Stories Connecting Dots with Markus Andrezak

In der vierten Episode bin ich zu Gast vor Ort bei [sipgate] in Düsseldorf und habe sie dort in Ihren Räumen in Düsseldorf aufgenommen. sipgate macht Telefonie für zu Hause, unterwegs und das Büro. Und das macht es nicht irgendwie. Sondern sipgate macht alles selber. sipgate ist also eine kleine Telekom, aber eben vollkommen anders. Das Interview führt von der ursprünglichen Geschäftsidee - Vorwahlnummern für Auslandstelefonate im Internet anzeigen - bis zur heutigen Ausbaustufe: Telefonie in allen Stufen selber bauen und anbieten. Dabei wird - hoffentlich auch bei Euch zu Hause - deutlich wie ein Unternehmen wächst und durch welche Stufen es geht. Von der Gründung im Studentenwohnheim, über das Schlafen im Büro und auch einmal nur noch 7000 Euro auf dem Konto bis zum heutigen, ausgebauten Produkt. Wir beschäftigen uns natürlich auch damit, was eine Firma ausserhalb des Produkts machen muss und wie sie dem Markt gegenüber immer aufgeschlossen bleiben kann. Vor allem: wie schafft es sipgate in diesem Markt innovationsfähig zu bleiben? Nebenbei hören wir auch, was eine Küche, ein Restaurant, [ein Buch] und [die Veranstaltungsreihe LeanDus] damit zu tun haben. sipgate ist eine Firma von feinen Menschen gemacht und das führt direkten Weges dazu, dass es eine ganz Feine Firma ist. Im Gespräch hören wir aber, dass auch das nicht selbstverständlich, sondern eine ganze Menge Arbeit. Wie gesagt, es gibt keine Abkürzungen! Kapitel 0:00:00 Intro Aufbrüche 0:02:02 Genesis - Selbstanwendung, Daten eintippen, 19 Raucher und ein Nichtraucher 0:13:02 Einbruch und Neuerfindung - 7.000 EUR, Ein Schwenk / Pivot in 3 Monaten, Hyperspeed, all hands on deck 0:18:35 Radikales DiY 0:24:32 Regulierung, na und? - „Um Regulierung haben wir uns damals nicht so gekümmert." ; „Wir haben damals tatsächlich die Grundgebühr abgeschafft" 0:27:28 Aller Anfang ist … improvisiert 0:29:44 Fertig? Nö! Stabilisierung 0:34:22 Wandel und Kultur - nach einem Blick in ein schwarzes Loch 0:39:26 Richtung geben - Rollen ändern sich 0:44:00 Kommunikation überall Vorne bleiben 0:46:52 Gestalten bis der Arzt kommt - nach innen und außen 0:50:26 Das Restaurant - der Hub, ein Ferrari, unerwartete Effekte 0:58:10 24 Work Hacks - das Buch 1:01:22 Marketing und Sales - the sipgate way 1:11:14 Lean DUS - embrace 1:15:53 Ein toller Abschied Die Geschichte von sipgate ist spannend und ich hoffe, Ihr konntet das so lebendig miterleben wie ich. Es ist schon beeindruckend, wie direkt und aus dem Leben die Phasen von sipgate waren und wie intensiv das alles gelebt werden musste. Und das ist wohl auch der Unterschied zu einem Innovationsansatz „by the book". Der Unterschied ist „skin in the game". „Skin in the game" hat bei sipgate dazu geführt, dass sie genau die Firma gebaut haben, die sie bauen mussten, weil sie eben damit leben und glücklich werden müssen. „Skin in the game" hat auch zu unglaublicher Identifikation mit dem Service und Produkt geführt und in der folge zum Übernachten im Büro wenn es sein muss. „Skin in the game" sorgte auch dafür, dass eine Erneuerung des Geschäftsmodells (und der Technik) in Monaten erfolgte. Und „Skin in the game" sorgt bis heute dafür, dass man sich der Notwendigkeit zur Erneuerung ständig bewusst ist - und handeln muss. Auch bei sipgate wird wieder deutlich, wie die handelnden Personen die Kultur definieren. Weil sie müssen. Die Gründer definieren automatisch, im Vorbeigehen die Kultur und im Nachhinein wird deutlich, welche Weichen sie gestellt haben um dorthin zu gelangen. Dadurch ist sipgate unverwechselbar sipgate und die Art und Weise wie geführt wird drückt sich in allem aus. Genauso beeindruckend ist aber, dass man dieses Geschäftsmodell nur „entdecken" konnte. Stück für Stück. Würde man heute hingehen und versuchen dieses Geschäftsmodell am Reißbrett entwerfen würde man scheitern oder seiner eigenen Arbeit nicht trauen. Den Telekommunikationsmarkt hacken wäre als Investitionsmodell kaum möglich oder glaubwürdig in einer Präsentation. Um das zu schaffen muss von Grund auf Pioniere werden. Ich bedanke mich für Eure Aufmerksamkeit. Ich würde mich freuen, wenn Ihr Bewertungen und Kommentare hinterlasst oder über irgendeinen Kanal an mich schickt! Und genau so freue mich auf die nächste Folge in ein paar Wochen, die wieder ganz anders wird Bis dahin, Markus

