We’ve just returned from the DLD conference in Munich, our heads buzzing with new insights, inspirations and ideas. Here’s a recap of the DLD with our own “reality” recap:

1) Current reality: One of the key “reality” topics this year was the current financial & economic crisis, which by the way is also the inspiration behind our current marketing campaign.

2) Some realities repeat themselves: This year we were once again proud sponsors of the DLD 2009 and powered the lunch break on the main day.

3) Real truths: What’s that saying? “The way to (someone’s) heart is through their stomach” – well we hope we managed to warm the delegates´ hearts and fill their stomachs this year, whilst giving them some great XING merchandising and branding to look at the same time.  A XING networking lunch at DLD 2009 was a great match. See images below:

4) Really good: This year there was yet again a bustling crowd, so there were lots of happy faces when we handed round XING seat cubes for people to take a breather. We also kitted out the cool DLD goody bags with swish XING branded Moleskine notebooks, which was apparently the best article in the bag:

5) Reality talks: The range of subjects discussed was as diverse as ever, ranging from “Software” to “Internet Politics” and “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely – all giving us plenty of food for thought. Particularly interesting from a marketing point of view was Dan Ariely’s take on how people would behave if they acted in a completely rational way. There were a few legends in our midst too – Edwin Moses and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahnemann, who really impressed with their panel discussions.

6) Reality check: All in all, this year’s DLD 2009 were 2 and a half jam packed inspiring days that saw the top thinkers of our generation come together. Looking forward to next year!

“It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know” – yes it’s a cliché but like it or not there’s always some truth behind clichés.

For example did you know that over 50% of jobs are found through networking? This is a huge potential that everyone can tap into and use, particularly in light of the current economic situation; contacts can help open doors to new opportunities or job possibilities.

Our new umbrella campaign is making people sit and up and recognize the potential and usefulness of their connections. Online ads are a perfect medium for using provocative openers and getting the message across:

And the campaign is working! We’ve had the most successful campaign start to date with more than twice as many new members signing up on XING than ever before. We want people to unleash the power of their business contacts and to start building up a network sooner rather than later. Start networking not just linkin’

Today is my first day as the new CEO of XING AG and I therefore wanted to take some moments to briefly introduce myself here on our Blog as well. I’m 41 years young, married and have two children. I arrive at XING from eBay, where I’ve held various different positions since 2002. For the past four years I have overseen business operations as General Manager of eBay Deutschland.
Since my appointment was announced several weeks ago, I have been overwhelmed with the kind and positive words I’ve received from so many people. This news was also accompanied by a pleasing side effect: I have more than tripled my number of personal contacts literally overnight. I couldn’t have wished for a better reception and I already feel very much at home after such a warm welcome.

It has long been clear to me, as a member in the past, what it is that makes XING different from similar platforms: Our members form a business community that really is uniquely active. They bring new momentum to professional networking on a daily basis with their many thousands of events, group postings and messages. A central task of mine as the new CEO will be to further develop and expand this unique community. Now I have finally started and I’m very much looking forward to getting to know all of my new colleagues in person. Lars Hinrichs has built up something with his team here in Hamburg that enjoys the utmost respect throughout the global Internet sector. Back in 2003 when almost all online businesses were teetering at crisis point and dozens of ambitious plans had failed, he came up with a new business idea and launched it online just a few weeks later. This alone is testimony to his entrepreneurial spirit and enterprise, more than ably assisted by his enthusiastic team.

The last five years have seen this start-up evolve into a highly successful and globally operational company. We already employ 192 employees in Hamburg, Barcelona, Istanbul and Beijing at present, and all the signs indicate that there is ample potential for further growth – especially in view of the current economic climate.
This places us in a very promising position and, for me, the exciting challenge now lies ahead of making our community the most active worldwide in more and more regions around the globe together with the whole team. We intend to drive the expansion of the platform further forward, integrating new features and functionality along the way. I am, of course, also reliant on your support in our endeavors to make XING even more valuable to you as members. I therefore welcome all your feedback – both positive and negative. I’m extremely keen to ensure a direct exchange with you, and for an online community like ours a Blog is of course a very fitting way to achieve this. I will be keeping you continually updated here on all the latest developments at XING, along with the rest of our 6.5 million plus members based in more than 200 different countries and not forgetting our shareholders. Please therefore stop by here regularly to catch up on our news, or simply subscribe to the RSS feed for the Blog.

As well as my regular posts here in this CEO Corner, I also look forward to communicating with members and reading their posts both in the XING Group and the Moderation Group. I reserve particular respect for the 34,000 moderators who have demonstrated such sterling self-initiative in building up more than 21,000 wonderful groups on the platform. My colleagues in the Community Management department will continue to moderate the group on an active and daily basis. Your input and feedback is nevertheless of great interest to me and I will be sure to keep you informed on particularly important issues.

2008 was an extremely “eventful” year for the Ambassador Program – in more ways than one! Having been successfully launched in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, China and the Middle East in 2007, the program was extended to no less than 30 more countries in 2008. The number of groups more than tripled, taking the sensational total to 106 Ambassador groups in 36 countries.We also managed to acquire another 98 Ambassadors, in addition to the 56 Ambassadors who started in 2007. They each moderate an official regional XING group and organize official XING networking events on a regular basis. From gatherings in London and Madrid to haring parties in Amsterdam and bowling events in Dubai – 2008 saw a total of 718 official XING events take place around the globe with a total of 51,295  members attending. Click here to find out where events in your local region are next being held.

Then official XING Seminars were launched in September of last year, aimed at letting members find out how best to use and make use of XING. Since then, hundreds of XING users have learnt how they can spend their time on XING more profitably, maintain their profile better and utilize groups to their own advantage. The feedback from participants has been positive across the board: On a scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 is fantastic and 5 is terrible), the content and trainer were rated at 1.3, while organization got 1.6 points.

We’ve just developed a XING widget for www.allyve.com. allyve.com is a personalized start page where you can aggregate all your favorite online widgets such as your emails, news, bonus points etc. What sets allyve apart from the rest is that you can keep track of all your online services without having to log in to every single account.

Now you can enrich your allyve start page with your personalized XING widget. The XING widget shows you the vitals on your network: you can see how many new contact requests you’ve got, how many new messages you’ve received or how many people have visited your profile to date. The nifty XING search means you can also perform quick search queries.

Here’s how it looks:

The XING widget has been certified by us and your data is completely safe:

Using the latest OAuth standards (an open protocol to allow secure API authorization read more here) we’re able to offer this XING widget and keep you abreast of changes in your network without you having to worry about your data. The above XING OAuth window has therefore been created for official co-operations.

In general, we highly recommend that you refrain from entering your XING login data on any other websites apart from XING and our official partners.

Check out the XING widget on www.allyve.com!