The participants were project and program managers, team leads, ScrumMasters, and other people interested in managing projects and development.

The presentations and panels were centered around two main topics:

1. Agile methodologies and their use
2. Leadership as a main success factor for projects

“Now I understand why a vision is so important for project success.”

The first day’s presentations covered a wide range of ideas:

• Task boards
• Leadership Principles for Project Success
• Agile for Dummies
• Risk Management

“The open space conference was very agile.”

The second day’s agenda was dedicated to the hot topics of project management. In a first step all guests agreed on 12 panels covering a wide range of topics. In the main part of the open space were held the sessions hosted by a facilitator, who presented the topic, and moderated the discussions. Each participant was able to join the session he liked, and bring his contribution. In the wrap-up meeting each moderator shared the results with all participants.

“Those 40 minutes on Kanban were most helpful for me.”

Working in small groups proved very successful, as everybody was able to share views & experience. Here are some of the questions raised and discussed:

• Can Scrum provide a reliable schedule?
• Can agile & non-agile teams coordinate?
• How to get new project managers started within 1&1?
• Is motivation a myth?
• I want to start being agile. Where do I start?
• What learning opportunities does 1&1 offer to project managers?

Several of the panels didn’t close in time, as people got carried away in the interesting discussions.

“Can we get more of that?”

…was the statement that we heard most often. And yes, we are thinking to continue the experience.

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What do you think of Project Management Days Initiatives?
Please share your questions and comments in the box below.

The second half of the second day at LinuxCon continued with a keynote by a panel moderated by Nils Brauckman, President and General Manager of SUSE, with the participation of representatives from some of Suse’s enterprise customers, especially Andreas Poeschl from BMW, Dr. Udo Seidel from Amadeus Data Processing GmbH, and Ludek Safar, Senior Advisor for the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic. Topics covered the experience that the above mentioned companies had related to the use of Linux, and how it influenced their respective businesses.

Ludek Safar, the first one to talk about his involvement with Linux, considered that the Ministry of Interior in the Czech Republic had began from “the other side” with Linux, meaning from the desktop side, as they first rolled out Linux for about 5,000 Post Offices. They have moved upwards to the datacenter level for building the backend to support these installations. Dr. Udo Seidel presented how they took the regular approach to Linux deploying it on the server side. They had been working with Linux for about 9 years. In the beginning they started off with mainframes and a mixture of operating systems, including Open Source, but later made the switch over to commodity hardware, and nearly basic Linux operating systems. BMW started working with Linux in 2003. In 2006 they made a strategic decision to put everything on x86 hardware. Both Windows and Linux are the OS’es of choice on x86 platform for them, and they’ve migrated about 1.600 RISC servers to x86 hardware. Andreas Poeschl also mentioned that “in the meantime, everything is running on Linux”, and gave a couple of examples such as “databases, SAP, all the business critical stuff (…), and we’re also doing Open Source virtualization with Xen (…) we’ve got about 1.000 VM’s running on Xen and also the production control systems of all of our plants are running on Open Source virtualization”.

BMW is not the only company using Xen for virtualization, Ludek Safar also mentioned they are using Xen because of the control that they have over the code; this being an argument for using open source versus proprietary solutions, a topic which was brought into discussion several times during this keynote. Amadeus representative, Udo Seidel, said they are developing applications for the airline industry, with a more generic business coverage of the elements that were needed but not provided by the different distro’s being the use case they have been focusing their business on. They also provide customer flight management services, being responsible for certain airlines for the passengers getting their boarding passes, and “those mission critical applications, they run on Linux” concluded Dr. Udo Seidel.

Nils Brauckman continued the following segment of the keynote with a query regarding how do these companies interact with the community and “what is the value that you give them”. Andreas Poeschl was the first to reply for BMW stating that “we’re not programmers, contributing to the code directly, but we can contribute in terms of use cases”. He continued saying they have environments that may be hard to find elsewhere, such as “2000 LUN’s attached to a host-based adapter”. The information that they are able to derive from these use cases is sent back to their distributor, SUSE in this case, hoping that they give it back to the community. From Ludek Safar’s perspective the options are quite limited for giving back to the community as a public institution.