Michael Foley, author of the bestseller „The Age of absurdity - why modern life makes it hard to be happy" is the guest of this episode. The book is a celebration of insight from the most diverse philosophers, and an examination of the states we'd like to achieve and desperately are missing to hit. All his books center round deep insights around everyday life. Michael lives in London and since 2007 has completely devoted to writing. In one of his latest books, he goes into depth with Henri Bergson, a french philosopher, who lived from 1859 to 1941, son to a Polish jewish composer and an Irish jewish mother. At the time he was one of the most influential thinkers and kind of pre-dated quantum physics, chaos theory amongst other topics n science. He also won the nobel price. One of Bergsons many contributions was process theory. In a nutshell, process theory says that everything is in constant movement, there are no finite end states, everything is connected. While this may sound trivial, the consequences are overwhelming. With this model, Bergson lay the model for models that ended up being discovered by science only decades later. Statements of Quantum Theory, Emergence and Chaos Theory and lots more are such examples. So, embrace yourself for an entertaining deep dive into what the process view is, how Bergson sees Emergence and chaos theory, what bottom up and top down thinking and approaches bring to us and how tension helps us to innovate and much much more. Make sure, you also have a look at Michael Foley's books: „The Age of absurdity - why modern life makes it hard to be happy" "Life Lessons from Bergson" and many more ... What really keeps me thinking after this episode are two things: 1) How parallel and connected Michael Foley's world of thinking is connected to mine, although coming from totally different angles and professions. 2) How it is possible that a nobel price winner like Henri Bergson is so unknown today, after laying such broad foundations for philosophy, literature, science and much more. Incredible! Chapters are: Intro Chapter One: Henri Bergson, his process theory and what it means for modern life, (non)determinism Chapter Two: Emergence and Chaos Theory: Is emergence crawling or also big bumps? Emergence and it's meaning for agile. Emergence and innovation. The meaning of randomness and serendipity in innovation. Chapter Three: Bottom up vs top down: properties of approaches and combining them via feedback loops to create great systems Chapter Four: Tension is good for innovation; Tension and facilitation and much more Chapter Five: Process thinking and fun & comedy; petrification; Paying attention a means against getting petrified; Urge for the next thing, FOMO, Silo and specialisation as features of top down thinking. Some statements from the interview: Chapter one Henri Bergson, his process theory and what it means for modern life, (non)determinism "The first mistake is to think there is some final way of doing things, that can be quantified and written down" "It is a different way of looking at things, which doesn't accept any finality" "Linear logic is a good way to develop technology but not helpful in understanding human situations and human systems" Chapter two Emergence and Chaos Theory: Is emergence crawling or also big bumps? Emergence and it's meaning for agile. Emergence and innovation. The meaning of randomness and serendipity in innovation. "We accidentally developed consciousness, which is our great blessing and our great curse." "We only recently understood the principle behind it (emergence), which is the feedback loop and the feedback loop is one of the most important concepts ever discovered in the 20th century" "And the beauty of it is: it's so simple" "Everything goes round in a circle, there is no linear cause and effect" "Life is the constant creation of the absolutely new, the unpredictable, the unrepeatable" "Success and failure are emergent feature, I think. … What people like to think is that they control success and failure: when people succeed they think it's due to their own effort. When they fail, they put it down to bad luck or fate or someone else's fault." "The genius idea is to suddenly connect two things that haven't been connected." Chapter three Bottom up vs. top down: properties of approaches and combining them via feedback loops to create great systems "It is a general tension, there is good things and bad thing about both" "Basically everything started bottom up, through evolution" "The internet is a great example for it (the interaction of bottom up and top down) "Bottom up is creative, imaginative, energetic … but it has no direction" "Top down is very good for discipline and control and direction, but it has no energy or imagination - it tends to become fixed" "Populism is the bottom asserting its energy" "A mistake of bottom up is to think that anything new must be better" "Flattery is the most important management tool" "The bad news, again, is that people think flattery is easy … it is an art" "Flattery is jut a tool, it doesn't mean people are good or bad." Chapter four Tension is good for innovation; Tension and facilitation and much more "Tension is what's happening between top down and bottom up, for example" "I think tension can be a creative force, providing the people can hold the tension in balance without trying to suppress the other parties." "... (if out of balance that can lead) to a violent relationship. so what you want is harmonious tension. Hard to achieve, though" "Justice and merci, the demands of the individual / the demands of others, there