ESTIEM Magazine | Spring 2009 | I work here!

k r o Iw

Online Home

Inkscape

!

E R E H

Local Computer

Budget 2010

Work online folder

Budget 2011

Report 2009

Personal

A Close-up on Work Environments

Relaxing Music

Rock Radio

European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management 35 2009/1 2008/2 | ISSN 0874-5242 | Price 0 Euro | www.estiem.org Issue 36

Trash

Kn\\^ll8lmhkb^l8]hgÁm8cnlm8aZii^g La^r8Zk^8fZ]^

LkZbg^^8mh]Zr 8D^Z]bg`8ma^8pZr8mhfhkkhp 8La^8?kZ]nZm^8EZgZ`^f^gm8LkZbg^^8Hkh`kZf8bl8 ma^8pZr8mh8db\d¦lmZkm8rhnk8ikh_^llbhgZe8\Zk^^k 8?Zbg8oZenZ[e^8^qi^kb^g\^8Zg]8\hgmZ\ml8hg8ma^8 ch[ 8[Z\d^]8ni8[r8phkdlahil8Zg]8l^fbgZkl8maZm8\ho^k8Zee8ma^8[Zl^l 8Lh`^ma^k 8p^Áee8y8g]8ma^8 _ng\mbhgZe8Zk^Z8maZm8[^lm8lnbml8hnk8fnmnZe8bgm^k^lml8Zg]8fZi8hnm8ma^8oZkbhnl8Zllb`gf^gml8hg8 ma^8pZr8mh8k^Z\abg`8rhnk8Z`k^^]8h[c^\mbo^l 8Labl8`bo^l8rhn8ma^8i^k_^\m8ieZm_hkf8_hk8eZng\abg`8 rhnk8\Zk^^k8ln\\^ll_neer 8OaZm8]h8rhn8[kbg`8mh8ma^8mZ[e^8Zl8Z8?kZ]nZm^8EZgZ`^f^gm8LkZbg^^ 8 D^Z]^klabi8jnZebmb^l8Zg]8\hfi^m^g\^ 8fhmboZmbhg 8lZoor 8Zf[bmbhg8Zg]8\hffbmf^gm 8Zee8khee^]8 bgmh8hg^ 89_m^k8Zee 8p^Ák^8ehhdbg`8_hk8ghg^8[nm8ma^8[^lm 89k^8rhn8hg^8h_8ma^f =o^kr8ln\\^ll8lmhkr8aZl8Z8[^`bggbg` 8 KmZkm8rhnkl8pbma8nl 8a^k^8Zg]8ghp ppp [hl\a¦\Zk^^k ]^

EDITORIAL Editorial President’s Speech

4

4 5

INSIDE ESTIEM

29

Introduction to ESTIEM Projects and Committees Introducing: Board 2009 Connecting ESTEMers | Members Committee Knowledge Management | Sharing the Experince Maintaining Case Studies | TIMES Working in a Sunny Place | CM Famagusta Mix of Cultures, Economy and Politics - Europe3D Switzerland An Amazing Learning Experience - Summer Academy Hungary 2008 Camp Fire | Logistics Camp Istanbul Something New and True | Europe3D Serbia Regional Coordination Meeting Izmir What is Happening in Seville?

What is Happening in Bucharest?

From Ex- Project Leaders

6 8 10 14

15 16 17 19 20 22 23 24 25 26 27

20 FOCUS

30 34 37 40 42

Fitness First Price Tag of Freedom Five Sustainable Oppourtunuties Generetion Y and the Work Place

CAREER Key Skills | Staufenbiel A Great Internship Experience | Oerlikon My Start @ Bosch Entrepreneurship & ESTIEMers - Interview to Henrik Rudberg Women and Leadership: - Learning from Social Sector Excange Experience | Australia Cultural Prejudice | Switzerland

46 47 48 49

AGENDA

58

53 55 57

45

4 Editorial imprint Project Leader Sezen Sayoglu

Back to The Future

Editorial Staff Isidora Strboja Thibault Mafferi Katarina Gavric Andreea Sabo

Design David Christian Berg Sezen Sayoglu Article Acquisition Sezen Sayoglu Andreea Sabo David Christian Berg Advertisement Acquisition Andreea Sabo Sezen Sayoglu Joao Barata Max Steinmetz Contact magazine@estiem.org ESTIEM Permanent Office Paviljoen B-6 P.O.Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands Fax: 0031-(0)40 2473871 info@estiem.org www.estiem.org Disclaimer The contents may not always reflect the opinion of the publisher. Any reproduction or copy is permitted only with the permission of the editors.

Our Partners

sezen sayoglu

Layout Sezen Sayoglu David Christian Berg

The future is not a solely intangible concept to be left to the monopoly of science fictions but it is our own creation. And if we take all those time-travels, intelligent robots or alternative histories and apocalyptic fictions down to earth, it is simply what we have invented or created. So, leaving aside tensions or anxiety related to our future, we can start enjoying being a part of this cosmic process of change and innovation. It may very well bring along more progress, prosperity and happiness‌ But only as long as we, humans, intervene and cultivate our future in a more rational and meticulous manner. Thus, folks what we need is optimism, faith and a good will when dealing future.

I n this issue you will have a chance to investigate future versions of the working environments. HOwever there is no reason to be scred of and feel the anxiety of future because as the ESTIEM magazine, we will present you various projections in which working becomes a pleasure.

Enjoy your reading...

5

Editorial

President’s Speech atmosphere at work cannot only make you more productive, efficient and creative, but it can also reduce the stress level and facilitate the social interaction with colleagues.

Just like the ESTIEMers 15 years ago, we probably cannot imagine how the world will develop, how work will look like and what huge developFrom today’s perspective this is hard to believe, ments might take place. since emails, chats and conference calls via the Internet are part of our daily working life. But if Maybe you will keep this magazine and find you would have told those guys 15 years ago, how it again in 10 years. If you do so, you might be the world will look today, probably nobody would surprised how far the reality has exceeded our have believed that communication is going to be so expectations today. Then take yourself some time, easy. remember how we have worked today, smile and laugh about the good old times.

This magazine issue will give you some ideas on how work might look like in the future. You In high ESTIEM, will learn about the impacts of social developments on the working reality, its chances and threats.

You will also read about how a perfect workplace should be designed and get to know the companies that play a leading role in those developments.

The importance of the right working environment may not immediately be obvious to everybody. But it has significant impacts on your health and your personal well-being. The right

Tobıas hemmerleın

In the early days of ESTIEM, about 15 years ago, ESTIEM didn’t communicate via email, even thinking of an email account for all members or at least every Local Group would have been revolutionary. Depending on the technical availability in the Local Groups the tools of communication were telephone, fax and letters.

6 Inside ESTIEM Back in 1990,

students from five different countries founded an organisation which they named ESTIEM: European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management. Its aim was and still is to establish and foster interrelations among European students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) and support them in their personal and professional development..

In 19 years, it has grown into an organisation bringing together 45 0 00 students from 62 universities in 25 European countries, and is still growing. All these universities offer courses in IEM. Based on this structure, ESTIEM forms links between students, academics and companies in order to create a Europe-wide, multi-level IEM network.

Through involvement in ESTIEM, students get an opportunity to experience different cultures, take part in international projects and become friends with other ESTIEMers from all over Europe. Our belief is that the activities and projects of ESTIEM give our members knowledge and experiences that are important for their personal development and the realisation of future goals. The students involved in ESTIEM incorporate both the skills required for modern business and an open-minded approach towards other people and cultural issues.

The decision-making body of ESTIEM is the Council, which meets twice a year, in autumn and in spring. Each university, represented by its socalled ‘Local Group’, sends two student representatives. The five members of the Board of ESTIEM are elected during the autumn Council Meeting.

The Board is responsible for the management, coordination and administration of the association. It represents the association in all legal matters.

ESTIEM has continuously increased the number of its activities, thus being able to offer a great variety of events to IEM students. Based on its activities, ESTIEM has attracted many active students, and the organisation has seen rapid growth since its founding. Major activities on a European level besides Council Meetings include the only European wide IEM case competition TIMES, the seminar series Vision, ESTIEM Magazine, Venture Network, Europe 3D, Summer Academy and Student Guide (a database with information for students who want to study abroad); all led by Project Leaders who are elected at the Council Meetings.

Introduction

7

Inside ESTIEM

ESTIEM SONG Climb, climb up Sunshine mountains Where the little breezes blow Climb, climb up Sunshine mountains Faces all aglow Turn, turn your back on sorrow Look up to the sky Besides taking leadership positions in the Board and as Project Leaders, ESTIEM members can also take up more responsibility by working in one of the committees. The committees work together closely with the Board, supporting it in its tasks. ESTIEM has six of them at the moment: the Information and Communication Technology Committee, the Public Relations Committee, the Members Committee, the Knowledge Management Committee, the Financial and Legal Committee and ESTIEM’s youngest asset, the Corporate Relations Committee.

Climb, Climb up Sunshine mountains You and I

With lots of teams and tasks to choose from, there is a place for everyone. Naturally, the backbone of ESTIEM is the European IEM student. Open-minded and keen on developing him or herself, he or she is eager to make friends and create contacts with different IEM representants from all over the continent.

For more detailed information about our organisation and its activities, please visit our website at www.estiem.org. Here you can also find everything you need to know if you want to get involved.

So don’t hesitate and start moving… you won’t regret it! 

n to ESTIEM

Projects & Committees TIMES

Euorpe3D:

The Tournament In Management and Engineering Skills (TIMES) is today considered the largest pan-European case study competition for Industrial Engineering and Management students. This prestigious, highly acclaimed event is the flagship project of the Europe-wide student organisation ESTIEM. Two qualification rounds are required to be selected for the TIMES Final. The Final eventually brings together the winning teams from each SemiFinal to determine Europe’s “IEM Students of the Year”

Within a 5-day seminar series the participants should get a basic picture of the hosting country. A special focus thereby lays on national characteristics in politics and economy. Lectures given by experts from politics, science and economy shall provide the participants with a theoretical insight. On the other hand the Project’s aim is to integrate our guests actively in this seminar.

Especially to include the practical aspect, the Project wants to cooperate with companies for excursions and lectures ESTIEM Magazine

Vision

Mainly the Vision is for students of industrial engineering and management (IEM) to develop and improve their skills and abilities. Therefore each Vision Seminar offers lectures held by professors and businessmen, workshops and case studies with professors and companies and company visits. But not only academically skills will be developed by taking part in a Vision seminar; also it will brighten your horizon by seeing different cities all over Europe and get to know their culture. Your guides will be IEM students that are studying at this place.

ESTIEM Magazine, the official publication of ESTIEM, provides the perfect platform to reach a target group of approximately 45000 students of industrial engineering and management at universities all over Europe. The Magazine is one of the most important PR tool of ESTIEM. The ESTIEM Magazine is published twice a year and is distributed among Industrial Engineering students, graduates and also professors and employees of companies across Europe through the ESTIEM network.

The Magazine is free of charge. The issues are released in time for the semi-annual Council Meeting.

Summer Academy

Corporate Relations Committee

Through the Summer Academy project, ESTIEM recognises the importance of and takes responsibility for providing knowledge of ethics and sound leadership among future leaders of Europe. It was set up to bring international students together during summer holidays to engage in open discussion, group work, debate and private study under a senior Academic Leader.

The Corporate Relations Committee simply works in a number of fields with the aim of improving and simplifying ESTIEM’s relations with companies, such as updating marketing material, improving partnership processes, preparing company surveys, doing industry segmentation. The also do actually hands on work in contacting companies for Projects and central ESTIEM

Student Guide

The Student Guide is a bridge between European student who wants to share information. The Project has two main goals: Firstly to provide study and cultural information on countries, cities and universities to students of industrial engineering and management and secondly to give an overview of differences in education in different countries for students, universities and other interested organisations.

Public Relations Committee

The aim of the Public Relations Committee is to care for ESTIEMs outer appearance and increase the awareness. The committee is responsible for communicating the ESTIEM brand inside and outside of ESTIEM. With guidelines large steps are taken into the direction of a global brand management. The Public Relations Committee is now concentrating on gaining media cooperation for ESTIEM, at central and local level Knowledge Management Committee

The Knowledge Management Committee collects, documents, and makes knowledge accessible for all ESTIEM members by creating trainings, best practice documents, board guidelines, support material for inactive Local Groups, and a help mailing list. Therefore they prevent re-inventing the wheel in many different ways by creating all these to share the knowledge.

TIMES Committee

TIMES Committee has three main aims: 1) Continuous improvement of the quality of TIMES; 2) Building and maintaining relationships with key partners – head sponsor and key side sponsors such as travel companies, media, universities 3) Development of the rules of TIMES. The Committee works in corporation with TIMES Project.

Financial and Legal Committee

The Financial and Legal Committee predominantly consists of former and current Vice Presidents of Finance and the Financial Controllers. In general, the financial and Legal Committee has an advisory function and deals with how to perform the financial responsibilities of ESTIEM. Members Committee

The ESTIEM Members Committee supports the member groups of ESTIEM and provides information for those students who are interested in joining the ESTIEM organisation by forming their own local group. They guide the interested groups through the whole process, starting from establishing contact – via the guest and observation period – until fully pledged membership.

Information Technology Committee

The IT Committee maintains the mail, intranet, and web servers of ESTIEM and coordinates all IT-related development in the organisation, such as regarding the IT backend system (.NET platform/C#). In addition, its members offer troubleshooting services and technical advice to ESTIEMers.

Inside estiem

10

Introducing: Board 2009 A new year, a new ESTIEM Board.

At the 37th Council Meeting in Famagusta, the ESTIEM Board members for the year 2009 were elected. Who are they?

Read the interviews below to get a first impression...

Interv覺ewed by board 2008

ESTIEM Board 2008 ESTIEM Board 2009 President

President

Mikko Sj繹berg

tobias hemmerlein

Vice President of Public Relations Vice President of Public Relations David Christian Berg

Andreea sabo

Vice President of Activities

Vice President of Activities

Jan Knutzen

sebastian Katzung

Vice President of Administration

Vice President of Administration

Kimmo Torvinen

Verena hohn

Vice President of Finance

Vice President of Finance

Gabriel Busson

Luis godinho

11

Inside ESTIEM

Tobias Hemmerlein President Local Group: Karlsruhe (Germany),

Linköping (Sweden) Age: 22 Can you please describe yourself with three (3) sentences?

Andreea Sabo Vice President of Public Relations Local Group: Bucharest (Romania) Age: 22 Your time will be very limited this year, what will be the most important thing besides ESTIEM, you will still have time for?

I am 22 years and a 4th year student at the University of Karlsruhe. In my free time I like watching movies, reading, travelling (which became kind of my profession now) and doing sports sometimes. In my year as a boardie I want always to be hard working, but easy approachable and open to all ideas, comments and feedback from all ESTIEMers.

The most important thing will be my Bachelor thesis, even though I might not want that. Besides that I’ll also be doing some applications for master programs around Europe.

