Esther from our Barcelona office says: After completing the migration, we packed up our PCs, tables and chairs, locked the old office doors one last time and went purposefully to The new XING office in Barcelona.

Several weeks have already passed since we moved to this sunny and well located office. There are still some boxes to unpack, but we are already working hard to improve our workspace. Step by step we have everything we need to get going, so now it's time for us to share our adventure with all of you.

The good news is: we now have a faster Internet connection, the wooden technical floor is now covered by a pretty gray carpet and the coffee machine is steaming. I might say that some of us have waited anxiously for this basic device! Needless to say, beginnings have never been easy, but we have overcome it with a lot of enthusiasm.

We love being here and we invite you all to visit us: our door is open! ;)

¡El equipo de XING España estrena oficina en Barcelona!

Una vez finalizada la Migración empezamos a empaquetar nuestros PC´s, mesas y sillas, y nos dirigimos a nuestro destino: "las nuevas oficinas de XING en Barcelona".
Han transcurrido varias semanas desde que nos instalamos en esta soleada y céntrica oficina. Todavía quedan algunas cajas por desempaquetar y pequeños detalles para crear nuestro propio espacio de trabajo, pero poco a poco todo avanza y nos apetece mucho compartirlo con vosotros.

Últimas novedades desde Barcelona: nuestra conexión a Internet es más rápida, el suelo está cubierto por una bonita moqueta gris y la máquina de café no para de echar humo, para algunos de nosotros la llegada de este pequeño aparato ha supuesto una gran diferencia!! Qué más decir, los comienzos nunca han sido fáciles pero hemos afrontado el reto con mucha ilusión.

 Nos encanta estar aquí y os invitamos a visitarnos: La puerta está abierta para todos ;)

This week, Mireille, our new Online Product Designer, tells us about her first few weeks at XING.

Mireille (Product & Engineering): I just received an email from a friend of mine saying, “You’re working at XING now? It never occured to me that a team of real people actually work there.” To be honest, it came as a surprise to me as well just how many people work here, and I only had a very rough idea of what over 100 employees did exactly. Of course, after four weeks in the job I have a slightly better idea, but am still learning so much on a daily basis. I work as an Online Product Designer and form the interface between Design, Usability and Product Management. It is particularly exciting in this interdisciplinary function to reconcile the broad range of our professional target group’s groups with our international focus. Cultural differences play an important role here. For the last 8 years I’ve worked on a freelance basis for various different agencies and clients. Not a day goes by when I don’t think how right it was to switch over to the company side – and end up working for such a great company. It is brilliant to see everyone working together in unison for the same goals.
Funnily enough, I found my new job through XING Marketplace. I studied Fashion Design – unbelievable to think that there wasn’ta computer in sight in many industries back then. I’m glad I chose to specialise in Multimedia early on, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be at XING now :).

Interested in working at XING? Have a look at our job site – there are currently 36 job openings.

Hmm…who in my network is working in Budapest? I'm fairly sure I don't know anyone there. A click later, and I know better: Michael from my former company is now working in Hungary. What a surprise! And look here: James seems to have moved to Sydney! So. How does this work?

Today we will release a new map view of your professional network. Now you can display the business addresses of your professional contacts – at least those who've allowed their geographic position to be displayed – on a world map. Just navigate to your Address Book and click on ‘Map’ in the second level navigation. This way you get a good idea of how your contacts are spread out around the globe. You can zoom in and out, hide groups of contacts, filter your old MBA class (provided you've tagged them in your Address Book), and so on.

So just by zooming and scrolling through the map, one discovers a new dimension of the business network. It is certainly fun and very addictive. But it creates value as well! The map view (based on Google Maps) gives you background knowledge about your network: Which of my old business acquaintances could I meet with in Chicago next week when I am there for a conference? Where in the world are my contacts at my partner company located? You can find out in a jiffy with the new map view.

At first, you might wonder what's to be gained by mapping your contacts. Apart from the reasons above, I think this is an excellent opportunity to innovate. Just by actually taking this first step, you'll find out what more you could do! Meshing location data and social networking data definitely opens up new possibilities in value creation. I can't wait to see what's next.

... and now I have to zoom around a little bit more.

