Living and working on the boat
Make us curious: On what topic can we learn from you at the big ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Academy Symposium?
Maren Wagener: The topic of our talk "Have A Boat And Sail It, Too" is in the farthest "New Work" because we live on a sailboat since 2015 and have been running our Hamburg company Vast Forward from the ship since then Our team of employees means how we manage the daily work routine from a distance and what rules and values help us all Compared to traditional companies with office attendance, our form of cooperation is based on trust rather than control - not just us, but Our employees also have the freedom to decide from where they manage their projects.No one has to be stuck in any office from morning to night.The cosmopolitan in our team folds up her computer in Paris, sometimes in Barcelona, or the single mother in swimming pool while her son is doing his swimming class in the afternoon.
How can I effectively network, even if I'm shy?
Matthias Wagener: Networking is one of our core tasks, our core project management team works exclusively in virtual teams, which are composed of programmers and creatives from a free network again and again. The own shyness as a barrier is of course a challenge! What helps to make it easier to approach people is exercise. For example, you can take simple, initial steps by participating in workshops or even conferences that are thematically relevant. We use conferences for our team, it is a matter of training to approach unknown people, most of us have to practice it, a common theme often makes small talk superfluous.
If you are unsure, how do you make a choice between options?
Maren Wagener: We talk about upcoming decisions every day. In addition to the job decisions, there are also many questions that we need to get ahead with our? Floating Office? concern: where do we want to go? What is the weather forecast? How do we ideally get to the nearest airport (if we have to travel)? The pronunciation and talking about it helps a lot, but in principle I would judge as decision-making. It is important for us to weigh possible consequences and consequences and not to build (false) expectations.
And if everything is just too much, how do you get a moment to breathe deeply?
Maren Wagener: I think we've got a good mix of work and personal life onboard for the fourth year on board. The first year was pretty busy, Vast Forward was up nearly 50 percent and the team was only half that size today. At that time, we understood that we have to deal with our time very consciously? and started building our team accordingly and developing our structure more professionally.
Today we live a not popular form of "Work Life Blending". We separate little between work and leisure. At the same time, we try to use the good in our way of life and work: In the morning we enjoy the jump into the water, then the goal is to complete about 15:00 o'clock 80 percent of our work on the computer. Then we feel free, the? Office? sometimes leave, and explore the country and people. And, most importantly, for a year and a half, there has been a weekly yoga session with the entire project management team via Skype. Our yoga teacher Vanessa from Yoga2b keeps getting us out of the everyday carelessness? get.
Thank you, Maren and Matthias.
Maren Wagener, born in 1978, grew up in Saxony, studied media management in Mittweida. She was always self-employed, her current company Vast Forward GmbH founded in 2008 in Hamburg. She also started sailing in Hamburg. Today she runs her Hamburg-based company from her boat? VAST ?.
Matthias Wagener, born 1968 in Bremen, his career took him to Hamburg in various advertising and digital agencies. Change to consulting for digitization in 2011. Matthias has been sailing since childhood. Today he is employed in the company of his wife and her partner also in corporate management.
