Schönes Fundstück (via Dezeen): Der Südkoreanische Designer Jinil Park bastelt Tische, Stühle und Lampen aus Stahldrähten, die so aussehen wie Strichzeichnungen.
Im vergangenen Jahr habe ich meinen Blog wiederbelebt. Was ich in den Jahren 2003-2005 angefangen hatte (und dann ruhen liess) sollte sich nun von Reiseerfahrungen hin zu etwas Hintergründigerem bewegen. Menschliches Miteinander, Teamkultur, Führungsstile und Selbstmanagement sind Themen, die mich im aktuellen Lebensabschnitt umtreiben. Sowohl im geschäftlichen als auch im familiären Privatalltag.
Während viele interessante Themen aufkamen, waren das Aus-Denken und Ausformulieren bis hin zu einem fertigen Post oft blockiert. Eines schien immer leiden zu müssen: Die Post-Frequenz oder deren Qualität. Continue reading “Switching to Mother Tongue – Ab hier Muttersprache”
A while ago I stumbled over an appealing idea: Use LEGO for calendaring. It makes planning across a team easier, delivers instant overview and adds a tactile element which makes the whole thing much more fun.
I did a quick research which showed that the idea is not brand new. Many people have created calendars by putting colored bricks on LEGO plates, but the most appealing one – how I find – is the one from a London agency “vitamindesign”. I quickly want to show you how that works.
November 9th 1989
Our country’s history took a great turn 24 years ago: The barrier which separated Germans from Germans for over 28 years finally fell. I was born in GDR and therefor remember that day with special pride.
This event shows how powerful people can be. After weeks of civil unrest and months of demonstrations, the GDR government announced that everybody would be allowed to travel into Western Germany and West Berlin.
Last weekend I had the chance to go skydiving again, the second time this year (see some photos,Thanks Chris Ko for shooting with your GoPro!). Sounds great, but for a frequent skydiver, that’s a pretty desperate number. As it has been this way throughout the last 3 years, I did not really develop my free flying skills the way I hoped. It’s like with every sports or music instrument: As long as you practice frequently enough and train hard, your skills improve very fast in short time. Just let go for some weeks or a few months and you feel like a beginner again. You’ll need to train much harder to get back to your previous level. Continue reading “Relax. It’s not always a competition!”
“How hard would it be…?” – Managing Complexity Cost
“How hard would it be…?” and “can’t you just…” are questions I’m just too familiar with. Leading the software department for our 21+ car2go locations and increasing moovel cities, I get to know all the ideas for cool new features, operational improvement wishes or backlog items we always wanted to realize. But it’s good not to jump on everything right away. On the long run, it pays off to thoroughly analyze every new idea and its potential implementation strategies to identify complexity cost. The goal is to not let this hidden cost pile up as technological debt which makes every refactoring a night mare and introduction of new features more complex.
In his article, Kris Gale (kgale) points out ways to identify and manage that complexity cost. He provides real-world examples, shows that the “value is in what gets used, not what gets built” and focuses on simplicity on product management and implementation. A good read for you and definitely for your colleagues!
Read more here: https://firstround.com/article/The-one-cost-engineers-and-product-managers-dont-consider
ABC of Living Decisions
[Update] This post from June 13th, 2013 came to mind due to a trigger lately. So I want to bring it to your attention. I’ve been re-structuring and updating it for you.
I’m writing this post based on experiences I had within the last weeks. Achieve clarity within our organization with good decision making and carry out a change in a constructive and sustainable way.
I’ve noticed both good and bad examples for a base skill I’ve taken for granted: Living decisions.
Keep on reading for my thoughts on staying authentic and building trust in your decision-making skills!
Give guidance and clarity with good decisions.
Making decisions in a complex environment can be tough. Having to make them might be a high pressure. That shouldn’t keep you from making them. In turn, I find it even more important to bring guidance into an organization with precise decisions when the environment resembles a jungle for everyone else.
Continue reading “ABC of Living Decisions”
We arrived perfectly right in the Beaujolais region in France for a special weekend: Selected farmers open their gates to the public to show their love for the food they produce. It’s called “De ferme en ferme” – meaning “From farm to farm” and a great chance to get an insight on how they work and what their own approach for delicious local specialities is.
What I really enjoy is tasting the true French local products. But it’s not primarily about eating, it’s discovering the variety of wines, cheeses, vegetables and much more you can grow with a solidary, sustainable, high quality engagement using only local ingredients.
Continue reading ““De Ferme en Ferme” – Open Farm Weekend in France”
Getting everything set up for April 26th meant a new challenge for our team. We had rolled out 8 cities before, but with 1000 smart vehicles, the fleet was more than double the size of any other car2go city before. Everything was prepared perfectly by the rollout team, people from every department supported the tight plan – and we made it! From 5 hubs we distributed 200 vehicles (each) in 2,5 days.
The first anniversary is a good opportunity to pull up the flickr photo set again. Enjoy!