ESTIEM is my only hobby this year :).

How did you get involved in ESTIEM and what have you done before this year?

During my second semester I wanted to get more active in university life. I looked for some student associations that might suit me and I ended up at the information evening of Local Group Karlsruhe. The people there were really cool and since this nice evening in April 2006 I have been an ESTIEMer. I started with organising local events and visiting different cities in Europe. After increasing my involvement step by step I became Local Responsible of Local Group Karlsruhe in 2007. At the same time I became also more active in central ESTIEM and took over the Knowledge Management Committee in November 2007. These experiences prepared me for the next step and at the Council Meeting in Famagusta: I applied for the board and got elected.

What are the biggest challenges for ESTIEM in 2009?

The biggest challenge for ESTIEM in 2009 is still its financial situation. It has to be stabilised and the consequences of the financial crisis do not make things easier. It will require a lot of effort from Board 2009, but I am sure that we will succeed in the end.

Next year, ESTIEM will celebrate its 20th anniversary. How will this year be different compared to all the others?

Well, in order to celebrate this anniversary properly, we have to do something BIG. I could imagine a yearbook with the highlights of each year since ESTIEM was founded.

Or something completely crazy. So, if anybody of you, ESTIEMers, comes up with a great idea of what we could do, contact Board 2009. We will support you with your ideas!

Experts say that 2009 will be a hard year. Is there anything that makes you optimistic about ESTIEM’s corporate relations?

What makes me optimistic is that we have good students from good universities and any company will be looking for high potentials despite the crisis. You always need high potentials!

What does the ESTIEM brand statement mean to you?

Well, it means what we believe in and what we are because we want it so much. We are trying to be as professional as we can, improving constantly, which is why we are always open and encouraging to use ESTIEM as a playground. That’s why we are an exciting network.

What country are you most looking forward to visiting this year?

Just one? I cannot choose between Turkey or Spain. I have never been to Turkey, isn’t that amazing? And Spain: I want to meet the ESTIEMers there, so I’m secretly planning to go there.

What is your main goal for 2009?

Corporate relations! That means further improving the relations with our Partners and maybe finding one or two new Partners. Also it includes making the Corporate Relations more active to improve the relations with companies on smaller scale.

What was the funniest situation at your first Board Meeting?

That was when we went to the Chamber of Commerce and the guy asked “Are there more Portuguese in the room?” after seeing Luis’ full name (6 names in total), which he had to type into the computer.

Inside estiem

12

Sebastian Katzung Vice Presıdent of Activities Local Group: Hamburg (Germany) Age: 22 If you have the choice to be a fruit, which one would it be?

Hmm, that is actually a tough question... When I was a little younger, I was styling my hair like spikes and everybody was telling me that I am looking a bit like a pineapple. So I think I would be a pineapple.

Currently everybody is speaking about the financial crisis. Do you think this could also affect ESTIEM’s corporate partners?

Regarding our current partners Bosch and Oerlikon, I believe that it will not affect our relation. For potential new partners I think we just have to approach the right ones. This is what I think or at least, hope.

If you should describe ESTIEM in one sentence tosomeone who has no clue about the organisation, what would you say?

ESTIEM is a network of motivated European Industrial Engineering and Management students trying to develop themselves and increase their skills in order to enhance their chances on the job market.

Due to the fact that ESTIEM is based on people and especially their ideas, how are you dealing with people coming up with a new idea which you in the beginning think is not realisable?

I can answer this question on behalf of the whole ESTIEM Board 2009 because we already worked on a code of behaviour for that issue. At first we are going to listen very precisely and try to figure out what the main idea of the person is. After discussing the new idea within the Board we will consult other ESTIEM members if necessary in order to figure out whether it is only me not in favour of the idea or whether it has already a couple of committed people who want to develop the idea. Besides that we will motivate the people to work out a nice concept and an action plan for the new idea to clarify the planned concept. That is the way we try to avoid destroying good ideas from the very beginning.

Verena Hohn Vice President of Administration Local Group: Bremen (Germany) Age: 21 What made you become involved in ESTIEM in the first place?

During the first week of university studies, the old local board of Bremen gave a presentation in a lecture. One month afterwards I went to my first event, the Newcomer Weekend of Local Group Hamburg. There I met a lot of old and new ESTIEMers including our current Vice President of Activities, Sebastian Katzung, also my current roommate and former Local Responsible of Bremen, Jan Martens and the Project Leader of Council Meeting Bremen, Maximilian Lechner. These contacts made me travel a lot, being part of the organising team of Council Meeting Bremen, being President of our Local Board and finally becomming more active in central ESTIEM. You will be responsible for e.g. communication within ESTIEM. How do you plan to push right information to right people?

As one of the main goals of our Board is transparency within ESTIEM, it’s really an important question to ask.

As the main tool for communication within ESTIEM is the internet and especially e-mails, we are trying to figure out the borders between providing not enough information and spamming people with a too high number of e-mails.

Luckily we have an emaillist for all active ESTIEMers.

Another important tool is of course the Portal, ESTIEM will hopefully have a new Portal version this year, we will check all pages whether they are up-to-date before we transfer them to the new Portal.

Choose your favourite hobby and tell why you like it so much.

My favourite hobby is rowing. The special thing about rowing is that you can do it in a team but also as a single person. Like this it doesn’t matter in which mood you are.

You can have a lot of fun with your teammembers, push each other and get the team spirit. Or just enjoy the sun and silence around you, be on your own and think about your life. But actually one of the best parts is always going swimming in the lake after the rowing itself.

13

Inside ESTIEM

Luis Godinho Vice President of Finance Local Group: Porto (Portugal), Poznan (Poland) Age: 22 You are known for being very strict about spending money.

Do you think this can harm the organisation in the long run?

How many days have you seen your family since your election?

The point of me being so strict about spending money right now, is connected to the way that we are determining our strategy the whole year and for ESTIEM long run.

Thus it is strongly connected to the priorities we’ve established at the beginning in the year. Therefore it should not harm the organisation in the long run, but rather communicate to the people, what is considered important and strategic right now.

How do you think your cultural background will influence the work within your work with the other members of the Board.

What was the most exciting thing you’ve learnt about ESTIEM since you are on the Board?

When I started through the box of last year, I really started to get to know what was happening and where: How many things happen at once in ESTIEM. That was both, overwhelming and exciting.

I met them yesterday and today here in Prague, plus eight days in December. That makes ten days. That’s quite many, actually.

You should know that I have had some contact with the northern, in this case German, culture before: I spend 14 years going to a German school. Therefore I understand the approach of the other Board members. Still I feel like I am Southern European guy on the Board, taking a more flexible and unstructured approach. So sometimes we come to smaller conflicts and misunderstandings due to the difference in methods. But I try to present my work in a more structured way than I usually would … despite not being structured while actually working.

If you were an animal, what animal would it be?

Good question… an elephant. The elephant is a symbol of wisdom and an animal that stays calm most of the time. It also has a rather thick skin and is hard to bother.

Tobias Hemmerlein Verena Hohn Sebastian Katzung

Luis Godinho Andreea Sabo

Inside estiem

14

Maintaining Case Study Competitions TIMES Committee

mladen radısıc

“Always been good at strategy?” With this simple question (or, is it indeed?) we tried to get European Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) students’ attention for the 2009 edition and to explain them why TIMES (Tournament In Management and Engineering Skills) is so important for their professional development.

When somebody asks me what TIMES is really about, I’m in “trouble” to provide the person with an appropriate and very correct answer. That is why I always practice the famous dramatic pause, just to use those few seconds to think about a couple of the most important things that must be said about our lovely TIMES… And every single time when that question arises in conversation with other European colleagues, I finish my explanation with common advice: If you really want to know the power of the only pan-European case study competition, compete in TIMES! So, dear reader, if you are a European student of industrial engineering and management, trust me on this.

In general, the TIMES Committee is concentrating on balancing the development of TIMES over a longer timescale. In this article, I will try to sum up all the highlights about this Committee’s goals. As for 2009 (read 2010, 2011, etc), the Committee’s main goal is to increase the percentage of ESTIEM Local Groups attending Local Qualifications and Semi-Finals of TIMES. For sure, to achieve this goal we need help from every single active ESTIEM member, especially from ex-competitors, who can explain to

younger students their impressions from previous editions. Moreover, with strong promotion of the competition, we can make this goal even more feasible.

Furthermore, there are three Task Groups inside the TIMES Committee: TIMES Websites, Strategic Partners and Case Promotion, and Brand Building. By appointing three Task Group Leaders, the Committee will gain manpower and delegate responsibilities. Such a promotion of new Task Group Leaders will benefit, after all, in more efficient and productive work. So far, we have two out of three persons in charge – Mihaela Buda (Local Group Bucharest) for Strategic Partners and Case Promotion and Rui Mesquita (Local Group Porto) for TIMES Websites. While reading this issue of the Magazine, ask yourself if you can be the person who will shape up the strength of TIMES by taking responsibility for the Brand Building Task Group.

The third but not least significant goal is connected to TIMES partners. The Committee will focus on keeping the already existing partners and attracting new ones. If you know anybody who is willing to become one of the TIMES partners, the current Project Leader and myself will appreciate it a lot.

Being a Project or Committee Leader in ESTIEM means that you are supposed to work together with all the ESTIEMers who are involved in particular Projects/Committees. That’s why I would like to thank to all “TIMES” people and to accept their great ideas and suggestions. 

15

Inside ESTIEM

Knowledge Management Sharing experiences and the sharing-experience hope to get everyone to be able to improve and update the Best Practice Documents(BPDs) by implementing a wiki-system, and we work together with the IT committee to develop a better structure for the new Portal that will soon see the daylight.

There are several foci within the KMC. Firstly the Knowledge Management Committee does what it always was meant to do. Namely, maintaining knowledge in an organisation; in our case, ESTIEM. Secondly, the KMC is exploring new grounds by looking further ahead in training skills; growing in that area. This has forced the Committee to take a step back in order to have a clearer overview of the current situation, leading to a new organisational structure: the KMC was split into two departments: “Knowledge Maintenance” and “Training”.

“Training” is growing rapidly. In 2008 ESTIEM had its first official training event for leading positions in Porto. Now in 2009, Local Group Dresden has organised the second Local Responsible Forum in cooperation with the KMC, in summer Budapest will organise a soft skill training event – the Training Camp – and for summer 2010 the Knowledge Management Committee would like to provide ESTIEM with its first official Training New Trainers event.

“Knowledge Maintenance” focuses mostly on documenting and updating the available knowledge within ESTIEM. This includes a database of Best Practice Documents on how to organise an event as good as possible, how to fulfil a position according to all predecessors, how to approach external relations, etc. But its work also includes on keeping the content of the internal ESTIEM website – the Portal – updated (such as ESTIEM’s history pages), as well as working on the website’s ideal structure so all ESTIEMers find information where they look for it. Here we try not to sit still. We

To conclude, even when there is a financial crisis, we still see a massive development ahead of us and even then there are still unexplored territories. 

Geoffrey van ıjzendoorn

A new year and a fresh start for the Knowledge Management Committee (KMC); with new people in the KMC this Committee is ready to go into a new strategy, but also to continue what has been started over the past few years.

Inside estiem

16

Connecting ESTIEMers!

Members Committee Every decent company/organisation has to have its own human resources department. We, Members Committee, are the ones that do this job in ESTIEM. We are the first and the last thing that a Local Group sees in ESTIEM. One ESTIEMer compared us to midwife and grave digger, which I have found very amusing, and a bit disturbing. But we have to live with that! momcilo radavanovic

When I succeeded Michael Ilg on the position of Members Committee Leader, after Council Meeting Famagusta, I was not so aware of the fact that managing 62 Local Groups and about 5 0 00 students across Europe is actually a very demanding position. But I am very happy that I work with a such a motivated and for me probably the most beautiful team in ESTIEM. My “boss” is a girl and my team of Task Force Leaders consists of girls only. You have to say that this is a very big success when you are a part of an engineering society.

In December, we had elections in our Committee and I am proud to present you the Members Committee girls – Irina Pestritu, Bucharest, in charge of Local Group Requirements, Meltem Oktay, Istanbul Yildiz, in charge of Local Group reactivation and last, but not least, Gulfem Karci, Ankara Bilkent, in charge of Bilateral Exchanges.

Many of you know about the processes of Reactivation and Requirements (Attending Council Meetings; participants to other Local Groups’ activity; organising an event at least every second year; percentage of email replies; Portal update), but as you may notice, we have some new stuff to offer. Bilateral Exchange is a new event in ESTIEM, originally made for exchanging knowledge between two Local Groups, inactive and active ones if possible. For now, we have several Local Groups organising it, but we expect for that number to increase in the recent future. Together with the Knowledge Management Committee, we will promote this event, because we see it is a part of ESTIEM’s future, with a high potential for building strong personal networks inside ESTIEM.

At Council Meeting Famagusta, ESTIEM developed a new strategy for gaining new Members.

Instead of just waiting for universities to apply, now Members Committee is actively searching for potential Members across Europe. Operation “ESTIEM conquering Europe” was created for some white spots on our map, such as Slovenia, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark, Bosnia, Latvia etc., but also some major cities like Paris, Moscow and London… At the moment, a team of 20 people is working on that topic, but we always need more people.

Also, while I am writing this text, the preparations for the 2nd (yes, second ever) Coordination Meeting of Members Committee are taking most of our attention. From the 4th to 8th March in the beautiful city of Graz, Austria, we will be working on making a Best Practice Document, discussing guest surveys or making strategies for the next period.

Just because we have new responsibilities, that doesn’t mean that we have neglected old ones. Mentoring and tutoring Local Groups are still two of our major jobs, and it’s important for people to realise that while developing someone else, you are developing yourself. It’s not nice to say, but we have to be aware that there is a certain number of Local Groups in ESTIEM that are not active since quite a while, and it’s our duty to help them. Remember: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

If this text made an impression on you, or you always wanted something like this but you were too lazy, or you just want to work in a team with the beautiful girls, please do not hesitate to contact me us at mc@estiem.org. 

17

Inside ESTIEM

Working in a Sunny Place Council Meeting Famagusta

Önder Alkan FIRINCIOGULLARI Project Leader of CM Famagusta

It was such a pleasure for us to host ESTIEMers in our lovely and small town Famagusta. We were so pleased to see you all and we hope to meet you again somewhere around Europe! Moreover, you are always welcome in here anytime you want! Finally, I would like to thank my friends, my organisation team, for their help to make this unforgettable Council Meeting!

