The current economic crisis is also leaving its mark on media companies. You can accept that, or you can think of ways to see the crisis as an opportunity and emerge stronger from it. This is the path that BurdaForward has taken with its CEO Oliver Eckert. Eckert and his management team explained how this should work to the around 500 employees present in a Berlin congress hotel not far from the Tiergarten. The motto of the two-day event was: “Dancing out of line”.
Extensive workshop program
CEO Eckert’s keynote was followed by an extensive workshop program that showed the whole range of skills within the BurdaForward community: from clever marketing ideas for the new fantasy series “House of Dragons”, to new video formats including speaker casting, approaches for own brands to a stage on which BurdaForward employees presented their ideas for new business areas in startup pitches and wooed fellow campaigners.
The fact that BurdaForward employees were able to travel from all parts of Germany and come together for two days was also made possible by sponsors who regularly work closely with BurdaForward, for example the crypto asset manager Coinpanion. The Vienna-based company enables entry into the world of cryptos and NFTs with professionally managed portfolios in which users can invest automatically.
Andrei Melnyk on the podium
The two-day program featured high-ranking guests: The former Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk explained why he sometimes acted loudly and confrontationally – rather untypically for diplomats – and why he wasn’t afraid to call Chancellor Olaf Scholz a “liver sausage” – which Melnyk has now come to do has excused.
The entire event took place under strict corona protection measures: All participants had previously undergone a PCR test; Both in the morning, before attending the lectures and workshops, and in the evening before the evening events, everyone carried out self-tests on their own responsibility and presented the results before they took part.
The arrival and departure was all about sustainability: the participants traveled from all German locations by train, air travel was not desired. Only the Italian colleagues from the IT location in Bari were allowed to fly to Berlin.
The spirit of the Summer Summit can still be felt intensively in the company four weeks later. Loose talks in Berlin have resulted in tangible projects that will soon be put to the test in practice. The competition from BurdaForward can be exciting. Because the company and its employees are determined to use the crisis for themselves.