The way they contribute is through publicity of the projects they use, and of open source generally. Another important aspect mentioned by Ludek Safar was that “in general, we think (open source) it’s more secure, not only from the code perspective, but how the whole thing is organized, as well”. Andreas Poeschl agrees with this, and adds that “it’s important that companies, like us, shared information about what we’re doing with Linux (…) we are doing business critical stuff with Linux, Linux is high quality, high performance, flexible and all that stuff”.

One of the key points that was discussed over and over again during these keynotes and presentations was the need to avoid a vendor lock-in.

A more general definition of this term would be better explained through a simple example: “Company A develops product X. Other companies/institutions start using product X, then the need to enhance or improve a part of or even the whole product X arises. At that moment everyone using the product experiences a vendor lock-in because any/all modifications to product X have to be done by company A”. By contrast, when a product is Open Source, any company/institution that needs that product can use it. When the same need to improve the product arises, there are several options available, starting with asking the community to provide a new feature. If the product is being used by many entities, all of which require this feature, then it makes sense for its development to be done by the community. If the required feature is only needed by one entity, or a handful of entities, it might not get approved. In this case you can either request the services of a company that can write the feature for you, or hire a team of people to write the feature in-house. Either way there is a solution to the problem, to enhance/improve a product. With proprietary software, the only choice is to rely on the vendor, as the code is not public, therefore we use the term of vendor lock-in. Related to this topic Andreas Poeschl said “The big advantage of Linux is the flexibility, the freedom of choice, and if it didn’t get upstream, we would have the vendor lock-in again.”

From this overall perspective implied by the keynote, one might think that Linux is the perfect tool for all use cases, but even if it has progressed significantly over the time, there is still much work to be done. To address this, and to get some feedback from companies in the position to respond, Nils Brauckman asked “What are the things that you would like to change? What are the things that are missing? What are the things that need to improve about Linux in general?” On the list of issues, Andreas Poeschl began mentioning that “sometimes we encounter the problem that a lot of stuff is tested on smaller systems”. On the other hand, Ludek Safar said “support for enterprise level hardware with all the specific drivers” is an issue, especially regarding who supports what, and on which OS, and which kernel.

The last topic discussed was related to how Linux would be seen in the future, how would it be used in the enterprises and so on. Nils Brauckman asked Poeschl about “Linux in the car”. His reply was “we (BMW) are looking into Linux for the car” with references to a project of a “Linux distribution for automotive use”, and “we also see the possibility for Linux in the car, especially for the entertainment head units”. Dr. Seidel mentioned “bridging the gap between Unix and Linux”, and “missing right now (…) a central approach for role based concepts and policies”. For Ludek Safar “better embedded virtualization support” is something to look for, as he sees Linux as the only one capable of being a true Cloud OS.

Image Credits: Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic by flickr user – linux_foundation

LTS in the OS’s name means it is a long time supported version.  Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS offers the user updates for an extended period of five years, which is much longer than the standard 18 months offered by previous versions. This way, 1&1 server customers who choose the new Ubuntu version benefit from its high level of performance, security and stability until at least 2017. New Ubuntu versions are released regularly every six months. LTS versions are released every two years.

In addition to the long term support, the new release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS offers 1&1 customers plenty of new features including a revised Linux-Kernel in the latest Version 3.2.6, the latest software tools, and many other improvements for professional server usage. In 1&1’s offer, Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS supplements Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, which is still offered. The new Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS can be installed free of charge using the 1&1 Control Panel.

It all happened on an April’s Tuesday. Calea Floreasca, the 9^th floor in a building.

Three organizations interplaying. With its 20 members 1and1 was best represented, while the other two organizations – Viitor Plus (Future Plus) and Şcoala de Valori (The School of Values) had only one member each: Gabriela and Stefan. Viitor Plus declared their values are “the desire to succeed”, “the agility”, “sustainability”, “fairness”, “openness” and “responsibility”, and brought them alive during the meeting.

It was a special meeting, some kind of workshop about the desire to ideally contribute or directly change this world we are living in. The audience attended the meeting out of different reasons, some want to offer back from what they had received in life, others just want to make sure the coming generations have something better, but they were all interested in finding out how could they get involved in such future activities.