Ilyas kırcı Local Responsible of Famagusta

The story of Council Meeting Famagusta for me began with Council Meeting Ankara 2006. There, we were chosen to organise the Vision Final Conference. It was my 3rd and biggest ESTIEM event, but while I thought of the Final Conference, my mind was full of a very different and extraordinary idea: ”Why wouldn’t we, Local Group Famagusta, organise a Council Meeting?” It did not come out of my mind for a single second for the past two years! Our former Local Board gathered with Önder’s presidency right before Council Meeting Bremen and there we discussed to apply for hosting a Council Meeting just after our 2008 TIMES Semi-Final. Önder strongly supported – of course all other friends also – the idea of hosting the 2008 Autumn Council Meeting in Famagusta. It was obvious that there was a risk organising two such prestigious events both in the same year. However, I love risks, which are part of my life! Now, I look back in happiness and realise that if you believe in yourself very much and you have such friends who will be by your side all the time without asking, there is nothing you can not achieve! At last, I’m pretty glad of getting involved in this huge event and I would like to thank my dear friends Project Leader Önder, PR responsible Ziya, Bugra and all other friends who put so much effort to create this unforgettable Council Meeting!

Melania Mateias Local Group: Bucharest, Romania

What can I say about the Council Meeting in Famagusta? First of all: “Wow!” Secondly, even if it was my first ESTIEM event, I have to say that this Council Meeting exceeded all my expectations! Not only have I learnt so many new and interesting things about ESTIEM, but I also had the chance to meet new people and make friends from all over Europe! I realised that the experience of a Council Meeting should be a “must have” for all ESTIEMers!

This event motivated me so much, that now I’m determined to do more for my Local Group and if everything goes right, I am taking into consideration the possibility of taking some working responsibility at central level. The organisation was great, the landscapes overwhelming and the weather just perfect! I believe this Council Meeting had all the ingredients to make it just… legendary!

Inside estiem

18

Council Meeting Famagusta Impressions Rémi Ducrocq

Local Group: Lyon, France Council Meeting Famagusta… What else? You shape ESTIEM during a Council Meeting. This Council Meeting, in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus, happened to be unique in many ways.

It was for sure luxurious, sunny, relaxed but ESTIEMers did work hard. We can say that the lighter agenda than usual left more time for free time and discussions about important issues like the commitment fee. Most importantly, the innovative Working Group “Out of the Box” was in my opinion, one of the best and more efficient working sessions during this event. We came up with new ideas, which were not about the current projects but about how to make ESTIEM better for the ESTIEMers: for instance, the idea of a Mentor Programme, which is now being implemented to have a better social interaction with the new ESTIEMers. And this is just great.

Every Council Meeting is unique, but I believe that nobody will forget this one!

Tanja Klımcuk

Local Group: Belgrade, Serbia When Sezen asked me to write this paragraph, she wrote something like “as this might have been your last Council Meeting…”. Well, hopefully it wasn’t the last, but definitely it was the best (out of five I’ve been to)! It was not only about being in a five-star hotel at the beach, it was the very special energy, arousing around us and keeping us in the “ESTIEM state of mind”, which made this event unforgettable for me. Secondly, being a trainer for Committee Leaders and Project Leaders just before Council Meeting Famagusta officially started, made me feel truly proud while I was watching presentations of the, at that time, future ESTIEM leaders, and especially when the final celebration began . Everything I had done before got a new meaning for me…

The Way to Famagusta

Pre-Council Meeting Istanbul

isidora strboja Here is a simple equation: pouring rain + city-wide marathon = traffic collapse . If you add the fact that all of this took place in Istanbul, you might imagine the degree of frustration while trying to get a cab! Especially if you are lost and there is no street sign...

But still, all of that was fast forgotten after finally arriving to the hostel for the Pre-Council Meeting and feeling the atmosphere of hospitality that the organisers immediately created. The belly dancer as a special surprise welcomed us the proper way and made the male participants even more happy to be in Turkey.

To all of those who have never been to Istanbul, advising to visit this remarkable city is completely redundant – it goes without saying. And for those that have, you know yourself that Istanbul can never be boring, due to the city bustling with life, the fortune telling near the Blue Mosque, the parties without end, the warm and hospitable people and the numerous historical sights. A boat cruise should also be added to your “What to do in Istanbul” list, especially if you have a group of crazy, vibrant ESTIEMers aboard to sing ESTIEM songs, imitate Arnold Schwarzenegger and Borat, and dance to traditional Turkish music. The next stop should definitely be the Grand Bazaar, just to experience the haggling, without which the puzzle of Turkey wouldn’t be complete. But still, this is just a small portion of what Istanbul has to offer.

What was perceived as an interlude for the most exotic and exciting Council Meeting, in the end brought the “sunshine mountain” up in the sky – the faces of the flight attendants in the plane while listening to the ESTIEM song for the first time, at a couple of thousands feet in the air, certainly stands out from all our memories of that unforgettable event. 

19

Inside ESTIEM

Mix of Cultures, Economy, and Politics Europe3D Switzerland

From the beginning we knew we would have a hard time to choose which activities and topics we would address for this conference since the opportunities we have in Zurich are so manifold.

After quite some thinking and information sharing with the team, we decided to contact individuals, companies, and institutions that could represent the three dimensions of our project, as well as being of personal interest for our participants. One of the particularities and challenges of Europe3D is that it is open to all the students from any field of study, not only students of industrial engineering and management. After strong promotion to different student organisations and through wordof-mouth, we welcomed 59 participants, with 22 participants coming from outside of the ESTIEM network.

As with all ESTIEM events, we stuck to the famous motto: “Work hard, play hard!” We tried our best to cover the three dimensions equally.

In order to represent the economic dimension we visited several companies: Alstom, Wärtsilä, and Oerlikon. We also had a few lectures that combined the three dimensions and allowed the curious ones to find answers to their questions. To explore the political dimension, we travelled to sponsored by

the Swiss political centre: Bern. On our way we stopped to visit the Emmentaler cheese factory and then we walked around the city of Bern and visited the Houses of Parliament.

Traditional meals were prepared, such as the well-known cheese fondue, chocolate fondue and raclette. After each dinner we had planned to go out and see what Bern’s nightlife was all about.

Maybe some of you heard about the famous bunker. Well I think it was a new experience for many of the participants. Some of them did not quite enjoy the underground style and the large dormitories but some others started a conspiracy called the Chaos Committee… and it seems they really liked the concept!

I am very happy to have led this project to a success with the help of Hélène, Aydin, and Jan and I am looking forward to meet you again, in Zurich, in Europe, all over the world! 

Nına werner

The story of Europe3D Switzerland starts at the Council Meeting Hamburg in April 2008. I was looking for a project for the end of 2008 but since I didn’t know a thing about ESTIEM and its business, I walked around, talked to people and finally met Aydin Dikici, the 2008 Project Leader for Europe3D. He told me he was looking for an organiser for the end of 2008; it was a perfect match! When I told him I was interested, he answered: “I will not forget your name!” and he didn’t.

Inside estiem

20

An Amazing Learning Experience Summer Academy Hungary

alexander gabric

Reading articles about Summer Academy, it being the highest ESTIEM academic event, I have noticed mostly academic orientation in their content, as it should be, without any doubt. Being there during those two weeks, with Professor Dietrich Brandt as our academic leader, I have indeed learnt a lot and developed myself, both in a professional sense and as a person. But still it feels wrong not to tell you about the part that I felt was maybe just as equally important as the academic part, meeting other people, learning to cohabit with them in a completely new environment for all of us.

Of course, after the first night and getting to know each other, to me it seemed just as it seemed to everyone else that those two weeks were never going to end. Tight schedule – breakfast, lectures, lunch, lectures, dinner, lectures/ discussion … looks like a very long school day…

But Professor Dietrich’s method of work gave us a lot of room to get to know each other on a personal level while completing our tasks, workshops, presentations, case studies, etc. The days passed by like no one would believe. Getting up around 8 o’clock for breakfast every morning in

“I’ve never been as creative as in those two weeks, and never got so close to people in such a small amount of time.”

João Barata, participant

21

the scenic Hungarian countryside, in a very small, beautiful, yet very unusual village in my opinion (you would not believe how hard it was to find the Summer Academy house in Szentbekkalla) was not a problem at all, even after pretty late conversations throughout the nights. My impression was that no one really wanted to go to sleep. After a whole day of very useful workshops, presentations, new experiences, we would all just sit down in the garden, play some music, relax and talk as long as we could stay up.

Days went by so quickly… On the first Friday, we finished our lectures earlier and after lunch we went to the beach at Lake Balaton. By that time, we had already gotten to know each other to some extent and that afternoon on the beach was just outstanding.

Our hosts were so great, that they managed to plan the whole Summer Academy in such a way that academic work, free time and cultural insights about Hungary were very well balanced. Dora Molnar and Boglarka Gergely (both Local Group Budapest) really did an excellent job on organising and taking care of all of us in Szentbekkalla, and Balazs Szigethy(the sun of the owner of the house) took us for long walks through the forest, to rest our brains and recharge our batteries. One such walk took us to the home of Isztvan Jezinski, a musician. I think of him as a guru who does musical therapy. He made quite an impression on all of us.

He lives in the hills, above Szentbekkalla. When we got there, we took our shoes off, and went into a room that to me looked like those post stone age huts, all painted in white with a round ceiling. He sat in the middle, and started playing and singing.

It was very unusual in the most positive way. After that first part of the session, we went upstairs, where you could not find walls, just big windows with a beautiful view of the forest. The musician said that we should all lie down and close our eyes.

He started singing and playing some sort of per-

cussive instruments that had a very pleasant ring which resembled a bell. At that moment, I started to loose touch with reality and in a way drifted away… an unbelievable feeling. After some time we just heard his soft whisper that said: “You can get up now.” When we woke up… the feeling was so rejuvenating.

I think that all that qualitatively spent free time made us very inclined to work. Every day, a few of us had a presentation about a certain topic, and then the rest of us were divided into teams to work on a problem. This method of doing workshops is excellent, because it works both ways; the person presenting, practiced his presentation skills, had to learn how to control chaos and turn it into creative energy, and had to learn how to organise the workload. So every one of us, during the whole Summer Academy, including the thesis, had not less than three presentations and that was a priceless experience. Being a part of a different team a few times a day resulted in the fact that we could all work together after only two weeks. And there is one more thing: I believe that one of the main reasons we became not just great team players but dear, dear, friends afterwards, is the lack of access to Internet in Szentbekkalla. We had to learn how to depend on each other, how to communicate and how to have fun together in a closed environment.

In my opinion, that is what Summer Academy is all about: developing your skills to adapt, to learn, to communicate, to exercise knowledge previously gained and last but not least, make new friends and all that while having a great time.

I might say that those two weeks are best two weeks that I have ever spent away from home and I was endlessly sad that they ended so fast. So now I am looking forward to the next Summer Academy and to meeting my dear friends again on some of the events in the future. 

Inside ESTIEM

Inside estiem

22

Logistics Camp

The Camp Fire Rising from Istanbul aytekin aydogan

Logistics management is an increasingly important part of competitive positioning, from the perspective of the global transport industry. To stay competitive, exporters must make the right amount of products and services available in the right place at the right time. Besides, every business process has a logistics structure in it. Companies which have a strong logistic structure always stand in the forefront of the working environments which include many competitive conditions. Global businesses force the firms to be good at production, speed of preparation and quickness of conceding. Furthermore, global business saves and increases the marketing payments in international markets. The problem is, in these hard cases, how to manage to increase the share of marketing and profitability.

Unfortunately, there is a lack of expert employees in the sectors. We noticed this in our Quality and Productivity Club, so we decided to organise the Logistics Training Camp every year since 2005. This year we opened the camp’s doors to ESTIEMers.

Logistics lovers from all over the world met in Istanbul on the 18th to 21st of December 2008 for the International Logistics Training Camp. The participants had the chance to meet with expert company representatives and obtain comprehensive information about logistic. Moreover, the participants found an opportunity to examine their knowledge about logistic thanks to case studies.

After the training, participants experienced an unforgettable trip through the mysterious history of Istanbul.

The participants stayed in one of the four stars hotels (Antique Hotel) in the city centre, Sultanahmet. The event had started with a magnificent cocktail, with media participation.

Afterwards, it continued with the transformation of logistic knowledge and experiences. On the other hand, there were some activities everyday during the camp; in the first day there was a wonderful dinner at the Malta Köskü which is among the respectful places in Istanbul. In the second evening there was disco time at Taksim Square and then on the 20th of December we had a lovely Turkish night with Raki, Turkish belly dancers and delicious dishes from the Turkish cuisine. In the last day we organised a guided city tour and showed the participants the beauty of Istanbul.

We tried our best to prepare a good organisation in spite of the world-wide economic crisis.

Thanks to BEST and ESTIEM for their participation and intense interest. It was such a nice experience to host everybody!

Europe3D Serbia Something New, Something True 23

We started with the opinion that it was a perfect timing for something like this. Our country had some rough times, and some bad reputation.

But things are different now, and that was the right moment for breaking off cultural prejudices, for showing what makes Serbia so similar but yet unique among the rest of the European countries.

We wanted to show you a country on the border of two civilizations, a country where east and west found a way to live together. A country with a spiced up political situation, along with economical and cultural growth. Its capital, Belgrade, a place where you will have a feeling of knowing everyone on the street. A city where a good atmosphere is around you everywhere you go.

And I think we did it! Through lectures, sightseeing, field trips, exciting night life and of course a lot of fun. We had lectures about our history and political scene which was held by professor Zarko Korac, about the economical situation and our approach to the European Union held by a vice-president of Serbian association of managers Danijel Pantic and a lecture about EXIT, a music festival which initially emphasised the political component, representing one of the protests to the political scene from the time it started, held by a former PR manager of EXIT festival Aleksandra Kolar.

The sightseeing of Belgrade was full of exciting games while exploring the city. An excursion was also organised to the ethno village of Kusturica, a famous film director, and a ride on a train called “The Shargan eight”, from which it was possible to see some of the greatest Serbian natural treasures.

And of course we shall never forget the crazy night life and kafana, a place where everyday stress disappears for all sorts of people, where strange

faces become familiar over time. It is not a pub, nor a restaurant, and is far from being a cafe. It’s a kafana. A place where we had a great time, where people from different parts of Europe drank the same vine and sang the same songs even despite not knowing the language of them.

But, as I said, life is not a box of chocolates, and there are always some things that are not pleasant and beautiful. That was the moment when we were passing by the ruins of buildings destroyed in the bombing in 1999 in Belgrade’s downtown, and when we were explaining what happened and what was going on here in the 90’s.

It was a strange moment for us, as hosts, and for our guests who didn’t know that part of our history. But as someone once said: “We can’t change the history, we can only learn from it…”

This October we all learnt so much, we met new people, gained new friends, got to know them and I think that every one of us found out something new about himself. We were learning from our differences and similarities, from our cultural inheritance and our different customs and everyday lives. This October many friendships were made, and many relationships also, so we can call it “global bonding”. Those were unique six days that I think we will always remember, a unique atmosphere, unique people, time and place.

As for me, I will surely remember it, all those people and that feeling when they were here and when they were leaving, I won’t forget that sad look we all had in our eyes when we were saying goodbye. I think that Europe3D is a very important Project because your religion, your nationality nor your skin colour of your skin are important, inside we are all the same: full of life, ambitious and extraordinary young people.

