These are some of the greatest challenges faced not only by businesses of all sizes, but by individuals and by society as a whole, in the present day. On January 16, the Stockholm University subsidiary SU Innovation brought a group of students, academics, and entrepreneurs to betahaus for Great Challenges Berlin, where the group spent three days exploring these different challenges, as well as the ways in which they could be faced. During these three days, participants were invited to present their own ideas and strategies while getting to know the many examples of individuals, startups, and advocacy organisations facing these challenges in the city of Berlin.

The conference began with a series of presentations by entrepreneurs and thinkers from Berlin and from around Sweden, each one presenting their own solutions to different challenges. Speakers, from companies such as Jovoto, Doonited, and SecondMuse, among others, discussed the many ways in which even small-scale initiatives, when carried out as a collaborative effort, can have a significant impact on the world.

Several more startups, many of them from across Sweden, then discussed their own innovative strategies for addressing the challenges of sustainable living and resource management. These strategies involved either directly providing sustainable products or services to consumers, or providing incentives for consumers and companies alike to make conscious choices. Participants learned about how goods and services; such as portable solar-powered chargers, regional grocery-delivery services that make use of as many locally-sourced products as possible, or a service that collects and donates leftover bread from bakeries to soup kitchens, can help overcome these challenges on a local or individual level. Meanwhile, companies such as Gadimu, Cryptango, and Pamoja Cleantech, presented similar strategies with a more global reach; such as information-security for industrial waste-management systems, or inexpensive, environmentally-friendly technology for rural communities in developing countries.

On the second day of the conference, participants were taken on a tour of Berlin, focusing on the city’s many different examples of innovative strategies for dealing with the challenges of today’s world. The tour began with a visit to nearby Impakt Social Labs, and continued on to various other projects and places in the city, ending with a light-hearted drink at the café and coworking space, St. Oberholz. Throughout the day, participants learned how Berlin came to be a European centre for culture and innovation, and continues to maintain that status today. The day concluded with a dinner at betahaus, held by Sandbox, an organisation which seeks to foster young talent across the world. The Sandbox dinner provided a relaxed environment, in which guests were encouraged to network and meet others by discussing their main fields of work or other topics that interested them.

You are the co-creator and developer of the MeeBlip Synthesizer, and have already hosted a workshop here at Open Design City. Do you plan to hold any more MeeBlip workshops or any similar events at betahaus or ODC in the future?

Following my talk at the Create Art and Technology conference in November 2011, I hosted a very informal MeeBlip workshop at Open Design City. So far, these are the only MeeBlip-related events I’ve hosted here. Of course, I have a lot of plans for this year, and that includes more workshops and events at betahaus and ODC.
These events are generally attended by a mix of musicians and electronics geeks, but my long-term goal is to introduce a wider range of people to electronic music and synthesizers. The MeeBlip project is still in the early stages, and we have yet to win anyone over who isn’t already interested in this field. We hope to do a better job of making the MeeBlip more available in the future, and accessible to people everywhere.

You run the company Create Digital Media GmbH, which, among other things, publishes the two sites CreateDigitalMusic and CreateDigitalMotion. Could you tell us a little more about that?

I started out with CreateDigitalMusic, which focused on using technology as a window into music. It’s not just a gear site, nor is it a typical music site. CreateDigitalMotion was founded at a point when, very early on, it became apparent to me that a lot of musicians were moving from working with sound to working with visuals, especially with interactive visuals. I think that, as a musician and a live performer, you work a lot with time – an element most visual artists and designers often do not consider in their work. However, we have a new generation of artists and designers, as well as musicians who cross over to these fields, who do think in those terms – taking visual media and adding to it the element of time.

We’ll also be rebooting our social efforts with a site we’ll call Create Digital Noise; part of what I’m working on here in Berlin is engineering that site and creating something new for people exploring technology for music and motion. If anyone is interested in how social connections work for creative people, I’d love to talk.

There has been a backlash in recent years against the use of inexpensive software to produce music, with many blaming such software for the overall deterioration in the quality and value of music nowadays. Given that you specialise in external hardware, what do you think of this viewpoint?

