Paula reports: This week on Tuesday, we organized a networking event in Amsterdam. We  wanted to introduce ourselves to the Dutch XING community and threw a typical Dutch networking party known in the Netherlands as a Haringparty.
In June when the first fresh herrings of the year are caught, companies all over the Netherlands invite their clients and partners to get together and network, while enjoying a drink and eating raw herrings with onions!

We decided to follow this example and get local. About 130 guests came to the XING haringparty and enjoyed a nice evening of networking in the capital of the Netherlands.
Are you curious to find out more about this typically Dutch networking event? You can view more photos of the events here.

In a couple of days the “TechCrunch & webrazzi MeetUp” will be coming up to Istanbul. The event (sponsored by XING) is worth a visit for a number of reasons: First of all, it is the first TechCrunch event in Turkey and part of the European TechCrunch Tour. Secondly, they are teaming up with Webrazzi, the leading Turkish Web 2.0 blog, to organize a unique conference with demos from Turkey’s best start-ups, booths, sessions and cocktails.

Our Turkish Country Manager Hakan Gönenli will also be there with part of his team. So if you happen to be in Istanbul on Saturday, 28 June, come and visit the MeetUp, why not grab the chance to meet some interesting people from the Turkish Internet industry and grow your network. See you there!

Marta de Barcelona informa: Esta semana organizamos dos eventos de networking en Madrid y Barcelona, el martes y el miércoles. Hemos querido dedicar estos dos actos a los moderadores de grupos, a nuestros XING Ambassadors y a toda la comunidad de usuarios de España, en agradecimiento por su entusiasmo. Al mismo tiempo, hemos transmitido un mensaje muy claro a todo el mercado hispano-hablante: a partir de ahora, las cosas empiezan a ponerse interesantes en España, puesto que XING se lanza a la conquista del mercado español, y estamos convencidos de que va a ser un verano inolvidable para XING España.

En presencia de todos los medios, el presidente, Lars Hinrichs, y el nuevo country manager para España, Lutz Emmerich, anunciaron un prometedor despliegue en el mercado español y presentaron al equipo de XING España, que ya está instalado en Barcelona.

Los cerca de 150 invitados tomaron al pie de la letra el consejo de Lars de “establecer por lo menos dos nuevos contactos en cada evento”, y empezaron a hacer networking en ese mismo momento.

¿Te interesa el tema? Aquí encontrarás más fotos del evento.

Marta from Barcelona reports: This week, we organized two networking events in Madrid and Barcelona on Tuesday and Wednesday. We wanted to stage these evenings as a way of thanking the Spanish group moderators, Ambassadors and all XING members in Spain for their support, as well as sending out a clear message to the Spanish market – From here on in, the temperature is only going to rise, with XING intensifying its focus even more on driving the Spanish market forward. And we reckon this summer at XING Spain is going to be a real scorcher!

Firmly in the spotlight of the national media, CEO Lars Hinrichs and the Spain Country Manager Lutz Emmerich announced the launch of yet more activities in the Spanish market, and introduced the Barcelona-based XING Spain team to the public.

The roundabout 150 guests attending took Lars up on his advice to try and make at least two new contacts at each event, and started growing their network right away. Curious to find out more? You can view more photos of the events here.

Strike! In a new twist on the standard networking event, the first-ever XING Bowling Tournament was organized in Dubai this month by Ambassador Hamdan Mohamed. Networking while bowling is a true experience, one the participants will not soon forget! On the big day, participants were divided into eight teams, based on the first-come, first-served principle. For networkers who were meeting each other for the first time, there was an unexpected element of sportsmanship in the encounter: not only did participants get to know each other, they tried to outscore each other!

While waiting for their turn to play, networkers had plenty of opportunities to catch up with acquaintances and make new contacts. Although the official winners of the evening were Team Number One, even the non-winning teams gained a lot from the experience, in the form of new friends and contacts. In that way, all participants left the event with big smiles on their faces, determined to do it again soon.

Have you ever been to a Christmas party in Germany on the beach? Over 2,400 XING members did exactly this on the evening of December 4: The XING Live Hamburg community organized an official XING event in Hamburg’s beach club "Club del Mar" right on the banks of the Elbe river.

The beach club was especially kitted out for the event to ensure that guests didn’t have to suffer the wintry Hamburg weather. Tents with heating, bars and a stage for the band were set up on the sandy ground, providing ample space for the networking party crowd. Some networkers preferred the real beach feeling though and decided to spend their time outdoors instead. And thanks to the outdoor bar service there was enough Glühwein (for those of you who haven’t tried it: a typical German Christmas drink, hot red wine with spices) to make sure these outdoor enthusiasts could keep nice and warm in the chilly night air.

