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!

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.

XING hosted a truly original event in Amsterdam on Wednesday night, where networking met culture. It was an evening full of theater, music, dance, visual arts, film, humor and of course networking!

As people lined up in the cold to enter the Winter Parade, they were greeted with a warm cup of ´Glühwein´ (hot wine punch) to kick off the night. Once inside, guests received a tailor-made program full of XING networking moments they could attend during the course of the night. Each guest was asked to fill in a XING questionnaire prior to the event – the answers dictated what you did, and who you met during the event.

Opera lovers mingled with opera lovers and were scheduled for an opera performance at 8.10 pm while family-oriented people were brought together at 9.00 pm to watch a short play about everyday family life. The end result being that like-minded people networked – once our guests established a common interest it was much easier to start talking business.

All through the night our guests were treated to eat delicious food from various different food stalls, ranging from a creative crepe to a giant pan of pasta or some tasty cheese fondue.

Once done with eating, XING members could enjoy different performances whilst networking.

As the night started to progress a big band played swinging music and XING’ers took to the dance floor. For the die-hard attendees,the night finished with a ‘silent disco’ where people danced to music they heard only through headphones.

It was a great night where almost 350 Dutch XING’ers met and networked in inspiring surroundings!

Click here to see some more photos of the event.

As we often report, our member numbers are continually increasing. What we haven’t explained in detail is that our presence in certain cities is particularly strong. There are “XING strongholds” around the world, areas in which growth is particularly strong, and where our members are exceptionally active. Take Munich, for example: at present, more than 180,000 people in total are members of XING. That’s around 20 percent of all 930,000 working residents in Munich.

The countless events organized by members for members in the Bavarian city are testimony to their local networking prowess. Since the beginning of this year, members in Munich have organized over 5,000 events in total. This number is up 50 percent from the number of business gatherings organized last year. Spanning the whole spectrum of industry sectors and specialist areas, these events provide an opportunity for XING members to exchange face-to-face with their existing contacts and to make new professional contacts will people they might not otherwise have encountered. They include events held by the “Munich Finance Forum” and gatherings of professors, lecturers, students and alumni from Munich’s “Technische Universität”, to name just two.

As the home of the foremost and most active business networkers in Germany, Munich set the tone for the concept of official XING events around the globe with their regional group, the “XING Community Munich”. With over 40,000 members, it is the largest and one of the most active of all regional groups on XING. The activity and size of the group are largely thanks to the Ambassadors Martin Bockelmann and Johannes Woll. In May of 2004, they invited their business contacts to meet up in person, and the idea of XING Events was born. Since then, they have organized over 60 events. In many respects, Munich is the trendsetter: the worldwide philosophy behind official XING Events “Start on a personal note, and soon you’ll be in business” is a Munich motto.

Overall, more than 55,000 events have been organized via the platform since the beginning of 2008. The number of events being held is growing particularly fast in XING strongholds throughout the Mediterranean region, with members meeting up and networking on a personal level from regional events in Izmir, business cocktail receptions in Rome and entrepreneurial gatherings in Valencia. (Photo: Andreas Schebeta)

XING hosted the first Official Ambassador event in London last night, and it really was five stars. Held at the popular Cuckoo Club, the beverages were flowing, the canapés were delicious and most importantly the networking fever seemed to take hold of everyone.  Packed to the rafters with several hundred guests – the event was filled with young, energetic, passionate people across an array of industry sectors. In true British style, those attending all formed an orderly queue outside that stretched right down the road.

All in all, it was also a real cosmopolitan mix that truly reflected the multiculturalism of the British capital and the XING platform. Everyone had a common link – they were all willing to share and introduce themselves to new people and business opportunities.

Additionally everyone was green – not green with envy, but dressed in green as part of the nights Christmas and XING theme. Our London Ambassador, Kathrin Kawaters, was largely responsible for the night’s pace, passion and perfect atmosphere.  Well done Kathrin, and well done London for showing us how it’s done! We can’t wait until the next one!

It was that time again yesterday, for the fourth year running: World Usability Day, which took place in 43 countries around the world under the motto „Making life easy!”. 14 events were organised in Germany alone, including gatherings in Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.

Hamburg saw usability experts from the research and practical side of things meet up to find out and report on the latest developments – in a jam-packed day with 16 lectures and three workshops. The topics covered ranged from the re-design of a health website and designing user-friendly sites for newspapers through to touch-free interaction with hand gestures.