is no answer to these things. They are tensions. they can be creative tensions if we hold them together and understand them and try not to let the one dominate the other too much. The trick is to hold them in tension" Chapter five Process thinking and fun & comedy; petrification; Paying attention a means against getting petrified; Urge for the next thing, FOMO, Silo and specialisation as features of top down thinking. "Of course, it's difficult. But then, everything is difficult. Life is meant to be difficult." "Philosophy is just about learning" A re products meant to make things easy? Easy vs. experience. "… there is that tendency today that experience is about doing something new, going somewhere new, finding new people. We see this constantly in relationships too. People constantly want new people rather than understanding the value in the people they are actually with. So it's a problem of potential. The world is obsessed with potential." "Q: Living in the moment is something we need to practice? Michael: Yes, but I really got to hate that phrase because it has become such a cliché. We also have to stop using the word mindfulness. … I agree with the principle, totally. But it's become a cliché." "Comedy could become the new mindfulness." "My theory is that play is the new fashionable thing, play is the new mindfulness." "The paradox is: you can detach in order to engage more" "The essence of excellence is to make it seem effortless" "I am working on a book that combines everything, that' what I want to do. Not just philosophy, but fiction and poetry. … What I want to do is pull them all together in one strange book. … and it'll never be published because my agent hates it."

This episode is held in English language. My guest is Jeff Sussna, founder and principal of ingineering.IT. He mainly works in the world of operations and is a well known speaker all over the world in the area of DevOps. Surprisingly, he approaches this field with the tools of Service Design, Cybernetics and Promise Theory. Using these ways of thinking, he also wrote a great book, „Designing Delivery", in which describes the role and challenges of companies in the new world where brands and product development are dialogues. In this conversation, we discuss the following topics: - Services as a fundamental model of coping with a modern, complex world, in which companies need relationships and conversations with their clients. - The role of Design Thinking and Service Design - How Cybernetics can help us understand and decide in situations of complexity and uncertainty - How the model of Promise Theory helps us deal with systems that sometimes fail or are incomplete and how this again helps us to live with the unavoidable circumstance of failure - Thinking broad and embracing ambiguity and dealing with that through balance - Discussions on mindfulness Beyond all, what I really learned and appreciated in this interview was Jeff's ability to break down complex thoughts in easy to understand small steps, taking nothing as granted. Kind of like a good maths teacher. Content: 0:00:00 - Introduction 0:01:19 - When, how and why did Dev and Ops separated? 0:08:06 - Nostalgie of full stack dev and how we are facing bigger tasks because of the INternet's success 0:14:01 - Jeff is not on the wrong end of the value chain with his topics, the whole company should embrace them 0:22:25 - Let's have positiv impact on people, outside and inside of the company 0:28:05 - Is „the family" and „relationship" a good metaphor for how we should work? 0:32:58 - Announcement of winners of Give Aways from Episode 1 0:34:27 - Jeff's Book „Designing Delivery" and the concept of services, Jobs To Be Done, are physical products easier than digital products? 0:47:09 - Design Thinking and Service Design 0:55:27 - Cybernetics 1:01:04 - Portfolio and Feedbackloops as a Cybernetic Systems 1:02:13 - Promise Theory, embracing failure in computer and human systems, incompleteness of systems (also in maths) 1.11:16 - On thinking beyond, going broad and the power of serendipity 1:14:28 - Amiguity and Balance 1:15:11 - On mindfulness, your reaction defines the outcome, there are no shortcuts

In der ersten Folge von Stories Connecting Dots habe ich mit Klaus Leopold über Kanban gesprochen. Klaus macht Kanban in normal, groß und ganz groß. Wir sprechen darüber was Kanban überhaupt ist und wie es Unternehmen helfen kann Dinge explizit zu machen und dadurch besser entscheiden zu können wie es eigentlich darum geht, den Menschen eine sinnvollere Arbeit zu ermöglichen dass die besten Dinge im Leben nicht zu erklären sondern zu erfahren sind über's Bücher schreiben wir verlosen Bücher wie das Vorleben von Werten und Entscheidungen einfacher ist als etwas zu fordern wie man von "einfach coole Sachen machen" zu einem der mietgefragten Kanban-Implementierer Europa wird und vieles vieles mehr Links: Klaus' neuestes Buch "Kanban in der Praxis" Seine Firma Leanability Klaus auf twitter