04/02/2012

Shame on you, copycat: Excelsis Business Solutions copies GrandCentrix website!

In late 2008, together with some friends I’ve known forever, I cofounded GrandCentrix.

Within just two years, we’ve grown to one of the largest, iOS and Android focused mobile apps developers in Germany, servicing major brands. With publ.me, we’ve created a revolutionary iPad publishing platform, that not only coined the term “iPad publishing made easy” – hence the “me” in publ.me – but is also used by market leading companies across the globe.

In fact, a comparison conducted by renowned management consultancy Arthur D. Little found publ.me to be the most comprehensive, affordable and easy to use offering in this market.

I’m in this game for quite a while and do understand, that success fosters envy.

Still, I was somewhat surprised this morning, to find voice application professional Excelsis Business Solutions AG – who has just recently jumped on the app development bandwagon – to go online with what’s almost a 1:1 copy of the GrandCentrix corporate homepage.

Here’s the original GrandCentrix homepage, as it has been online since almost two years (click to enlarge):

And here is Excelsis Business Solutions’ shameless copy under the brand name apperplace:

Some say, if an established player (at least in the voice industry) is unable to come up with her own original ideas and starts copying yours, one should feel humbled.

So we brainstormed ideas from taking legal action to trying to get in touch.

We finally came up with an even better one: What makes for a better argument in customer presentations, talks and sales meetings, if you can prove a company that’s in business since 1998 feels tempted to bluntly copy your ideas, design, messaging and content?

We’ve started modifying our Keynote presentations and all of our sales collateral. We’ve added a brief intro, showcasing how desperate some of our competitors really are. And if they’re desperate, that’s usually a good sign!

Besides this, we still believe, if you’re serious about iPad publishing, you’ll likely not hand your business to a $99 construction kit company, anyway.

A former boss, who has founded one of the largest Internet companies on the planet, taught me to “lead, don’t follow”.

Today, Excelsis Business Solutions has proven being good at copying. We stay tuned.

MLOVE, I love you

MLOVE 2011 is over and somehow I wish, it could have lasted forever.

Last year, my MLOVE post was titled “It’s all about the people“.

This year, I struggled finding a headline, that would potentially express it even better. I couldn’t. MLOVE 2011 still was all about the people and hopefully that aspect will never change.

Covering the spirit and nature of MLOVE in a blog post is virtually impossible. You have to be there and experience it yourself to completely understand it.

So this year, here is my unordered list of feelings and observations that I’d like to share with you:

  • MLOVE still is the one and only industry event – if one can even name it like this – that I’d pay for privately to attend. I’ve had the pleasure to visit SXSW, LeWeb, eComm, NEXT Conference, WWDC and many others in my professional life. Don’t get me wrong. Those are great conferences. But they are not family. And MLOVE sort of is.
  • Thanks god, MLOVE does not suffer from “tech celebrification”. The speaker and attendee lineup was impressive. But it’s not the MG Sieglers or Michael Arringtons that you meet during MLOVE. In fact, at LeWeb 2010 those guys were escorted like superstars, as if they had to escape their audience. At MLOVE, Thomas Goetz the Executive Editor for WIRED Magazine and Chamillionaire, a Grammy-winning rapper, could very well end up next to you during dinner or in one of the Future Cubes, applying design thinking methodologies to complex problems. After all, we’re all just humans and in this together.
  • Big company names just mean nothing. The MLOVE team made a good decision not even printing the name of the company you belong to on your badge. At MLOVE whether you’ve been sent by a giant telco or just launched your one-man-passion-startup, everybody gets treated equally. In other words: You get an audience because of what you have to say, not whom you work for.
  • What happens at MLOVE, stays at MLOVE. During his opening remarks, Harald Neidhardt put it this way: “We try to make you leave your comfort zone. And hopefully find a new one here at MLOVE.” And while it takes MLOVE newbies some getting used to, I’ve never seen so many people whom I just met opening up like this. A truly rewarding experience.
  • It’s like coming home. MLOVE is a truly international event. People from all over the world gather in the MLOVE castle. I’m connected through various Social Networks with many, but unfortunately, some I only see in person once a year. At MLOVE. And it always feels like family. Returning to the castle. Returning to this inspiring group. That is a fantastic feeling!
  • Though I don’t have any official numbers, MLOVE felt bigger this year. In 2010 we were a group of approx. 150. The crowd since has grown to roughly 250. While adding more diverse viewpoints, perspectives and stories of life is a good thing, I hope MLOVE will stay with this size or even downsize a bit. Why? Because everybody is worth spending at least some time with. If MLOVE keeps growing, you don’t have a chance to spend much time with most of the attendees but instead risk feeling in a constant hurry.
  • No corporate BS. Financing an event like this without falling into the trap of giving sponsors tons of time to present corporate slides is extremely difficult. MLOVE has always been different in this regard. Even Nokia’s German MD, the company was an MLOVE 2011 sponsor, talked about sustainability. And donated grassland and a wish tree to the MLOVE castle. I hope that MLOVE will find a way to keep the balance between size and not being 100% dependent on corporate sponsorship.

