Category Archives: innovation

corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, Lessons Learned

An update from +ANDERSEN & ASSOCIATES

As some of you might know, I also run a company called +ANDERSEN & ASSOCIATES on the side. We help medium and large companies and organisations around the world get serious about innovation and delivering actual results instead of PowerPoints.

I thought I’d take a couple of minutes to update you on how we’ve been adapting to better meet your needs in these trying times.

tl;dr – We now offer all our programs and services also via remote (in the best possible quality available today) as an option for you.

Whether you’re back in the regular office or still working remotely from home, we’re providing you with our popular programs like directly to you in the conferencing tools you already use, in the quality you’ve come to expect.

Everything you’re seeing in this video is taken directly from our streaming studio. This is how it actually looks in your normal conferencing app.

And for the highest quality possible over the Internet today, we also offer a completely new direct point to point streaming solution – in full HD, with no dropped frames, no screen freeze, and no audio issues.

Also, by popular demand we’re now offering moderation and management of internal and public online events for those of you looking for quality outsourced alternatives.

For those of you who are new to remote working and online collaboration, have no fear, we of course offer you training, both for your managers and for all of the program participants in advance.

Thank you for your time, stay safe.

Vidar 

Standard
corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, speaking, startup

Sponsoring the Essener Energie Forum 2017

My Pitching Masterclass participants…

Recently I had the pleasure to sponsor the Essener Energie Forum 2017 through my company +ANDERSEN & ASSOCIATES and together with Alexander Küppers from Statkraft Ventures, I offered my Pitching Masterclass as a part of the symposium’s workshops.

The Essener Energie Forum is a yearly student-run interdisciplinary symposium on energy technology, innovation and politics in Essen, Germany.

Pitching Masterclass

Standard
Education, entrepreneurship, innovation, Lean Startup, startup

Working with USAID in Moldova

Lean Startup Crash Course @ iHUB Moldova

Recently I was honored and delighted to be invited by USAID to help companies and startups in Moldova.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the United States Government agency which is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid.

I knew where the country of Moldova (not Moldavia – that’s the name of a region) was on the map (Hint: It’s just east of Romania), but I had never previously visited. I was surprised to find a small but capable startup community and a lot of familiar faces in the capital of Chisinau.

The entrance to the cool new iHUB Chisinau

First up, I had two workshops with Moldovan companies and their management about how corporations engage with startups and why; One at Starnet (the primary telco in Moldova)  and one at the coworking space and startup center iHUB (also supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs among others).

The topic of innovation and growth is especially interesting in Moldova because one of the leading industries is outsourcing; building apps, websites and software for other western companies. This is a good business model for now – but for how long? What happens when other markets will outcompete them on price? So I talked a lot about the importance in experimenting with developing new products and how, before their business model may become obsolete and also how and why they could be reinvesting in local startups as a part of their innovation portfolio.

Back to back, I was also honored to be invited to speak about my startup experiences at the Startup Grind Chisinau in the evening.

At Startup Grind Chisinau, I spoke a bit about my startup experiences

And a day later I held my popular Lean Startup Crash Course for existing startups and people considering founding one.

In between everything there was also time to sit down with an Estonian startup delegation to learn more about the ecosystem there

My guide and help on the ground was Traian Chivriga of UnArtOras that I already knew from Cologne’s own Pirate Summit – And in the evening there was time for socializing… ;)

Lots of familiar faces…

I met this guy that I also knew from Cologne’s Pirate Summit already; Riccardo Fedeli

And Vlad Calus of planable.io – that I too knew from the Pirate Summit in Cologne already

And Livia Ţurcanu that I already knew from my work at University of Maastricht

These were the slides for my Lean Startup Crash Course:

These were the slides for the talk about why and how corporations engage with startups:

Standard
corporate entrepreneurship, Events, innovation, startup

Speaking at the pre-opening of the digital HUB Cologne

What Startups Need @ digital HUB Cologne


Recently I was honored to be invited to speak at the members-only pre-opening of the digital HUB Cologne about “What Startups Need”.

Spoiler alert: It isn’t corporate partners and digital hubs.

The digital hubs in the state of NRW in Germany is a political construct part financed with public money. It’s supposed to support and help small and medium companies get onboard with “digitalisation”, whatever that term means.

The ensuing panel debate and Q&A

As you might know, I’m much more of a libertarian than a socialist, so I’m not the biggest fan of this publicly funded hub concept for a number of reasons.

Some are:

  • I don’t believe taxpayers should be subsidising private enterprises
  • If the market had wanted or needed a “digital hub”, it would have created one already by itself
  • The market is Darwinistic and self- correcting – putting public support-wheels or bandaids on failing businesses is wrong
  • Creating publicly funded competition to existing local business offerings is wrong

You get the drift.

In sum, I think it’s a political innovation theatre paid for in part by us the taxpayers.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

These were the slides I used:

Standard