If you haven’t been to any Europe3D event until now, nor organised one, my recommendation is to do it as soon as possible, don’t miss this opportunity because it’s a valuable experience and trust me you won’t regret it. Hope I’ll see you on some next Europe3D event somewhere in Europe!

Kisses from Belgrade! 

maria adamovic

Just a perfect way to find out everything you want to know about one country. When I heard about Europe3D just one thing ran through my head: “My country, three dimensions. Just show it the best you can!” But sometimes it’s just necessary to let others see your imperfections and just be yourself. I think that is actually the key of good friendships, relationships and life…

Inside ESTIEM

Inside estiem

24

Regional Coordination Meeting Izmir Shiny sun, deep blue clouds and calm sea: The city of Izmir yasemın dogu

With its shiny sun, deep blue clouds and calm sea, the city of Izmir sincerely welcomed the newcomers of ESTIEM and hosted these guests from 25th to the 28th of September. Actually, this nice city had been counting down days since Local Group Izmir became a Member of ESTIEM.

Four days with 23 people from different Local Groups… This idea gave us enthusiasm for working during the summer, until finally it was the first day of the Regional Coordination Meeting…

At noon, we all got together and went to a restaurant for dinner which has a beautiful view of Izmir. After everybody got to know each other, we went to a bar to warm up. We all danced on the stage and took lots of pictures at the end of the night.

On Friday morning, after a great breakfast, everybody was ready for working. The first session began with a names game and continued with asking expectations of participants about the event. After the categorisation of these expectations, we saw that the participants mostly wanted to get to know new people and learn more about ESTIEM. This session ended with the presentation of the Committees and Projects of ESTIEM which was worthwhile for the newcomers. After lunch, the presentation with the topic “Benchmarking” was held by Nezih Üzümcüoglu and Aytekin Aydogan and then the participants discussed how Local Groups could be more active and how to transfer knowledge between Local Groups. At the end of the day, the participants were a little bit tired and it was time to stir them up. We all went to the wharf, got on the boat and crossed the Gulf of Izmir enjoying a sweet breeze. We walked all along the seaside and had dinner in a lovely cafe. After dinner we went to “Küçükpark” to drink Turkish coffee. It was 11 o’clock… That was the right time to go to the rock bar called “Ooze Venue”, which is one of

the best concert places in Izmir. The night was a bit tiring, because we jumped, danced and sang with the band all night long, but still, singing the ESTIEM song after stopping the music in the bar will be one of the most important and unforgettable memories of the event for me. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the majority of the participants to continue the good times with an after-party.

After this tiring Friday, it seemed that Saturday would be a quiet day. We got together in the morning and had open discussions about the topics newcomers wanted to talk about. At the end of the sessions, we looked over the expectations of the participants again which they had written on some post-its earlier and got feedback about the good and bad sides of the event and the sides which can be improved. The duty of working was finally over, but Izmir was still waiting for us with attractive places. We divided into several groups and went sightseeing until dinner. Later on, we went to a great Fasıl (a kind of Turkish music) place as Turkish people usually do. While tasting Turkish rakı, music was a good company through the last night.

On the final day in Izmir, time came to do the day-trip to Ephesus had come. While the participants climbed up the sunshine Ephesus mountain, we, as the organisation team, rented a phaeton and had great fun outside. In the charming village of Sirince, we all tasted different kinds of fruit wines and bought some.

After coming back to Izmir, it was time for departure for my four-days friends. As an organiser, I was so pleased to meet and host our guests but so sad because the Regional Coordination Meeting was over. I had a great time and I would like to thank everybody who participated in the Regional Coordination Meeting and to my sweet helpers who supported me throughout every step.

Status: Waiting for new adventures… 

25

Inside ESTIEM

What is Happening in Bucharest?

How do you know how much is too much? Too much too soon? Too much work, too much fun? One thing is for sure: for Local Group Bucharest there is never too much!

Our interest for ESTIEM has increased continuously, so after an incredible Activity Week “Spring to life” in March 2008, we decided we can do more. So we did: the year 2009 becomes a great challenge for our Local Group as we decide to organise three of the most important ESTIEM projects: a Vision, a Summer Academy and a Europe3D. The Vision in Bucharest took place in March and its aim was to familiarise the participating students with the economic and industrial realities of Romania, by offering seminars and company visits.

Not only academic skills have been developed, as participants have also had the opportunity to visit Bucharest extensively and experience firsthand Romanian culture.

The ESTIEM Summer Academy is open for those seeking the change that matters. It is a challenge for people, who wish to learn how to become leaders of tomorrow and to take initiative by investing in themselves. Through focusing on human-centred technology and through reaching a higher level of deep understanding, of both one’s

Europe3D Bucharest, which that will take place in October, invites you to experience a whole new view on Europe through the Romanian perspective. We’re adding Romanian flavour to the three dimensions of the ESTIEM project. ESTIEMers and non-ESTIEMers can find out how a mediumsized country, with 22 million inhabitants, placed in extremely beautiful sceneries grew (and it is still growing) both financially and politically and has at the same time preserved its customs and traditions. We challenge you to discover what makes us unique. Therefore we invite you to discover Romania in its most natural and enjoyable state!

The projects we have organised and those which are still to come haven’t been our only concern. Our activity included involvement in the ESTIEM central level: members in different Committees, one former Committee Leader, a Project Leader and this year even a member in the ESTIEM Board!

Hopefully things aren’t going to stop here, as we are already making plans for 2010. What projects are next? We will keep you posted! So, whether you have visited Bucharest or not, make sure you do so in the near future! 

Melania Mateias

Starting April 2008, we are officially Members of ESTIEM, but our first event, a Regional Coordination Meeting took place in September 2007 and since then we have tried to become as active as possible.

self, as well as others, the Summer Academy is the place to take the first steps in growing even further beyond yourself. By cultivating and refining a strong ethical approach and supporting the teamwork spirit, Local Group Bucharest is honoured to be able to bring forward its investment in manufacturing the very essence of Europe’s future.

Inside estiem

26

What Is Happening in Seville?

The beginning...

Local Group Seville was founded in 2001, and it was an active Local Group for few years. It had more than two hundred members and coordinated many interesting activities already forgotten for many of us.

A bad handover

Rafael ferrin

But something went wrong and the group disappeared. I asked some previous Local Responsibles and other people involved with that to prevent it form happening again in the future.

But they disagree on the reasons; some think it may have happened because the Local Responsible only used ESTIEM to travel for free and the university decided to stop helping, some think the problem was inherent to our study system which makes it difficult for students to enjoy extracurricular activities.

The resurgence before the Council Meeting

Anyway, Carmen, a previous Local Responsible and a friend of mine, told me about the actual situation and we decided to act. We began searching for a new Local Responsible, talked with the management department and made presentations to the students... but nothing happened. The next Council Meeting was close and we had no-one to send, so I decided to send go myself.

The resurgence after the Council Meeting

I joined ESTIEM in 2001, but only was active for two years and Council Meeting Famagusta was my first ESTIEM activity outside Seville... What a wonderful week!! Not only for the nice parties (very nice ones) or for the charming people I got to know there (a big hug for each!!) or the great organisation (good work!) but also for the productive Working Groups, open minded points of view and all those people who help me to get a great perspective about the Seville question and how to solve it. I came back to Seville full of motivation and new ideas. In only two months we have reactivated many old collaboration procedures and recruited eight new ESTIEMers. We also have ap-

plied for some grants and have started negotiating with a bank to sponsor our activities.

Our first steps… Again.

So we already have walked our first steps, but the group is not yet reactivated. In this way, we are organising a workshop in March for Seville students who will be an inflexion point. It’s been organised by me and few newbies, so if we are able to make it work, the others will be ready to organise the next one without me. You will have to wait until the next Council Meeting to know if Local Group Seville is reactivated or not, and I hope to be there to tell you the good news, but not as a Local Responsible anymore.

Spanish academic culture: the handicap

Still, not everything is nice and positive for Local Group Seville. The Spanish academic system is very different from other European countries, and I think it’s one of the reasons why there are few Local Groups in the south of Europe. For example, a Spanish student spends, approximately 8.5 years to study for an engineering career and dedicates 51 hours per week to this purpose.

Why is Seville important for ESTIEM?

That is the reason why I think Seville must be an important objective for ESTIEM: If we are able to make it work, it will be easy to export the procedure to other Spanish cities and maybe to Italian and Greek ones.

I want to end this letter by thanking everyone who has helped me to work for ESTIEM and by asking for help from everyone who thinks that they can help Local Group Seville somehow. 

From Ex-Project Leaders

Summer Academy 2008 Project Leader Why did you decide to become a Project Leader?

I made my decision during my participation in a Summer Academy event, I loved it and I thought I could help it get better.

Abstractly, to help a project to educate young students in ethical leadership. Practically, the coordination of organising Summer Academy events which are having the aim I just mentioned. By coordination I mean the coordination between the Academic Leaders, the local organisers, ESTIEM and the participants.

What was your favourite activity or unforgettable experience in ESTIEM?

Council Meeting Eindhoven. I had a lot of fun back there; it’s the people that make an event unforgettable.

Define your Project with a colour and an animal?

The guys in Budapest were having problems with local sponsoring although they were doing their best and I couldn’t do anything about it from Turkey since it was a local matter.

Since Summer Academy can be characterised as a journey to somewhere quiet, relaxing, where you can think on your own, green would be the colour.

And since it gives the opportunity to put away your daily concerns, frees you from the pressure in your normal life, it can be defined as a bird.

“Thank god, I became the Project Leader!” What was your best experience during your term?

Anyone you want to thank for their support during your time as Project Leader?

In summer, I participated in one of the Summer Academy events during my Project leadership, held in Serbia by Local Group Novi Sad. I got many compliments from participants and especially our Academic Leader Jim Platts regarding the Project’s overall performance. That was a great feeling.

David Berg. I learnt a lot from him. Dora and Dusan were great team members as local organisers. I am also very thankful to Dietrich and Jim for their contribution; they are doing it for nothing in return.

“Oh, damn. Why did I become a Project Leader?”

Your worst experience, please.

What did you gain from being a Project Leader and what did you add to your Project?

I owe a significant part of my working culture to my Project leadership. I gained the ability to structure the work, put deadlines, break the work into pieces and accomplish them one by

Would you like to be an Academic Leader of SAC in the future? Why?

If I happen to meet the requirements; definitely I would. I think that Summer Academy is really changing something in a positive way so why not being part of it? 

faruk yurdusever

What was your job about?

one with using a time line. Organising my to-do list, answering to mails in at least two days (okay, sometimes I missed it), never promising something I can’t accomplish but accomplishing all the ones I promised are just a few habits to explain what I mean by working culture.

Inside estiem

28

Europe3D 2008 Project Leader Why did you decide to become a Project Leader?

aydın dikici

Europe3D was applying to be a Project, and a Project Leader was necessary for the application. I spent much time on the early times of Europe3D, I had liked the idea and I have supposed that, there was no other candidate (otherwise it could not be elected as a Project) What was your job about?

Like in other Projects, I was responsible for central Project works and coordination of organisers and central Europe3D. As Europe3D’s characteristic, promotion of Europe3D outside of ESTIEM was a significant task for me. Last but not the least: Differently than any other Project or Committee, it was the first official year of the Project, and very luckily I had the chance to closely involve shaping Europe3D in some points.

“Oh, damn. Why did I become a Project Leader?”

Your worst experience, please.

Due to the fact that ESTIEM is international, communication is not face-to-face. Not getting replies or having problems due misunderstandings on mails were the most exhausting part for me.

“Thank god, I became the Project Leader!” What was your best experience during your term?

Can I name three instead one? The first one is in Coordination Meeting (CoM) Bucharest. It was the first CoM of Europe3D and I see that the Project is slowly developing with the new ideas and experience. The second one was, when Dana was elected with 53/53 vote. That meant to me, someone likes the Project and applies, and the General Assembly supports the person and Project. And actually the last one is not in my year, a few weeks ago I saw a short promotion about Europe3D on IAAS’ (another student organisation like ESTIEM, but a different discipline) newsletter and it made me proud of it, because people like it.

What did you gain from being a Project Leader and what did you add to your Project?

Self confidence! Besides it, I believe there’s really a different Aydin than in 2008. I seriously learnt a lot and had the chance to improve my management and leadership skills. Also, the international platform improved my English level.

The last and the most important one is: I have made great friends both within ESTIEM and out of ESTIEM. What was your favourite activity or unforgettable experience in ESTIEM?

As I love learning, I can say it was Summer Academy Hungary. No Internet for two weeks, peace in a sunny village, friends and learning with a great professor. Apart from that, also Council Meeting Famagusta was a remarkable one for me.

Define your Project with a colour and an animal?

An eagle (black and mostly white), because the eagle calls freedom and as Europe3D is still open to improvement, it is relatively more free, and extra whiteness represents our minds about European countries. We suppose we know a lot, but actually it is a white sheet and can be filled by learning under Europe3D’s three dimensions: Culture, Politics and Economy. (I confess: Eagle is the symbol of my football team Besiktas, too).

Anyone you want to thank for their support during your time as Project Leader?

Besides all the people I worked with during one year, my family must get thanks here! And last ones go to Katrin Kraemer and Olivier Zimmer for their early helps to create and develop Europe3D and being role models for me.

Which country would you like to live in considering its 3D? Why?

Due to strong economical and internal political system and its benefits to society, I’d say Switzerland according to the three dimensions.

However, Istanbul is still the number one in reality. 

A close-up on Working Environments

30 Focus

Working in an Ideal Office The moment will come when one day, you will wake up on a sunny morning and suddenly realise that you have your master’s diploma, proud parents and an entitled job. It is not a dream, welcome to real life!

Olivier zimmer

It is also very likable that out of your twenty-four hours day, the place where you will spend the most amount of time will not be your bed or your favourite recreational gathering place, but sitting at your desk in what is called: the office.

could be a warehouse attached to a noisy factory in the countryside, as well as a recently renovated loft on the rooftop of London. That depends mainly on your company’s business and means.

“Office”, coming from the Latin officium, is originally referring to the location of one’s duty.

The origin of the word seems to be interlinked with the apparition of Romans and Egyptians scribes, bureaucracy and administration.

Socially, the office is the main platform of unity and exchange in the “white collars”, service based societies. The resulted social cohesion is leveraged by its structure and organisation; this depends on corporate culture, HR decisions and your surrounding environment.

Nowadays, it is an architectural and design phenomenon as well as a social phenomenon.

Firstly, “your office” designates a building, it

The latter will be the focus of this article that will try to look at some office landscapes and define an ideal office environment.

31

The old-school model

Traditionally, the closed office environment provides a separated room for each employee, four walls erected in a square. You need to knock at the door before entering the private sphere of your colleague.

