If you have followed this blog for some time, you may have wondered why it suddenly went quiet. Well, it didn’t stop really, it only got interrupted.
The reason why I haven’t been blogging lately is simple. In October 2007, I started a new job at namics in Zurich, and ever since then I have been working for its marketing division namicsrotweiss.
At the time it seemed a good opportunity, based on the experiences I had made when I was working freelance for namics for two weeks. We had been in talks about possible collaborations for about a month before that, and it had come to a point where it seemed reasonable to establish a firmer work relationship, also because namicsrotweiss had won the client pitch I had been involved with as a consultant.
Namics is the biggest Internet company in Switzerland and has a total of about 250 employees in Germany and Switzerland. They have no footprint in the English-speaking hemisphere though, and they aren’t planning to expand there, but they do have relationships with partners like Six Apart.
My official job title is Consultant, but with my background, I’m also covering some creative direction and of course concept creation and strategy, which are part of my core competence. Consultants at namics are always also project managers.
When I started working for namics, it looked like a good joint venture of our both experiences. I felt namics has a great spirit and I was eager to help shaping its future, or at least the future of namicsrotweiss. Meanwhile my impressions and outlooks are more complex and certainly adjusted to a more sober reality.
I am quite certain that namics will keep its leadership for the upcoming time and I am proud to be part of this development. But without being critical, I have to admit that, while namics has a great spirit and as a company, it is actively looking for innovation to maintain its leadership ambitions, it isn’t free of the laws of gravity when it comes to the Swiss market and the European state of the Internet scene and development.
By some measures, namics is a very innovative and extremely modern company. It is unique in its own way and clearly sets itself apart from all other IT-, Web- and Communications companies I know in the German speaking hemisphere. It really is a different kind of animal among them, and I think that may well be the source of its biggest challenge and its greatest potential.
In many ways, even when trying to be innovative, namics manages also to be a conservative company, not much different from the clients it is serving to. In fact, it’s conservative to the degree it can work with its clients, because as a company, you still have to be economically successful, reasonable and efficient.
That being said, I think there are also a few solid and good reasons why namics is a leader in its field. Over the course of the past couple of years, it has established a number of partnerships with companies like Google and Microsoft. It has created firm client relationships, many of them for longer than three years (a rarity in this business, which is rather project and solution-driven). Plus, it is continuing to grow, but takes great care of not losing a grip on the balance between growth- and success rates.
The reason why namics got interested in my work was a concept presentation I had sent around in the industry. Elephant Seven in Hamburg, who merged with Pixelpark, and namics were the two companies in the German-speaking market who were interested to talk to me. Since I live in Zurich and namics has a main office here, and because the spirit felt right, I chose to work for namics.
There is more to come about the story between core and namics, but for now, this entry covers the basics to keep you updated. For the upcoming time I will continue to work for namics, but I hope that I can pick up again on blog entries. Later on, I also hope to find time to publish a couple of ideas I had in store since Autumn 2007.
Hi Henning.
You really hit the point saying “In fact, it’s conservative to the degree it can work with its clients, because as a company, you still have to be economically successful, reasonable and efficient.” This spirit made us survive more than 10 years in the market even through bitter times.
But there is today’s reality and a view on the future. We definitely are looking for more innovation and more courageousness, but always with a critical eye on the financial success of our customers.
One approach is to have a portfolio including modern high-touch projects (like http://shortlist.stern.de or http://www.lovepeace.ch/). The second is to actively develop the market. And yes, we do both and yes, we could do it better.
So who’s job is it? Well guess twice… What namics can do is to gather highly skilled, witty and creative people and create an environment, where they can work best. The rest is professional service…
I am convinced that it can come from inside but maybe some people need a wakeup call. As always real innovation is not linear ;-)
Cheers
Jürg
Jürg Stuker, February 18, 2008 08:15 AM