a very special journey. Stay tuned.