The office is in this case a symbol of the hierarchical ascension mirroring the structure of an organisation. EU institutions are gratifying their employees with more windows while they are climbing up the grade ladder.

The apparition of a barrier free model in the 70s…

Although, the first reference to open space offices appeared in Frederick Winslow Taylor’s 1911 publication “Principles of Scientific Management”, its mass scale application started in the 70s.

The concept of an open office space is simple: transform the office into a single volume entity by tearing down all the walls. This arrangement became firstly popular for economical reasons; an open space office enables indeed to optimise the available space and allows great flexibility when adjusting the number of workstations, consequently reducing office infrastructure’s cost pressure. Additionally, a space arranged in this way is more comfortable as its larger size allows more light in the office and greater airflow. Compared to a closed office environment, it is clear that an open space can better maximise the available space in an office and can benefit the employees.

Currently, ten percent of offices are completely barrier-free, with no partitions separating workstations, experts estimate. In these environments, everyone – including the bosses – sits in the open floor on rollable chairs.

This “deformalises” the working life by putting all employees from top till down on the same level, having the direct consequences of flattening the hierarchy.

Information can be spread better and faster, you do not have to seek amongst your colleagues for a concrete issue, but simply ask and get the answer immediately. It is a fact that in open space offices people talk more frequently and though information exchange is better as in normal offices divided by walls.

Another reason to choose an open space is supervision. The superiors mostly praise the doorless spaces because they can more easily reach their subordinates, have better supervision of their activities, and, in general, it makes cooperation much easier.

The removal of barriers is also a driver to increase team flexibility. Often open space is being more implemented in big industries such as banks, financial institutions, media or small firms where team working is an advantage such as graphic designs studios. An open space office brings more motivation and leads to better results in the team thanks to eye contact and communication.

All in all open space offices seem to be more animating, although it can also be perceived as too chaotic.

Focus

32

But open space is not problem-free

Social psychology teaches that every human being needs a certain personal space. For example open space can become counterproductive at the moment when the work needs quiet and concentration. The noise and animation can become a source of stress and disrupt one’s concentration.

Moreover, all staff members have to agree on the temperature in the room, which can become an object of fights between the cold lovers and warm lovers. It is also necessary to choose a level of lighting that will satisfy the majority.

Most people try to control their emotions, but when they do not hold back, they largely carry their anxieties over to their colleagues. And they do not even need to speak.

It is also necessary to consider the type of information the workers will deal with. This concept is out of question in places where a certain level of privacy is necessary, such as for doctors or lawyers.

Confidential or secret information of course does not belong into the open space.

All those criticism explained the emergence of a solution so called the cubicle, a halfway consensus. They became very popular especially in computing firms, and are also a popular symbol of work space. But although they are increasing productivity, employees still not consider them as the ideal work place.

The “broken” space

The concept of the “broken” space is to cluster the environment into dedicated spaces. Besides the so-called “team office,” which is the open space itself, the employees also have at their disposal several meeting rooms, a quiet zone and relaxing space.

Meeting and negotiation rooms can be available in different sizes, small for one to one private conversation, medium for team meetings or even a big conference room that permits to make a presentation in front of a public. A good idea is also to have phone booths available when it comes to make long phone calls that could be noisy for surrounding colleagues.

For tasks that need concentration, a quiet zone is also welcome. The imperative would be to respect silence rule, creating the serious atmosphere of a library. Relaxing zones with big sofas, creative furniture and plants are less restrictive and help employees refocusing. They can be placed between work places to reduce noise and can also be used as an informal place to talk. Moreover there is a possibility to use them as an alternative work position.

People’s productivity improves by the quality of life at the office, and not by a repulsive or repressive regime. Games, such as tabletop football or ping-pong can contribute to evacuate the stress and to enhance team spirit. Facilities such as doctors, sport equipment, and a kindergarten make employees save time and decrease some personal worries, resulting in a greater energy to be put in their professional life. Similarly providing employees with healthy, free food all day long can contribute to their health while increasing their satisfaction with the company.

The vision of broken space is reaching a harmonious equilibrium where the employees are able to communicate easily, be close to each other, but have more privacy at the same time.

Conclusion

An office can easily be personalized and made more “human” by adding photographs, pictures or other personal items.

Space is indeed not only an architectural problem but also mainly a people issue. It is important to agree for example with your colleagues at least in general on the office rules: volume of conversations, ventilation, level of air-conditioning, room lighting, and so on.

Office environment surely influences the way of working and is a key component of the group atmosphere, but at the end of the day it is all about the people - the way you interact with your colleagues, your personality, the nature of your job and the corporate culture. 

The Author:

After an amazing year in Board 2007 as Vice President of Activities, I managed to find an employment at Google office in Brussels. I am now occupying the position of Industry Analyst in the local Sales department. This provides me a great and inspiring environment in the very dynamic IT world. The article was made thanks to many discussions and exchanges I had with my coworkers and my surrounding and an aspiring future board member of ESTIEM Alumni.

Focus

34

FitnessFirst

Employees’ Health in the Office of the Future

Out of the lecture halls, into the office! When you make the transition of spending your days studying to enjoying your time working in a company, most attention is drawn to the drastic change in your lifestyle. rene heunen

A more disciplined daily rhythm, more money in the bank and less time to enjoy it, to name a few matters.

However, less attention is given to the change of your physical environment; depending on your employer’s taste, you might suddenly find yourself in a cuttingedge office space, designed by an interior architect, where you’re surrounded by expensive design furniture that requires you to study it for a few minutes before you realise how to actually sit on it. Or there’s the possibility that you end up in a rather dull office floor, where you’re sharing a table in a large project room together with 150 other project members. Or you end up somewhere in between. Whatever the case, if you are going to spend a considerable amount of time in an office building, its characteristics will determine the extent to which your mental and physical health is affected by it. And that’s not necessarily going to be pleasant...

35

Ergonomics – What’s your style?

Perhaps the most addressed issue in recent years when discussing health in the office are the ergonomics. We have all been educated in the general guidelines to prevent problems such as those termed Repetitive Strain Injuries. However, your office environment can have totally different effects on your physical health than it has on your colleagues’. Steelcase, a company specialised in office furniture (see box), identifies three general workstyle types that determine the needs that the office of the future should satisfy to ensure a sound physical health [1].

Sedentary workers spend most of their time processing tasks in prolonged seating positions and make repetitive movements. This requires them to have a dedicated work station with the emphasis on comfort and close proximity of their equipment and information. It’s also important for their psychological wellbeing to have means to personalise their workspace.

Semi-mobile workers are mostly occupied by project-driven work, juggling demanding tasks and diverse activities throughout the day with multi-tasking process. As they are equipped with laptops and are mobile and flexible, they can work anywhere in the building. A common cause of complaints is that they usually don’t take time to adjust their seating posture because they often move about and switch places. Bending your neck down to view the screen can strain neck muscles, leading to pain or injury over time. A frequently diagnosed problem is Cervicodynia, fatigue due to excessive strain on the muscles supporting the head and shoulders.

The third style is that of mobile workers.

These people are heavily network-oriented, and work away from their organisation up to 90% of the time, constantly switching between concen-

FOCUS

tration and collaboration tasks. They love creative space and think on their feet more than any other kind of worker, requiring easy access to their personal stuff plus easy access to information and communication technology. The workplace itself must be of sufficient quality materials, design and technology to ensure they’re willing to drop in at all. Carrying your work station in a heavy shoulder bag places an asymmetric load on the torso, leading to shoulder, neck and back problems.

Since most organisations employ people in all three of these types of roles, the office of the future simply cannot rely on a uniform setup for all of its workers. While many offices for example already provide designated ‘touch down desks’ for mobile workers, acknowledging the different needs of each work style and providing workspace accordingly is going to be of even more importance with the widespread use of mobile communication technology and governments planning to increasing the retirement age.

The open-plan war zone

The fact that ergonomics are not the only factor in the office influencing your health is demonstrated by the so-called open-plan office space architecture. Basically, it’s a large room with lots of workers sitting at desks put together; talking about uniform work space setups...

Recent research by the Queensland University of Technology [2] has pointed out that this office setup causes workers to experience high levels of stress, conflict, high blood pressure and a high staff turnover. A high level of noise makes it hard to concentrate, leading to low productivity. Moreover, privacy is an issue since everyone can see what you are doing on your computer or hear what you are saying on the phone. To top it all off, there is an increased risk of illnesses with bugs and viruses easily passing around in the room.

The Author:

René Heunen is working as a consultant for IBM Global Business Services in London. He is currently specialising in the design of business processes for customer relationship management and the configuration specification of the IT applications involved. He is also an ESTIEM enthusiast, alumnus of Local Group Eindhoven, former Project Leader of the ESTIEm Magazine and an aspiring future board member of ESTIEM Alumni.

Focus

36

IBM and health in the Office of the Future As early as 2002, IBM teamed up with Steelcase Inc., an international work effectiveness company whose offerings enhance the quality of people’s lives in work environments. Together, they created BlueSpace - an interactive and personalised office of the future [4]. The joint project combined IBM’s technology expertise with Steelcase’s workplace knowledge to create a new office environment that integrates the physical workspace with advanced computer, sensor, display and wireless technologies. Through BlueSpace, both companies demonstrate how they work to address the many changing technological, physical and psychological needs knowledge workers face. With a combination of technology and design, BlueSpace claims to enrich the overall work environment by providing greater comfort and personalisation through unmatched user control.

Examples of elements in this IBM-Steelcase smart office that influence the impact of the office space on the workers’ mental and physical health include: • BlueScreen: A touch screen which sits adjacent to the computer monitor and puts users in control of their physical and virtual environments. Interactive icons allow users to adjust – with the touch of a finger – temperature, airflow or lighting to suit their preference. Users can direct heat to cold feet, adjust humidity levels, increase volume of white noise, or modify lighting based on preference or the focus of their work.

• Threshold: Designed in response to a need for increased privacy control, this patent-pending moveable work surface, ceiling and wall act as a “technology totem” that provides ondemand visual and territorial privacy to the user. Color-coded lighting at the top of the threshold in blue, red and green alerts colleagues when an employee is away, busy or accepting visitors. An integrated front panel display on the threshold can visually communicate what each employee wants to share with colleagues, such as current projects and scheduling. The lighting promotes employee interaction without unwanted disruption.

For more details on BlueSpace and interesting case studies demonstrating how companies benefited from this initiative in the past years, visit www.research.ibm.com/bluespace or www. steelcase.com.

References Homepage Steelcase Office Furniture, at www.steelcase.com Oommen, V. (2009): Why your office could be making you sick, Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management Homepage Clive Wilkinson Architects, at www.clivewilkinson.com The BlueSpace Research Project, at www.research.ibm.com/ bluespace

Still, using an open-plan office space can save employers about 20% on construction cost. With the current financial downturn it does not seem likely that the office of the near future is going to be free from these open-plan battlefields. In the long run however, this type of research result provides a solid argument to base the office of the future on the more traditional, smaller, private office space.

The Inspiration Office

We’ve already seen that open-plan office spaces can increase workers’ stress levels, but what good can an office do for your state of mind? An increasingly popular and surprisingly simple philosophy states that the more inspiring your workplace is, the more balanced you feel and the more motivated and effective you and your colleagues will be. Instead of being limited to a functional space to carry out tasks or a nice calling card for visitors, this perspective changes the workplace into a strategic asset. When an office is inspirational to those who work in it, it provides a significant opportunity to reinforce the enjoyment with which you awake your own curiosity and idea-generating capabilities, share these with others and help you to relax in between demanding tasks. One of the best examples of a champion of this philosophy is Clive Wilkinson Architects [3], world famous for his design of Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters, sporting lava lamps, pool tables and even beach volleyball courts. Of course this would certainly not suit just any company in any industry; playing volleyball is not going to do miracles for investment bankers’ trustworthiness. It is therefore hard to predict that, for the sake of mental health and the resulting increase in productivity, the office of the future will be an ‘Inspiration Office’. But the fact that Google is frequently topping the charts of most innovative companies in the world certainly makes a case for ordering that seemingly overpriced designer chair, putting up that unusual painting or replacing the file cabinet with a pinball machine. 

37

The Price Tag of Freedom

by Peter Laudenbach

Employees decide when and where they work. Companies don’t control them. Sounds like dreams of the future? It’s long reality.

If you ask Wilhelm Bauer, how we will work in ten years from now, his answers sound like science fiction. In his scenario there are no core times and no bosses who check when the employees leave their offices. What now is common for creative professionals and self-employed will then be common for the average employee in the average company.

“We will talk to computers rather than be bothered with keyboards”, says the head of the department of the Frauenhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO in Stuttgart, Germany.

“The design of office buildings will change, because the work done within them will change dramatically. They will become places to share ideas, many rooms will remind you of lounges.

The screens and user interfaces we use to do the necessary communication will be embedded into this environment – maybe in the walls.”

Classic office work is no longer bound to a desk or cubicle. “Ten years ago people were still strongly focused on filing cabinets: My knowledge is my cabinet; my cabinet is in my office”, says Wilhelm Bauer. Nowadays knowledge is accessible from everywhere. In business lounges at the airport, in the train, with your customer, at home:

work can be done anywhere. Due to this, the work organisation is revolutionised. […]

Wilhelm Bauer has monitored transition to pure flexitime and knows about the opposition it faces. “Especially the middle management is confronted with big changes. They loose their direct access to their employees and have to learn to coordinate people who work in different places and at different hours.”

But it is not only the control freaks from management who suffer from this new flexibility: The freedom comes with a price tag. If your office can be anytime, anywhere, worst case your work follows you everywhere. “It’s clearly a threat that employees work more due to the newly gained freedom, while not seeing the limits of their resilience”, mobility fan Bauer has to admit.

David Lapido, partner of a London based consultancy, witnesses the collateral damage of saying goodbye to the 9-to-17-o’clock working day. “This always-on mentality of being available at anytime that I see with my colleagues makes these people above all inefficient. Furthermore they don’t manage to truly relax. Control doesn’t always mean

Focus

Focus

38

what first comes to your mind. I’ve met people who lost control over their time exactly for the reason of being encouraged by their employees to work more ‘independent’ and ‘resultoriented’” Lapido is quoted in Markus Albers book. […]Whether or not employees gain sovereignty over their time mainly depends on how the work is organised. If a company banks overtime and has clear rules for compensation, this sovereignty increases and overtime hours decrease.

But how can working time be measured when the work itself is highly flexible? Will employees like to write down their working hours all the time?

And what advantages do employees have, who finish there work quickly and most efficient?

The brave new world of work allows people to flourish. But also threatens them to loose.

Christoph Grandpierre works in a company in which the employees log their working hours if they want to and where the staff works either at home, on the road, at a customer or in the office – whatever suits them best. He is HR manager at IBM Germany. What might seem utopian anywhere else is everyday life at IBM: Since ten years pure flexitime is applied and personal desks have been abolished. If somebody wants to work in the office they will use a free desk and clear it again when they leave.