Both James, the co-designer of the MeeBlip, and I are hardware users: we love the feeling of turning knobs, flipping switches, and so on. But we always try to be as open-minded as possible. Since I first started writing CreateDigitalMusic, I have always tried to cover everything. I try not to be too concerned about how people make music or what they use, whether they make music with an old GameBoy, big racks of analog gear, or an iPad. I think this backlash we’re seeing is mainly against the lack of variety in output, and the idea that people no longer have a choice in what they can do. Everyone has different tastes, different musical backgrounds, and access to different forms of gear. The great thing about music is that electronics, when in the hands of a musician, are no longer seen as disposable. If you give a musician an iPad, and a newer version comes out, they’ll simply get the newer one and have two musical instruments!

What inspired you to move from the US to Berlin, and what attracted you to betahaus in particular?

I recently moved to Berlin from New York to give both myself and Create Digital Media a new place to grow and develop. At the moment, I think there isn’t any better place for that than Berlin, and especially betahaus. I’ve always been interested in the intersection of technology and creativity – these sites themselves are examples of this intersection – and I see a lot of that at betahaus. It’s always great to see people from different fields – web people, musicians, people working with technology – come together to work on things. There is a strong sense of technological ingenuity, not only at betahaus and in Berlin, but throughout Germany in general, and I’ve been able to meet a lot of smart and interesting people since coming here.

Since September 2011, a former apartment in Neukölln’s trendy Reuterkiez has housed a co-sewing space – Nadelwald. This new space offers sewing equipment, patterns, workshops, and other facilities for designers and hobbyists alike to be inspired, create projects, and share their ideas and creations with others. We asked founder Swantje Wendt a few questions about her charming new space.

How did you come up with the concept of co-sewing – the idea of applying the principles of co-working to sewing?

I originally wanted to start a fashion label, specializing in scarves and accessories, and had been searching for a place where I could work on that. Since I couldn’t find a space where I could leave my patterns and materials, I simply created my own space, and began offering it to others.

What kinds of people normally use this space – professional designers, or simply hobbyists?

At the moment, the space is used mostly by people who sew as a hobby and who like to do their own alterations. Only one of our customers is a professional designer who comes here whenever she needs equipment she does not already own.

There seems to be a growing interest in sewing these days, particularly among younger people. Why do you think that is?

I think that, in the case of younger people, sewing and other forms of handiwork can be seen as an alternative to daily work, as many people these days spend most of their time at their computers. They enjoy being able to create something with their hands, something they can be proud of in the end.

You hold a lot of workshops. Do your workshops mainly focus on sewing, or do you branch out into other forms of visual art and handicrafts as well?

Our workshops focus on any skills related to fashion. We offer workshops on different sewing techniques, and even knitting, which is taught by a guest instructor, as knitting is not my area of expertise. I plan to offer a workshop on pattern-making, as that is my specialty.

You have a store here as well. Do people who use this space sell their finished work here?

Yes. It’s part of our concept – you can be inspired by our fashion and pattern books, work on your project and finish it, and finally sell it, all in the same space.

You yourself have worked as a designer, and have done some work for Berlin Fashion Week. Could you tell us a little more about that?

I started out as a tailor, but I felt I wanted to go further in the world of fashion. So I started out working for a Berlin-based high fashion label before working for another, larger-scale label based in Bremen. I found that working for a larger label really limited my ability to be creative – I simply communicated ideas between designers and buyers, and never created anything of my own. When I finally moved back here, I decided to start my own business instead of working for another firm. At first, I wanted to start a label as a designer, but since I was unable to find space to work, I simply created my own, and that’s how Nadelwald was born. 

Few things can be more frustrating than job-hunting – sending out endless generic CVs and repetitive cover letters to eventually find a job we may not even enjoy. Luckily, Justin McMurray, founder of Somewhere, has decided to do something about this.
Founded in late 2011, Somewhere aims to provide an alternative way for companies and talent to find each other, based on factors that are not commonly considered in the standard job search, while aiming to increase satisfaction and “work joy” on both sides.

