Oliver Gassner: Digitale Tage

Networking definiert unsere Gegenwart: Das globale Netzwerk Internet, die Netzwerke zwischen Menschen.

Can your enterprise cope with the complexity of creativity and communication in a globally networked environment?

Enterprises fail if they use too much control over communications.

Web 2.0 works because there is less control: you can link & comment etc. You don't have to ask first.

lvetzsream at Mogulus:

http://www.mogulus.com/cmarena

Sören relates his experience of a 'workshop without a boss' with other entrepreneurs. And with a workshop with the management team that was trying to emulate that experience. About signals at Coremedia, that something was going wrong although C. was successful.

"I realized that I have no team but silos not working as a team. Departments are a problem, not a solution."

?: What do we have to change to be productive again? -> Everything. -> Create a new structure.

* Get rid of departments
* people work for projects
* invite everyone capable of management
* re-create a management team 'bottom up'
* 30 people defined "who the best person for a job was"
* "Step forward if you would like to be a manager." -> get feedback -> open assessment
* feedback from eers in groups of five: "I am a five" -> "no you are maye a two."
* all groups evaluated a people (once with them being there, then without them being there)
* we had to be clear what was good and what was not good
* "Who is not in line with his feedback?" -> direct feedback
* Create a proposal for the management team
* After 3.5 hours w/o the board members present the team of 30 they had a proposal
* everyone agreed
* -> a new connection by employees and Coremedia,
* Interviews and Open Space (once a quater)
* people from different departments understood each other
-> "one idea of the world", you get faster

Coremedia has a 'Google rule', that people can work on pet projects on part of their time
-> 30 projects that had been discussed at the Open Space were all implemented, under way or part of something bigger.

-> You don't have to PUSH persons, the manage themselves IF you give them 'open spaces'.

Now Coremedia invites external persons, customers, consultants, advisory board members, bloggers etc. -> The best workshop we ever had.

Opening up your company is the best you can do.

"Up to now everything was face 2 face."

Now: a group blog system, where you can see the ideas of the company. "I look at it once a day."

Last year at the cebit some people were bloggen -> everyone wanted to have a blog.

- Have pictures of yourself beside the entry.
- Voting system for entries
- people finders -> find people who think like me
- expert finder: who has the best reputation for ....
- most blog posts are internal
- adjust visibility: internally, partners/customers, public
- there is no approval process, "don't do anything stupid" is the only rule
- "it is a open system that leatrns and learns and learns"
- partners and customers can blog there, too


Blogging takes time, video is much easier and faster.

Document a meeting: "What did you learn today at the meeting?"

Video brings the emotions across much easier than writing.

Sören explains twitter. And how it helped answer bis problems, how they implemented for enterprise communication.

"If you put a --t-- in front of the internal twitter massage it goes to the public twitter."

Now I have a good feeling, I stay connected to many events in my company. We have more of an understanding that we are one compan, have one goal. And we move faster.

New view: "An enterprise is a brain, not a machine."

It is not about controlling 'parts'. Everything is connected. No single neuron knows about your ideas, bt the brain as a whole creates your cosciousness. MY company now works like a brain.

The internet as a whole can work this way. It made people react to global warming: the same person got a Nobel Prize, a Grammy and an Oscar in one year.

***

Discussion:
* More information solves the problem of information overflow.
* (Some hints on twitter management.)
* We don't use pocasts and focus on video.
* We use FAQ-Wiki-Pages. Disussing topics and documentations are two different modes.
* The problem was not the company but my way of management. I had to learn to trust my employees. This was the hardest part.
* It is more risky for Coremedia not to change than to change: we understand the market better and we are faster. This helps us.
* An insurance company will implement the Coremedia blogging platform.
* I have less control now, but my ideas have more impact.
* we created company achievement bonuses: if we succeed everyone gets something