I already introduced Elmar Jürgens and Bernhard Findeiss as speakers at our CRAFTSMANSHIP workshop on June, 13th, 2013, starting at 1 p.m. in our Unterhaching office building.

Today, I would like to introduce Kristin Block. In her presentation, she will, along with her business partner Judit Lell, point out the

Corner Stones of a Knowledge (Sharing) Culture

necessary to not only talk CRAFTSMANSHIP but also live it successfully.

Here is a short abstract of the presentation:

Today, it is vital for an enterprise to make sure the internal supply of knowledge is functioning. After all, it is THE ONE fuel that keeps the daily routine of the enterprise running and thus the enterprise competitive.

However, everyday life at the enterprise is often far from what the employees would consider the ideal, open knowledge exchange all of them would (very much) like to practice.

Phenomena such as the “Knowledge-is-Power” concept, blockage of free knowledge flow and isolated knowledge islands not only use up a lot of energy, they also considerably reduce the active and innovative capacity of organizations. Not to mention social consequences, such as demoralization of the people and the growing frustration, which then will cause inner resignation of white-collar workers who are not at the necessary extent or/and in the necessary form supplied with the material they urgently need.

By now, many leaders actually discovered this danger, along with the need to act – but they do not know how and where to start in order to trigger sustainable change. The presentation “Corner Stones of a Knowledge (Sharing) Culture” supplies you with answers and new ideas in an entertaining and colourful way. Naturally, you also get ample room for discussing the theses. We will introduce five activity fields. Being dynamically linked they cover a diverse scenario of possible approaches. This knowledge, along with a huge portion of will to change, goal-oriented behaviour and patience, are the tools for leaders if they wish to create an active knowledge culture in their organizational units.

About the speaker Kristin Block

Kristin Block is a major shareholder of the consulting company wissenswerk. This company supports enterprises with all the challenges around the topics knowledge distribution, knowledge sharing, knowledge control and knowledge increase. Together with her partner, the communications expert gave meaning to the term «Neuro Knowledge Management»: it is an extremely promising linking of the newest insights in brain research and human centred knowledge management methods. In the role of a coach and speaker, she now hands down her considerable technological knowledge and experience outside here usual consulting projects.

RMD
(Translated by EG)

P.S.
I recommend you read the wissenswerk blog.  In it, you will find many interesting ideas and proposals on our topic by Judith Lell and Kristin Block!

Besides Wolfgang Menauer, who is going to do the warming-up at our Unterhaching workshop on June, 13^th, 2013 with some associative ideas on craftsmanship, a second InterFace colleague will be actively involved.

Bernhard Findeiss has prepared a presentation for our Craftsmanship workshop on June, 13^th. He will talk about:

“A Day in the Life of a Software Craftsman”

Bernhard sent me a short abstract of his presentation:

During the last few years, many attempts at industrialising software development have been made. However, it turns out that this method will not be a success in all areas.

One example for this is the development of individualized software. Dividing complex processes into many smaller steps that are easy to execute will soon show itself to be impossible.

Perhaps we can find some parallels with traditional craftsmanship here? Consequently, this is another area where we also need well-trained software craftsmen.

So what exactly is a “soft worker”? I would like to use my presentation in order to introduce this and some other questions, thus hoping to make you thoughtful:

• What technologies should you be competent in?
• What are the characteristics of well-made software in the craftsmanship sense?
• What is the work structure of a “soft worker”?
• “Soft worker”?What can an enterprise do in order to make the work surroundings as good as possible for the “soft worker”?
  • Saying“Yes”!
  • Saying “No”!
  • Life-long learning!
  •  Writing source code!
  • Test strategies!
  • Working under pressure
  • Cooperating in a team
• What can an enterprise do in order to make the work surroundings as good as possible for the “soft worker”?

About Bernhard:

Bernhard Findeiss is a young InterFace colleague. He has already been working for us for quite some time now. His craft is computer science, which, incidentally, he learned at Munich TUM – and other places. He “lives” quality and innovation. The topics sustainability and value appreciation of craftsmanship are particularly dear to him. For instance, in his private life, he buys his rolls at a real bakery, instead of a bake-shop. In his job, he constantly strives to improve his competence.