Companies have been using the same process of recruitment for years. What made you feel the need to develop an alternative to this standard process?

The standard recruitment process – CVs, interviews, and so on – is several decades old, and no longer that effective or relevant, particularly when you see how many people today are dissatisfied with their current jobs. The main reason for this is the lack of cultural fit between companies and their employees. In today’s economy, an increasing number of jobs rely on creativity and other human characteristics, rather than specific skills alone. A CV can list a set of skills, yet it cannot really show whether or not the employee would have a good cultural fit with the company.

You mention a specific need to consider ‘cultural fit’ when seeking out talent. What exactly does this term mean?

That’s a good question. We don’t think it can necessarily be defined, but we see it as a collection of intangible factors related to how an employee interacts with his or her workplace – for example, the company philosophy, the team, the work style, or the attitude, to name a few. Cultural fit refers to these kinds of factors which can’t really be quantified, yet are still important to both companies and employees.

Do you believe the cultural fit of an employee is equally important as his or her skills directly related to the job?

I think it depends a lot on the company and the industry. For professions that rely on a very specific skill set, such as medicine, cultural fit is obviously not that important. However, we are seeing an increasing number of creative companies where the skills required are diverse, and constantly changing. In these companies, employees can no longer be evaluated purely on their skills, but rather on their attitude, and on the chemistry they have with the company. Cultural fit, in that case, would be very important.

Exclusive screenshot of Somewhere. The product is due to launch next month.

How does Somewhere help place cultural fit at the forefront of the recruitment process?

We’re just about to launch our first product which will mainly be targeted towards the creative industry; so towards creative startups, studios, or design agencies, and to create a rich showcase of what both these companies and prospective talent have to offer. We find that companies rarely provide information that is interesting or even relevant to talent, focusing instead on the interests of customers or investors. For example, employees often want to know about things like the working environment, the company philosophy, or even things like what kind of music they play during office hours or if there are any good cafés or bars nearby – things that will affect their satisfaction with the job in the long term.

Likewise, many companies wish to see something completely different from what they normally encounter when searching for talent. Instead of generic CVs that list a person’s skills and educational qualifications, what they really wish to see is their character – what makes them tick, or how resilient they would be when faced with a challenge – things that CVs cannot really show. Different companies look for different personality traits – smaller creative firms, for instance, may look for someone highly autonomous, while larger firms may look for someone who is sensitive to others and works well in a team.

My main advice would be simply to start. Starting something does not rely on having a fantastic idea, but rather on the desire to solve a problem. Even if you do not immediately know how to solve it, you can simply learn more as you develop as a startup. There are, of course, many challenges that come with that, such as planning and coordinating each task, or time management. The biggest challenge, however, is working effectively with limited resources. We managed to bootstrap our discovery of the problem, the solution and our customer base, and we’ve developed our first product which will soon launch in five cities – London, Berlin, San Francisco, New York and Sydney. However, after that, we will need some outside support, either in the form of angel funding or seed investments, so that we can truly reach out to these five cities.

1. Thorsten, du bist unter anderem Kommunikationsberater und Gründungscoach. Wie bist Du im betahaus gelandet?

Ich bin spezialisiert auf die Kreativwirtschaft, und hier sitzt einfach das Publikum mit dem ich arbeiten kann und arbeiten will. Von daher ist es absolut sinnvoll für mich um hier zu sein. Ich arbeite mit dem internationalen Designzentrum und der KfW Bank zusammen, und hab mich hier öfters mit Klienten im Café getroffen. Ich hab noch ein Büro in Kreuzberg, und viele meiner Klienten sagen von sich aus „lass uns im betahaus treffen“, weil sie hier arbeiten. Irgendwann fiel mir einfach auf dass das der richtige Platz für mich ist, um zu arbeiten und auch um neue Klienten zu treffen.