The discussions went on towards the challenges of our world, either about the environment and sustainable development, or about education and the future of the young generation. Nicu and Victor presented the conclusions within the speakers at their table on the topic of the today’s challenges in education, followed by Arina, who presented the difficulties one has when trying to do recycling, no matter whether you are a natural person or an organization. The atmosphere changed as soon as Gabriela, from Viitor Plus, started presenting the story of the organization and its many projects of sustainable development. Gabi’s presentation, though interrupted by questions or friendly comments, ended in applause to the admiration of the audience. We are proud to have such organizations, and that there are people, who invest a lot of time and effort to do the community good. During the two hours of workshop and presentation from Şcoala de Valori, the atmosphere was very pleasant. The matters concerning the education are more complex and difficult, but there are projects like GROW and the short movies, while the members of Şcoala de Valori and AIESEC Romania have over 3 years of experience in educational activity.

There was a lot of emotion at the end of our meeting; there were a lot of smiles and handshakes. Both organizations handed out flyers, cloth bags and certain forms to direct 2 % of the taxes towards the organizations. Those interested in spending time with the teams, who would start new programs in 2012, got the opportunity to subscribe. The organizations promised to come again with the same enthusiastic people, who share the idea that it is in our power to succeed in the challenges of the society and transform all such challenges into powerful solutions. In fact you achieve every time you give something.

I am very glad to have met such open and agile people, who have a strong desire to succeed, and fell the responsibility of the community they are living in. We all want to live in this community in a better and sustainable way. I thank you all for your interest, and for this beautiful Tuesday of April.

Head to Facebook and  Twitter for more info about 1&1 Internet or keep an eye on our Career Website

There we are – three sessions successfully done, and eagerly looking for more . Ethos, Logos, Pathos – we had them all, and it was absolutely great!

And so, we had Anca S. enchanting our minds when she spoke about some isolated locations deeply hidden in the Carpathians Mountains; then, we had Adrian F. doing a very interesting presentation about meetings management, and we were all ears to the very end of the presentation.

As we were gathering momentum, Laurentiu B. came with a subject that crowded the Qooxdoo meeting room: “How to take better pictures using the rule of thirds”.

Though I risk repeating myself, I’ll say it once more: they caught the wave, and they rode it big time!

Coming back to the presentation skills area, I confess that every presentation was a great occasion for me to learn something new in this ever challenging field:

-          Adrian showed us how to open up, using an ice breaker exercise,

-          Laurentiu gave a full presentation in English,

-          I was reminded not to clutter the message of a presentation with adjacent information (something that I tend to do every now and then ).

And I could tell you tens of little tricks that I learned on those occasions.

We all know the saying: what does not evolve stops progressing, and eventually dies, so, we come up with an idea regarding the next step of this initiative, which we’re now proudly presenting you:

The next level: FreeStyle

Anybody can speak freely for five minutes about a subject randomly chosen, as taken out from a hat. This is Free Style. This way, the speaker can end up by talking about Madonna, the favorite dish, a restaurant menu, or any other topic.

Connect with 1&1 Internet Development on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and you can also check out our current job opportunities on We-are-1and1.ro.

What do you think?  What tips do you have to share? Please leave them below. I’d love to know your thoughts.

Meanwhile, the Romanian team has grown, and so have the opportunities to enjoy a break, as besides the ping-pong table there is also a foosball table and a specially designed corner for Darts. Yet, I believed there could be more, and so I came with the idea to bring some aquaria and place them on the halls of the office. First, there was a 100 litre aquarium that people very much appreciated, followed by a bigger one, of 300 litres.

Thus, I managed to have my own corner of nature in the office, an open place for anyone to enjoy and relax a few minutes, or discuss about important project meanwhile we are admiring the beauties of nature.

Every morning I use to check if the fish in the aquaria are fine, whether they laid eggs or the new generation has already come. I appreciate very much the help of my colleague Dan, who also takes care of the aquaria, cleans them, and feeds the fish. Luckily, I am not the only one in the company whose hobby combines the animals with the plants in aquatic environment. Meanwhile other two colleagues brought aquaria in their offices, with smaller but colourful fish.

