Susanne Reppin (left) and Dr. Johannes Mainusch on the wjax stage.

Just how agile is XING? How agilely do we feel? At this year’s w-jax 09, Johannes Mainusch and myself talked openly about the XING culture, what kind of people we are, what we’re aiming for and what’s important to us. XING releases weekly updates on the platform, innovating therefore all the time during ongoing operation of the platform. We don’t want to have to put a halt to anything, and not when it comes to agile software development either.

XING already develops projects effectively using Scrum (see also Scrum @ XING – a case study). Alongside this, we’ve been working for nine months to put Kanban in place for one our maintenance teams – as both a methodology and philosophy. The initial idea for this came from Ralf Wirdemann, who’s an agile coach. Selecting Kanban fits in with our belief in agile and lean software development and to drive this forward in the future. (more…)

Are you familiar already with our Xpert Ambassador Groups? Besides almost 150 Regional XING Ambassador Groups based around the globe, Xpert Ambassador Groups are dedicated to a specific subject or profession. 17 of these groups exist already – from Controlling to Media through to the food industry and vocational training, to name just a few. More than half of these groups already have over ten thousand members, and the majority of them also have lively English forums as well of course. (more…)

The Marketing & Innovation Forum Europe 2009 will be held on December 1-2 in Munich. Over 500 marketing and sales executives in Germany and Central Europe will come together to discuss methods for ensuring sustainable revenues with leading experts. The organizer evoworkx live has invited high powered speakers to the event, including Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, Professor Hermann Simon, the Chairman of Simon-Kucher & Partners and bestselling author, the American consumer expert Don Peppers and the president of the Deutschen Marketing Verband Bernd M. Michael. Top-notch media partners such as theFinancial Times Deutschland and Horizont will also be on hand to support the forum. (more…)

Following preparations that were long and somewhat difficult in the end, the Kick-Off Trophy was held from July 3-5 in Norderstedt, just outside Hamburg. XING Ambassador, Steffen Ehlert (XING Live Hamburg), is the one who set everything in motion.

Giving it their all on the field.

That was the “Kick-Off Trophy”

The results were clear: Company sports groups, recreational teams and 48 XING groups spent two days competing for the coveted trophy. The event included highlights like having a helicopter fly in to deliver the balls, a benefit concert with Lotto King Karl and the awards ceremony on Sunday afternoon.

A team from XING AG also participated. Ten employees from various different departments competed for the title and trophy. Although they unfortunately didn’t take first place, the XINGers had many opportunities to demonstrate their impressive soccer skill on the field, and the XING cheerleaders did their part, enthusiastically cheering the team on from the sidelines. (more…)

Come one, admit it: if you’re reading this you’re familiar with the Official XING Regional Groups. You’re not? Well, they’re groups moderated by XING Ambassadors, who also organize the Official XING Events. Around the world, over 200 XING Ambassadors head regional XING groups and organize XING Live! Events.

After the rousing success of XING Regional Groups and Events, we’ve decided to expand our Ambassador Program, now adding to the mix XING Xpert Ambassadors, whom you can spot from the purple icon next to their profile. As you might guess from the name, Xpert Ambassadors are experts in a certain industry who frequently organize industry-specific networking events. (more…)

XING has successfully been recruiting Ambassadors around the world for two years. Ambassadors moderate official regional XING groups (click here for an overview of the regional Ambassador groups) and regularly organize networking events. The Ambassador program adds an offline dimension to networking on the XING platform. Every year thousands of members meet up at official Ambassador events with the motto “Start on a personal note, and soon you’ll be in business”. Some examples include the summer festival held recently by the XING Community in Munich or the networking event at the Kiel Week festival. In 2008 over 50,000 XING members participated in more than 700 of these events.

Deniz Seebacher, XING Ambassador No. 200

New XING Ambassadors are continually joining the ranks and new regional groups are continually being created around the world. In June we welcomed the 200^th Ambassador, Deniz Seebacher, in Guatemala.  She tells us how she ended up becoming an Ambassador:

“I have been a XING member since 2005, but I really started using the business network intensively when I moved to Guatemala for personal reasons in 2009. I was looking for new contacts in a country where I hardly knew anyone. My search for German-speaking members in Guatemala City didn’t return many hits, but I wrote to a few of them. That’s how, in addition to meeting two people who have become very good friends of mine, I got to know Christoph and his company Officient, which led to my first local project. Since Christoph and I value XING as a networking platform and wanted to use it more intensively, we started looking for contacts on the local market. At the time, XING was looking for Ambassadors in Central America. So we decided to become Ambassadors and start up the XING Guatemala group.

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XING AG’s Chief Product Officer Jason Goldberg already announced in his blog article at the end of April that a wonderful spring full of surprises is waiting for XING members. After a series of improvements, we’ve had a speedy start to the summer as well. It was a real pleasure for us to welcome Jason to  XING´s “OpenSocial” launch in Turkey.

Jason shared his “OpenSocial” point of view by explaining his vision and experiences at the event held in the Sofa Hotel-Nişantaşı on June 2. He also explained his “Ship it!” concept, based on his firm belief that “the user knows and shows the best”, which was an inspiration for XING’s new Product Development vision. Around 75 guests attended the “OpenSocial” launch party in total. They included Jason, the press, bloggers and application developers. The event went down very well with guests and the media. You can read Jason’s CNBC interview here (wmv-file).

OpenSocial promises to bring many interesting applications to members and is also creating very important opportunities for application developers. They now have the chance to promote their products and services with an app aimed at the benefit of XING members. It presents a superb way of increasing their potential for new jobs and project work as well as for customer acquisition.

As XING Turkey, we’d like to express our thanks to Jason for his successful and inspirational presentation, which will help create new business and contact opportunities for XING members. We would also like to thank Marjinal for their invaluable assistance organizing the event.

The XING Paris group has around 1,000 members – pretty impressive, considering it was only founded a few weeks ago. Ambassador Louis-Serge Real del Sarte just organized the very first official XING Event in the French capital on 30 April. The get-together was held in the swanky bar at the Méridien Etoile Hotel, situated in the heart of the city between the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.
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Jeff Jarvis – the bestselling author of “What would Google do?”, all-round nice guy and source of inspirational thought – took some time in Hamburg to talk us (and also at the next 09 conference). He joined XING employees in our event room and spoke about his ideas outlined in the book, as well as engaging in some spirited discussion about the potential outcomes of a “googlified” XING. (more…)

CeBIT is giving away free VIP Packages for CeBIT Global Conferences in our BestOffers section!

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