Susan says

When the World Wide Web first entered the homes of computer-users in the early 1990s, alarmists warned that the interpersonal networks that shape and support society would dissolve. As the buzz and snap of analog modems filled the air, they feared, computer users would turn their backs away from families, communities and social interactions to face computer screens instead.

Two phenomena developed as soon as the medium went mainstream that proved critics wrong. First of all, virtual communities mirroring their “real” counterparts thrived as groups of people with common interests (but not necessarily common locations) used email, forums and chat to find each other and develop real connections that occasionally extended offline. Thus a “new” kind of community emerged that enriched, rather than replaced, already-existing groupings.

Secondly, everyone from “Mom and Pop” store owners to venture capitalists seized on the Internet as a tool for enhancing their off-line ventures. Retailers built online shops to support “brick and mortar” stores. Film marketers created online buzz to fill offline movie theaters.  Furthermore, families, schoolmates and already-established networks of friends used the Internet to enhance offline connections. On- and offline thus work hand-in-hand.

Thanks to advanced connection speeds and standardized online communication, the line between life on- and offline has become even blurrier. Professionals the world over are already accustomed to meetings, gatherings and other group activities that occur in “virtual” and “real” spaces—sometimes at the same time. XING’s weekly meetings, for example, involve real-time video feeds from our offices in other time zones. 

XING has thus arrived at a moment in Internet history when professional relationships are neither “real” nor “virtual,” but a little bit of both, depending on the time of day and the task at hand. XING’s platform provides members with an ideal means to create and nurture professional connections and communities both on- and offline. XING’s Hamburg-based employees, for example, work in the same building, but often use the platform to communicate with one another. Sometimes, busy days simply don’t allow face-to-face interaction.

Our group function is a particularly exciting demonstration of the way in which online communities form and add value to offline activities.  We are home to over 7,600 groups that cover a dizzying array of topics and themes—banking and architecture to sailing and golf. Groups include both online inventions designed to gather individual XING members around a similar theme. Industry-themed groups, for example “Telecommunication Business”, serve this purpose. Groups also include “virtual” representations of “real” world institutions and businesses. Alumni groups, for example, bring together graduates of the same university program, many of whom have already met in person. Networking groups similarly serve as enhancements of offline interactions. The members of Global Business Women, for example, set up events in cities throughout Europe that gracefully bridge the on- and offline worlds.

Forums and newsletters allow group members to forge common ties that can and do lead to one-on-one business deals, job hires and even friendship. The fact that most members accompany their profiles with photographs make online connections mirror offline interactions more closely. Our groups—as well as our platform—reveal just how close on- and offline worlds can grow and benefit members of a community.

For the first time, I am a participant at the World Economic Forum. Klaus Schwab, Founder of the WEF wanted to create a "Summer Davos" recognizing that a new class of leaders and innovators have emerged who are reshaping business and transforming society. The centre of business gravity is clearly moving east. Dalian,  a beautiful coastal city in Northeast China, was chosen to host this Inaugural Annual Meeting of the New Champions as both  and continue to demonstrate the dynamism and potential of growth. 

Dalian is such strong growing Chinese cities, I have not known before the meeting. Population of 6,2m massively growing since the late 90s for IT Outsourcing and Business Process Outsourcing.

Some soundbites and and insights from the Meetings:

" China is continuing to growth strongly and wants world peace". But with no word Premier Wen Jiabao is mentioning global warming.

"The top leaders in china consume first thing the morning the top ten blogs" (bottom up media), by David Kirkpatrick

Consumer impact on GDP: 72% of Amirca’s GDP is in consumer demand. It is not supported by income, but rather by equity from over-valued assets, such as property. This has come into focus with the recent sub-prime crisis.  China is slightly different with 35% like the average says Stephen Roach, Chairman, Morgan Stanley, Asia

China Mobile is adding 5 million new subscribers every month says Wang Jianzhou, Chairman and CEO, China Mobile Communications Corporation.

Subprime crisis is likely to lead to more protectionism by Amirca says Kevan V. Watts, Vice-Chairman, Merrill Lynch & Co

From the Web2.0 world many participants are here: David Siffry, Martin Varsavsky, Tariq Krim, Marko Ahtisaari, Rodrigo Sepulveda and many more.

