All posts tagged: HWZ

Digigram December 2022

Digigram Newsletter of December 2022

Published by Gert Christen

Welcome back to DIGIGRAM! After a bit of a hiatus, I am back to give you an update on the latest topics, trends, and stories from Silicon Valley and beyond. A lot has happened in the world over the last year. While a lot of gloom befell the world, there have also been some incredible milestones this year. There is much to celebrate that happened in 2022! For instance, in the last year, we’ve had these incredible technological and scientific breakthroughs: The United States Senate passed a bill to boost domestic chip manufacturing. The law also includes $67 billion to fund research into how to slow down climate change, a new record! I hope that a significant portion will go towards developing climate technologies. A new report found that if the current pace of wind and solar growth continues, the world will meet its climate targets. Switzerland qualified for the last 16 nations at the soccer World Cup. And was promptly eliminated by Portugal – oh well… In this edition of Digigram: #1: Mitipi and KEVIN’s …

What Constitutes Leadership in a Digitalized Business World?

Published by Gert Christen

7 personal takeaways by André Meister, Partner at NOVO Business Consultants after completing HWZ University’s graduate certificate (CAS) in “Digital Leadership” and a study tour to Silicon Valley:
1. A fundamental shift of power in organizations: From hierarchical to networked
2. Traits of a good leader: Vision, clear values, role model, be present, develop employees, communication, justness & due process, expert knowledge, self-reflection
3. Fast, agile & flexible organizations
4. Dual transformation

Silicon Valley: All is well. Is it really? Change is coming.

Published by Gert Christen

So much success, so much light: Silicon Valley might “produce” as many as 19 IPOs in 2019. Oh, it’s the promise of the traditional Silicon Valley startup culture come true: Where the end justifies the means and the winner takes it all. Really? Not really anymore, because more and more people object and start speaking up. A very healthy movement. I admit that I didn’t pay much attention when I heard of cases of startup culture going overboard: Less women founders than men – of course, same thing all over the world, going to take another generation to fix. Hired less women than men and paid the women less – of course, less women study engineering and inexperienced managers falling for the salary trick. However, I did start paying attention after reading Susan Fowler’s blog entry about “one very strange year at Uber” with her account of how women were bullied and disadvantaged at Uber[. She shook me and many many others – thank you, Susan, for bringing this to light. But there’s more: In …

Silicon Valley Innovation Tours Done Right

Published by Gert Christen

This article was first published as a LinkedIn article by Antonio Grgic on November 12, 2018. He condensed his personal learnings from a study tour to Silicon Valley organized by HWZ University of Applied Sciences Zurich. What follows is the English translation of the article with an introduction by Gert Christen who organized and led the study tour. Silicon Valley Tours – Just Tourism or Meaningful for Innovation? If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area you know the two types of buses shuttling people between San Francisco and Silicon Valley: Employee buses of the large tech companies on the one hand and chartered buses carrying visitors from all over the world to the same tech companies on the other. Each week there are hundreds of delegations from all over the world traveling around the Silicon Valley determined to learn its secrets. They fall into five categories: Politicians who want to learn how to set policies that attract innovative companies, resulting in more high qualified jobs and highly profitable and future-proof companies. Business people who want to learn how to be more innovative and who want to sell their products, find new suppliers or create …

“Cracking the Code of Public Sector Innovation” included in Yea(h)rbook

Published by Gert Christen

The Institute of Digital Business at HWZ University in Zurich, Switzerland, included my article about how to create a method to innovate in the public sector in their yearbook 2018. Very happy and proud to make a contribution and to see my learnings being shared and used! The full article can be read here. The yearbook can be ordered here. My thanks to the team who worked with me on this project at City Innovate Foundation, namely Garrett Brinker, Katy Podbielski, Luke Kim, and Carlos Cruz-Casas of Miami-Dade County as well as all the experts, researchers, writers, advisors and supporters. It was a pleasure and together we created something unique!