Bernhard’s technological interests are quite diverse:

• He founded the “Agile Monday Nürnberg”.
• He is one of the organizers of the SoCraTes conference and at the German Softwork Chamber and was among the first members of this community. –
• You might have quite a few chances to see him on various conferences  (i.e. XP Days, interPM).
• And you will often meet him on various “agile” community events (like Agile Tuesday München, Agile World)

Here is where we come full circle on craftsmanship. But Bernhard also has quite a “social” life:

• He is on the board of the Fischbachau Shooting Club, where he is recording clerk.
• He is an active member of the Mountain Shooting Club
• And – being truly Bavarian – he believes in the tradition of “Laptop and Lederhosen” and supports the historical local costume group.
•  And, of course, his small daughter is particularly important to him!

RMD

(Translated by EG)

P.S.

And here in our IF blog, he is also a well-liked author with man readers!

Dear IF blog readers,

Today, you are getting an invitation for two presentations and one workshop:

On May, 16th, (next Thursday), Alexander Jachmann of the IF-TECH AG will be the speaker in our series of lectures: “Craftsmanship – Technology from Computer Scientists for Computer Scientists!” (also known as Beer&Informatics).

His presentation is about:

UBUNTU&ANDROID – Test in Practice

What exactly can the windows alternatives do? 
Features, problems and solutions. An overview.

For more information and registration, click here:

http://if-blog.de/rd/16-mai-2013-craftsmanship-bierinformatik-alexander-jachmann-ubuntuandroid/

As always, the event will start at 18.00 hours in the seminar zone/top floor of the Unterhaching InterFace AG building. The presentation is scheduled for 6.15 p.m. – you are welcome to arrive from 5.30  p.m.

There are still some vacancies!

And for all those who cannot come, we broadcast the presentation live on the internet. From around 18:15 hours, you can see the video stream of the presentation on  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/IF-Forum.

In addition, we will do a video recording and publish it on youtube  (Kanal InterFace AG) if necessary.

Here are the other dates of the IF Forum:

Technological IF Forum 2013:
Workshop Craftsmanship
accompanied by Wolf Nkole Helzle (Social Media Art artist)
on June, 13th,  2013 starting at 13:00 hours!

http://if-blog.de/rd/workshop-bei-der-interface-ag-craftsmanship/

and then the second IF Forum 2013 this summer:

IF Forum
Jean Paul and Hypertext
Annina Klappert
July, 11th, 2013 | 18.00 Hours

I would be happy to welcome you on one or more of these events and wish you a very nice month of May!

Roland Dürre

RMD
(Translated by EG)

Dr. Elmar Jürgens is one of the speakers at our Craftsmanship workshop on June, 13th, 2013. His presentation will be about:

Knowledge Transfer through Lightweight Reviews
Experiences from six years of working in a heterogeneous team

Here is the abstract of the presentation he will give for us:

Experience, competence, culture, quality and knowledge are the focal issues of the IF Forum on craftsmanship. How can we generate a software development culture that promotes mutual exchange of experience, competence and knowledge in such a way that the software quality will benefit?

For me, the answer is a culture of lightweight peer reviews. There is hardly any quality control mechanism the usefulness of which has been more thoroughly investigated than peer reviews. Moreover, they give us an effective tool for knowledge transfer. We have been using it for many years now. Regardless of this, many teams still do not conduct any peer reviews during their development phases.

In my presentation, I will introduce a lightweight approach for continuous code reviews where the programming and review phases are separate. This gives the programmer and reviewer respectively the chance to decide by themselves when, where and how fast they wish to work. In the development of the Open-Source programming tool ConQAT, we have been using these reviews for seven years in quality control of all code modifications. On a voluntary basis. We are convinced that this is the main reason why ConQAT is so easy on maintenance and so flexible. I will tell you about our experiences and will also report social challenges and best practices.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Elmar Jürgens is founder and associate of the CQSE GmbH. Elmar wrote his dissertational thesis at Munich Technical University about the discovery, consequences and handling of clones, for which he was awarded the software engineering prize of the Ernst Dehnert Foundation in 2011. As one of the founders of CQSE GmbH, he supports enterprises when they analyse and improve the quality of their software systems. He was among the five best speakers of the Software Quality Days 2013.

Moreover, Elmar is the co-chair of the Nineteenth International Workshop on Software Clones held in San Francisco this year. It is part of the “International Conference on Software Engineering”.

