Sarik, our VP corporate sales, came back from a business trip with a special present for us:  the eco Award 2006, which openBC has won in the category "Sonderpreis der deutschen Internetwirtschaft" (special award of the German internet business), while Google was awarded in the category innovation.  Sarik had picked up the award on behalf of openBC at the ceremony in Cologne.   
                                 
We feel very honoured, especially now that we know that the award is a people' s choice award: openBC was elected by the readers of the magazine "Internet World business".  This is our second eco Award by the way. In 2004 we were awarded for our successful business model. So when Sarik got up on stage to accept the award, he just had to grab the microphone to say a quick  "Thank you".  The rest of the openBC team would like to join in!

The new AOL mantra?: Cancel the account. Cancel the account. Cancel the account...

tag: openblog

Customer service is that what I am doing with my time.

At Supernova Craig did a look back by asking himself what they’ve done to be successful. He compared CraigsList with a flea market, where people can sell and buy, but also have a chat with others.

But “we do suffer from problems”, Craig confessed.

They’ve been amongst other things hit by scammer and by people operating in an organised from. The only way he sees to handle the situation is, if “users police the site” for you. For Craig people are trustworthy and “we are fighting that the wisdom of crowds works.”

He, remembering the time when he wasn’t in the centre of media attention, made his point by appealing the supernova audience “treat others like you want to be treated and include people”

And what’s Craig doing next?
"I count on doing customer support only for the rest of my life. After that, it's over.”

tag: openblog supernova2006

Click here to catch some live (audio stream)moments of Supernova.

For blogcast, videocast and whatevercasts just move your cursor here.

tag: openblog supernova2006

Let me share something with you: I am a victim.

I am a victim of meaningless conversations. I am not in great danger, but I am helpless. The worst thing is that I nearly give up bringing in context in a conversation.

Couple a days ago  I had this written conversation:

Him: (very polite) I am selling ads and want to talk to you about advertisements.

Me: (very polite) Thank you very much for your offer, but on openBC advertisements are strictly prohibided - wich our member by the way really appreciate - and so unfortunately I can´t give you a positive answer.

Him: (still very engaged) Are you really really sure that you´re  not interested in my offer? Please let´s talk, this could be of high interest for you.

Me: (a bit irritated checking my answers I´ve sent) Sorry for making it not clear to you, we here are not interested in advertisement. Thank you.

Him: (unhappy) What a pitty. I wanted to give advertisements to you.

Me: ...

tag: openblog noads

Supernova kicked off this morning half past eight with a very speedy workshop format (demo of  5 companies, 6 minutes each), and I didn´t have a coffee yet. Geez!

Jeff Clavier is moderating this early morning session and has a sharp look on his watch. He just stopped Plaxos Ben Golub from presenting.

The companies here, like imeem, eSnips, Plum, Netvibes and Plaxo, are offering services taming the torrent of information, converge it and mostly manage all the aspects of our digital life.

Well, every company is coming up with a different solution and understanding of information overload and how to deal with.

I am actually wondering again, if I upload all my information to one of these tools, at the end of the day do I still own this information? Or is this the price I have to pay for "The Wisdom of Crowds"?

tag: openblog supernova2006

Yesterday at 3.50pm the openBC HQ came alive with the setting up of the projector and discussion about who bet what for the big game - Germany vs. Ecuador. Germany became a ghost land, everyone made their way to the nearest bar, office, garden or fan fest to watch the match, even our phones stopped ringing. The next two hours were spent on the edge of our seats watching Germany cruise to their third victory, winning Group A - Germany 3:0 Ecuador!

But the fun did not end there. England vs. Sweden commenced at 9pm and us expats made our way to bars to support our teams and 60,000 England fans took over Cologne for the night! With a 2:2 draw, England wins Group B and will face Ecuador in the next round and Sweden must play against the hosts, Germany.

Our little betting group here at HQ consists of 16 people and after last nights matches the girls are dominating the top three places (...oléoléoléoléééeeé):

1. Sally Nutt (me :-) 66 points
2. Dagmar Muth 64 points
3. Chrisulla Sindi 63 points

So the spirits are high and the betting has begun for the second round. Hmm ... I think 2:0 to England is a good bet, what do you think?