I also gave a speech along with Patrick from eparo about „Consolidating agile software development and user-centered design”. So what exactly was it all about? In contrast to traditional software development, “agile” means that planning is done in iterations and sprints rather than in project phases. A sprint can last 2-4 weeks, with feature sets being defined at the outset and then developed and tested.

Methodology involved in user-centered design, like usability tests for instance, have to be integrated into these sprints – which the XING User Experience team has taken as an ideal opportunity to further enhance its work methods used up until now. More than 150 people came to listen to the talk, which was followed by a round of discussion. Lots of colleagues in the online sector are confronted with similar situations in their daily work, which meant that most of the questions involved how best to meet user requirements within the scope of agile projects.

We’re certainly looking forward to World Usability Day 2009!

The kick-off event was indeed a great success! After some weeks of preparing for the official XING Ambassador event in Turkey, everything came together. The first guests arrived early at around 6 o’clock even though the event was only due to start at 6:30. As soon as most of the guests had arrived, our country manager Hakan Gönenli welcomed everyone and proudly introduced the Turkish Ambassadors. Our CEO Lars Hinrichs was also at the event, which was highly appreciated by all those attending.
The venue for the evening couldn’t have been better. While enjoying a great view from the roof terrace of the Sofa hotel in Istanbul, people got to experience a unique XING networking feeling. Business cards were exchanged, ideas were shared and friendships were made. Thanks to all our guests who joined us to kick off the beginning of the XING official networking events, it really was a great success!

Our Ambassadors will be organizing many networking events in all major cities in Turkey and we are looking forward to hearing about the ones that you are going to attend!

Istanbul saw a lot of XING recently. Right after the successful marketing campaign, Lars visited our Turkey base for an extended PR Roadshow and two more big events for our business partners and friend. While Monday brought him together with Turkey’s most popular newspapers, IT and business media and TV stations, yesterday Lars hosted a seminar for journalists, bloggers and Istanbul’s internet business elite, entitled: “Sosyal Ag@Is Dünyasi” (social networks@business world).

More than 80 people came to listen to Lars’s speech on Web 2.0, the social networking market and future trends and to talk with him about future trends in online business. With Turkey’s lively internet market on the rise the seminar met great interest and gave us the chance to further build on the “digital bridge across the Bosporus” as we like to call XING. And we witnessed again the fantastic job that our country manager Hakan and his team are doing. Tuesday night, our Istanbul experience was crowned with the kick-off event for Turkish Ambassadors, moderators and members.

If you’re sitting on the beach sipping a weizen beer during Oktoberfest and it’s over 30 degrees Celcius, either you’re experiencing global warming, or you’re in Dubai.

Indeed. Dubai has practically everything: snow and sand, sunshine and the sea, skyscrapers and the desert and now, thanks to the Grand Hyatt Dubai, traditional Oktoberfest.  Networkers in Dubai were astonished by the sounds of an authentic seven-piece traditional Bavarian brass band, traditional costumes, long beer benches, real Erdinger wheat beer,  and more.  We were taken to Munich that night!

The only difference from the original Oktoberfest in Munich—besides the fact that it took place a few weeks later—is that XING members weren’t just drinking and socializing, they were networking too. They would exchange business cards, moving from one table to other, making sure they “worked  the room”, to build new connections and nurture existing business relationships. The networking spirit is up in Dubai!

The second official XING event in Valencia was held last Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. The three ambassadors, Esteban Rodrigo, Juan Antonio Galindo and José Luis Silvestre, organized a wonderful day of networking at the main campus of the ESIC Marketing & Business School in Valencia. Our local experts held an enriching conference for 100 participants presenting their views on networking and stategically managing work on the Internet. Francisco Rodríguez Kleiber, Marketing Manager at XING in Spain, reminded XING users in Valencia of the added value that this professional networking platform provides and gave some practical advice for getting the most out of using it. Participants included Ismael Olea, Director of the ESIC Marketing & Business School in Valencia and José Luis Colvée, Director General of ANETCOM, an association for the promotion of corporate e-commerce and new technologies in Valencia. The professional networking day in Valencia ended with a networking game that helped participants establish new quality contacts.

Our most sincere congratulations to the three organizers!