Elmar also initiated a very special community: together with other doctoral candidates of TUM and colleagues of CQSE GmbH, he organizes a regular “Tasting Group”. Whenever they meet, the “Tasting Group” tries out a new idea (in the form of an established scientific paper in the field of software quality) and a new taste (for instance in the form of testing wine or a special cuisine). To me, this sounds like a truly innovative concept!

RMD
(Translated by EG)

Invitation & Agenda

With the guidance of Wolf Nkole Helzle (Social Media Art Artist), our fourth technological IF Forum will be about

EXPERIENCE, COMPETENCE, CULTURE, QUALITY and KNOWLEDGE.

To the left on the picture, you can see Wolf Nkole Helzle. He is a famous social media artist living in Baden Württemberg. Wolf will accompany us through this year of IF Forums!

To trigger your memory:

We started our technological IF Forum in 2010 with finding out how “agile development” can be useful for us. During the next two years, we discussed “new leadership” (2011) and “project coaching” (2012).

So far, our IF Forums have been very special events, both for our guests and ourselves. We want it to be the same this time over. This year, it is all about the craftsmanship of a “white collar worker”.

We will start on June, 13th, at 13:00 hours with our workshop “Craftsmanship”.  The location is our office building at Unterhaching and, for a change, we will start in the afternoon. The presentations will begin at 14:00 hours.

We will gladly welcome our guests from 13.00 hours on, because that is when we will visit art with Wolf Nkole Helzle in a very craftsman-like and interactive way.

AGENDA

from 13:00  hours: our guests arrive …
Welcome
Wolf Helzle will take pictures!

14:00 hours: Roland Dürre / Wolfgang Menauer (both of InterFace AG)

Introduction/Warming

Up 
What is craftsmanship?

14:30  hours: Judith Lell & Kristin Block (wissenswerk):

The Cornerstones of a Knowledge (Sharing)

Culture 
Leadership as a craft

Coffee Break

15:15 hours: Bernhard Findeiss (InterFace AG):

No Competence without Learning and Practice!

Developing software is a craft

15:45 hours: Dr. Elmar Juergens (CQSE GmbH)

The “Feedback Method”

Delivering quality is also craftsmanship

Coffee Break

16:30 hours: Bernd Fiedler (Datac):

Master and Apprentice

No craft without experience

17:00 hours: Reinhard Büttner (SWM)

Knowledge – Giving and Receiving – Why so Much is Lost!

Sharing knowledge is a craft

Coffee Break

17:45 hours: all of us

“Fishbowl”


Sharing, giving and receiving – and winning?

18:30 Happy Hour

“Craftsmanship” by Wolf Helzle


Art & Pleasure

SPEAKERS

I personally know all the speakers quite well. Appreciating their competence, I also know that they all have the very special ability to convey their knowledge in a charming and exciting manner. Here is a list of speakers:

Judith Lell and Kristin Block founded wissenswerk together.

Bernhard Findeiss is an employee of the InterFace AG. Among other things, he is very active in the field of Open Source and at Socrates.

Dr. Elmar Juergens is the founder and shareholder of CQSE GmbH.

Bernd Fiedler is on the board of directors at Datac. Moreover, he lectures regularly and is the pragmatic mastermind of knowledge management.

Reinhard Büttner is workforce director at the Stadtwerken München, where he built up a functioning model of “knowledge management”.

As early as now, I would like to thank our speakers very much for agreeing to speak. And I know that, thanks to them, our fourth IF Forum will again be a very special afternoon!

And we look forward to welcoming our guests! As always, you can register for the technological IF Forum via E-Mail.

RMD

(Translated by EG)

Now the video recordings of this year’s first IF Forum Jean Paul, the entrepreneur (Jean Paul, der Unternehmer) have been made available to the general public:

Herr Bernhard Echte of the Zürich Nimbus Publishing Company was our speaker. On Thursday, April, 11th, he started the IF Forum year 2013. To celebrate the 250-ieth birthday of Jean Paul, he told us about entrepreneurship in Jean Paul.

We made three video recordings.

Presentation PART 1 – Why Jean Paul was a successful entrepreneur:

Presentation PART 2 – How Jean Paul was able to stabilize his success as a writing entrepreneur over a long period of time:

Here is a short PART of the discussion after the presentation: what was Jean Paul’s “success drug?”:

InterfaceAG would like you to enjoy!

