Innovation is a passion. And you can get addicted to it. But it is a positive addiction.
When you think about a certain business, a company or a product….you should always ask yourself what is next? How can I create additional value for my customers or user? In the online world you can think every day about new things. It is really difficult to focus on what is important to change, especially if the business is running good. That is the best time to think about innovation. And you should every day ask yourself “what can we do better”. But most important is to ask the user or customer. This should be the center of any innovation….
Product Management
1992 - Present
Change Management
2005 - Present
Business Development
1993 - Present
Online Communities
2005 - Present
Digital Strategy
2001 - Present
User Experience
2003 - Present
Mobile Solutions
2007 - Present
Scrum
2007 - Present
Social Web
2005 - Present
User Innovation
2004 - Present
SEO
2006 - Present
E-Commerce
2001 - Present
Online Marketing
2001 - Present
Media Production
1986 - Present
Product Management (B2B, B2C), • Effectively managing the product portfolio & online platform in central Europe within B2B and B2C, incl. job board, database, community network, apps, mobile products, cloud service (SEO, UX, Search, Social Media)) • Developing new regional products from conception to realization in co-operation with sales teams and customers (product innovation) • Introducing new global products with local adoptions • Developing and introducing new business segments in co-operation with sales, marketing and general management (business development) • User centric realization of products & projection with internal and external agile teams (Scrum) • Member of the Senior Management Team for Monster D-A-CH • Managing country responsibilities for Ger, AT, CH, I, NL
Directing product management online and mobile portal, apps, search, HR software solutions, job board, database, social recruiting products for central Europe.
Global product management for vertical products, Magix Online Community, Magix Academy and user experience / dialog.
Global product management for software & online / cloud services, mobile apps, building up a Magix online community and Magix Academy, company innovation & research (market research, product and UX testing),
Product management for software & online services, direction of PR, communication, editorial, building up the e-Commerce channel.
Product management and marketing for software product portfolio and managing cooperation with key customers.
Product management for key consumer software products.
Acquisition of partnerships, marketing & event strategy consulting for clients, direction and coordination of media ad production.
Development of new product concepts, marketing strategy consulting for clients and direction and coordination of media ad production.
Foundation of a new record label including business plan, marketing strategy, cooperation with sponsors and distribution partners.
I worked with many very creative teams in the last twenty years. And there was no day without any new idea. The fantastic thing about new ideas in the online world is: you can test it! The user can decide himself if there is a great value for him behind a great idea. The user is the center of any product development.
Ten years ago I can remember there was always a fight between departments: fight for resources, for responsibilities and for dependencies as well as discussions about “who’s fault is it”. Cross-functionality is a great opportunity to focus on common goals, to share responsibilities and to get a commitment from each involved individual.
Any change is starting with people and mindsets. You cannot transform a product into something new if the responsible team is not supporting the idea of change. And this is not related to product management or development teams only. Agile principles work in any part of the company and as more people support this as better it will work.
It is great fun to work with online products. Thinking about offline software product cycles in the late 90s is still making me crazy. You worked a year for a new release and half a year to fix all the bugs. To get valid feedback from users was a long painful process. Today online products are created in “real time”, cycles are shorter and requirements can change multiple times a year. But the passion for this kind of products is still the same.
Mobile devices are becoming the most important access to the Internet. Sure, still there are use cases that are difficult to handle via a usual smart phone. But the classification borders between smart phones, tables and notebooks are disappearing more and more. You can use any device mobile. The Internet is transferring into the main content enabler.
Some stuff I have done so far...
I was honored to contribute a chapter to this new book about open source innovation (phenomenon, participant's behavior, business implications), edited by Prof. Dr. Herstatt and Daniel Ehls from the TIM team at the Hamburg Universitz of Technolgy. My article provides some insights what motivates participants of online communities to contribute for free. The book shows open source innovation from multiple perspectives with all its different facetts including an article by Eric von Hippel professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management (the power of participation motives). The book will be available at the 3rd of April 2015.
Innovation and change management are key success factors of any company in any line of business, I try to give a very simple definition and personal view how I experienced both elements in the last years.
My German team and me developed this lean and clean approach for a job board platform in a very short time frame based on a long time UX study and agile project framework.
OPEN publicjobs
On my bilingual blog I release posts about product management, change management, the mobile and social web and recruiting.
BLOG
I had the pleasure to do several presentations and workshops for Monster at the Zukunft Personal 2014 in Cologne, mostly related to the future of recruiting and the latest product innovations in the market.
This article was written based on a roundtable of key players from the German online recruiting market (starting page 8).
ARTICLE as PDF
In the beginning of 2012 I released my doctoral thesis: Online communities in the interactive Web, driven by changed usage patterns, have become a potent means of identifying user needs and solution ideas, thereby supporting companies to innovate. That is especially the case for online communities that are related to particular products or brands. My research focuses on innovative user activities in such virtual communities mainly dedicated to tangible (physical) consumer products. Most fundamentally I analyze the motivation to innovate and contribute to online communities voluntarily. The results support companies in understanding online community members relating to the company’s brand or products as active resource and in improving the integration of such users. Thus results provide a foundation for the development of specific incentives and tools that stimulate user activities.
In 2012 I presented at the Hofburg in Vienna about the online transformation of brands.
PRESENTATION on slideshare
In 2011 I had the great honor of getting an article through the validation for the ZFB journal. ZFB is one of the most credible and famous German scientific magazines in business economics. Together with my Ph.D. supervisor Prof. Dr. Herstatt and my research fellow Prof. Dr. Christina Raasch we have written an empirical approach categorizing motivation in online communities. The goal was to make such user motivation measurable and usable for companies.
During my research project on user motivation to innovate in online communities I was interviewed by the HBM in late 2010. One important finding was that attention by others is a very important incentive for such innovators, more important than any material rewards.
In my research about user innovation I identified a phenomenon that I described as "Open Motivation".
Open motivation is not a complete new finding. In view of motivation psychology it is more a specific mindset you can observe at user in product related online communities. Based on the changed usage patterns and new technological option in the social Web, open motivation is an opportunity for companies to influence users and to integrate them in their value chain.
When I started remixing old Beatles tracks with techno grooves in 1992 I did not seriously believe that we could do any official release. But the idea was stronger and so after a longer fight I finally received support from EMI Publishing that owned the publishing rights at this time. Of course I have not been allowed to use the original recordings, but there was the rumour that Mr. Paul McCartney himself listened to the demo and liked it. So however, we re-recorded the track with the Beatles Revival Band - maybe the best Beatles cover band ever. The track was picked by Virgin Records in 1994 and released in Germany and UK. The most experts predicted a number one hit - but it wasn't. For the most radio stations the Beatles still have been a sacred cow - they did not play the song.
I have written and produced the song in 1991 for my formation "D-Parture". The track was released on the Sony Dancepool music label as CD, 7inch and 12inch record and reached several top positions in dance charts of five European countries. Recording and production was done at Acoustic Arts Studio close to Frankfurt with the former Frank Farian sound engineer Tammy Grohé.
