Interview with Prof Dr Klemens Skibicki
"Networking will increasingly replace old economic structures of value chains, hierarchies & push communication and enable undreamt-of productivity advances today via artificial intelligence".
Our alumnus Prof Dr Klemens Skibicki received his doctorate in Economic History from the University of Cologne in 2001, after graduating in Business Administration and Economics. From 2004 until 2019 he was Professor of Economics, Marketing and Market Research at the Cologne Business School in Cologne.
Since 2006 he has been entrepreneurially active in various constellations as a start-up investor and management consultant. Today he bundles his activities in the holding companies PROFSKI GmbH and KäsekuchenKölsch GmbH.
From 2013 to 2018, Klemens Skibicki was a core member of the "Young Digital Economy" advisory board of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy. Since June 2014, he has also been active in the "Corporates" division of the Digital Ambassadors Circle of the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Economic Affairs, where he provides voluntary political consulting services.
Networking will increasingly replace old economic structures of value chains, hierarchies & push communication and enable undreamt-of productivity advances today via artificial intelligence.
Dear Mr Skibicki, you are active in teaching and research, are involved as a keynote speaker and consultant and are also a company founder. How do you combine these all areas and where does research help you in the practice?
I think it is exactly this combination that helps me in the field of Digital Transformation. Without my methodological experience as an economic historian, I would not have been able to develop my current consulting approach. My research, if you can call it that at all, is purely practice-oriented and would hardly meet most theoretical scientific criteria. I am mostly application-oriented and use the experience from research, which in turn is enriched by every consulting project.
It would be better if the politicians listened more to the experts and regarded such advisory boards less as PR.
You also worked in voluntary political consulting. What were your tasks and areas of activity?
After the 5 year term, I have not been on the advisory board for young digital economy in the Federal Ministry of Economics since 2018. There, the members develop proposals for the Minister. Unfortunately, I am not convinced that the respective ministers used the highly qualified expertise of the advisory board. It would be better if politicians listened more to the experts and regarded such advisory boards less as PR. Ultimately, however, it is up to the person at the head of the ministry.
Never before in recent history has it been so easy to start a business and conquer the digital networked age.
You are an expert in the fields of social media marketing and digitisation: which current trends will influence the future in these areas?
The digital structural change is multidimensional and so I don't even know where to start with this question. Networking will increasingly replace old economic structures of value chains, hierarchies, and push communication, and will enable undreamt-of productivity advances through artificial intelligence. These will, however, also replace old patterns in all areas of society.
As we have just seen in the European elections: the old interplay between political parties with their party conventions, committees and short election campaign periods and classic media with their decades of rehearsed election campaign reporting could not keep up with the dynamics of videos and election calls of YouTubers as outstanding personalities of a networked generation and had no answers. Since all this is changing, the rules of politics, the economy and all other areas of life will change over time.
You need passion in a project, true vocation, only then can you really become good at something!
Were there any key experiences during your studies that had a lasting impact on your further professional development?
Yes, absolutely, perhaps less during my studies, but in my time as a research assistant. After a few months I discarded my first dissertation topic and changed my subject and seminar position to economic and social history - this simply suited me better. Such an admission that one was wrong the first time and should continue elsewhere was a key experience for me. You need passion for a project, true vocation, only then can you really become good at something!
It is often said that science is not a profession - but a vocation. How do you see that?
Yeah, there's something to that. However, I prefer a combination that is also economically successful in the market and achieves a real quick effect. But I like creating knowledge with a practical reference and earning money at the same time. THIS is my calling!
Go out and conquer the digital networked age, don't be afraid, try it, you're much younger than we were when you left university, you can afford to fail a few times, you can learn and always get up again and go on!
What would you like to tell our students? What are your three tips?
Never before in recent history has it been so easy to start a business and conquer the digital networked age.
Where you used to have to be discovered and brought into the media by someone, today you can directly find your own audience with smartphones and social media. Even no retailer as an intermediary can use its exclusive gatekeeper position to keep you from your customers.
Go out and conquer the digital networked age, don't be afraid, try it, you're much younger than we were when you left university, you can afford to fail a few times, you can learn and always get up again and go on!
Thank you very much for the interview!
The interview was conducted by Franziska Zibert