Here is a list of future presentations/workshops:

IF Academy
Ubuntu & Android as Used in Business (Ubuntu & Android im Business Einsatz)
Alexander Jachmann
May, 16th, 2013 | 18.00 hours

Technological IF Forum 
Craftsmanship
Craftsmanship
Workshop
June, 13th, 2013 | 14.00 hours, prologue starting at 13:00 hours

IF Forum
Jean Paul and Hypertext (Jean Paul und der Hypertext)
Annina Klappert
July, 11th,  2013 | 18.00 hours.

You are cordially invited to all and any of these. For registration, just send me E-Mail!

RMD
(Translated by EG)

In our  Lecture Series (Vortragsreihe)

“IF Technology – from Computer Scientists for Computer Scientists”
(also known as Beer&Informatics), Johannes Schmidt gave a presentation on March, 21st, 2013:
Get In Shape!

How Video games and activity control will get us off the sofa?

We made a recording of this beautiful and interesting presentation and filled two video tapes with it. Here they are – very much to be recommended!

In the first part of the presentation, Johannes Schmidt gives an overview of the history of activity control.

What is the difference between Sony EyeToy & Nitendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect?

The second part shows you how easy it is nowadays to program this technologically very challenging topic.

Including live programming!

Our next Beer&Informatics presentation will be on May, 16th, 2013. Again, the location is our Unterhaching office building.

The presentation will be about:

“Ubuntu & Android as Used in Business”
The practical test. – What exactly can the windows alternatives do? Features, problems and solutions. An overview.
Alexander Jachmann (IF-Tech AG) will tell us everything about the current state of affairs on that Thursday. And, of course, there will again be beer and meatloaf afterwards.

RMD
(Translated by EG)

About entrepreneurship exemplified by Jean Paul!

Every year, the InterFace AG investigates a special person who celebrates an exceptional jubilee and whom we find exciting. This year, the face-of-the-year at InterFace AG is Jean Paul. He would have been 250 on March, 21st. Consequently, the three presentations of the 2013 IF Forum are associated with Jean Paul.

Our first speaker is Bernhard Echte.

Unser erster Referent ist Bernhard Echte. Herr Echte is a linguist, organizer of exhibitions and publicist. For many years, the Zurich Robert Walser-Archive was directed by him. Today, he is an entrepreneur, managing the publishing company “Nimbus, Kunst und Bücher”.

His presentation will be on Thursday, April, 11th, 2013 at the Unterhaching InterFace AG building. As usual, the event will start at 6 p.m. – we asked the speaker to start at 6.30 p.m. After the presentation, you can exchange ideas and sit together enjoying the evening.

There are still a few vacancies. If you would like to register for the IF Forum with Herrn Bernhard Echte, send us an e-mail!

Herr Echte is not just entrepreneur with all his heart. He is also someone who can tell an exciting story. He knows how to make his audience fascinated by alien worlds. Naturally, his favourite topics are enterprises and entrepreneurship.

In his scientific role, he knows Jean Paul and his work particularly well. Consequently, he is the ideal person to draw parallels between the small-scale entrepreneur Jean Paul and today’s entrepreneurs. And that is exactly what he will do next Thursday. Come and let yourself be carried away to the world of entrepreneurship as it looked more than 200 years ago.

I look forward to seeing you!

RMD
(Translated by EG)

A Visit to Modern Times

JJean Paul presentations at the IF Forum

In 2013, the IF Forum will deal with the modern parallels to Jean Paul’s topics and ideas.
With presentations about entrepreneurship, hypertext, wit and new media, we wish to show new perspectives and questions with respect to the here and now.
Come and watch!

Jean Paul the Entrepreneur

Jean Paul was among the first German authors who actually could make a living from their art. Mind you, this was regardless of him having started under hard circumstances. He went to the intellectual centres of his time: Leipzig, Weimar, Berlin – and his books were a success to make Goethe envious. When Jean Paul married, even the Prussian Queen invited him to have tea with her and gave him a silver dinner set.

Jean Paul’s ascent and success was not due to accident. Instead, it was because of prudence and entrepreneurial instinct. Even when times were hard and the Napoleonic Wars devastated huge parts of Europe, he was still able to maintain his position. The way Jean Paul combined sustainability with success is still remarkably modern today.

Our speaker Bernhard Echte, linguist, organizer of exhibitions and publicist, used to be the managing director of the Zurich Robert Walser-Archive for many years. Today, he is the director of the publishing company “Nimbus, Kunst und Bücher”.

