S-Bahn München: Live Fahrplan

, ,

Münchens S-Bahn lässt sich nun in Echtzeit live verfolgen. Zu jeder Linie sieht man auf einer Karte Münchens stets die aktuelle Position der jeweiligen S-Bahn. Und sie bewegen sich sogar…

Aktualisierter Link zum Live Fahrplan (02/2018):
http://s-bahn-muenchen.hafas.de/bin/540/help.exe/dn?tpl=livefahrplan

 

The Interactive Brand Ecosystem (Forrester)

, ,

Facebook Ads Optimization

Facebook Ads Optimization Guide

SOM on IMD: Managing Digital Native Employees

, ,

Dr. Karsten Jonsen, a research fellow at the IMD at Lausanne recently published an interesting article on the new generation of employees that increasingly enter the workforce – the digital natives:

Managing Digital Natives – Creating a work environment for tomorrow’s workforce<

Having grown up in a digital world, everything older generations had a hard time to learn is common sense to this generation. This will have major implications on how they work – which can cause a lot of conflicts but also brings up great opportunities.

The article nicely explains what makes these digital natives special and how employers should manage them in order to get the best result for both sides.

Here are some elements and my comments to them:

Digital Natives are:

Playful, like to set their own rules, enjoy freedom and try to avoid unpleasant tasks: agreed, but I disagree with the fact that they value fun more than fulfilling their duties. Today’s young professionals are very ambitious and critical towards themselves. They have grown up not only with all the amenities of our times but also in a more competitive world.

Entitled, feeling that they are the project, constantly improving their own brand, focusing on their own wellbeing: agreed, although the team spirit is in my eyes still being appreciated by the digital natives. But if this is something that is not being nurtured by the management, then yes, they are focusing on their own brand only.

Instantaneous, praising fast and random access to information, desiring instant gratification and constant interaction, ability to quickly handle large chunks of different information, great talent to assimilate to changing frameworks: agreed, but this is an explosive one. Today’s young talents are very demanding but if their demands are not fulfilled they can easily react and assimilate to new situations, such as for example a new job position in a different company. Today’s networks further support this.

Digitally dependant, „being offline“ experienced as a serious constraint: agreed, being online is not an option, it is part of our daily life. Thus as explained in the article, shutting them off from their digital networks will not result in more productivity. Instead a reasonable use should mutually be agreed on.

Participatory, generating information and sharing it openly with other members of the team is essential, they want to be heard and demand power early on: agreed, digital natives are used to communicate and discuss, so a very hierarchical business structure where they have wait until they may speak can be hard at first. The strong propensity to participation of course boosts teamwork and collaboration which, as also pointed out in the article, can also reach out to external resources that earlier on where completely out of reach for the company. Personal networks are „tapped“ to benefit the business goal. The better the network an employee brings along the better for the company. This however is something that often is hard to compensate as the positive results are hard to measure and are often not recognized by companies.

Karsten Jonsen and his team give four tips on how to deal with digital natives and I fully agree with them. They all show that companies have to rethink their structures and their internal rules in order to attract the greatest talents and more important (as recruitment is getting harder and harder and more expensive) retain them!

1. Give them freedom
2. Create sense of ownership
3. Coach them (and let them coach you)
4. Reward them everyday

What these points mean in detail can be read in the article which can be found via the link to IMD.

Many of the most successful companies of today such as Google or Apple make use of this new approach. Even German engineering company Trumpf has recently introduced a new work hour model which grants their employees the complete freedom on at what stages in their life they want to work how much. Every two years they can decide their weekly hours anew. CEO Nicola Leibinger-Karmueller explains this move with the fact that in the course of time, employees have differing expectations towards their job. In young years they are very ambitious, want to come ahead and get things done, in later years family building or care for the parents may be more in the focus. Many experts believe that this step will not only improve motivation and thus productivity but also have positive effects on the health of the employees.

This shows: Money is not all. A competitive salary still counts, but there are more and more factors that become relevant for employees when choosing their employer.