2. Du berätst vor allem Gründer im Bereich Kreativwirtschaft. Was bringt dich dazu dich hierauf zu spezialisieren?

Ich habe Betriebswirtschaft und Kulturwissenschaft studiert, das heißt von Anfang an bestand da eine gewisse Logik mich in den Bereich Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft zu begeben. Ich hab auch schon in anderen Bereichen gearbeitet, habe aber einfach gemerkt dass es mir am meisten Spaß macht in diesem kreativen Feld tätig zu sein. Deshalb bin ich hier

3. Welche Fragen beantwortest du in deiner Sprechstunde? Wo liegen deine Fachgebiete? Welche typischen Fragen tauchen immer wieder auf

In dieser Sprechstunde beantworte ich vor allem Fragen rund um die Förderung und Finanzierung von Startups und Selbständigen in der Gründungsphase, aber auch danach.

4. Warum gibst du die Sprechstunde? Was hoffst du damit zu erreichen?

Erst mal gebe ich die Sprechstunde weil ich hoffe dass die, die zu mir kommen, auch etwas mitnehmen können. Natürlich ist es aber auch ein von Vorteil für mich. Dadurch dass ich bei der KFW Bank akkreditiert bin, kann ich gefördertes Gründercoaching anbieten. Ich weiß, dass viele Kreative, gerade wenn sie sich selbstständig machen, nicht unbedingt die finanziellen Mittel haben sich ein Gründercoaching zu leisten. Von daher ist es quasi eine win-win Situation für mich und meine Kunden.

Wann die nächste Gründung&Förderung Sprechstunde stattfindet könnt Ihr in unserem Kalender sehen.

Künstler gesucht!

Du bist Student bzw. Absolvent einer Kunsthochschule und suchst nach Räumlichkeitkeiten um deine Arbeiten auszustellen?

Du arbeitest mit den Medien Malerei, Fotografie oder Druck?

Dann melde Dich bei uns! So funktionierts:

Schick uns Portfolio/ Konzept, sowie Deinen Lebenslauf an art@betahaus.de. Die Ausstellungen werden von der Galerie Reign of Art kuratiert und koordiniert.

Die Details

• Es handelt sich in erster Linie um die Ausstellungsfläche im betahaus Café. Es besteht außerdem die Möglichkeit zusätzlich einen 200 qm Raum im vierten Stock zu nutzen.

• Jede Ausstellung wird ca. 6 -8 Wochen laufen mit Vernissage/ Finissage

• Es fällt keine Miete an

• Deine Werke werden über den Zeitraum der Ausstellung versichert

REIGN OF ART ist ein virtueller showroom und eine pop-up Galerie, die sich den jüngsten Positionen zeitgenössischer Kunst widmet. Unter dem Motto „emerging artists for emerging collectors” sollen ausgesuchte Nachwuchskünstler mit Kunstinteressierten auf der ganzen Welt vernetzt werden. Der kuratorische Fokus liegt auf Kunststudenten und Absolventen, die noch am Anfang ihrer künstlerischen Laufbahn stehen.

Read more…

Pete Clifford is the Managing Director of Carolinas Food Services and moved to betahaus 4 months ago. His start up is a subsidiary of Swedish firm Carolinas Matkasse, which operates the grocery-delivery service Linas Matkasse. Grocery bags, containing fresh ingredients as well as recipes and meal plans, are prepared weekly and delivered to homes across Sweden. Pete and his team are now working on the German brand named Schlemmertüte.

The name ‘Linas Matkasse’ translates to ‘Lina’s Grocery Bag’. Pete, who is Lina, and why should we trust her to fill our grocery bags each week?

Lina Aronsson is one of the founders of Linas Matkasse, along with her brother, Niklas, who came up with the idea following a discussion with his wife. Following many discussions about what to make for dinner every night, they decided that it would be a great idea if somebody were to hand them a bag with the meal they wanted to have that evening every day on their way home from work. Based on this idea, Niklas founded this business, and asked his sister, Lina, who is a certified nutritionist, to help him create various recipes and meal-plans every week. That is how Linas Matkasse works within Sweden. However, for our German brand, Schlemmertüte, we have hired a local chef who prepares different recipes.