Then there was Bernd Kolb.

From the MLOVE website: “Kolb left behind these accolades [he was a chief executive with German Telekom and is the founder of I-D Media, RR] to work as a ‘social entrepreneur’ and ‘change agent’ helping to navigate the complex challenges amongst us and to develop innovative new solutions to deal with those challenges. In founding the ‘Club of Marrakesh’, Kolb gathers international thinkers, scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs to develop integrated ground-breaking projects and to implement them. The approach is entrepreneurial in nature and follows the principle that sustainability can be only achieved through profitability.”

Bernd’s talk about the fundamental global challenges our planet and society are facing and his passion to transform the world towards sustainability was one of those rare defining moments in life for me.

It’s not, that Bernd presented any facts that haven’t been around or available before. It again, was all about the people. I happened to sit in the first row during Bernd’s talk and could literally feel his dedication, passion and strong believe in our ability, to help driving that transformation.

It was mind blowing, touching and a wake-up call much deserved.

When Harald thanked Bernd for contributing this to MLOVE, he could hardly hold back his tears. The crowd gave standing ovations.

Finally, the MLOVE Teen Camp.

Last year, Harald’s daughter Toni Neidhardt gave a talk about the impact of Mobile to her teen life. At the age of 15. It’s available at vimeo and I strongly encourage you to watch it.

That discussion sparked the idea of doing a Teen Camp at MLOVE 2011.

On day three the young MLOVErs from countries all over the world presented their work. And boy did they deliver.

To me, the strong contrast between Bernd pointing out the global challenges we all are facing and shortly thereafter seeing these wonderful, brilliant young people shaping their ideas for their future, that made it an even more intense experience.

And sort of reemphasized our mutual responsibility and the fact that each and everyone of us can and must help. As Aape Pohjavirta put it during his talk: “We have no excuses.”

Besides this, I think these kids should go out to German schools and teach the teachers to teach.

Thank you.

I’d like to thank Harald and his wonderful team for putting this together and letting us feel their passion. Back into my home office, I hope I will be able to carry some of it over to my professional and private life.

Namaste.

Help please, Leo Laporte is my only friend on DIASPORA!

There has been a lot of buzz about DIASPORA when it launched mid-September last year.

The open source initiative aims to become a distributed Facebook competitor, or, in their own words, “the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network”.

Wow, what a bold mission statement!

I was lucky enough to get one of the early invites and naturally – I love the Open Web! – I signed up immediately and got… disappointed, like so many others. Point is: There was nobody else on DIASPORA.

So today, roughly three months after signing up, I took another look.

And boy I got surprised: A very special, very well-known friend had connected with me, Mr. Leo Laporte!

Likely, there’s hardly anybody in the tech universe, who doesn’t know about Leo and his TWiT Netcast universe.

I asked myself: Could this be the real Leo? – I mean, the real, real Leo Laporte? As a long standing listener of This WEEK in TECH, I knew Leo is keeping transcripts of his shows on the TWiT Wiki. I wanted to find out.

Turns out, not only is this the real Leo. Actually, the great act of the two of us becoming close friends is even documented! On video! Set in stone! Forever!

Check out This WEEK in TECH Episode #276 below. Just hit the play button and you will become an eyewitness. If you happen to watch on YouTube, you need to manually tune in to 1:44:38.

Here we go:

Unfortunately, Leo hasn’t said much on DIASPORA besides the “Derp” from this very episode. Me neither. It’s a sad story.

But I’m not exactly the depressed type of person and I want to bring back the spark to Leo’s and my relationship. My hope is, that once this post is out, he’ll remember. His DIASPORA user name and password (I had to look up mine today) and… of course me!

Leo, if you’re out there, please get in touch!

I’d love to join one of the next TWiT episodes, skyping in all the way from Germany, to celebrate our friendship in person! And if Jeff should be around, I’d be more than happy to provide a native German perspective on “privacy in Blurmany”. :-)

Just gimme a sign. On DIASPORA, if you prefer.

On a more serious note: Things on DIASPORA got pretty quiet shortly after launch in general. The DIASPORA blog has no posts between November 2010 and end of January 2011. There’s hardly been any exciting media coverage, either.

Would it be fair to state: DIASPORA is dead?

 

The 2010 List of best known German Serial Entrepreneuers

I’m feeling honored that Germany’s renown Business Magazine WirtschaftsWoche added me to the 2010 List of best known German Serial Entrepreneurs.

Starting your own venture, strongly believing in your ideas and working on it with a highly motivated team is what always drove me – and I admit, I’m somewhat addicted.

I often hear: It only happens in The Valley. Well that is not true.

Here’s the 2010 List of best known German Serial Entrepreneurs:

(Click to enlarge)

The Bees Awards: First International Social Media Award Show, San Francisco November 9th, 2010

I’m proud to serve as a Jury member for the initial iteration of The Bees Awards, the first International Social Media Award Show.

One-fifth of the planet’s population is active on social media platforms. The Bees Awards will showcase how companies make the best use of new communication tools. This prestigious event will be held in San Francisco on November 9th, 2010.