This saves office space and hence a lot of money – and encourages the work in changing groups.

“We had to find means to create an environment which facilitates the communication between the teams and the departments”, he says. Just as all his colleagues from the executive staff he now is located in one of the modern open-plan offices.

There are small meeting rooms available for

individual talks and to retreat to for more focused work. These rooms are only separated by glass, making all look like one huge office. According to Christoph Grandpierre this doesn’t bother him: “I really feel comfortable with this way of working. Here at IBM it is important to reach goals and find solutions. I don’t need to know what my employees are doing at every point of time.”

However, this doesn’t change the measurability and comparability of the output. There are of course criteria to evaluate the staff.

His conclusion: “I’m not at all tempted to work in a company with traditional hierarchies, where I can only communicate with my direct employees and where I know I can go home at six and leave my Blackberry turned off.” Asked about the threats of pure flexitime for private life he answers in numbers: “We have a number of ill staff way below the benchmark. We see at recruiting events that our culture is perceived very positively amongst high potentials. We only employ university graduates who are accustomed to working independently. Telling them when to do what with core working hours between nine a.m. and five p.m. would mean a huge step backwards.

Of course keeping the balance between work and private life requires new skills. These include insisting on not being available 24-7. People have to learn to draw this line.” And the supervisors have to learn to respect it. […]

“When looking at studies about innovation management, it becomes clear that real key innovations are not developed in a cubbyhole but through dialogue. This is how added value is created”, Wilhelm Bauer from Fraunhofer IAO agrees. According to him it is not enough to provide the right communication tools, to make it work. “It strongly depends on the corporate culture of the company, whether or not employ-

39

ees aim at the good of the company or their own advantage. If no fair reward for achievements is granted and no trust exists, everybody will work on their own and above all protect themselves.

A superficial desk-sharing policy doesn’t change anything about this.”[…]

A big challenge: filtering information. And defining ones own limits.

The downside of the ubiquitous information is communication overkill. Bauer knows companies, which introduced a weekly “no-emails “day to allow focused work of their employees. Being an engineer, he himself sees the solution in improved technology. Maybe it will be possible one day to have super-intelligent filters that remove irrelevant emails or even answer emails by themselves.”

The dissolution of hierarchies as Bauer and the IBM manager Grandpierre describe it for office work can also be found in the blue-collar work environment, as Ulrich Jürgens notes. He is industry sociologist and head of research group “knowledge, production systems and labour” the Berlin Science Centre (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin –WZB). He is located in an office where nobody would guess that a researchers one of the most renowned research institutes in the field of social science might be found here: overflowing shelves and stacks of paper everywhere.

“Here, work is being done,” Jürgens says laconically and explains, how manufacturing processes are changing: “The corporate culture has to shift responsibility downwards. At the same time all required information has to be available.

The supervisors, the foremen, find themselves more in the role of a coach.” Everybody individually has to be aware of the required standards to take decisions independently and be able to intervene without consulting the supervisor when

Focus

problems occur. The employees are challenged to pay more attention. This has to be supported by early-warning technology, as one cannot overview everything at any point of time in such complex workflows. In manufacturing, for example in the assembly, there is an increasing tendency to make the individuals firmer in intervention and diagnostic skills. […]

Sounds like lean management finally arrives where nobody would expect it: the workshop. In a survey about their experience with lean production which was conducted by the Swedish union of metal workers among 120 000 workers, the majority stated that the increased responsibility lead to improved work content, better solutions to problems and higher influence from bottom up. However, 61% of the respondents also noted that the stress load had strongly increased.

WZB-researcher Jürgens considers this to be more than the standard union lamentation.

He says: “It’s typical for such processes. You always have the fear of missing something in the complex workflows, breathing down your neck.

Also demanding that everybody contributes to the continuous improvement of the process has its downsides: latest when employees start using their weekends to make engineering drawings.

The individual develops personally, which is great, but family and marriage might suffer.”

The question to answer is what is healthier for the person and the organisation in the long run: stressful independence and personal responsibility or alienated, directed work.

The answer will depend on whether or not a company manages to apply the needed fairness and the employees develop the required selfconfidence.  First published in brand eins, issue 11 Copyright: brand eins

Focus

40

5 Sustainable Opportunities for working buildings of the future There is no doubt that the future working space or buildings of the future will be designed with sustainability concepts in mind. As the sustainability movement is getting more and more momentum in construction sector, there is an increasing need for new innovative ideas to use more sustainable construction materials and reduce energy consumption by the buildings. ehsan ehsanÄą Info Box: 1) Space heating: The general air-conditioning systems.

2) Auxiliary Equipments: A wide range of devices from refrigerators to computers, TVs and so forth.

3) Lighting: The lamps in the corridors and the offices 4) Street lighting: In the entrance of the building 5) Space Cooling: The cooling systems used in the summer 6) Auxiliary Motors: Like the elevators 7) Water heating: like the water in the boiling systems for the building

There are now lots of opportunities which can be taken by ready minds to create a business/ improvement around them. If you’d like to start a new start up in the sustainable construction/ building sector or make improvements in the building you are working/studying, what are the areas you are going to focus on? Your answers to this question might be different than mine but this doesn’t matter: The improvement areas are vast and many of them are viable from economic point of view as well as environmental impact.

Having looked in the area of social entrepreneurship and talked to some of the experienced people in this field, I will try to structure some opportunity areas which I believe are more promising. These ideas might not be completely mainstream now but they will certainly be part of the way we will want our workplaces and buildings to look like in the future.

Simply speaking, we can create more sustainable buildings by looking at how much the energy consumption can be improved and also by looking at the buildings themselves.

What are the levers for creating energy efficient buildings?

A good way of finding opportunities for energy consumption in buildings is to look at what are the sources of energy consumption in a building. According to a new study by the government of British Columbia in Canada, the main sources of energy consumption in the buildings fall into seven main buckets or categories: Space Heating 51% Street Lighting 1% Space Cooling Water Heating 3% 9%

Auxialary Equipment 14%

Lighting Auxialary Motors 12% 10%

Figure 1: The main sources of energy consumption in buildings

41

We can easily see from the figures presented in each category that even though most of the innovations and commercial systems have happened in the lighting and cooling systems, the real value is in the areas such as space heating, equipment and lighting systems used in the building.

new types of breaks, pipes and construction material in which not only provide less energy waste but also require less energy in the construction and assembly phase. Several countries like Switzerland are promoting the use of such materials and more countries will jump into this space in the future.

Below you can find the three most promising and lucrative ideas but of course the possibilities are not limited to these three:

Opportunity 5 – Reducing energy consumption in the lighting:

Opportunity 1 – Focus on the space heating waste:

Many start-up companies have moved into area by offering services like renovation of the buildings’ windows to include more heat transfer resistant ones or change the energy system to electricity.

Opportunity 2 – Optimise the use of energy in space heating:

An example of the opportunities in this area include working on the next generation of the sensors to be installed in all parts of the building and transmit energy only when it’s necessary.

Opportunity 3 – Auxiliary equipment energy consumption:

There are also other sustainable opportunities to help us create the office space of the future; these are less related to the energy consumption in buildings but the buildings themselves.

Opportunity 4 – Reducing energy consumption in the building itself:

New advancements in material science have provided us with the chance to use more energy efficient materials in the buildings. These are

I was fascinated by seeing a building in Germany which was designed for reducing the energy consumption and especially the lighting: The architecture of the building was like a cylinder, having big windows on the external and internal side where the need for the use of lamps was minimum during the day. The lighting systems placed outside the building were enabled by a small solar kit which was absorbing sun’s energy during the day to provide lighting at night. The corridors and bathrooms were also equipped by mainstream automatic lights which are turned off in absence of human being. These technologies and ideas are well known however they are not in widespread use everywhere.

Renovations like these in existing office spaces can also have a substantial impact on total energy consumption in the offices.

Today, we really feel good when we are working in an architecturally nice building; I hope someday comes when we feel good when we are given the opportunity of working in a zero energy consuming building… 

Focus

The Author:

Ehsan Ehsani, researcher and technology author, as a system development expert, project coordinator, project team member and consultant, has seen SCM issues inside-out.

His experience has been in the areas of OM, WMS, BPR, Strategy Implementation and of course, SCM. As a former MBA student and current researcher and expert, he has consulted and worked with various companies in operations side of the business.

FOCUS

42

Generation Y and the Workplace How Our Generation Wants to Work Who is the Generation Y?

The Generation Y is aged between eighteen and twenty-five, although some people include those born from 1980 onwards, putting the upper limit at twenty-eight. In our view, there are at least six reasons why we need to understand you, the Generation Y, and how you are related to work.

You are a remarkable generation, and here is why...

     

There are not enough of you coming in to the workforce You are transformational You do things differently You are challenging You are techno-savy You are agile – multi-taskers

The Generation Y apparently believe they can achieve anything. You have been called ‘workplace divas’2… even GENYS ! But you are ‘high maintenance, high risk and high output’3. You are strongly relationship-focused, collaborative, and seek meaning in work and opportunity to learn.

But also:

   

You are under less financial threats than the previous generations You have grown up with green issues into their way of living You are more urban focus You quickly buy into new concepts and ideas

The majority of the sources describe the Generation Y as consumers, colleagues, employees, managers, and technological and social innovators. The sources explore communication

43

FOCUS

First Results of the “Oxygenz” study conducted by Global WorkSpace Solutions of Johnson Controls urban slightly urban slightly rural rural

BY MARIE PUYBARAUD1 AND RUTH MUNZ

styles, values, motivations, and characteristics, but not many focus on the aspirations for their working environment. Although you bring energy and innovation to the workplace, the Generation Y is challenging to manage. You appreciate clear direction, demand immediate feedback on performance, expect to be consulted and included in management decisions, and demand constant intellectual challenge. the Generation Y is demanding, as a right, a new reality from work. You insist on working flexibly, choosing when and where to work.

59 48 43 7

4%

38%

27%

urban slightly urban slightly rural rural

31%

WHERE WOULD YOU PREFER TO BE LOCATED?

Oxygenz – The online interactive survey

Generation Y is, perhaps, the most digitally sophisticated generation we have ever seen. 80% of teenagers have Internet access, and the current 10-17-year olds will spend one-third of their lives (23 years) on the Internet! Generation Yers truly are the children of what was once called the ‘microchip revolution’. As such, they have grown up with computers and using them is second nature. We created Oxygenz to invite you to tell us what your preferences about your future working environment are. The main survey has been designed to enable the user to interact and travel through the survey in more of an online gaming / learning style than that of a traditional tick box questionnaire. The survey projects a light-hearted quirky style to encouraging users to engage with the project. As many from our target audience are unfamiliar with Workplace terminology and may have never experienced an office environment, much of the questioning has been formatted to illustrate the terminology used. 4500 of you have already completed the Oxygenz survey.

The survey experience visually builds the user’s perfect office as they progress through the survey.

At the end of the survey, they are presented with their office profile in a format they can share with friends on their own social network site.

Which new reality from work?

We must attach a great importance to diversity in our workplaces and the factors that must be taken into account when considering workplace design as a likely strategic weapon in the battle to attract and retain scarce young talent. This generation is an emotionally engaged workforce. They aspire to work in a bright, light and open working environment. 91% of GenYs would prefer to personalise their desk, they have a strong attachment to natural and soft material, like wood and carpet, and prefer light colours, subtle, clinical and relaxed colour rather than vibrant. They see their working interior modern and contemporary (82%).

1) Marie.C.Puybaraud@jci.com 2)) http://www.spectator.co.uk/business/the-magazine/entrepreneur/654421/part_3/the-workplace-diva-has-arrived.thtml 3) Martin, C. And Tulgan, B. (2006) Managing the Generation Mix, 2nd Edition, HRD Press.

FOCUS

44

concentional flexible ad hoc

concentional 12%

73%

prefered expected 14% 36% 73% 42% 12% 22%

flexible

ad-hoc

22%

42%

36% 14%

prefered

expected

WHAT PATTERN OF WORK WOULD YOU LIKIE TO HAVE?

33% of the Generation Y in Germany wants to go to work by bike! Far more than in any other country.

This generation is an emotionally engaged workforce. They aspire to work in a bright, light and open working environment. 91% of GenYs would prefer to personalise their desk, they have a strong attachment to natural and soft material, like wood and carpet, and prefer light colours, subtle, clinical and relaxed colour rather than vibrant.

They see their working interior modern and conContact temporary (82%).

ESTIEM alumnus Harald Janert

Dipl.-Ing. oec. Harald Ulf Janert graduated at Hamburg University of Technology. He is ESTIEM Alumni since 1993.

Since2001 he is Finance Director GWS Germany and Customer Business Group Industrial EMEA at Johnson Controls.

The Generation Y is expecting their employer to offer a flexible way of working. 80% expect to have a certain degree of flexibility in their way of working. Overall 78% of 18-25yrs old want to be mobile rather than static workers (flexible or ad-hoc working pattern). In Germany, 73% prefer to work flexibly but 42% are expecting their employer to require their presence in an office everyday!

We know the Generation Y will be the generaEmail: harald.janert@jci.com, tion to carry the load of years of environmental Tel: +49 (0) 201 2400 173 damages and neglect. They are embracing sustainability and the Generation Z, the ‘homo zappiens’ following the Gen Y are even more modelled

around the concept of sustainability. The results reflect this new way of living. 96% of Gen Y aspire to work in a greener office. They are eager to embrace an environmental way of working. 17% would like to walk to work, 13% envisage cycling to work and 20% would use public transport. 72% would prefer an urban/slightly urban location for their office.

The way employees communicate at work and with colleagues has dramatically changed over the last five years and the concept of the network is far more embedded in Generation Y than previous generations. The GenYers are social animals and are at ease about communicating remotely and using web 2.0 technologies. A very large majority of Generation Y (77%) favours informal breakout spaces and ad hoc meeting spaces rather formal meeting rooms to collaborate. While 64% would prefer their own desk, 22% are ready to share their desk and 14% would favour hot desking/ hoteling at the office.

Gen Y and the workplace

We are starting to see significant results from the data for Gen Y:

    



Sustainable: 95% want an environmentally aware workplace Flexible: 57% prefer to work flexibly and chose when to work Mobile: 78% prefer to be mobile rather than static workers Unconventional: 40% of Gen Y would like to take their car to go to work, 20% by public transport and 18% walking!

Life-Long Learning Experience: The reasons for choosing a company are: 1: Opportunities for Learning 2: Work Colleagues 3: Quality of Life Collaborative: 39% of Gen Y prefer to have access to a team space and 38% prefer breakout spaces rather than a conventional meeting rooms 

The final results of the Survey will be available in June.

Find out more at www.oxygenz.com

Career Path

46 career

Key Skills

The ability to communicate, team spirit and creativity – those are typical requirements that are asked for in job advertisements for engineers.

Key skills are mainly important because nowadays engineers do not sit alone in their office shut out from the world anymore.