You deliver grocery bags filled with healthy ingredients, meal plans and recipes to customers in many locations across Sweden. What kind of people benefit the most from this service?

Most of our customers come from two different groups. The first one consists of families with two working parents and school aged children. The reason they find our service helpful is because they usually have no time to go grocery shopping or to cook. Having not only food, but also recipes, brought to them every Monday is a great service for them, as it also helps to bring a bit of variety into their lives. The other group we cater to is young couples who may not have children yet, but who work long hours, and often need help deciding what to prepare for dinner.

Carolinas Food Services is the first branch of Carolinas Matkasse to open outside of Sweden. Do you intend to eventually expand through the rest of Europe?

I think that, in the coming years, we will definitely launch in a few other countries. At the moment, we are focusing mainly on Europe, but we aren’t ruling any countries out. Each company will, of course, operate autonomously, with their own chefs planning meals, as we are operating here. This is quite a different approach from that taken by our main competitor, KommtEssen, who use the same recipes in every country in which they operate.

In addition to providing groceries and meal plans to customers in Sweden, you also operate Linas Kenyakasse, a charity project that provides food to poor urban populations in Kenya. Could you tell us a little more about that?

Linas Kenyakasse currently only operates out of Sweden. What we do there is set up a charity fund, the ‘Kenyakasse’, to which customers can donate at will. The money then goes to the Swedish aid organisation International Aid Services, who then uses it to provide food for poor urban populations in Kenya. We are planning to set up a similar project here in Germany, and work with a locally-based charity organisation.

Finally, what made you decide to work from betahaus? How do you find the working environment here so far?

I have been working at betahaus for 4 months, and the rest of my team has been working here since last month. At first, I was the only one operating Carolinas Food Services, which was essentially a startup. I didn’t want to be fixed to an office at that point because I didn’ know how much we would grow as a company, or what our future needs would be. It therefore made sense to be based somewhere that gave me the flexibility to start off with my own desk, and then move on to a team table, and eventually, if need be, to an office. The thing I like about betahaus is that, as startups, we can find all the facilities we need right here – somewhere to eat, somewhere to print, or somewhere to meet other people. I especially liked being able to meet other people, as I could count on them whenever I needed help with anything – I’ve even been to Open Design City a few times whenever I needed help fixing something.

Open Design City is a hands-on, creative coworking space within betahaus, and can best be described as a mix of fab-lab and makerspace. People come to Open Design City to prototype their ideas, get input on projects, build all kinds of things, and participate in some neat workshops.
We are looking for an intern who can help market Open Design City, and spread the word about our space online and offline. Your duties will include:

• Promotion of Open Design City on various social networks.
• Creating and executing guerilla marketing campaigns.
• Researching funding.
• Organising workshops, and finding people to host them.

If this sounds like the right job for you, and if you’re available for at least 3 months, feel free to contact us at kontakt@betahaus.de

Yes, we can write a book.

Auf 100 Seiten schildern wir den Entstehungsprozess des betahaus und erklären die Grundprinzipien: Community, Open Space, Locality and Access und der Rest unserer Religion.

Hier ein paar Auszüge:

Das Beta-Prinzip bedeutet für uns, auf kontinuierliche Weiterentwicklung anstatt auf fertige Formeln zu setzen. Dieses Buch folgt diesem Prinzip.

Im betahaus verschränken sich Wirtschaft, Kultur, Technologie, Politik und Soziales zu einer Topologie des Coworking, die quer zu den traditionellen sozialen Systemen – sagen wir im Sinne Niklas Luhmann´s – stehen Das bedeutet nichts anderes, als die Tatsache, dass das betahaus ein Laboratorium ist, in dem der Versuch unternommen wird, gesellschaftliche Praxis auf der Höhe der Zeit neu zu erfinden.

Es geht uns jedoch nicht nur darum, der Welt zu erzählen, wer wir sind und was wir tun. Deshalb sind das dritte und vierte Kapitel des Buches als ein Leitfaden konzipiert, den coworking-Teams zu Rate ziehen können, die gerade irgendwo auf der Welt ihr eigenes betahaus aufbauen.