This year, Lars Hinrichs was invited to speak at the 29th “Gründerfoyers” forum “Dresden exists”, which was organized by the TU Dresden and entitled "Internet business Web 2.0" – about his own career, entrepreneurship, self employment and the XING platform itself.

The “Gründerfoyers” forum is designed to bring students and academics – along with curious and undecided types – into contact with professionals, consultants, politicians and economists to discuss the subject of self employment.

After his talk, the audience had the chance to speak to Lars in person and we’ve since found out that two new Web 2.0 start-ups have come to life since the event took place. We wish these ventures all the best and every success.

I found mypictr surprisingly useful and maybe you might too. I know that many internet users seriously are suffering from pixel attacks, stretched bodies or squeezed heads on their pictures. All that is now a thing of the past. You can look good online.

You know other features or programs like this making peoples' online lives much much  easier?! Please go ahead and share them with me...I will test them out and talk about it on openBLOG :)

What was the highest price you ever paid attending a lousy web-too... conference? 3.000 bucks for a ticket? And, is this the beginning of the unconference aera?

Mhmm, let me think. Which affordable conferences could I recommend?

Definitely reboot! I´ve heard a lot about LeWeb3 and will be in Paris this year. XING me, if you´re going as well. DLD is also on my radar and I´ve read good feedback about lift in swissy Switzerland. Not to forget mentioning Supernova. The Barcamp in Berlin disapeared like ice in the sunshine, after my daughter decided being ill exactly on that weekend.

I know have heard that TED costs something around 5.500$. Invitation only. Did anyone go there? Did they speak about me? I obviously couldn´t afford the ticket!  ;-D

See you soon!

Martin is speaking about the FON movement ("Here comes FON...in five minutes"), why entrepreneurs should be treated as ladies and what he has learned from Niklas Zennstroms´ power point presentation skills. Short introduction by Alex Vieux, the perfect host of this years ETRE. Unfortunately the video cuts off after nearly 7 minutes. For everyone who wants to see the end click here.

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

This is what our British members said about it in our last international survey "communication and networking on the Internet".

[click image]

[our American members said]

This is what our American members said about it in our last international survey "communication and networking on the Internet".

[click image]

Today is bank holiday in Germany and I had some time to browse here and there on the Internet, and made what a surprise a quick pit stop at openblog archive. Whilst rereading this article I had a mini epihany: Why not answer the questions of this businessweek article from openBCs´perspective? There´s a chance that some of you want to know how openBC broke through. :)

So I took my chance to grab a relaxed Lars and interview him for you. I´ll blog his answers over the next few days to make it easier to read. Stay tuned!

How openBC Broke Through
openBC has almost reached the grand old age of two and a half, and has firmly established itself amongst the big boys in the professional networking world, with over a million active users and counting. Like its US-based siblings, its target group is broad, encompassing professionals of all ages and industries.

openBC’s business model is also based on a subscription service and firmly refuses to yield to advertising offers, despite advertisers being keen to tap in to the site’s high-potential user group. openBC is catching up fast, outstripping its competitors in terms of both growth rate and profitability.

Q: Why is social networking taking off right now?
Lars: There are an ever-growing number of people around the world who recognise the potential for connecting, exchanging and doing business with others over the net. Technology is enhancing by the day, enabling ever more ways to interact and stay connected online. And there are an increasing number of online users willing to pay for the added benefits provided by this social software. Online dating companies paved the way for this trend, proving the demand for digital service providers that bring people together. Relationships at work are changing and networks are becoming more important by the day, enabling professionals to manage and meet these new challenges.

Q: Are you folks making money?
Lars: We’ve been cash-flow positive since month 3 and have been earning money since day 1. We’ve taken care to learn from the lessons of the new economy. We made our business model clear to users from the start. We also observed how job advertising on many other networks had not really worked. Our business model has proved successful and other providers have since followed suit, charging users a fee to be able to contact other users.

Q: So you won’t be raising more money?
Lars: We were already net profitable before we received venture capital last year and are continuing to expand internationally on a daily basis, with acquisitions being made such as First Tuesday Zurich.

to be continued...

...throwing a great party in Stockholm, Sweden. See the pictures to make sure that your imagination fits reality.