Time: April, 11th, 2013 (Thursday) | Starting at 18.00 hours | Location InterFace AG, Unterhaching

Jean Paul and Hypertext

Even before he took the name Jean Paul, the young Johann Richter read everything he could lay hands on. Hardly any of the books he read belonged to him. He wrote down summaries of everything he read in his notebooks. In the same notebooks, you would also find comments on ideas currently cursing through his brains. Jean Paul added catch phrases to all his ideas, now called Tags. In doing so, he created a huge private encyclopedia. It was structured like a modern database. Said encyclopedia was to be the basis for his literary works. Without this database, Jean Paul would never have been able to put into practice his unique style – a style which is volatile and exact at the same time. He managed to make a virtue out of the financial misery of his youth the result of which still surprises us today.

Our speaker Annina Klappert is an assistant teacher at the seminar of general and comparative literature at Erfurt University. Her dissertational thesis was a structural comparison between the texts and hypertexts of Jean Paul. She specializes in media, referencing and virtual reality.

Time: July, 11th, 2013 (Thursday) | Starting at 18.00 hours | Location InterFace AG, Unterhaching

Jean Paul, Wit, Postmodernism and the New Media

He was a “Non-Believer in God”, a “witty decomposer” and an ardent cosmopolitan, sceptic and joke-teller. His pedagogical doctrine Levana is highly praised. It advised to use wit and irony as the basis for a healthy personality, rather than the grim sternness known from Fichte’s oratory to the German nation. In his policy of the “third position between the Germanics and the Bonapartists” you can anticipate the post-modern irresoluteness between opposing poles of “truth”. With his esthetical deviation, he already practices the typical interruptions and jumps common in the hypertexts of the internet. Who was this man who hardly ever left his home and yet was mentally so far travelled that he surpassed many of his contemporaries?

Our guest Roberto Simanowski is professor for media sciences at Basel University. He investigates the changes in writing caused by the digital age and publishes the online magazine dichtung-digital – a journal for digital aesthetics.

Time: November, 7th, 2013 (Thursday) | Starting 18.00 hours | Location InterFace AG, Unterhaching

Since it is our upcoming event, here is the poster announcing the next IF Academy presentations. I am always happy to remind you of “upcoming events”:

Johannes Schmidt (TUM, IF-Lab/InterFace AG, Glassbox Games) will speak on Thursday, March, 21st, 2013, starting at 6 p.m. at the InterFace building in Unterhaching. His Topic
Get Under Way!

How video games and movement control want to get us away from being couch potatoes!

Of course, this invitation is not exclusively for f(e)male students. The event is free for all who want to come. After the event, we will again have a little “happy hour”.

For more information on the series of presentations by “(Fe)Male Computer Scientists for (Fe)Male Computer Scientists” click here. If you want to print the poster in high quality, just send an email to me  – I will gladly send you the print PDF version.

RMD

On March, 31st, 2013, Johannes Schmidt will be our speaker at the IF Academy. He studies Informatics at TU München, minoring in Medicine. “Additionally“, he also works at the InterFace AG IF lab.

He has also several years of experience as an entrepreneur and started Glassbox Games with a group of friends. The young team programmed all kinds of smaller video games and Apps for various platforms.

In order to try and learn new things, Glassbox Games was founded by the same group.  By now, Glassbox Games already won some smaller prizes and developed into a small enterprise. The goals have grown and now include serious entrepreneurial visions. And, of course, the Glassbox Games and InterFace AG are closely connected and on very friendly terms.

In his presentation, Johannes will focus on “movement control”. He will tell us about the historical development of this technology and show in a practical exercise how easily this technically really demanding topic can now be programmed.

Besides, he will introduce an IF lap project that reasonably integrates movement control. The presentation will conclude with a short outlook on what we might expect in this sector in the near future.

As always, the presentation will be held in our seminar zone. I strongly recommend it. Johannes will take us on a trip to a world that is alien to many of us, but it might suddenly become a very relevant part of ”common IT“. You really should have some basic understanding of it.…

We start at 6 p.m. – visitors are welcome from 5.30 p.m. After the presentation, there will again be a happy hour, called “beer and informatics”.
We look forward to welcoming many visitors from all age groups!

Of course, Glassbox Games also have their own Website and can be found on Facebook.

If you are interested in the tournament, click here.

RMD
(Translated by EG)