Angefangen bei der Vision, die uns schließlich dazu getrieben hat, in Berlin eine Industriebrache anzumieten, bis zu den Prinzipien, die uns bis heute dabei leiten, erklären wir Schritt für Schritt: wie man vom Günderteam zur Immobilie kommt, die Anlaufkosten finanziert und seine community aufbaut, das Haus betreibt und ständig weiterentwickelt.

Mehr im Buch. Das ist erhältlich im betahaus unten an der Bar und bestimmt in einer überarbeiteten Version demnächst bei Deinem Buchhändler.

Ein Teil unseres weitverzweigten Redaktionsteams arbeitet schon an einer englischen Übersetzung. Wer helfen möchte, email an: sebolma@xs4all.nl

Alexander Köppen-Dlugosch is a co-founder of PocketWeb, a company specializing in mobile platforms that integrates social media and location-based services to make them easily usable for startups as well as large enterprises. Based on their PocketLife Platform they launched one of the first location-based social media networks in 2008, accessible online and on mobile networks worldwide. Based on their platform they have worked with a number of startups and enterprises to develop innovative mobile services in a variety of fields.

1. You founded one of the first location-based social networks, PocketLife, well before similar platforms, like Foursquare or Facebook’s “check-in” feature, had taken off. What initially inspired you to develop a location-based platform?

We came together as a team of entrepreneurs who wanted to address the upcoming market of smartphones and their new features. We then founded PocketWeb to empower startups and also large enterprises to provide innovative services on smartphone platforms such as iPhone or later Android. The PocketLife Platform was created to provide social networking, location-based services and most other relevant mobile services basically out of the box. This way other companies can provide their own services globally scalable and in a seamless way across mobile platforms. At the same time they save cost and time to market. Since then, we’ve developed several solutions partnering with clients such as Vodafone or The Volvo Group, but also with startups and smaller companies. One of the more recent ones was www.get-neutral.com, the world’s first online platform for climate-neutral consumption, allowing users to offset their CO2 consumption by understanding the impact of products they have purchased..

2. So the PocketLife Platform is generally geared more towards businesses rather than towards individuals?

That is correct. Companies approach us to provide the technical basis so that they can run individual-oriented services, for example solutions similar to Foursquare or other prominent mobile services. Based on our experience we also help them to design their services and business models.

3. Since the development of PocketLife, you have, amongst other things, used this platform to promote various initiatives related to sustainable travel, and have established both Commute Greener! and Green Travel Choice, in cooperation with other companies and organisations. How does the PocketLife Platform help promote sustainable travel in either case?

What we do is to support our customers in providing their services – in many areas and industries. More by chance, a few of our clients happen to be involved in the field of environmental care and sustainability. The Volvo Group, for instance, motivates commuters with www.commutegreener.com to travel by bike or bus, rather than by car, by allowing them to track and improve their commuting behaviour with their smartphones. Another one is a new service called Get-Neutral, which allows you to scan all kinds of products with your smartphone to determine its carbon footprint.

4. So with Get-neutral, you can scan any product, which it will then recognise and, based on that, determine your carbon footprint?

Yes. You can use your smartphone to scan the barcode of any kind of product – from a bottle of beer, to a laptop – and receive information on its carbon footprint and on how you can offset it. There is also a social-networking aspect involved where you can receive points and badges for your activities, and then compare your scores to those of your friends.

5. You are an international firm that operates in the Asia-Pacific region from New Zealand, and in North America and Europe from Germany. What made you choose Berlin, specifically betahaus, as your base?

PocketWeb was founded in New Zealand by one Brit and two German guys. I was one of the founders, and I eventually moved back to Berlin. Also many of our clients are based in Germany and Europe. Berlin has also recently become a hotspot for all kinds of mobile and internet services. So this is a place where we can find clients, partners, and talent to hire. At betahaus, we can meet startups with whom we can partner, as well as a lot of young, motivated people who can work with us.

6. Finally, what advice would you have for anyone looking to create their own startup?