Sparring | TFU

8. August 2013 by Mythos Selbstaendigkeit

Ein Mann und eine Frau schütteln sich die Hände vor einem Aufsteller der TFU mit einem Bild von einem Drachen.

A guest column by Christiane Mühmel, Raum und Zeit, Ulm

How do you actually manage your inbox?

Are you also a “tower-stacker” (someone who has the knack for piling up papers and documents into extremely tall stacks) or more of a “multi-stacker” (someone who tends to make many smaller stacks, so that you can only glimpse the desk’s original color in a few spots)?

Where does your mail actually end up? By that I mean all the documents, CDs, magazines, etc., that someone wants to give you—whether it’s your boss, a coworker, or actually the mail service.

1. August 2013 by Marketing

A guest post by Andrea Ludwig, Andrea Ludwig PR, Dornstadt

Time and again, I meet clients and companies who are considering launching an email campaign. “We have a service here that would be great for companies in such-and-such an industry. We’ve already purchased email addresses and drafted a cover letter”…

16. July 2013 by Professor Kongehl

Read an interview here with “our” Professor Gerhard Kongehl, who trains data protection experts through his company, udis, and is based at the TFU Gründerzentrum in Neu-Ulm.

TFU: Professor Kongehl, you have been working as a data protection expert for over 30 years and founded the company udis more than 25 years ago. Congratulations! At udis, you train experts using the Ulm Model. I assume these are professionals from larger companies?

GK: Thank you for the congratulations; we’ve really invested a lot of time and effort into this important issue. But your assumption is wrong: Data protection isn’t just a concern for larger companies. More than 70% of the trainees at udis come from small and medium-sized businesses!

TFU: I see! But even from companies that are really young and small?

12. April 2013 by Marketing

Take a stand! Distinctive, unmistakable, and clear.

A guest column by Anne Ammann, Ammann Design.Konzepte, Ulm

Photo copyright: www.pixelio.de/

Positioning means, among other things, being THE ONE in the eyes of customers—the one that stands out among the many others!

Markets are constantly changing, communication channels are evolving, and the world seems to be shrinking in some way. There are clearly too many competitors vying for attention right where you’re trying to make your mark.

When many people are vying for the same slice of the pie, there’s only one thing that helps: You have to make a lasting impression on your target groups.

26. March 2013 by Professor Kongehl

A guest post by Gerd Schramm, <data> S, Ulm

iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, tablet, smartphone—these little helpers have become indispensable in today’s business world. They enable management to stay constantly up to date and give the sales team the ability to always have important business data at their fingertips. Unfortunately, however, these new devices also motivate many data thieves to set up sophisticated traps. Being accessible everywhere also means being vulnerable everywhere. Protecting personal data and sensitive company information is therefore a major challenge today—not only for large corporations but also for small and medium-sized businesses.

25. March 2013 by Marketing

When I ask young entrepreneurs who their product or service is actually aimed at, they regularly reply, “Everyone!”

Sure, when a business plan like this is being developed, the goal is to attract as many potential customers as possible. So the offering should be as uncontroversial as possible and make a lot of people happy. A clear strategy seems to only get in the way—or rather, people claim that this very breadth is actually the particularly smart strategy.

Really?

18. March 2013 by Mythos Selbstaendigkeit

During a consultation on the topic of “employee retention,” a local business owner recently told me that he was able to recruit a very talented female engineer for his company—she had reached out to him on her own initiative.

For the expert in question, the fact that she and her personal achievements were regularly overlooked and ignored at the large corporation was reason enough to switch from a successful, large company to an agile, innovative medium-sized business.

8. February 2013 by Ulrike Hudelmaier

It’s well known that launching innovations onto the market is difficult. Banks, investors, and customers—quite irrationally—seem far less interested in the potential profit than in the potential risk.

For those who want to learn more about the reasons behind such behavior and find ways to deal with it, we recommend the new book by Daniel Kahnemann, psychologist, behavioral economist, and Nobel laureate in economics: “Thinking, Fast and Slow” (Siedler-Verlag)

1. February 2013 by Marketing

When I started working as a marketing manager at a large construction company over 20 years ago, many of the veterans there (and I, too) wondered, “Why do we actually need someone just to place ads?”

Back then, I enjoyed giving a short presentation on the wide-ranging responsibilities of marketing, which culminated in the statement: “EVERYTHING in a company is marketing. “

25. January 2013 by Mythos Selbstaendigkeit

Those who work according to the principle of “always doing everything themselves, all the time ”usually end up falling by the wayside themselves!

A successful self-employed person almost never has any time left for themselves. There’s always something more important to do.

The interesting thing is that, even in unforeseen emergencies, there’s still time:

When a tooth hurts, we find the time to go to the dentist
If the car breaks down, we’ll get it to the repair shop right away
And if an urgent issue arises with an important client, we’re ready to handle it

But does it always have to be an emergency?

Aren’t we important enough to ourselves to treat ourselves to something nice every once in a while?

Brief Information on Data Protection