Today Nelly - our Country Manager for GCC - describe her "Piece of XING"  far away from Hamburg. (click on the image to enlarge)

In last week’s interview, Caglar spoke about the development of the Internet in Turkey and the Turkish online market in general. Now read what he has to say about the Dos and Don’ts of doing business in Turkey, Turkish networking habits and the cember.net user base.

1. Is there anything that non-Turkish business people who want to do business in Turkey and make contacts with Turkish business people should keep in mind?

Caglar: We love to help others, so when you contact a Turkish business person, he or she will definitely support as much as possible – this way you can find opportunities you never thought of before. Sincerity is also very important when communicating with Turkish people. Using a friendly approach rather than a formal one would help. Being humble is appreciated in interpersonal communication, so don’t talk big.

2. How would you characterize Turkish networking habits?

Caglar: Turkey is a Mediterranean country, and people are warm blooded. Then again, it is not always easy for Turkish people to set up the initial contact in real life, which is the basis of expanding a personal network. I think that’s why cember.net has been so successful in Turkey: It’s easier to take the first step online, and as Internet penetration increases and online habits mature, people benefit more and more from online networking.

3. What benefits can XING bring to cember.net users?

Caglar: The main benefit will be to give cember.net users the opportunity to network on a worldwide scale. Turkey's geographical position facilitates it to act as the bond between the western and eastern worlds. XING will be an excellent starting point for cember.net users by allowing them to tap into the potential of doing business between these two worlds. In addition, XING frequently designs new and advanced features, which will certainly benefit cember.net users.

Forget about “Google7”, there’s nothing more dangerous for your sweet tooth and your sporty figure than working at XING!

It somehow became a nice tradition that every now and then XING’s birthday girls and boys bring some cake along to the office to celebrate their special day with us. And the good thing is that as our team has grown and grown over the past four years, the number of birthdays has of course increased too. Yay! On the other hand I have to admit it’s pretty hard to resist the temptation and the yummy smell of a delicious cake at 9:30am.

We´re looking to even more birthday boys and girls. Take a look at our job offers ;)

This week it’s Johannes, our new Manager Business Intelligence:

Johannes (Product & Engineering): Before starting at XING six weeks ago, I was working as a consultant in the field of Business Intelligence – at a management consultancy firm. Although it was actually Sociology I studied at university, which is where I first became interested in analyzing social networks. This was a major factor involved in my decision to apply for the open position at XING. I was ideally looking for a job that unites both Business Intelligence and Social Networking – and now I’ve found one that really fits the bill exactly! In my eyes, XING is the top address when it comes to networks, and I’m really pleased to have been accepted for the position. What is it I particularly like about my new job? I enjoy the fact that I’m a part of something that is continuously evolving and being enhanced into something new. That’s so much more interesting than working, say, in the BI department at a company based around systems that haven’t changed for the past 20 years. I’m also glad that I was fully integrated into the team from day 1, rather than treated like an intern. I’m an outsider in one sense though: The only “Werder Bremen” fan in a team otherwise full of “HSV” fans! This hasn’t stopped me joining the XING football team though; the first training session is next week.

XING is currently offering 32 jobs, from Product to Corporate Development. Have a look at our job offerings here.

Today Microsoft announced the German launch of its new Internet Explorer 8 beta 1, and we’re proud to report that XING is among the initial launch partners. The new Internet Explorer comes with two new great functions, “WebSlices” and “Activities”. Just in time for the launch, we have made sections of the XING website available as Webslices (visitors to my profile, messages and contacts to confirm). We’ve also decided to offer the XING keyword search as an “Activity” integrated into IE8.

First, to the “WebSlices”: Users of the new internet explorer can keep track of new users that have visited their profile or of new messages or contact request that have arrived, just by clicking on the tab at the top of the page.

What’s more, the XING “Activity” allows IE8 users to highlight any keyword on any website and do a XING search by clicking their right mouse key – choose “Find on XING” and you will get the number of XING search results that match your key word.

The XING team is looking forward to yet more office space: Over the coming weeks, among others the ‚Product’ and ‚Engineering’ departments will be packing up their Mac´s and PC´s and moving to their brand new home in these renovated rooms on the fifth floor of our Hamburg head office. Looks like a floorwarming party ahead ;)

You may have noticed that XING was temporarily offline earlier on this afternoon. We have analyzed and solved the problem which occurred during enhancement of our platform's performance and are pleased to report that it has now been fixed and that the platform is fully operational once again. We apologize for any inconvenience.