IB

Dears, I´m back in cologne, and I´ve to say, the days in munich were just great, though the town itself is not of my „gusto“: everything is very strict, a lot of policeman on the streets, and everything is „clean“. We really had a great time, staying at our friends house (thanks again a lot Tanja, Pablo and Louis, for giving us such a warm and lovelyy home) and meeting lots of interesting people: Andre Varney, a fascinating guy, multi-entrepreneur and „blues-man“. We enjoyed this evening in the Makassar (which I suggest you to stay at whenever you are in Munich) very much – You won`t often find such nice, polite and open-minded people – hope to see you soon again, and good luck in Barcelona 😉 We are quite exhausted, because the night was too long, drinking and having a party for Tanja´s birthday. These guys from HP were really crazy: I liked them very much and our english-french-portugese-german-redwine-mix was just georgous 😉 Back to work tomorrow morning – there are intersting new projects waiting to be done.

dears, I will be off to munich from tomorrow until sunday 04.03.28 – If you need something from there, I can get it for you, and send it by post…What about a „white-beer“…;-)

Reading Ram Charan: Every business is a growth business several new aspects and techniques come to my mind, on how to broad the pond you are swimming in: using this matrix, one can analyze your „swimmingpool“. Starting in the lower left corner, you have got existing customers with existing needs making a certain revenue. Now you can start and try to broaden it into several directions. Moving to the right lower corner means to bring your existing products to new customers, going to the upper left corner means to bring new needs to your existing customers, which might be the safest way to braoden your business. Going the diagonal way to the upper left often means to take certain risks introducing new needs to new customers. This matrix fixes to nearly every business, and works like a mind map – just producing new ideas. Play with it 😉

Well, as i´ve posted two days ago, i´ve been to the ITB in Berlin, in order to sell our new online-streaming-products to touristic-companies. We´ve developed a system which enables you to show films about hotels, landscapes or whatever in an extremely fast, easy-to-use and cheap way. The contacs I made were quite succesfull, though I have to say, that telling from day to day always the same stuff, always grinding to people, you know, you would never like to drink a beer with, is very tireing. I know it´s that business – but sometimes I think, a bit more „warmeness“ and openess would be much more nicer. I´m really exhausted, but as the sun is shining today, I know, that´s life…;-)

As zdnet.de ( in german) reports Phillips is going to introduce a streaming web-module for their new TV´s but even as an adapter for every old unit. It´s bases on the 802.11g WiFi standard, and is therefore a clear step into the fully integrated internet into common households…

Being on the ITB in Berlin I was very pleased to find a t-online hotspot. using my t-mobile account, I am able to login into the wifi, which costs about 2 € / 15 min. The speed is quite ok. Next entry will be at home – I hope soon. Bye…

Dears, it`s a really tough time at the moment. Building up two companies at one time, even our cats don´t know me anymore. So I beg for your convenience on blogging that less – I´ll be better in two weeks…;-)

Well, based on this article on spiegel.de Microsoft paid SCO about 10 Million Dollars, and gave the venture capitalist baystar capital the hint, to invest in SCO. It´s a clever step for Microsoft, because of the license rumours SCO had with IBM during the last months. SCO claims IBM to have used SCO sourcecode in their LINUX systems and wants license-fees of about 5 billion $ , and Microsoft of course wants IBM with LINUX to step far beyond their own operating system „windows“.

Well, David Weinberger tells us, he was faster than we were – and guess what: he is right (my speed’o’meter stops at 1.2 mbit, ;-(( )

Well, I´ve just started reading the book „Everyday business is a growth business“, written by Ram Charan. And I have to say, it`s damn interesting right from the beginning. The first chapter deals with the defining of the markets, and asks what are „mature markets“. The conclusion is, that there are no mature-, there are „full“ markets. As an example Ram shows the way Coca Cola went in the early eighties, when their fight against PesiCo was nearly lost. They fought about tenth of a percent during the seventies and eighties, and spent millions for there marketing campaigns (remember a man called michael jackson?). When Coca Cola`s new CEO Goizueta came there he defined a new market, based on the question, how much CC´s part in the stomache of there consumers was. They found out, that the biggest Rival was n ot Pepsi: It was water, coffe, milk… Due to this, they changed their distribution system – being available in every bar, school, fitness-center, CC was able to grow much bigger than PepsiCo. Well, it´s an amazing thing, defining your markets you are playing in, in a new way. I for myself have to manage the marketing strategies of a big multiplex – there more I read the book, the more ideas are coming to my mind, on how to develop new markets against our competitors…