They work closely together with people and in an advisory function. An intensive and enduring communication within the team as well as with partners and customers is essential. But still, with a growing importance of key skills, one thing should be kept in mind: The basis for a successful start of the career is expertise. In detail, the following key skills are demanded: Analytical and conceptual abilities: Engineers deal with processes and numbers of companies and they cooperate with colleagues and customers. One cannot manage without analytical and conceptual abilities in daily work life. The advantage: In many of the engineering subjects with mathematical and statistical parts, young engineers need analytical abilities already in university.

Assertiveness: The ability to assert yourself and persua-

siveness are important especially for engineers in the sales or purchase sections. The most important thing is the charisma of the negotiator or the speaker. The charisma is being influenced by factors such as features, elocution and voice as well as body language. Due to scientific cognitions the content of a statement makes up only 7% of the charisma of a person.

The perception of another person is made up to 40% with the sound of the voice and is to 53% affected by the body and outside appearance.

Intercultural Competence:

In the course of globalisation, engineers often work in project groups with participants from many nations. But intercultural competence does not only consist of the knowledge of many foreign languages and respective cultures. It also includes the corporate culture. Therefore, important qualities for the engineer are the willingness to integration, social sensibility and adaptability.

Ability to communicate: The ability of talking to other

people, sharing ideas and telling others your opinion in an understandable way, or persuading them of your opinion is essential for success. Still, even excellent communicative competence cannot prevent conflicts in daily working life in the

company. In order to solve these conflicts, already in university young engineers have to learn to bring arguments in a targetoriented way in controversial discussions, to cope well with criticism and to recognise misunderstandings between dialogue partners early and reduce those.

Creativity: The basis for success promising innovations is

having new and creative ideas. Whoever is creative develops new things and captivates through his inventiveness. The term creativity consists amongst others of the following attributes: The ability to solve problems, to be innovative and flexibility. If creativity is demanded, the following applies: Crucial is not the number of ideas but their feasibility. If an idea does not work, it is irrelevant for the market because new products have to be sold as well.

Ability to motivate and leadership skills: As a jun-

ior employee you should be prepared to be appointed as the responsible person for small projects quite soon. Especially engineers in advisory positions have to show leadership skills and the ability to motivate more and more. Good executives can be recognised by the way they motivate their team and lead them to their goal. To motivate oneself is important as well. The first step to a successful motivation of your own is self-perception.

Only if you know your own strengths and weaknesses you can use them targeted at your own goal.

Ability to work in a team: Teamwork is one of the central

points in each company. Employees from different departments have to be able to work together. In almost every job offer the ability of working in a team is demanded. The performance of a group is influenced by the extent, formation and development of the group. Important criteria are the social competencies of the team members and the team leader.

Corporate thinking and acting: In many job offers corpo-

rate thinking and acting are asked for. This is mainly valid for companies with flat hierarchies because each single person is challenged more, the more hierarchies are flat. In order to remain competitive, each employee has to work for the development of the company and push own ideas forward or optimise existing processes.  This article is provided by www.staufenbiel.de

47

Career

A Great Internship Experience

Four Months at Oerlikon Investor Relations

I started my internship in November last year. I was sure it was going to be a good experience, but I could have never guessed it was going to be this great. It was a pleasure to work for Frank Heffter (Oerlikon’s Head of Investor Relations) and Roland Bischofberger (Investor Relations Manager).

From the first day, I was involved in the work and treated as an equal team member. Step by step and fast enough, I started taking over many different tasks, especially competitive intelligence. I had the responsibility of monitoring our competitors and reporting internally about their results, with the Executive Board of Oerlikon among the recipients of some of my reports. For those who do not know Oerlikon so well, our Partner is active in many different sectors, such as textile machinery, solar cell production equipment, gear boxes for highend automotive and off-highway vehicles, space technology as well as coating to name the most important. While analysing so many and diverse industry sectors, I could get the big picture about Oerlikon’s activities and especially in these turbulent times, there was always something new to report about.

Of course, I also had other smaller but not less important tasks. One of these was for example helping Frank Heffter to make an introduction

package for our new CFO, for him to know the status quo before starting his duty. At all times, I had the right mixture between own responsibility and team support.

But life is not just working. During this awesome internship, I could also take part in the social life behind Oerlikon. One of many highlights was surely the Christmas dinner, were I was sitting at the same table with many interesting top ranking managers and just next to me, Dr. Uwe Krüger, Oelrikon’s CEO. It does not happen every day, that you get to have a conversation with somebody who is leading a 20 000 employee company, present worldwide. I also had the chance to get to know new people and meet those I knew from before, like Cecile Norz, who I was in contact with regarding the partnership offer. There were also those small nice things, such as a funny lunch break with my team colleagues. Last but not least, I got my first skiing lesson from Frank Heffter on a sunny Sunday morning, with fresh powder like snow on the Swiss Alps.

At the time I wrote this article, my internship was supposed to be over already, but I decided to stay one month longer. There are many things still to be done, and more experiences to take. 

Ignacio Perez Prat

I first got to know Oerlikon while offering them the partnership with ESTIEM, thanks to Frank Heffter (ESTIEM Board 1993) who established the contact with the HR department. From all the partnership offering meetings that I had with companies in 2007, those with Oerlikon were among the best. And due to that first great impression I decided to get to know our Partner better by doing an internship. So I talked to Cecile Norz (Human Resources) and Frank Heffter about it. After deciding upon my starting date, I got my internship confirmed and I made my way to Switzerland.

Career

48

My start @ Bosch dirk nagel

Five challenging as well as exciting years at the University are over. I studied Industrial Engineering at TU Braunschweig and University of Nebraska. In 2005/2006 I worked as Local Responsible at Local Group Braunschweig. People, places and knowledge especially through the involvement in ESTIEM were distinctive during my studies. What will be next?

Joining VWI-/ESTIEM-Alumni is one possibility – but what is the best way to start a professional successful career?

Before applying, you have to choose a functional focus for your programme. Industrial engineers have typically the choice between controlling/distribution, purchasing, production or technical sales. During the 18 to 24 months lasting trainee program I am supposed to get an insight into six departments and Bosch sites in Germany and Asia. My focus is production – with planned placements in production planning, manufacturing technologies, production ramp-up, sales and worldwide manufacturing coordination.

My first placement is a ramp-up of a new product, a control unit for eight-gear transmissions, in the Eisenach Production plant. I worked out the placements with my local supervisor and mentor.

Through intensive personal involvement it was possible to structure the programme according to my interests.

At first I was overwhelmed by the complexity of the company, for example the number of colleagues, regulations and shortcuts – but slowly I dipped into the world of Bosch. In my opinion, the Graduate Management Trainee Program is the best way to get the necessary overview of Bosch in short time, to develop appropriate knowledge for diverse functions and to build up a national as well as an international network.

As far as I am concerned, the answer is the Graduate Management Trainee Program of Bosch.

It all started with the participation of the event “Meet Bosch in Hockenheim”. The combination of case studies, meeting Bosch employees, and fun is the perfect way of getting in touch with Bosch. In addition you almost forget the recruiting procedure.

The size and the internationality of a big company like Bosch have many advantages: many young colleagues, different sports and leisure activities offer possibilities for a good work-lifebalance.

I hope, that this short description helps you making the perfect job decision and I am looking forward to meeting some ESTIEMers again. 

Entrepreneurship & ESTIEMers

Being a real entrepreneur will demand more from you then most things in your life ever will.

It will test you, challenge you, and force you to look inside yourself and grow. If you want to create a reality for yourself that most people only dream of, you better be prepared to dedicate your entire being to the task at hand! Let us meet one of them.

Henrik Rudberg has worked with marketing and sales in all different roles from market analyst, pre-sales to sales and Internet marketeer and even CEO. Henrik worked for Cisco Systems, then at the Swedish IP-telephony supplier Hotsip (acquired by Oracle) and he has founded the successful IP-telephony Service Provider Cellip.

How did ESTIEM life affect your career?

Particularly in one way, I think: to get a chance to be presented with more cultures, geographical and industrial areas that has helped me get a deeper understanding of causes and effects. And it is truly rewarding from both a personal and a career-wise level.

In order to reach genuine success – in your career or really to succeed in any ambition – I believe firmly in a few things that may be obvious to some, but that may be total secrets to others for a very long time. I’ve met at least one who consciously “got it” at age 19, and a few ESTIEMers who knew it in their early 20s, and even though I’ve likely unconsciously known it for some time, I have to admit I was probably around 35 when I more knowingly could take advantage of it.

One of these things is to really learn how to get to the bottom with understanding causes and effects in just about everything you get involved with. When you’ve seen – and thoroughly understood – enough, you will reach the next level, which is to be able to make out patterns of reasons and consequences enough to be able to see where different alternatives would lead you during the course of a normal conversation.

What ignited the spark in you to start a new business venture or to make significant changes in an existing business? How did the idea for your business come about?

I’ve always found it tempting to run a business.

Both to be my own boss and ultimately to see if I can make it or not. I kind of took the step twice though:

Intervıew by Katarına Gavrıc

Career

50

Where did your organisation’s funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?

Having helped raised more than 15 M€ for Hotsip, I had also seen the disadvantages of external capital coming from many investors with different agendas, so I asked myself what I really needed, and decided that if I just could get the best of the most needed talent in tech skills that I didn’t possess myself as a partner, then I would try to scrape up enough money to buy the hardware and systems that I needed. The partner I found (incidentally via LinkedIn), agreed to put some time in himself on which we wrote a shareholders’ agreement, and for money: I sold my apartment in expensive Stockholm and bought a house in cheaper Gothenburg, and borrowed the rest that was needed from three different banks (since I couldn’t get just one to finance it).

The first time quite planned, when I started the company with an IEM-class mate after some four years in a big corporate environment (at Cisco, which was my first job after graduation and he was fairly fresh from McKinsey) to seek GSM licenses to become a Mobile Operator. “Our” concept was a success as it was carried onward to become the fourth GSM operator in Sweden, but I never got anything out of the company itself.

The second time, I left my job at Swedish IPtelephony platform supplier Hotsip (later sold to Oracle) after four years when I strongly disagreed with the company’s board about the course of action. I stayed true to the one area that I knew best: Telecommunications, so the company I started was the IP-telephony Service Provider Cellip and my strongest driving force at start was probably just to “show that I was right”.

There doesn’t have to be anything wrong about getting external capital though, if you really need it, but be sure to state exactly what you’re looking for – how much to use to what – and at what cost (how big a share of your company you’ll lose to them), and expect to subsequently lose 50%–100% bigger piece than your original offer, and that it will take two months longer to close the deal than you want.

Remember, that there’s almost always a chance to sell something straight away and raise cash the way it’s supposed to instead of through external investors. That will also help you build credibility and prove a higher longevity in the particular market, too.

Getting partners with the right competencies for equity is I think a nicer way to get going, also from a social perspective, unless you’re just in it for the money and for deciding all by yourself.

Then you’re likely going to be much better off owning 100%.

51

What has been the most rewarding moment in your decades of entrepreneurship?

Well, I think I’m only some eight years into it now, but the most rewarding I think are the moments when something that you’ve worked really hard to accomplish has come through, like an “impossible deal”, or even more rewarding: when you’ve hired staff that develops things that are even better than you conceived them yourself from the outset.

Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?

When it comes to delivery on promises, I think Apple does a tremendous job. When it comes to taking daring decisions, while still keeping everything very simple and consistent, no one beats Berkshire Hathaway. The annual reports written by Warren Buffet himself are also the only annual reports that will ever teach you the two most important things about any truly successful business from a capitalist perspective: Return on Equity and Excellent Cash Flows. They can be found at http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/reports.html.

What skill would you most like to improve?

Going to bed early enough, to stay as crisp as possible in the day.

How do you find people to bring into your organisation that truly care about the organisation the way you do?

Tough stuff. And it hurts quite a bit to be disappointed in someone. I actually do the first screening by a multiple choice test on the web which I’ve found quite reliable. Not very many questions to answer, but some of the most important that really help me determine the stance of someone are choices between statements that can yield the same results, but the way the statements are formulated will show you also how the person is about to solve the problem. Similar questions

that you find in Myers-Briggs tests. From there on, it’s trying to feel people out when you meet them.

What’s your favourite part of a typical day?

Definitely the mornings that I always try to set aside for just doing creative and productive stuff up until 11:30 o’clock when it’s time to read e-mails, which may be a must, but definitely not fall under the productive category.

What’s the simplest thing you never learnt to do?

To remember any kind of nursery rhyme about whether to turn the clock backwards or forwards in spring or fall whenever there’s daylight savings time. I always have to think it through logically about the sun coming from the East and so on and so forth, to remember it.

Even though I really enjoy languages, I also struggle with masculine or feminine articles in languages like French, Spanish and German since I once decided to accept for myself that they were not necessary to learn the language. I shouldn’t have, because they are necessary: You feel like a fool every time you don’t get it right and that’s not good for your self-esteem.

Who is the smartest person you know? And why?

It may be Peter Drucker, the most famous management consultant/philosopher around on his simple insights. It may also be Warren Buffet, though he may be a bit too capitalist for me.

What three pieces of advice would you give to college students who want to become entrepreneurs?

1. Run your ideas by someone who have actually started and built a sound business from scratch, since chances are they’ll see the pitfalls early on. Often, it doesn’t matter if their field of business is very different, but if you can choose, you should look for someone who has attained recurring business (i.e. customers

Career

CAREER

52

buying again and again) and someone who has been able to scale a business by at least three to five times.

2. Show as much as you can. Get contacts in all areas possible.

I would be happy to discuss an idea with you, too, if you want. You can reach me at www.rudbergs. com (henrik@rudbergs.com) and I try to find the time to answer as fast as possible when I have the chance.

If you had the chance to start your career over again,

3. Try as much as you can and if it looks like you didn’t have the right skill. Develop or acquire it as fast as possible. Only when you know how to do something yourself (even if you’re not good at it), you can provide it as an assignment to others (consultants, staff etc.).

I would have tried to excel at sales much earlier in my career since it’s the only way you will ever be able to influence any organisation (including non-profit ones). I would also listen more carefully when people would state what works and what not.

Naah, it probably doesn’t beat the good slap-o’the-head that you get from a good trial-and-error failure anyway…

I love the saying: “Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment”. If it’s true, I think I have a lot of experience now.

If you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?

What are the other “secrets” besides getting to the root with understanding causes and effects?

I’d say they are four-fold, where the other three are:



Not accepting any uncertainties for more than 24 hours or it may drain you from energy to take action.



Take action and try it out rather than listing it as a to-do, or “something to analyse”.



Whenever faced with a do or die outcome: Picture the best outcome (your number-1 customer, your best partner, your best…) and then work hard to get that particular one to take a little step closer to you. Don’t go for second best or worse. 

53

Women and Leadership: Learning from the Social Sector Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of Acumen Fund, shares lessons in leadership from her work in venture philanthropy.

