Blog & Inspiration

For many of us, starting the day without a cup of aromatic coffee is unimaginable. Ideally you want to enjoy a cup of the freshly brewed brown gold before or during the journey to work. However, just after its preparation it tends to be too hot, but it also cools down really quickly. And who wants to drink a cup of cold coffee? How do you magically maintain the perfect drinking temperature? An American company has found a solution, which is as simple as it is attractive.

Titan Note is the little intelligent assistant who will help you avoid missing important points or decisions in a meeting and losing track at international telephone conferences. The elegant, almost revolutionary device will record everything spoken and will transfer it, coded, directly in writing to your smartphone app.

A new tour, a new album: following the huge success of their Delta Machine Tour in 2013, Depeche Mode are back again – collaborating with Swiss luxury watch brand Hublot for the third time since 2010. The watchmaker and the post-punk pioneers have joined forces for a good cause. As in 2013, they are supporting the ‘charity: water’ organisation, which is committed to providing clean drinking water in developing countries. On this occasion, Hublot has launched a limited edition ‘Big Bang Unico Depeche Mode’ watch, the proceeds of which will partly go directly to the charity.

Record players are the interior trend of the year, with the comeback of vinyl music currently omnipresent. But what exactly makes the sound system of yesteryear an absolute must-have today? Using new technologies, these new record players usually come with a USB connection, allowing music to additionally be played on mobile phones. The fabulous retro design of many systems also make them en-vogue eye-catchers. But there is an alternative, as made clear by Love Turntables.

Who can resist humming along to this iconic verse “Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky...”? It’s by Deep Purple and has made them one of the most popular rock bands since their formation in 1968. Their sound – characterised by the Hammond organ, guitar riffs, driving rhythm and striking vocals – makes them one of hard rock’s premier and most influential representatives.

The year 2006 was a surprise in various ways. From January to April, temperatures remained very low, the spring was long in coming, and when it did arrive, it rained for weeks. The grapevines in Terroir de Cumières, in the Champagne region, experienced considerable heat in July, followed by a cool August and then heat again in September. At harvest time, though, it turned out that the contrasting changes in weather, combined with lots of sun at the right time, had produced very outstanding and promising grapes.

For decades, the same dream has haunted the running scene: to run the marathon in less than two hours. But even if the best of the best have constantly broken new world records, most studies still assume that it will take decades before the 120-minute barrier is broken. The American sports article manufacturer Nike is working on shaping the future. They want to make history and prove anew that the abilities of the human body are greater than we think—with the project “#breaking2”.

In order to provide systematic leadership of employees in the digital age, the skills and methods managers need today are not the same as those they needed in the analogue world. Telekom has launched a new worldwide development programme that promotes successful leadership in the digital era. With ‘levelUP!’, as the programme is called, the concept of ‘Ambidextrous Digital Leadership’ is filled with concrete content. Dr. Elke Frank is the head of the HR Development Department at Deutsche Telekom and ranks among the 40 leading minds in HR in Germany. We spoke to her about this special development initiative.

Even the venerable Österreichische Post (Austrian Post Office) has been unable to extricate itself from digital transformation, something which has above all become evident through the dramatic fall in the number of letters it handles. Nevertheless, there has been a noticeable increase in terms of parcels due to e-commerce, which is a development that the company is now planning to exploit. However, the journey into the digital age also means moving into uncharted waters. We spoke to Gerald Gregori, Head of E-Commerce Innovation Management at Österreichische Post AG, about the new online marketplace ‘from Austria for Austria’.

He invented the word ‘megatrend’ and popularised the term ‘globalisation’: for more than 20 years, US author John Naisbitt has been amazing readers with predictions about the future. Naisbitt is the author of numerous bestsellers and the recipient of 15 honorary doctoral degrees. He owes his fame most of all to his bestseller ‘Megatrends’, which was published in 1982 and in which he was one of the first to predict the transition from an industrial to an information society and to describe the fundamentals of globalisation.