For photos of openBC in footie fever click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/openbc/171870543/in/set-72157594172737145/

In case you don´t trust have an identity fraud protection.

tag: openblog

"Users are becoming active co-creators of their media, commerce, entertainment, and communications experiences...How are business and social interactions likely to change in the era of peer production, and what are the implications for both newcomers and existing industries?"

I just came across the introduction of the first panel after Supernova kicked off. I know, this is probably one of the most discussed topics from Greenland to New Zealand. I know, nothing new... but hey, did someone find an answer then?!

Hell yes, let our members become an active part of the development of openBC. But hell no, don´t let us end in a roller coaster, discussing everything to death (I am sure some of us have a favour for it).

I´ve read every single comment after this post, and honestly I am stuck at the moment what to do with this precious feedback. My gut feeling says that this is only the peak of an iceberg. We have hundreds of hundreds registrations for our DesignChallenge already.

It´s all good to engage users in participating, but does anyone have a common understanding, of how to implement a fair and successful process that leads into results?!

Any ideas? Don´t make me us say or even think "we´ll put that on our list".

Hell, no!

tags: openblog openDesign Supernova

Let me know if you´re around! I am attending Supernova. Would be great to see you. ;-)

openblog Supernova

Web2.0 has a new friend: the NSA (very scary Homepage). In the latest edition of New Scientist they bring a great article about "Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites". Thanks god we live in Europe, where we don't have somehting like the partiot act, we have real privacy and real dataprotection.

I am sure that is only the first of a series of privacy events we will see in the web2.0 space.

I hope it doesn´t say anything rude, shocking or is simply the name for a traditional Swedish dish. Please let me know just in case of ;-)

To the best of my non existing Swedish knowlegde I am happy to announce that we won a great price in Sweden, accorded by a big IT magazine.

Kudos to all our Swedish and Scandinavian members who made openBC a success in the North. After all I´ve heard it was a pretty tough competition between these successful communities.

"Sveriges första riktiga business-nätverk erbjuder affärsnytta på en snygg och välbyggd plattform. Det är 100 procent affärskontakter och 100 procent seriöst - en riktigt bra nätverkssajt."

Found on alarm:clock for you.

openblog

A big German magazine is writing an indepth article about openBC. Since we already covered all business aspects, we´re looking for interview candidates who can tell surprising, unexpected and interesting things or stories about openBC that nobody would expect.

Ping me today or tomorrow, if you´d like to share your story with us.

openblog

We have just broken through 100 signups to openDESIGN.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Thanks Robert!

If you know what´s behind the wisdom of the crowds then this challenge might be up your street, or knock your designer socks off.

We at openBC think it´s time for a new look & feel! Instead of talking about web-tuh-point-oh, we´re talking about something much bigger here.

We´re talking about the openBC 3.0 release.

openDESIGN is not a contest. It´s a challenge.

Can you beat our designs?

Want to win 10,000 Euro?

Let submit your details here and we´ll be in touch within the next 2 weeks when we have finalised the details.

[openBC 1.0]

[openBC 2.o]

[openBC 3.0]

? ? ?

tags: reboot8 openDESIGN

Just finished speaking at reboot.

Very enjoyable crowd with good insightful questions as to what we are doing with social software in general and also to what degree we are  going to be able to capture the wisdom of the crowds with our web-design challenge.

I am hoping we will get lots of entries and lots of voters and that we can prove this as a valid way of creating a new way of gaining new impact from social software as a prototype for even better things to come.

Bill

Reboot just started some minutes ago after the introduction of Thomas Madsen-Mygdal. Currently Michael Thomsen is speaking the key note about renaissance of the web, but honestly, it´s not easy to follow his really great ideas since he´s reading his whole speech from his papers and unfortunately it´s not inspiring me.

Currently Thomas runs around with his mic asking the audience about the big question(s) we should ask ourselfes during the following next 2 days. I wrote some down for you:

It´s actually all gonna happen?
How can we be more honest with the users?
Where are the life boats on our titanic?
What do we already know about the future?
What is going to happen to our organisations?
What will our children think about this/us?

Funny here listening to side conversations. This morning I heard a German guy saying very proud to a journalist of one of the leading German magazines, that he´s offering something much better than myspace, youtube and openbc all together. Now I am intested and looking forward he delivers everything he promised. /Daniela

technorati tags: reboot8, reboot