“Social media is a growing phenomenon that calls for new communication and marketing expertise,” said Bastien Beauchamp, Founder of The Bees Awards. “Contrary to advertising, social media is “real” – it involves real people, real conversations, real products, real companies and real brands. Marketing legends David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach advocated the necessity of being in constant contact with the consumer’s reality. The Bees Awards will recognize those who have most expertly married this original spirit with today’s technology to create social media that transcends all marketing that’s come before it.”

The Deadline for Entry Submissions is October 1st, 2010.

1st International Social Media Award Show for Communication and Marketing Professionals – The Bees Awards from BeesAwards on Vimeo.

Nominees will be announced October 21st, 2010 at 7pm PST on the Bees Awards website at http://www.beesawards.com and via Twitter (@beesawards #beesawards). The Awards Gala will take place in San Francisco on November 9th, 2010. It will be streamed live at http://www.beesawards.com and via Twitter (@beesawards #beesawards).

The Bees Awards seek to  fill the gap in current marketing awards competitions by focusing solely on recognizing excellence in social media across multiple platforms. The Bees Awards team has established three key criteria:

  1. The Bees Awards are for communications and marketing professionals including: public relations and advertising agencies, advertisers, consultants, freelancers, students, business managers, and entrepreneurs.  People who pay or are paid to leverage social media tools to accomplish a corporate purpose may enter. No other social media awards exist for social media marketing practitioners.
  2. The Bees Awards are  the first social media award show with representation from an international jury panel. Social media has no boundaries, but every country has its own expertise and practices.  The Bees Awards goal is to incorporate this ever-changing global knowledge base in its selection/judging process.
  3. The Bees Awards will be awarded for delivering excellence in the various categories as judged by a jury of expert practitioners. It is not about being famous; it’s about executing impressive communications that are recognized by the jury to stimulate and challenge the industry. The jury has the responsibility to be the guardians of emerging media brilliance  and to help give  direction to the industry.

Looking very much forward to fantastic submissions and a great event in November!

Ten reasons why Android is not at all working for me.

On 26th November, 2009 I’ve started The Android Experiment as part of my work for The Next Web:

Given my known addiction for All-Things-Apple and my fairly open bias when it comes to Android with all of its attributed iPhone killer potential, I decided to give Android a fair chance to win my heart.

I handed my iPhone to my wife for her to store it in a secret place and force myself to solely use the Motorola Milestone.

The setup

The Milestone is the European version of the US market’s Motorola Droid and is known as a flagship Android based smart phone. It ships with the latest version 2.1 of Google’s mobile phone operating system and I got it bundled with a Vodafone flat data tariff.

I believe from the hardware & services perspective it would be fair to say that I’ve chosen a leading Android setup for my experiment, thus making sure that in case of a failure nobody blames the device or mobile operator. [Read more...]

Getting in charge for The Next Web Germany

tnwdeToday I’ve agreed to become the Editor for the German branch of The Next Web network: The Next Web Germany.

I’ve long been an author for The Next Web International and occasionally contributed to the German blog, too. We all know that many of the really, really cool technology news originate from the US. Even in our almost 100% virtualized world, that’s a clear location advantage for blogs targeting an English speaking audience.

The Next Web Germany is available since roughly two months now and I’m planning to make some slight adjustments to the content strategy over the course of the next weeks. We might add more commentary posts and will also increase the number of articles from our mother, that we offer as a German translation.

I’m also looking forward to add some really cool new resources to our German team.

They’ll add upon the many different angles and perspectives we try to provide on the stuff that forms the next web. (If you’d like to get in touch, email me at ralf@thenextweb.com, please!)

That said, I’ll continue to write for The Next Web International but am feeling honored to take full responsibility for our German baby!

Finally, I’d like to ask you for your support by

Thanks and looking forward to get your comments over there!

A brief update

ralf-rottmann-rounded-borderMy loyal readers have noticed that my updates here at 24100.net slowed down a bit over the last couple of months. My last post is well over a month old. Here’s why:

1. Twitter kills the blogger star

There’s no doubt that we are headed to the real-time web. More capable  mobile devices, a general trend towards mobility and the rise of social networks are rapidly adding new ways to communicate and stay connected to our lives. As in my professional life I’m dealing with communication technologies since more than a decade, it’s quite natural for me to try out all the latest and greatest. [Read more...]

Busy times… sort of a personal update.

Never before my job has been so close to disruptive markets and technologies and I absolutely appreciate it. To me it’s a great privilege being able to deep dive into some of the most amazing new technologies that are currently available.

Brainstorming ideas on how to leverage and take them to market with my peers is so much fun and I’m very much aware that doing this as a job which allows me to feed my family is something I should never take for granted.

GrandCentrix

Many of you have been contacting me over the past couple of months asking me to reveal details about my new company. [Read more...]

@24z

In an attempt to keep meta information as short as possible and leave more room for content, I’ve renamed my Twitter account to 24z. You don’t have to do anything. If you followed me @ralfrottmann before, you keep on following @24z automatically. My “old” account is still there so that links in some older posts don’t break.

Thanks for being patient with me during my “twitter-account-merger-mania”!