Germany. Why we struggle with 2.0.

Juli 25th, 2009 • 20 comments Allgemein
Tags: Brands, Burda, Business, Germany, Media, Philosophy, Strategy, Vodafone, World

It’s never been easy to be German. Who would think that the people who were among the first to invent big machinery of any kind and…well…the Blitzkrieg (one more idea which doesn’t make it exactly easy to be German) might have certain issues with their ability to lead in innovation nowadays? But in fact we are stressed. Simply because we’re a bit slow. Why?

Because 19th century heavy machinery world was our kind of planet, the social web isn’t…Social Influence Marketing redefines pretty much everything. It redefines how brands relate to their consumers, what agencies have to deliver and it redefines how products become products. But this isn’t exactly a German sphere. It’s too fast for us, too beta…too non-institutional.

Germany – An Internet Tale

A couple of weeks ago, readwriteweb published an article entitled:
‘Social Media in Germany: 5 Years Behind – Still Lots to Learn‘. This article revolved around the status of the social sphere in Germany. Marcel Weiß, editor of the German blog netzwertig.com gets quoted:

Germany is at least five years behind the U.S. when it comes to social media and its adoption by a larger part of society. Blogs are still considered to be suspect by a large part of the German public and have very little influence, and social news sites and aggregators attract very little attention. With regards to Germany’s Internet startup scene, Weiß argues that, with very few exceptions, most companies are also years behind the U.S. and just aren’t innovative enough to compete.

Personally I don’t think we’re that far behind. But when it comes to Social Influence Marketing it’s at least 2-3 years. Germany is a rather corporatist state, which means:

We believe in a strong state run by parties, social welfare, car manufacturers and a more or less fixed order in which everyone and everything has its special place. Sounds 16th century? Well sometimes it is. The German spirit seems stressed with the liberal intention behind Web 2.0. No one there to tell us how the world’s supposed to be. No institutions. Just us and our personal creativity. And this difference between our ideal and the world’s reality makes us rather slow. We’re unsure how to behave in this individualistic world anymore. A world in which no overall truth seems to be right anymore. And this is why we don’t move at all.

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