As a venture philanthropist, Acumen Fund’s Jacqueline Novogratz leads entrepreneurial projects across the globe—many of which put women at the helm of emerging local businesses. In this video interview, she discusses her experience developing other women leaders, the way they have shaped her own approach to leadership, and the different leadership cultures she sees at play in the public and private sectors.

This interview was conducted by Bill Javetski, an editor with the McKinsey Quarterly, in February 2009. It was recorded in the New York office of Acumen Fund.

One of the secrets of your activity in building entrepreneurialism is focusing on women as workers. Can you talk about that?

I had been in Rwanda where I worked with a small group of women to start the first microfinance organization in the country and, simultaneously, a bakery with 20 unwed mothers. My own background has taught me a lot about the power of investing in women, because you do end up feeding a family and not just an individual.

I worry actually that the international-development community may, in focusing so much on the women, end up demoralizing and devaluing men even further. I don’t want to be glib about just investing in girls. We have to build healthy societies and we have to recognize that boys and girls develop differently and [we have to] find ways really to include, to value, to have high expectations, and to provide opportunity.

And so there’s this big, philosophical question around how do you hire, how do you encourage different behavior. Can you—in the

dormitories—bring in other activities to bring in reproductive health, to help with microfinance and savings? There’s a really interesting platform here.

Your story of the bakery in Rwanda was in large part a story about developing the women that you worked with there. What did you learn about leadership from their experience of developing into owners and operators of that business?

I went in as a leader with pure audaciousness. I didn’t have as much humility in that I just assumed—I’m the eldest of seven, I can do the Bad News Bears thing really well, I’m just going to cheer them on—without having the humility of really understanding what their starting place was.

After many mishaps, including having them steal from me and having them not really know how to sell—I mean they would look down the whole time and have to explain to me that they were considered prostitutes by many; for them to go and look somebody directly in the eye and shake their hands was not exactly a Rwandanwoman kind of thing—so I had to learn to have the humility myself to really listen to their perspectives, and yet not stop there; to have the audaciousness to say, “It’s a good starting point, but we want to get you to this other place.”

Career

CAREER

54

The real lesson for me was how that dignity is so much more important to the human spirit than wealth. And that what these women, as all of us, needed was to know that we could cover basic needs, but to have the power of being able to say no to things that we didn’t want, that we didn’t want to do. And so leadership as a way of inspiring, listening, and letting people, you know, grow themselves in their own way.

And it was a small experience in some ways, and yet one that I think about all the time that taught me so much about listening and dignity— and laughter as a really, really key component. The more stressed I got, the less anything worked; and the more we could laugh, the more we got done.

And so that was probably another really big lesson.

I’m a big optimist. I really believe in setting impossible goals and then making them possible.

And I really love people—and I think people feel that from me. So it’s probably that sometimes very confusing mix of optimism, idealism, but also high expectations, lots of discipline, and pragmatism.

Part of the journey that those of us who are privileged, which is pretty much everyone in this country, has to make is not being embarrassed by privilege or guilty for privilege or confused by privilege, but to start from that place of recognizing that your responsibility is to use that privilege in the best way you can to serve the world. And there are lots of ways of serving the world.

Many women work in social sector, fewer in finance.

Let’s say actually fewer lead in finance. You’ve succeeded in both. Any thoughts on the skill set, and why one isn’t more prevalent in the other area?

I think that girls really are relational, and what I love about finance—and what I love about accounting even, which is kind of embarrassing to admit—is it’s another form of storytelling. And if you could teach young people to find the stories

in the combination of the balance sheet and the income statement, I think we would see a lot more girls taking leadership in finding that comfort.

I just did a panel for women on Wall Street, and what they spoke about was how rigid our financial institutions continue to be around integrating women into the workforce—particularly after they’ve had children—and that the rules are so driven by a different kind of discipline that the social sector has taken upon itself to reinvent. And that may be more to the point as to why we don’t see as many leaders—women leaders—in finance.

It’s a much older club. It’s been driven by a stricter set of rules and expectations.

I have four brothers who all work on Wall Street, and I remember when one of my brothers’ wife had a child. And I said, “Well, is there, you know, paternity leave?” And he said, “Oh, yeah.

We have the most liberal paternity leave on Wall Street—but I would never take it, because if I did, everybody would think I was, you know, wimpy.”

And I think there’s great truth to that. So there’s a cultural piece that needs to be looked at. Whereas in the social sector, as a woman leader, you have the opportunity to invent the culture in which you want to work and thrive.

Young people often will come to me and say, “I really want to do this, but first I feel like I need to do A, B, C, D, and E.” In some ways I think we’ve put young people, especially, on a track where they have these expectations that they’re going to do one thing after another because that’s what everybody else does—and then they will get this freedom. And I think there are lots of different paths and that the path isn’t always clear, but you just should start; that work will teach you; and that I can’t imagine a more joyful way of living than a life when where you are serving in the spirit as equally of adventure as you are of change. 

55

Career

ESTIEMers “Down Under” My semester in Australia

“No worries!” It is interesting how well one sentence and famous Australian statement de-scribes a whole nation’s mentality. Did this attitude to life affect my exchange experience “down under” in any way?

And one, who is planning to go abroad, always needs to remember that many things can go wrong. We had already spent half a year organising to go to the Bond University in Surfers Paradise (Queensland), when we were told that we would not get any BAFöG (scholarship of the German government) and therefore had to start again. So finally we ended up at the University of Newcastle (New South Wales).

It was somehow unbelievable how fast time passed until we were on our way to Singapore, where we spent some exciting days exploring Asia before proceeding to Australia. Then came the moment I had been waiting for so long. It was really exciting to walk out from Melbourne airport and touch touching the southern hemisphere for the first time in my life. But it was only the beginning of eight exciting months, during which I have learnt so much.

When evaluating my eight months “down under”, I have to admit that the first three months were definitely the best. Ok, it is easy to understand, considering that these were three months of vacation. Not only at this time, but also throughout our whole stay, we travelled as much as our budget and university schedule allowed us and tried to visit all the famous spots: Great Ocean Road, Melbourne, Sydney, Blue Mountains, the whole East Coast (some-how the place where all the backpackers are) and Ayers Rock. This is definitely a thing that I want to recommend to everyone - travel as much as possible, especially if you go to a country so far away that you will probably only get there once in your life.

Like vacations always tend to be, these awesome months ended sooner than I realised and it was time to study at the University of Newcastle.

We had enrolled ourselves in three courses, which might appear as a workload for somebody who does not want to study much. To justify ourselves I have to explain that international students in Australia are considered as full-time-students, when they are enrolled in three courses, as the workload per course is really high. One has to hand in essays or to give presentations every few days and so we were busier than expected throughout the whole term. Nevertheless, I began to

sebatıan geese

It was in early 2006, when another ESTIEMer from Local Group Siegen and me decided to start the big adventure and study abroad in Australia for one semester from the end of 2007. Although one might wonder why so early, we started organising this “once-in-a-lifetime-experience” soon by contacting our international office. At this time, we also thought there would be a lot of time to get everything prepared, but as time passed by we realised that it was a good idea to start organising everything early. Many things had to be considered: application for the university, choice of courses, application for scholarships, booking the flight, application for a visa…

We soon found out that we totally underestimated the necessary efforts to find accommodation and the difficulties to get used to the Australian slang. With the help of a German friend, who was going back to Germany at that time, we could finally move into her house and in time we came to understand Australians well. In this context, I want to recommend everyone to inform themselves about possibilities for accommodation early enough, at best before departure.

Career

56

cherish the Australian education system more and more as weeks passed by. It was amazing to realise how much Australian universities care about their students and how related to practice studies can be.

Each course contained a lecture and a tutorial. The tutorial consisted of a maximum number of twenty students, which made it really convenient to discuss and reconsider the contents of the lecture, although it was a bit hard to contribute to the discussions due to being the only non-native speakers. At least for my part I can conclude that I really liked the Australian way of educating.

One, who is planning to study in Australia, always has to be aware that he or she will probably meet as many Germans as Australians, since a huge number of backpackers and students from Germany are living in Australia temporarily. I experienced that people always tend to spend time with people from their home country. Therefore, we had to be really careful not to spend too much time with Germans, as the reason of travelling so far was

to meet Australians. Luckily, we made a couple of Australian friends when university started, which was quite easy. The University of Newcastle describes itself as a “wet campus”, which means nothing else than having an on-campus-bars, where beverages are sold. Attending Student Nights on Wednesday evenings always proved to be a good idea, as a few drinks turned out to be helpful for socialising, Due to the fact that Australians are really outgoing and sociable!

Finally, one last fact, which had a great influence on my experience, has to be mentioned.

In order to finance our travel activities, we worked a few hours per week in a part-time-job.

International students are allowed to apply for a working permission to work twenty hours a week as soon as the semester starts. As it was harder to find a job than expected, eventually it turned out to be the most successful method to walk into every single shop and hand in one’s Curriculum Vitae. By doing so, we got a job in a kebab shop and working there became a really good experience, as it was a good chance to get to know all layers of Australian community and not only academics, which in this context includes students as well.

So, was it in the end a good choice to study abroad? Definitely yes! The Australian “No worries”-mentality makes life in Australia quite comfortable and living away from home for a certain time significantly helped me to develop.

Although most benefits of these months only became obvious after getting home and having some time to evaluate them, I got to know so much about different cultures, ways of thinking and approaches to life and learnt so much about myself that I finally can say: It was worth the efforts and money to start this adventure or, as the real Aussie would say: “Good onya!”

Everybody who is interested in Australia or has some further questions, feel free to ask me via email anytime: Sebastian.Geese@estiem.org 

Cultural Prejudice “Everyone knows what the Swiss are like. We can split them into two groups…

One part of the Swiss like to wear tight shorts, white shirts, braces and green hats, usually with feathers in. They spend most of their time up in the mountains, usually on the Matterhorn, singing as they walk. They also enjoy yodelling and playing their long Alpine horns. They are ruddy cheeked, fairly rich, and pretty smug because they have so much fresh mountain air and because their trains always run on time. They survive on a diet of chocolate and holey-cheese. The women are mostly blonde and like to help milking the cattle and are usually called Heidi. They live in wooden huts on the mountainside, and each room has at least one cuckoo clock.

All this is different in the cities. Zurich dwellers are sharp-suited secretive bankers who make their living by managing bank accounts and offshore companies of America’s super-rich. The whole country is spotlessly clean and they are obsessed with the environment.” Robert Easton

Switzerland After a Week of Observation

However, it is not easy to find genuine Swiss in Zurich. My impression about people in Switzerland is that they are very polite and helpful, although having a quite determining discipline about discretion, which says “Take care of your own business; I’ll do so with mine.” That kind of mentality and tolerance allows them to cope with the ethnic, linguistic and religious differences, and also let them be famous about their banking secrecy laws. Fact: Switzerland is holding an estimated 35% of the world’s private and institutional offshore funds, which means more than three trillion Swiss fancs (about two trillion Euros).

We also have to mention their commitment to environmental awareness, which puts the rest of the world to shame. Sixty percent of their energy needs are met by hydroelectric power, and each year they produce half the amount of waste per

capita that Americans do. The streets and public places seem to be extremely clean and tidy – especially from Central-Eastern European perspective.

Thanks to the very strict regulation you can not really do anything without taking the environment into consideration.

The thing that caught me the most is that everything seams to work as you expected or as you have paid for. Swiss trains are always on time with clockwork precision, it is hard to find a ticket machine out of order. Crosswalks are the extensions of sidewalks, you can cross the road without even thinking about looking around. And if you are in Zurich, you cannot be an exception: if you fixed an appointment, you have to be there fifteen minutes before, not after, because being late in Switzerland is kind of an unknown idea. By the way it would be almost impossible to forget about the time on the streets of Zurich, because you are always surrounded by at least three huge tower clocks.

Of course there is no free lunch in our cruel world, welfare has is own stiff price. In Switzerland the price level index of all consumer goods and services is 30% above the EU average.

Just for contrasting in the same list Hungary is 40% under the average. So eight Swiss francs for a beer… ouch! 

boglarka Gergely

In November we spent a stirring week in Switzerland as Europe3D Zurich participants. At the beginning of the week we were all asked to list a few things what we had in mind about the country. Not surprisingly I can mainly summarise our perceptions in the two paragraphs above. It is quite rare that a country has so clear image and presence, which mainly based on the efficient nation branding activity of the Swiss federal administration, and also because it is not too difficult to promote true things.

AGENDA

Check the latest updated event information at www.estiem.org and register for your favourite events through the ESTIEM portal. See you somewhere in Europe!

APRIL MAY 2 – 6 May Vision of Responsibility | Braunschweig “Assessing industrial flows” 13 – 17 May Vision of Responsibility | Warsaw “Corporate Social Responsibility as a way to success” 19 – 24 May Activity Week | Istanbul Yildiz 20 – 24 May Regional Coordination Meeting | Siegen 25 – 30 May Vision of Responsibility | Enschede “Sustainable Business” 25 – 31 May Roche Survival Camp | Karlsruhe

JULY

20 – 26 July Brain Trainer - the Training Camp | Budapest 26 July – 9 Aug Summer Academy | Portugal “Human-Centred System Design People, Organisation and Technology”

SEPTEMBER

22 – 27 Apr 37th Council Meeting | Grenoble 27 – 30 Apr Post Council Meeting | Lyon 29 Apr – 3 May Vision of Responsibility | Luleå “Product Cycles - The responsibility of the industry to keep our environment clean and healthy””

JUNE 29 May – 1st June 16th ESTIEM Alumni Meeting | Zurich 2 – 5 June Vision of Responsibility Final Conference | Bremen

AUGUST 9 – 23 Aug Summer Academy | Romania “Deep Entrepreneurship Manufacturing Europe’s Future” 26 – 30 Aug Hanseatic Days (Activity Week) | Hamburg

23 – 27 Sep Activity Week Oktoberfest | Munich

Gothenburg “How to Promote Yourself”

NOVEMBER “Communication for the Future”

OCTOBER 1 – 6 Oct Europe3D Romania 27 Oct – 1 Nov 39th Council Meeting | Zurich “Corporate Communication” ITU “Communication with Customers”

INTERNATIONAL MASTER’S PROGRAMME IN BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY

markets. Multinational companies and innovative

Would you like to be one of them?

Come and study in Tampere Finland!

start-ups around the world require talented

Yearly application period: December 1st-March 31st.

Today’s business world demands engineers capable of managing businesses in global

business graduates with an intercultural mindset and understanding of new technologies.

Find out more at:

www.tut.fi/tsbt

Searching for people to take flight at Brose!

Are you overflowing with creativity, motivation and dynamic? You can apply yourself with us. These characteristics have helped us reach 7th position among international family-owned automotive suppliers. Objective-oriented students and graduates with enthusiasm for technology can take on challenging tasks and quickly assume responsibility in our company. More information is available in the Career section of our homepage.

www.brose.com – More comfort and safety for a mobile day-to-day routine