I'm leaving Neue Digitale / Razorfish

When I joined Neue Digitale / Razorfish back in July 2007, my plan was to stay for two years at least. I came from being self-employed for 1,5 years after getting my degree as a Media System Designer at the beginning of 2006. I had tried out all kinds of different jobs after university to see what I’d like. I did some project management, concept development, community management and professional blogging. Information architecture seemed to be the profession that sticked at that time. One of my main subject has always been this thing we called “web 2.0” back then. 

After finding the right job with the right topic, it was time to get better in it and gain a lot of experience in a professional environment. So when Neue Digitale approached me for the concept development of the social network of brigitte.de and offered me a full-time employment, it was definitely the right decision to go for it. Neue Digitale was and still is one of the top German digital marketing agency. I don’t think there could have been any better place for me at that time. 

After the Brigitte project, the whole social web idea started to slowly take off so that my colleague Gerald and I approached our management with the idea to start the social media discipline at Neue Digitale. It gained momentum pretty slowly due to the chary adoption of the topic by German brands. After two years, when the time came to evaluate if I want to stay with Neue Digitale or move on, we were finally at a place were we had our first projects and a lot of interest from most of our clients and so I decided to stay for at least another year. 

One of the main subjects, I have been interested in for a long time, is the future of work. As I read through Meconomy at the beginning of the year and read my own words about “doing your own thing”, I really started to get uneasy about the difference between my words and the realities in my (work-)life. I was thinking and talking about new forms of collaboration and business but was living the prototypical agency-employee-life from 9 to 7, going to the same office everyday for 2.5 years already. As someone who feels the need to progress constantly, it was pretty obvious to me that I couldn’t go on with this discrepancy between “my words and my deeds” for much longer. 

So after three years with Neue Digitale / Razorfish and after taking the agency from Gerald and I being the “crazy social nerds” to almost everybody thinking about social in their work, I’ve decided to leave the agency and move on to the next phase of my life. It’s time to let my words become my deeds and see if the ideas in my head can become reality. 

This decision has almost nothing to do with Neue Digitale itself. I’ve learned so much and from some of the best in the biz. I’m an avid observer of the agency circus and I still think that Neue Digitale has one of the best company cultures around. If you want to work with smart, passionate people who live and breathe digital marketing and who are just a pleasure to work with, this is you shop. 

Neue Digitale was my first agency and my first full-time employment. I had the pleasure to work with such fine brands as Melitta, Nintendo, adidas, Maggi, Seat, Wilkhahn, Brigitte (Gruner+Jahr), Audi, Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft and numerous others. I’ve moved from information architect to concept developer to social-media-go-to-guy to strategist. I’ve worked in great teams like user experience and connections planning. 

But now, it’s time to go to the next phase of my life and start something new. My friends Peter and Igor have already given you a first glimpse of what that will be. Nevertheless, if you’re interested in working or just talking with me, hit me up. 

This is an exciting new phase of my life. I always somehow knew that 2010 is going to be special. And it’s shaping up the be the best year of my life so far. Good times…