The great thing about this event was that it was not only an excellent opportunity for guests to make new personal and business contacts but also a good way of supporting the social “Hinz & Kunzt” project in Hamburg. A part of the entrance fee was donated in support of this initiative – meaning that a final donation cheque of €5,000 was handed over to Hinz & Kunzt on the evening.

The entire XING team would like to express a special note of thanks to those who organized this huge, special event.

A big thank you to Steffen Ehlert, Melanie Schmitz and the rest of the organizational team, as well the Hamburg Ambassadors!
Photos by Cornelius Kalk. For more pictures visit Bewegende Bilder,  Jakobsen Picture Work (password: Xing) or Arne Vollstedt .

Cindy Lu, COO XING China:

The XING Networking Festival was initiated in October 2006, with Lars and Dr. Song opening the first Networking Festival together in Shanghai. More than 400 Beijing members witnessed the opening ceremony via a live web link. Every year in October, XING China members celebrate their own Networking Festival by organizing social networking events, creating opportunities for members to come together, communicate and exchange in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. 

This year eleven city communities organized offline events in October, with two taking place in early November. These cities are Beijng, Shanghai, Tsingtao, Zhengzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Chongqing, Changsha, Wuhan, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Xi’an. The events in Beijing, Shanghai, Fuzhou and Changsha all took place on the same day (October 27), with hundreds of members participating. Here’s an impression from the Guangzhou get-together:

I met many interesting people from various different business areas, including real estate, security, internet, investment, food, the arts, electronics, media, etc. Some people had just returned to China for a new career opportunity from Italy, France and other countries, while some members had brought their company product along as lucky draw gift. We received a lot of positive feedback: Many members told me how much they enjoyed the real-life communication with others, and they enjoyed the friendly atmosphere created by the organizers and participants. A lawyer later posted in the XING community group that he did not believe in offline meetings for people networking online until he visited the XING event, where he made very good business contacts and enjoyed himself.

The event in Shanghai, which took place on the same day, was entitled "European Business in China", with both Chinese and foreign members attending. Mr. Gerard Engelkamp, GM of ORBIS China, was invited to give a speech on “European Business in China”. Here you can see his audience listening:

Afterwards members shared their experiences of doing business between Europe and China with one another. We are looking forward to October 2008 already!

No Oktoberfest without a XING Oktoberfest: For the fourth time in a row, XING members came together in Munich last week to celebrate their own “XING Oktoberfest”. Under the cover of the famous Hippodrom tent, hundreds of XING members networked as they enjoyed “Wies’n-Hendl”, beer and the unique Oktoberfest atmosphere. Every year the XING Oktoberfest is organised by our Munich Ambassador Martin Bockelmann (see the picture on the right) and his team, but the event is not only popular among Bavarian members: The Hamburg Community for example, went south with 20 members. XING once again proved its ability to bridge cultural divides ;).
Photos by Kubinská & Hofman.

“GreenBC – The AFTER-WORK-GOLF Network” is a really active and committed XING Premium Group. After celebrating “100 years of golfing history in Germany” in May, they’ve since come up with another first-class event: Last Friday, GreenBC invited 80 members to an exclusive golf tournament at the Gut Kaden Golf and Country Club. (Yes, for those of you in the know, that’s also where this week’s “Deutsche Bank Player’s Championship” is happening.)

You can see for yourself here how well XING and the AFTER-WORK-GOLF Network get along:
   

In the end, the tournament was decided by a play-off, as the two finalists had played the same score. From left to right: Sarath de Silva (last year’s winner), Martin Burmeister (organizer, founder  AFTER-WORK-GOLF.net, Green BC group moderator), Holger Broß (the lucky winner), Michael Specht (Second finalist), Konstantin Pflüger (organizer, Green BC group moderator)

Take a look at more photos here.

Our colleagues from Neurona came to visit us in Hamburg last week. After two intense days of meetings, presentations and inspiring discussions our Spanish / German / Argentinian / Swiss team explored together the beaches of Hamburg and enjoyed the XING Event at Lago Bay, directly on the banks of the Elbe. Congratulations to Oliver Berger and the full team of the XING Community Hamburg for their big success and the great atmosphere.

Check out the great photos of the beach club event, by photographers Mareen Malessa &  Alexandre Tchobankov.

Nuestro viaje de networking por España nos llevó al evento de First Tuesday en Barcelona. A orillas del mar, pasamos una velada muy agradable en un atractivo lugar con una excelente gastronomía, donde conocimos a muchos e interesantes ‘superconectores’. Echadles un vistazo a las fotos del evento...