The history of astronomy has been experiencing a regular construction boom for several years. In Chile, on Hawaii or in outer space, telescopes are being built that make all the facilities constructed to date look tiny. For instance, the largest optical telescope in the world – the European Extremely Large Telescope, or E-ELT for short – is currently being built on Cerro Armazones, a mountain in Chile. With a main mirror 39 metres in diameter, this will be the largest telescope in the world, providing insights into the universe that have been impossible until now. Its photographs will have 16 times the resolution of those taken by the famous Hubble space telescope.

Data silos decelerate digitalisation. Content becomes isolated, they create redundancy and complicate collaboration. Semantic networks are the solution that enables companies to link information, reduce administration, and thus create time to take on the truly important tasks. Still, the times in which one finds five versions of the same file nested in complex folder structures are far from over. Which challenges will companies face, who will maintain such order during the process of digitisation?

Companies that opt for big data in terms of their business have long faced a huge challenge: for one, they have to ask themselves how to make proper and effective use of big data. Predictive analytics is currently one of the most important trends in big data. But how does predictive analytics differ from business intelligence or business analytics? As Director Data Science & Data Innovation, Dr Frank Säuberlich is in charge of the data science & data innovation department at Teradata; he sheds light on this question for us.

At the beginning of the year, “Europe's hottest conference invitation”, the DLD conference, brought together the most influential opinion-makers, industry leaders, start-ups and digital giants once again. Founded in 2005, the conference has developed into an interdisciplinary, internationally connected platform around the globe with top keynote speakers. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella for example shared how Microsoft is democratising AI for everyone during his keynote in January in Munich. In an interview, he also talked about how we can use artificial intelligence to make the world a little better.

The eye glides over the green valley to the grey rock and the view vanishes between the white trunks of a couple of birch trees, its silver leaves dancing in the wind. High above in the sky buzzards are circling and you can hear the nearby creek gurgling softly. Nothing here disturbs the all-encompassing nature. Even inside the Juvet Hotel nothing distracts from the view over nature, as two of the walls of the hotel room are made of glass, which appear to let trees and rocks come inside. Europe’s first landscape hotel is situated on the grounds of an old farm called Burtigarden in Valldal near the town of Ändalsnen in the northwest of Norway. Here, nature and architecture are entering a unique symbiosis.

The world – politically, economically, socially, technologically – is in flux. That’s not news, fake or otherwise. But what does this all mean for the future of brands? It is clear that consumer trends will empower people and companies to build brands that matter; products and campaigns people can’t stop talking about. David Mattin leads the global team of trend analysts of TrendWatching and knows what clients all over the world are going to love and why.

These days, if you want to achieve effective communication, you should not rely solely on state-of-the-art technologies or even the best-possible creative ideas. The key to today’s communication lies in the intelligent combination of both technology and creativity.

Global cosmetics giant L’Oréal invests more in its digital business. To CEO and Chairman Jean-Paul Agon, eCommerce can be considered as more than just an additional income source for the company. Instead, it is the new engine for growth.

No other topic dominated the Shanghai Auto Show at the end of April as much as the discussions focusing on electromobility. The major manufacturers Daimler Benz, BMW and Volkswagen presented models designed specifically for the Chinese market. A Chinese electric car start-up is planning to contest the position of the top dogs in the sector – with its own vision of Auto 3.0.

A society without photography? Unthinkable, not least because of Instagram and other image sharing sites. Most of us love to capture a beautiful motive, or to admire the professionals’ take from a lay person’s perspective. That is all very well but, it can be a bit more spectacular once in a while. The young Russian photographer Vadim Makhorov’s pictures provide an extraordinary and entirely new view of the world and its landmarks. Yet how the fascinating photos find their way into his camera body is anything but easy. The 27-year-old is part of the tribe of so-called free climbers, who ascend to extreme heights without safety rope. No name could be more suitable than #ontheroofs for his truly breathtaking urban exploring project.

The digital age is enabling companies to spread their marketing messages to their target audiences with unparalleled diversity, in unparalleled volume and – above all – at unparalleled speed. Not only marketing departments, but also local sales partners in particular, are – due to the vast number of communication channels – currently faced with the huge challenge of deploying their advertising spending in an even more target-group-oriented manner and finding optimum communication strategies for their local target group.