As of January, 1st, 2015, I am no longer actively involved at InterFace AG. My “New Life” has started. I spent the last few weeks structuring it. Now I know what I want to do and will do. Perhaps I can manage to make a difference during the last phase of my life.
My mental concepts are still those of a programmer and software architect. Consequently, I made three columns representing my future domains:
My private world, personal activities and central projects.
Private World (Column I)
I can afford to live on my “jobless” income. For me, having a nice life means enjoying the time with Barbara. Part of it is to witness how our grandchildren will grow and to travel to many beautiful places of this world by bike. For instance, late in February, we will spend two weeks in Cuba with our bikes. More bike tours in Austria/South Tyrol, France and the Czech Republic are planned.
Of course, IF-Blog.de is one of the things especially close to my heart. Besides, it is important for me to remain in active contact with my many friends and to broaden, rather than restrict, my social horizon. In this area, I already made some progress, for instance by attending an exciting meeting on the island of Sylt in February.
I wish to integrate the important things in my life, such as reading, swimming and playing chess, into my “daily routine”. Other than that, I would like to minimize stress and yet remain active. And I want to continue learning all the time.
And this is how I arrive at the second column: my actual personal activities.
Personal Activities (Column II)
For me, my role as a mentor features high on the list, both for young persons and teams, for instance start-ups. I am well under way as far as this is concerned. The best about sharing experience is that I learn so much myself. Also, I am constantly stimulated towards being creative. This is true both in my dialogues with young persons and with “my” start-ups.
However, I am also “officially” involved when it comes to “founding enterprises”, for instance as a member of business contest judging panels. This, too, is very important for me, because the work is a source of new knowledge. Once in a while, I am also on a “special mission”, for example trying to find partners for young enterprises. My “Asia Connection” is of special interest in this area.
Another part of this column is the InterFace AG. Together with Barbara, I own the majority of shares in the enterprise. Consequently, our shares of InterFace AG are a major part of our property. Regardless of totally withdrawing from the operative part of the enterprise, I want to remain faithful to the enterprise and preserve it. Currently, this means I still support it as a member of the Supervisory Board.
And apart from this, I try to remain in contact with all the many nice guys I know and maintain my networks. There are many opportunities, for instance at ISARNETZ, The Munich Web-Week, in the vicinity of Open Source or at PM Camps. This sort of free movement is very important for me and I would categorize it under “private activities”.
Central Projects (Column III)
I also want to do a little business – but always based on social motivation and in the sense of a common-good economy.
For these yet again operative activities, which perhaps might even grow to larger dimensions, I will use the IF AGORA platform. Basically, the IF AGORA has no mercantile profit goals. The Agora will be a “non-profit” enterprise accumulating excess money. I will try to introduce potential successors as early as possible, because I wish to remain active only for about three to five years.
However, I only want to get active with projects that actually render excess money. And I want to pay all those who work for us fairly. The platform itself is supposed to grow stronger and stronger based on this excess money, thus strengthening itself for greater challenges. All projects and activities of IF AGORA will be transparently open. Partners are welcome.
As far as my central projects are concerned, my actual plans are three-fold: active mobility, democratic enterprises (working title) and peace. I want to work on them serially.
Active Mobility #AktMob & #AktMobCmp
First and foremost, I will promote the project “active mobility”. As an abbreviation for active mobility, I chose #AktMob – on an international level (for the future) #actmob (active mobility). It already started and develops nicely. Besides others, I won Eberhard Huber as a partner.
Personally, I firmly believe that, especially when it comes to traffic, we have to start a massive about-face. And we will also have to behave in accordance with new concepts. As I see it, individualized motorized traffic has come to its end. Even electricity in mobility – if at all, offers only limited solutions.
In the future, active mobility (movement mostly under your own steam) must become as much part of our mobility as possible. Also, the infra-structure of public transport must change and improve drastically. There are numerous reasons for this on all kinds of levels.
As part of #AktMob, I wish to organize barcamps (#AktMobCmp) and similar events with many people who feel the same as I. PM Camp is a nice sort of model for #AktMobCmp. During my work at PM Camp, I learned many things I want to use again for #AktMobCmp.
Above all, there will be time to promote the issue “Active Mobility” (1). Connecting the protagonists and users is also an important concern of mine (2). Building bridges between many associations, administrative instances, lobbyists, institutions and numerous communities is my third goal (3). Because when all is said and done, they are the ones who also determine what politics will decide about mobility.
I already came a long way with the project #Aktmob. The organizational basis should be finished by the end of these three months. All other measures will be a matter of routine. Now we have to find many supporters and comrades-in-arms.
”Democratic Enterprise“
In this area, I wish to work towards improving the working conditions in enterprises with a small circle of hand-picked friends. As a working title for the project, I chose the title of a new book by a good friend of mine – Dr. Andreas Zeuch.
Here are the topics and catchphrases I have in mind:
anti-fragility • fear-free areas • work • eye-level • decision-making • experience •leadership • concept of mind • common good economy • intuition • management •organisation • control • business and society • enterprises as networks, instead of hierarchies • values • knowledge
…
all in the context of enterprises and institutions.
As I see it, this project should also reach educational institutions. This means that our final goal is a university.
There is not yet a final concept. I would like to start with events in a very creative and interactive format (face2face combined with modern web technology). These events need not be cheap, but they should be worth the money. This is another area where I feel we should manage to pay the protagonists appropriately.
My vision would be some kind of “I-University“ including Moocs etc. – strictly focussed on the topic described above.
A number of great partners together with whom I would like to work on the concept for “democratic enterprises” during the second and third part of the year come to mind. The next thing I am going to do is talk to them.
“Project Peace“
This is my personal utopia – to contribute towards a little peace for all of us in this world. I would like to approach this project during the fourth part of the year, as soon as all other projects have been started and are well under way. So far, I held two sessions on barcamps on the idea of “project peace”. The feedback gave me much hope for my ideas. Some people very much in favour of the idea already contacted me.
But as I said: one step at a time. And currently, the top priority is on #AktMob – Active Mobility.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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