Durante este encuentro, Neurona, eConozco y XING se reunieron por primera vez en equipo, ¡este es el resultado! ;-)

First Tuesday Spain: VIP Dinner with superconnectors

Our networking journey through Spain continued and brought us to the First Tuesday Event in Barcelona, to a fancy location directly at the beach, with nice food and a lot of interesting super connectors. Have a look at pictures from the event.

At the event Neurona, eConozco & XING met for the first time all together as a team, watch out for us! ;-)

People from the Neurona, eConozco & XING Team

El Equipo XING Market Development asistió la semana pasada a THURSDAY, uno de los eventos de Networking profesional más consolidados de España, que organiza el “superconector” Ildefonso Mayorgas. Fue todo un éxito al que acudieron personas muy interesantes y que se prolongó hasta altas horas de la madrugada. Echadles un vistazo a las fotos del evento...

¡Muchas gracias por el caluroso recibimiento en Madrid! Estamos muy ilusionados y deseosos de trabajar y practicar networking con nuestros colaboradores españoles para crear la plataforma de networking profesional más grande del mundo hispanohablante.

The XING Market Development Team was guest at THURSDAY, one of the most established Networking Events in Spain, organized by superconnector Ildefonso Mayorgas. It was a great event with interesting people and ended in the early hours of the next morning. Take a look at some pictures taken during the event…

Many thanks for the warm welcome in Madrid! We are very much looking forward to (net)working with our Spanish colleagues and to create the most active business networking platform in the Spanish speaking world.

“Get naked and rule the world” – in its April issue, Wired magazine called on companies to communicate with radical transparency. The 3rd Social Web Breakfast this morning addressed the issue with a discussion on  “Unternehmenskommunikation im Social Web: Ehrlich oder sexy?”. Guest speaker and viral marketing expert Markus Roder focused on the question, and gave responses on the type of companies and brands for which complete transparency is the right choice, and which companies are better off not telling the whole story.

Markus Roder described four different brand types: trophy brands, aspiration brands, attitude brands and tribal brands. His advice: Find out which brand you belong to and adjust the level of transparancy accordingly. Here you can see a few of the 30 guests mulling over his advice:

Obviously XING is “type 3”, an “attitude brand”: Customers forming a community, customers who are communicating a lot, and communication which cannot be controlled. Attitude brands are well advised to tell the truth and to offer a high level of transparency. As for XING, we do our best - with this blog for example ;)

100 golf addicted networkers met last Thursday to a unique official XING event at the BMW International Open in Munich.

Have a look at the beautiful fotos . Many thanks to the organizers of the XING community Munich, Johannes Woll &  Martin Bockelmann and our partner BMW.

On June 19th the XING Regionalgroup Köln organized a very successful official XING event on the Papstschiff MS Rheinenergie. At this wonderful sunny evening more than 1000 XING members gathered on board the MS Rheinenergie to network and chat with friends and business partners.  The wonderful weather and excellent service on board formed the framwork of this great event and made it an evening to remember for all participants.

Many thanks & congratulations to the organizers Martin Müller & Anne-Katrin Scherer for their fantastic work! Check out the fotos of the event here.

See the movie about the event (sorry, German only)

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Have a look under our “Official XING event” heading on the Events page:  We currently have eleven official XING events coming up, in locations spanning from Bejing to United Arab Emirates

Here are three special highlights for next week:

 1) Tuesday, June 19^th: A XING event on the innovative event ship MS Rheinenergie in  Cologne with more than 1,000  confirmed attendees.  More infos here.

2) Wednesday, June 20^th: A XING networking event under palm trees in Dubai, at the Habtoor Grand Resort Hotel, set on a terrace overlooking the beach. Details.     

3) Thursday, June 21^st: A XING event at the famous BMW International Open golf tournament in Munich.  Sign up for the rare tickets.

Keep an eye out for more upcoming official XING events.

Cindy Lu, XING China:
The XING China Team organized its first ever outdoor sports event in Beijing on April 21. Seven Chinese XING groups took part in the day’s events: E-salon (English training and business networking group), Easy Weekend Beijing (sports and lifestyle group for members in Beijng), Yoga (Yoga fans’ group), I love wine (wine and lifestyle group), Dancing (dancing and business networking group), 30 party (white collar after work entertainment), and Startup and investment club.

We started at 10:30, with more than 50 members who were then divided into five different teams. Each team then competed in gymnastics, modern pentathlon, rowing, “push-and-pull” and other sports. XING China had designed all the activities to make sure that they were easy, funny and interactive. In a break between the matches, there was some singing and dancing and members exchanged small gifts. The day ended at around 3:00 pm, in a great atmosphere.
To see more photos click here.

