During the past week I spent two days visiting a company that produces sexy, roaring, speedy beasts, the legendary motorcycle manufacturer Ducati in Bologna as they are a case study in my book on authentic companies. I was visiting creative director David Gross, author of 'Fast Company" about the turnaround of Ducati in 1997 and the years that followed, and Livio Lodi, curator of the Ducati Museum.

Ducati designs and manufactures the worlds fastest racing motorbikes and are known for their sexy design of fast, red motorcycles with superior technology. But in 1996 things didn't go too well at the Bologna-based factory. The financial situation was catastrophic and hundreds of unassembled motorcycles were standing around. It was a mess. An American capital fund took over the factory and two consultants were asked to turn around the company. Friederico Minoli and David Gross. They thought they were staying for six months but it turned into years as the world of motorcycles grew on them.

One of the things that turned the company back into a great succes (moving from a production of 11.000 units to more than 40.000 units a year) was the strategic use of the heritage of Ducati. When you ask about company values at Ducati, they will not tell you about "passion" or "service" or other such airy terms. They talk about dry clutches and the desmodromic system. Technical solutions that has helped these 2-cylinder italian beasts run faster than any japanese 4-cylinder machine in the run. The stories of past passion and victories helped the company recreate a strong brand that now attracts thousand of fans from all over the world. Both to online communities, to events (as the Ducati Week) and to the Ducati Museum, a 1.000 square meters of museum space displaying Ducati products from its start in 1926 up to the latest 1098 racing model.

If I wasn't a fan before (I was), I certainly became one after seeing the factory and the Museum and after talking to several employees and race bike journalists about the exciting world of speed, sexy design and "desmodromic passion".

Two months ago I was asked to participate in a public hearing in Odense regarding a new vision for the city, "To Play is to Live" (or in Danish: "At lege er at leve"). It was an interesting experience. I was participating in a panel as branding expert among a select group of local politicians and business leaders. Some friends of mine, Troels and Patrick, put together some footage from that day.

Some of the politicians of the City has been blogging about the new vision.

A group of students at Roskilde University that I have been advisor for this semester have written a paper on corporate blogging in a strategic perspective. Their case-study is the Danish Defence and the students have been interviewing different groups in the organization about the use of corporate blogs. I'll leave it to the students paper and the students' weblog to elaborate more at this point.

Coaching, - a topic that has earlier been discussed elsewhere on the STAGIS blog. Yet, at the risk of repeating myself or others, I would like to make another contribution about the monthly coaching sessions, we do at STAGIS. Before I started my job here at STAGIS, I guess I had somewhat of a sceptical attitude towards the whole concept of coaching, as I was inclined to believe that it was just another fancy buzzword. Since then I’ve become a lot wiser.

Yesterday, after another month with new projects and new assignments, I had my monthly coaching session with Nikolaj. Working in an atmosphere that encourages to be open and talk about your strengths and weaknesses and the challenges and fears that you face in your everyday work life is a big advantage. By articulating and talking about it, you become aware of you strengths and weaknesses, and the coach – if he’s a good one – asks you questions that really make you think and reflect about your potential and how to release that potential and get out your strengths in every new situation in your work (and in your everyday) life. After yesterday’s coaching session I really felt relieved about getting out my innermost thoughts and at the same time I felt inspired to go out and use my new found strengths and wisdom in my job, trying to do my next project even better than the one before. The coaching experience is something that really makes me reflect and learn something about myself in my work situation that I can use in other situations,- in my job as well as in my everyday life. In my opinion, coaching is something every workplace should do in order to release potential and ensure an ongoing development of the employees. That way I’m sure companies will get more committed employees that are more aware of how to use their strengths and, hence, perform at their best.

Friday the 20th of June at 4 PM we are inviting our clients, colleagues and friends to cool summer drinks and funky feel-good music. At 6 PM we present our new identity. Exciting!

Check your e-mail or facebook for more information about STAGIS’ ;DBAR

One of my favourite writers is Malcolm Gladwell. The last book of his that I read was 'Blink' which is about snap judgements and first impressions, the decisions we make in split-seconds based on knowledge that we don't understand ourselves. In the book that I am writing I work with a similar idea which is that of our ability to understand organizations as holographic images. In february 2004 Malcolm did a little talk titled "What we can learn from spaghetti sauce". It's about how there is no such thing as the perfect sauce but there are many perfect sauces for many of us.
Take out little less than eighteen minutes of inspiration and follow the democratization of food and the study of our different tastes as well as how embracing our differences will help us find way to true happiness.