From IT Project Coordination to Digital Humanism: Travelling the Development of Technology

Information Technology is now in my professional focus for more than 20 years. Being a marketing and communication expert with an educational background of business administration, the industry of my professional career was initially more a kind of coincidence. I chose the job offer because I could bring in my strong project management skills and my focus on a business-to-business environment. But being in an international, innovative environment, I soon started to realise, that information technology is about to shape the future. So I took and take the chance to develop my knowledge in Information Technology whenever I get the chance.

As project coordinator in Cap Gemini for technology consulting in 2001/2002, I learned about IT projects and their resources (time, people, money) allocation. After successfully completing my Swiss marketing degree in 2002, I moved on to the very innovative Swiss retailer Coop where I was assigned as marketing support manager for the strategic project “coop@home”. Coop@home offered already in 2001 home shopping for food, although there was no standard software (despite SAP as generic ERP System) or even standard software solution available on the market. Coop@home has been seen by the management as an innovative service to be offered to its customers beyond any immediate commercial return. The task was to develop this service from the green field with a focus on the supply chain, including data management and customer experience, digital (“webshop”, online communication), and analog (physical delivery of the purchase).

In this job role, I realized that the “internet” is not just about changing how companies operate but also how it is shaping the behavior of society.

When I started my Master Studies for Services Marketing and Management at the University of Applied Sciences Lucerne, I changed to Verizon, a US-based telecommunications provider. As field marketing manager, I quickly understood that data communications is the fundament of the economy and in order to survive, companies will only have one chance: digitization of their business. In 2007, Verizon purchased the security provider “Cybertrust” which gave me a first understanding of critical infrastructure and cyber threats. Being later assigned as Program Manager for Strategic Alliances, I got the opportunity, to influence the partner enablement and the service portfolio associated on a global scale. I finished my professional career as an employee at Oracle, where we have been teamed to build up the Swiss SME Market for data infrastructure.

When I started my CAS Social Media Management in 2012 at the University of Applied Sciences in Zurich, I had the wish to make this knowledge available to the market under my own brand “Sparkling Stream”:

Social Media, an endless stream enabling information becoming communication.

More than 10 years after my self-employment, the focus of my professional portfolio changed. Being an active part of IT organisations like Schweizer Informatikgesellschaft and Swiss ICT, my customers and the mandates thereof came from IT companies in the SME field, mainly owner-led. I enlarged my focus to Austria in 2014. I realised that the degree of digitization is not on the same level in those countries and societal acceptance and usage are still hesitant in Austria. As a consequence, my focus was more on traditional marketing activities like customer events or product and service positioning, but still for IT and Technology companies. One of my main customers is currently Sparx Systems CE, the main distributor of Enterprise Architect, a tool for Enterprise Architecture Management and Sparx Services CE, the consulting unit.

The more and more complex world (higher standardisation and regulation, IoT / data dependencies) asks for a renewed approach to control and manage it. Enterprise Architecture, using the methodology of modeling, helps to manage those tasks in a holistic way.

I also acted as a business angel in Business Angel Network for early-stage technology start-ups, supporting them with marketing and communications of their offering. This engagement brought me into a mentor role for young entrepreneurs of ÖGV, österreichischer Gewerbeverein / Austrian Trade Organisation. Today, I am a vice president of this organisation and I started the senate “Arbeit 4.0”. We investigate the 4 topics digitalization, leadership, infrastructure and society in order to define needs and measurements to prepare a successful entrepreneurial future. Additionally, I bring in all my experience with mentoring programs I joined over the past years and we launched now a unique Mentorship Program.

Always being an active part in Industry Associations, I co-founded WOMANinICT, a special interest group of VÖSI, Verband österreichischer Software Innovationen.

This engagement comes out of my understanding, that technology is shaping not only business but society as such. Only the active participation of the diverse society reflects the human needs and requirements of the ongoing technological development which arrived in every aspect of life.

Currently, I am assigned to an EU-funded research project, ECOMAI, Ecological Motor Control and Predictive Maintenance with AI, where I am responsible for dissemination and exploitation. The ECOMAI project is developing technologies that enhance electric motor drive systems with an embedded AI system running on a specialized AI hardware platform.

I was also assigned for marketing communications of “ThreatGet” – a partner program for the “Cyber Security by Design” methodology. ThreatGet is a development of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and combines threat modeling with artificial intelligence. The partner program of ThreatGet was awarded in 2021 with the Constantinus (Austrian Consulting Award, Chamber of Commerce) in the category IoT, and has also been nominated for the “Staatspreis Consulting” in 2022. Both recognitions are a special landmark in my journey through technology.