Martin says: "Ola, our lead fonero in Sweden organized a great event/party for Fon in Stockholm. The co organizers of this party where OpenBC and Skype. The pictures are here. The party itself was great and there were around 700 people there but one thing deserves special mention. I was very happy to be there with Skype and OpenBC, two of the best European internet companies...

Working in teams, Europeans and Latin Americans sending Americans off?

...As we know most of the internet developments are done in Silicon Valley. While that lead will probably stay there for many years to come it is great to see also that we can build technology/internet companies in Europe. When I was at Columbia University in New York City the Europeans and Latin Americans used to work in teams while the Americans would be more inclined to work alone. I hope that now that the internet is mostly about communities that we continue our collaborative spirit over here and while competing we can help each other enough to succeed."

Networking on the Internet is now even more important than at events.  As you can see from the graph though, networking at events is not rated as completely unimportant: More than 60 % of openBC users worldwide recognize the benefits of offline networking for maintaining their contacts.

If you are interested in using this and other charts from the survey for free,  please contact us. And if you would like to find out more about international communication and networking behaviour, we will be happy to provide you with the complete survey in English or German.

According to Natalie Ferguson, a member of openBC, our site officially works. In a recent post she mention that within a two week period she is already doing business.

Way to go... read more here!

For small businesses like us who don't really expect to ever have customers in their local vicinity, the ability to gather them purely from online communication is extremely exciting, as is the ease of forming solid business relationships with like minded people all over the world.

The results of openBC’s second “Communication & Networking on the Internet” survey reveal one very clear trend – namely users’ testimony that professional online networking supports their business potential and pays off financially.

Up to 85% of openBC users who took part, for example, rate maintaining contacts on the Internet as being “important” or “very important”. It is a tremendous boost for us to know that our members experience and believe in the positive power of networking on the net.

More good news: The trend towards increased levels of online networking has been substantial in the past year, with the number of contacts per person having risen by between 180% and 300%. Clear proof that people are getting together online on a large scale!

A grand total of 24,511 openBC users worldwide took part in this year’s survey. A big thank you to all of you!

Find out more about how users network online, what their experiences and expectations are and how professional networking is done differently in various regions around the world.

Contact me, if you are interested in more information.

I have been reflecting on some of the terminology used in networking and while terms like Maven and Connector are being commonly used I believe there is space for some additional terms and in particular I would propose the following three;

Super collector;
Someone who spends inordinate time connecting  to people just for the sake of collecting them as a contact.

Trophy contact;
A contact that is held in such esteem as to be desirable to have and on some platforms to trade.

Blended Networking;
Combining on-line and live networking so as to create a deeper relationship with ones connections (the opposite feel of the first term.)

I am interested to see if there is more that we can add to our lexicon in order to better express some of the phenomena that we are seeing both the negative and the positive.

Not a few weeks ago we invited to take part in openBC´s second international survey on "Communication & Networking"! The objective of the survey was to learn more about B2B communication and networking behavior around the world.

Our poor little servers worked up a bit sweat because more than 25.000 people participated. Brrrrrrrrrrr, that was like Christmas, sales and promotion on one day.

We are up to our eyeballs in numbers at the moment and we can already see that there are some interesting and surprising results.

 
…keep you posted…

I just wanted to share one of the many examples with you of when openBC members get together offline and make a difference.

The English Theatre here in Hamburg is feeling the effects of yet more budget cuts this year. Sarik from openBC and The Hamburg Connection got wind of this and decided to help out this great cultural cause.

The openBC networking machine kicked into action straight away: An event was organized and over 120 openBC members gave up their evening at short notice to go and watch the current Tennessee Williams (The Glass Menagerie) play running, enjoy an evening of socializing, and make a donation for the future of the theatre.

A great time was had by all and the theatre was given a much-needed financial boost as well. So a big thank you to members and to the Hamburg Connection!

For me, that’s what makes openBC so worthwhile. It’s not about growing and managing a defunct network – it’s a dynamic community where people really do get together in the real world and really get things happening!

Another great networking event with a real spirit of smart people working to make a better world is the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference which will be held in Monterey, California next year. I am a TEDster and regularly enjoy reading the books they send me from the book club as well as of course enjoying the events themselves which are awesome and really offer a new take on the world and what can be done to mobilize the great skills and ideas that are in our communities to make a difference.

I also noticed they launched a blog today which you can find here so take a look!