Allgemein

Detox

This month, I set out to write about detoxing, but looking at the last couple of weeks in my life what I truly want to write about is boundaries. Boundaries that keep us from each other, some in good ways, some in unhealthy manners. So how to gently merge those two topics? It's actually not that hard when you come to think about it. Let's look at it ethymologically: detoxing means getting rid of toxines. A toxine is a harmful substance, but you know what Paracelsus said: " The dose makes the poison." So in the end, our desire to detox is nothing but the realization that we overstepped some sort of boundaries too many times. When we talk about detoxing, we typically think of freeing our bodies from waste...

Taboos

A couple of weeks ago, a relative's big birthday was coming up. My family and some of our close relatives agreed to prepare a rather expensive gift in light of this celebration and as a thank you for many occasions in which we received presents and support from this person in the past. While it was meant as a sweet gesture, we ended up in a rather awkward situation where our relative publicly refused to accept the gift. Instead, she decided to give away most parts of her present in front of us and cut off all the bills I had neatly folded as butterflies and spread across her fruit basket. To paint the full picture you need to know that she comes from a different culture...

Freedom

In school there were few subjects I really hated, but somehow physics ended up being one of them. Therefore when my husband (who is a railway engineer) starts talking about anything too techy, my brain instantly wants to shut off. The other night, however, we ended up talking about the "degree of freedom" which apparently is a thing in physics ;-) I even looked it up: "In physics, the degrees of freedom (DOF) of a mechanical system is the number of independent parameters that define its configuration or state." (Wikipedia) Please bear with me ;-) So in a nutshell, what I took away from the article is the question: in which directions is a body able to move? (Physicists, don't hate me for this rather naive summary...

Metamorphosis

Lately I have been falling asleep with the kids around 8 pm on a regular basis. During the day, my head is foggy and I am low on energy. I heard that some of you are experiencing the same. To me it feels like I am currently pupating in a little cocoon of mine. The other day I was talking about this with my dear friend Eva and we were joking around: At the end of this crisis, are we going to turn into beautiful butterflies or just come out as really fat and hairy caterpillars? :-)In any case, the pandemic is making me crawl back inside myself. And what I found there is my seven-year-old self, snuggled into a blanket reading everything she could get her...

Good-bye 2020, hello 2021. Chasing butterflies!

2020 – you’ve been a hell of a year. Untamed, weird and challenging. Throwing us back on ourselves. Showing us what is means to not take anything for granted. Digging up so much hate and love in mankind, forcing us to show our true colors, values and vulnerability. Those of you who read my review of 2019 know that I had set two focus areas for myself in 2020: Holism: Digging deeper into how everything in life is connected. Detoxing: letting go of beliefs and habits (maybe also people) that are not fueling my energy and matching my values.   Looking back, I am happy that I managed to integrate both topics into my learning journey this year, although partly in other ways than I had anticipated. Holism is a concept...

My talk from MTP Engage has been published

https://vimeo.com/283917618   “The hallmark of successful scaling is knowing when to hit the brakes so you can scale faster later,” according to Bob Sutton, organizational behavior expert at Stanford’s School of Engineering. I couldn’t agree more. Finding the right moment to enter the growth phase is crucial. Startups are quite vulnerable to focusing too much on scaling fast in terms of customers, employees, and revenue, while neglecting the equally important growth mindset and culture that is needed in order to prepare for successfully growing the company. When I was Head of Product at siroop, the first open online-marketplace in Switzerland, I learned a lot about the challenges that come with products and companies at scale. Not only did we launch the marketplace from scratch within three months, but also...

What Exactly is Digital Transformation?

Martin Eriksson is coming to Zurich! – Sneak Preview on our upcoming ProductTanks on Product Leadership