What comes next? I don’t know yet. I have a lot of ideas, and my managers use to approve them. Maybe I’ll try something like a Japanese garden in miniature, or who knows, I’ll think of something. We spend a great deal of our time in the office, so why not make it the most agreeable and nature-friendly working place.

2 days, 14 hours, 1 amphitheatre, 19 guests, 200 students. These are the numbers of Careers v1.0.
The event organized by the Mathematics and Computer Science Students Union (ASMI) had the support of the Faculty for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Bucharest (FMI), and took place at the location of the latest.
The Mathematics and Computer Science students had the opportunity to get their hands on some inside tricks from top companies, related to:
-    How to write a good résumé?
-    The recruitment process
-    Soft skills
-    Knowledge vs. recommendation
-    Career opportunities.
1&1 Internet Development was one of the 19 company guests that visited the Faculty for the first time, and succeeded to gain the students’ attention and enthusiasm. WEB programming is one of the main interests of FMI students, and the input brought by the young 1&1 team was just what the students were looking for.
Both the Students Union and the Faculty for Mathematics and Computer Science thank 1&1 team for their support, and presentation on this occasion, and are looking forward to great future collaborations, too!

Each e-mail address at 1&1, WEB.DE and GMX can also be used for chatting. For example, this is possible directly in the online chat within the e-mail box or even with the MultiMessenger, an optional software that is offered free of charge. Regardless of the software used, it is possible to chat with users of other providers, too (including Google Talk), without needing an account there. “This is an important contribution to interoperability and freedom on the Internet”, motivates Matthias Kirschner, FSFE coordinator for Germany, the decision on awarding the prize to 1&1.

Peter Saint-Andre, Manager of the XMPP Foundation, underlines that this is not obvious: “Unlike closed services, such as Facebook and Skype, 1&1 created an open connectivity with the rest of the Jabber/XMPP networks many years ago. They deserve credit for supporting the truly free communication by using the Internet standards.”

At the award ceremony, yesterday afternoon in Karlsruhe, Jan Oetjen, 1&1 Manager Portals, received the prize in person. “We are very glad about this prize. It reinforces our decision to use the open standard XMPP for the online chat in the 1&1, WEB.DE and GMX mailboxes. This offers our customers a barrier-free communication on the Internet when chatting”, said Oetjen as he received the award and the specially designed cake.

Stephan Uhlmann, member of the FFII board, adds: “companies like 1&1 Internet AG inspire us not only because they build their business on open standards such as e-mail and www, but also because they make sure that these services are kept interoperable and do not bet on lock-in effects in order to gain customers.”

1&1 is using open standards also in other domains. For example, most of the approximately 70.000 servers in the 1&1 data centers run using Linux, a free operating system.

Please visit FSFE for more impressions from the award ceremony.

After each event, we take a step back and try to get the big picture of how things have gone. The second edition of 360 Career Event, organized by BEST Bucharest, had a successful shade of blue: that of 1&1!
We were lucky to have 1&1 by our side from the very first day of 360 Career Event, when they shared valuable tips and tricks about the kick-off of a career at the opening conference! Three days later, during the presentation the company held at Romanian American Foundation, 25 students had the opportunity to discover what a career at 1&1 means. Those who were interested in internships or jobs could have a face-to-face discussion with the representatives of the company, at the Employers Lounge the following day. At the end of the day, students went smiling home to polish their resumes and send applications, the 1&1 representatives were making appointments for interviews, while BEST Bucharest was proud to have had such a successful collaboration with a great company!
We are always happy to work together with amazing people like the 1&1 team, and provide career opportunities for students and young graduates. Without their support, our events would not be the same, and for that we are sincerely thankful! We look forward to hearing great success stories from the students who met 1&1 at the 360 Career Event, and we are sure that together we can make it happen every year!

More pictures from 1&1 @ 360 Career Event

We wish to thank our coach, Adi, who has been training us for 6 months and has really helped us to evolve both technically and tactically, always encouraging us, and believing in our success.

This brilliant debut is the result of the last months’ efforts as well as the desire to make a good impression, and to show that we deserve the trust granted and that beautiful things can be accomplished with determination and hard work.

We hope our fans will come again to our matches in order to support and push us forward in obtaining new victories.