This article contains direct citations from the above mentioned IMD article by Dr. Karsten Jonsen and his team. The article can be downloaded via the link provided.

BMW DriveNow – CarSharing von BMW i, Mini und Sixt

, , ,

BMW reagiert auf die zunehmende Tendenz weg vom eigenen Auto hin zu Mobilität auf Abruf (on demand) und startet unter seiner neuen Submarke BMW i und in Kooperation mit Sixt das Mobilitätskonzept DriveNow.

Hier der Introfilm:

Und hier ein Trailer zu BMW i:

Eye candy for the weekend

Nissan/Renault eMobility: one idea two TVCs

, , ,

Just recently I saw a really nice Renault commercial for their electric vehicle model range:

To be honest, it is a very creative approach which really opens our minds to the fact that in every aspect of our daily life things are being run electric, except for the car. And it is exactly here that it takes a lot of marketing dollars to persuade and convince us that the future of driving will be electric.

Now it is no secret that Renault Nissan are cooperating. Still I was surprise to see this Nissan TVC here which closely draws on the Renault spot. I can only guess that maybe the Nissan spot was there first, but maybe it is no coincidence but a shared marketing campaign to promote electric vehicles for both brands…

Here is the Nissan version (for the US market and also showing the Chevy Volt which is being blamed for not being 100% electric:

RTT Excite 2011, Munich

, ,

The Munich-based RTT AG is a pioneer in 3D visualization and maintains offices around the world and employs more than 450 experts. Each year RTT invites its clients and prospects to the RTT Excite, a standout event which showcases the latest technologies across the industry and their diverse areas of application in the world of 3D realtime visualization.


The lectures and breakout sessions included speakers from companies such as Siemens, Adidas, McKinsey, Opel, Ford, Porsche, Pixar and of course RTT.

3D visualization offers huge possibilities to reduce costs and increase time-to-market in a number of industries. Up front of course is the automotive sector which still has some of the biggest expenditures when it comes to developing new parts or even entire vehicles. This became obvious when looking around in the audience. Almost every major automaker had sent staff to the RTT Excite to learn about the latest trends and the new opportunities in this fast developing field.


The case studies nicely explained the strong need for 3D visualization, the various usages and the cost effect visualization has compared to producing real models – whether of cars, Atomic ski boots or fashion. In the product development process visualization enables to quickly change product features and immediately send a new model to team members all around the world in order to decide how the next car, shoe or connector should look like.

Once a product has been finalized, 3D visualization makes it available to a gigantic audience – for example online in a car configurator, a virtual online shop, or at the POS. We live in times of huge product ranges. Premium brands such as BMW or Audi fill up every product niche out there which makes it harder every day for the consumer to decide what product fits best. At the same time this is also a challenge to the POS: The model range of an automaker often grows faster than the showroom capacity and the number of possible configurations are enormous. Thus auto showrooms increasingly rely on visualizers to show the customer in a most realisitic way, how his dream car would look like. CGI materials are often faster to produce and cheaper than entire photo shootings for a new campaign.

3D visualization increases time-to-market, allows to react faster to changing customer needs, supports the customer purchasing process and make shopping more interactive and more exciting.

Sixt Guerilla Marketing at Airport

, , ,

A nice example of a guerilla marketing campaign. The good thing about it: it finds a unique channel or way to address the key target group which is most likely to be interested in this offer: professionals. We all know the situation: when you are not in the office and have entire teams working back in the office, your laptop or mobile device is the link to the crew back home or to the client out there. As there is barely internet on planes, the waiting time at the airport becomes crucial. And when time is short, fast DSL is the key. Thus offering free WLAN is always appreciated. In this case the WLAN ID transports the marketing message which here is the special airport fare for the SIXT BWM 3-series rental offer. A nice solution! So if by contract you are not binded to a special rental agency, this nice little favor by SIXT may have a positive influence on you.

Keep in mind: the worst situation you can be in when renting a car is an airport where you quickly need a ride – they usually charge a lot.

Nice little campaign!