READING TIME CA. 5 MINUTES

It was important to me that it was not just about new business areas or new fields of activity for me, but first and foremost really about the question: What does this Internet mean for our society and what are the challenges of the coming years?

Fortunately, a few colleagues shared this interest and so Daniel Lienert, Jürgen Egeling and Florian Franke from our partner agency made in made their way to Berlin.

I was definitely not disappointed with these expectations. The coverage of re:publica is increasingly divided. Some describe it as a "class reunion of a media elite" that is increasingly losing sight of society. Others celebrate precisely this class reunion as groundbreaking for media reality in Germany.

After my first re:publica, I can understand both portrayals and am firmly convinced that both fall well short of the mark. I also don't understand the semi-reproachful tweet from thousands of smartphones: "The most important conversations only take place in the courtyard". Just as every good conversation at a party takes place in the kitchen, every important conversation at a conference between people takes place in the courtyard. It doesn't matter whether it's a management conference, a technology conference or a media conference.

But what was the content to take away? First of all, the realization that if you wanted to learn something about the big topics like Twitter, Snapchat or viral marketing, it's worth queuing up one talk earlier. Unfortunately, I didn't get into some of the talks that I would have liked to see.

The first day ended with the obligatory speech by Sascha Lobo. This was also a first for me. Of course, I knew him from various platforms: Elektrischer Reporter, Spiegel, etc. - but had never seen him live before. The talk was interesting. I found the first part in particular surprisingly factual and exciting. The last 15 - 20 minutes were so over the top that they somewhat destroyed the overall picture. What remained was an interesting but by no means outstanding lecture on the subject of why everything is stupid, but why we should continue to fight to make it better. I go along with that ;)

Day 2.

The second day began with my eagerly awaited talk by the @heuteplus moderators. I am now outed as an absolute @heuteplus fan boy. The quality of the presentation and the moderation alone was really very high. The question of how to handle such constant attention and criticism was also presented in a really personal and honest way. Since this panel, I've also been following Periscope and I've realized that I can think of many use cases in our communities where Periscope would really help.

To stay with my praise for the performance of the journalists, especially from the public broadcasters, there was a great panel on the young channel project. A collaboration between ARD and ZDF, who are working together to create online content for the 14-29 target group. Interesting information was given here. From the question of which committees need to be involved in such a process to the uncomfortable question of why "again" three white men are sitting on the stage and "what about diversity in the program", good answers were given. We are curious to see whether they will now be delivered. The whole thing is due to start in October.

Snapchat was the absolute hot topic at the conference. The new messenger service. I have to admit that I hadn't even dealt with the format before, but after the conference I'm also rather stressed by the whole topic. But the topic of Snapchat in the new media environment is definitely worth writing another article about.

The presentation by Frauke Langguth(@frala), head of ARD Video Text, was surprisingly informative and funny. A medium which, admittedly, even I would have thought would be long dead. But the figures of 4 million daily readers speak a different language. It was also interesting to see what possibilities Teletext offers that I would never have imagined. Including Twitter integration on page 777 of ARD Teletext.

A nice tweet on the subject came from Jean-Üw Fitz(@vergraemer) who wrote: "At some point, it's going to take a huge hit and only teletext and cockroaches will be left."

More by chance and out of convenience, I stayed seated and was totally carried away by the story of a student who wanted to propose marriage in his lecturer's lecture. But this failed and the woman was unfortunately gone before it could get that far. The whole thing was presented by Bernhard Pörksen, Professor of Media Studies in Tübingen, who made me briefly consider whether I wouldn't want to study something in the field of media in Tübingen if I could hear such good lectures on the power of stories.

My crowning glory of the day was the digital quartet. After 5 minutes I actually just wanted to flee due to chronic silliness and finally get a beer, but after the first guest I understood the format. If the procedure of having to guess the guests were to be removed from the format or at least shortened, I wonder why this is not broadcast on a linear channel. Both hosts and guests were not afraid of spontaneous and awkward questions and answers. Whether it was Rowan Barnett(@rowbar) from Twitter or the editors of Schluck magazine, everyone was interesting and gave fascinating interviews about their work.

Day 3.

On the last day, I was able to hear a very noteworthy presentation from the state of Baden Württemberg on their campaign "Wir können alles außer Hochdeutsch".

Both the speakers and the campaign itself showed interesting insights as well as the realization that sometimes a campaign simply needs a spark of luck.

Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to re:publica after this talk. Now I'm on the ICE back to Frankfurt and feel a bit closer to the large German online community. My insight from this re:publica: the problems we are facing are the same on many levels as those we face in all other areas of society. Thanks to my wife, who is a special needs teacher, I have gained an insight into the problems of education policy. Up to now, I have always hidden behind the fact that she has an influence on children's development and that I only deal with the internet. After re:publica, however, I understood that it is also and especially up to us media people to influence the perception and thus the reality of society, whether through technical solutions such as encryption and other anonymization services, or through reporting and setting an example of inclusion, diversity and tolerance.

And isn't this alone worth 3 days of amazement? Many thanks to the "class" for taking me along. I am looking forward to next year.

P.S: Many thanks to Daniel Lienert(@dlienert) for the great pictures.