As already posted right after the event, the party was a big success with around 500 guests attending and we received lots of positive feedback. Thanks again to all participants for coming and the great atmosphere. We have uploaded more pictures now.

At this point we would like to thank our XING member and graphical facilitator Reinhard Kuchenmüller from Visuelle Protokolle, who captured some of the conversations that evening in small drawings, which he integrated in a 5m x 1,60m picture.

We also want to thank Oliver Berger from soistdas.developing solutions and moderator of the XING Community Hamburg, who set up the photo corner at the entrance of the event. Read more about this here.

Just come back from our XING CeBIT Networking Party last night.

A big success, over 400 guests and a first few pictures online, check them out here.

Many thanks to all guests for the great atmosphere, that was fun!

More pics to come soon, including the work of our graphical facilitator who visualized the conversations last night...

Many thanks as well to our Partner Deutsche Messe & our great team!

TED 2007 started today with an amazing list of speakers like Bill Clinton, Hans Rosling, Jeff Han JJ Abrams, John Doerr, Lawrence Lessig, Nathan Myhrvold,  Philippe Stark,  Richard Branson,  Paul Simon, Tracy Chapman. TED is like taking your brain to a 4 day SPA-Treatment.

A few special recommendations for upcoming XING Live events worldwide (check out those wonderful locations!)

- March 8th in Brussels,  Networking in the heart of Europe (Location: @seven)

- March 9th in Istanbul, Networking at the Bosporus (Location: Ekvator Cafe)

- March 14th in Dubai, Networking under palm trees (Location: Sky Bar Garden)

- March 15th in Zurich, Networking with Bankers (Location: HardOne)

- March 30th in Paris, Networking in one of the most beautiful capitals of the world (Location: still a secret ;-)

ps: after-event-photos on this blog, stay tuned!

pps: dont forget March 16th, Networking at the CeBIT in Hannover, please be our guest!

As partner of the CeBIT we are organizing a XING Networking Event on March 16th. As always on XING, you and growing your network will be the main focus of this event. Please be our guests and sign up today

PS: no CeBIT ticket yet? Premium Members get one for 50%

Our country manager in Dubai Nelly Liebrecht organized a very successful event on February 7th in Dubai. More than 230 members and guests attended. This event was one big step forward in establishing XING as the biggest business network in the country.

Thanks again to our country manager Nelly Liebrecht and the team in Dubai! A brilliant example that XING is truly global and gives it's members the chance to network in pleasant wheather even in February!!

Please check out the pictures of the event.

Last Thursday we celebrated our official Kick-Off for XING Hungary in Budapest. Our Regional Manager for Hungary Heinrich Ballhaus and his colleague Orsolya Szőke made a great job in hosting over 400 guests. Nice finger-food, drinks, live-music and one of the fanciest locations in Budapest made this event a truly good start for XING in Hungary.

Thanks again to the wonderful team in Budapest.

Please check out the photos of this exciting event.

openBC/XING is sponsoring this years ETRE Conference in Barcelona. Once again a great conference and show with Alex Serge Vieux

ETRE is a unique invitation-only, C-suite forum that gathers the CEOs, entrepreneurs, financiers and other leaders from the Information Technology and Communications industry. Founded in 1990, the annual event welcomes 650 participants from 35 nations to exchange insights, discover innovative technologies, secure funding, establish new alliances, and solidify

This years ETRE will include Keynote Speakers like:
Eric Benhamou, Chairman, 3Com and Palm, Inc.   François Barrault, President, BT International
Martin Varsavsky, Chairman, FON
Julie Donahue, Head of Technology, Security and Privacy, IBM
Chairman, Jefferies Broadview
John Meyer, President Worldwide Services, Lucent
Jean Philippe Courtois, President, Microsoft International
Tero Ojanperä, Chief Technology Officer, Nokia
Niklas Zennstrom, Co-Founder & CEO, Skype
Nobuyuki Idei, Chief Corporate Advisor & Chairman of the Advisory Board, Sony
John Thompson, Chairman & CEO, Symantec
Rene Obermann, Chairman & CEO, T-Mobile

Participants of ETRE06 network within the XING ETRE Premiumgroup

View more photos.

We thought it was a joke when we´ve been asked to register a soccer team for the "Netsoccer Beach Club".

There's no going back now - it is looking like we are going to have to play. Uh oh! The only problem is that so far only women and one man have agreed to take part - and he doesn't count as he is the IT guy! What's up with our male team colleagues? When it comes to football it looks like the women around here are on much better form up front than the men. 

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

openblog Supernova

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