Being a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar

Saturday, March 10, 2007

I moved to a new blog!

Dear readers,

today I moved to a new blog (wordpress.com) which I think offers more features. The new address is http://thomaslangenberg.wordpress.com. I'll continue posting on the new blog and I'll also add some more interactivity/functionality to this new blog.

Best,
Thomas

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Open Imagination and Innovation

I have just attended our monthly meeting of the Open Imagination and Innovation group which we are about to set-up in 2007. With we, I refer to Piero Morosini who is the official initiator, Chris Tucci who is the endorser, and Andrei Villarorel and myself (PhD students with Chris).

The objective of this initiative is to start thinking about new and "open" ways to foster creativity and innovation within firms. We are highly interested in open innovation networks (see Andrei's research) as well as in user communities and open source initiatives. We approach open imagination and innovation from both practitioner and academic perspectives. Right now we are still in the process of defining who we are, what we do, and what we are going for. I'll keep you updated.

During the presentation I presented a summary of my research which you find by clicking the following link.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Happy New Year!

I wish a Happy New Year to everybody!
I am about to start into the final year of my dissertation research work. This year will bring a lot of things

I hope to get my dissertation done!
After graduation, I am looking forward to get my own business up and running
I will participate in the IRONMAN Switzerland in Zurich where I am aiming for the IRONMAN Hawaii qualification ...

So there are a lot of things coming up! Let's see what the year will bring. Last weekend, we had a good start into this year when we spend our first day skiing in the Alps Valaisans. We went to Ovronnaz for a half day and skied in the local ski area.

Monday, December 11, 2006

First Ski Tour

Yesterday, we made the first ski tour of the season. After getting the first serious snowstorms, the Swiss mountains presented themselves in a fantastic white color yesterday. Blue sky & sun made us do a little ski tour in the Lake Geneva region.
We started in Morgin and climbed the Pointe de Bellevue (2041). From the summit we had a great view on the region, the Swiss Mountains as well as Mt Blanc.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Sustainability of Online Social Network (Ties) - Working Paper Online!

Ines Mergel and I have just submitted our current working paper on the sustainability of online ties to the Harvard U, Kennedy School of Government, Program on Networked Governance working paper series.

In the paper we are proposing a research design which we would like to implement in order to study sustainability of online communities // online social networks. This is very important to understand since a sustainable online community is among the critical assumptions in all types of Web 2.0 business models!

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Sunshine in Lausanne, Snowcovered Mountains, and Grounded Theory

I took advantage of a great day today in Lausanne and did another long-distance run. I ran along the "coastline" of Geneva Lake until Cully and back. It was a nice run. At the end it amounted to 30k and it took me 2:15h. It was a nice and decent run on my way to all the upcoming triathlon events next year :-).

Right now, I am working on my latest research paper which is on "user entrepreneurship". What I am basically looking at is the question of why users of a product engage in entrepreneurial activities. My goal is to develop a process theory which describes the different steps users go through will inventing something new and setting up a business. I am drawing on a couple of theories such as structuration, social movement, and entrepreneurship theory.

To do that properly I need to go back to my latest book. It is called "The Discovery of Grounded Theory" and nicely outlines how researchers can build theory from data. It is a good book, I can recommend it!

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Lausanne Marathon

I just came back from finishing my seventh Marathon. Today was Lausanne Marathon along the Geneva Lake. I finished in 3:23min and was quite happy with the time since I did not prepare as expected!

While running, I already planned my next IRONMAN which will be either in Germany or in Switzerland next summer. Let's see how it goes!

This is my blog on the life as a Rotary Amabassadorial Scholar.

: Name: Thomas Langenberg; Location: Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland

Thomas Langenberg is research associate at the Chair for Corporate Strategy and Innovation (CSI) at the EPFL College of Management of Technology and working on his PhD thesis in the area of technological innovation, soci al networks, and user communities. He is particularly interested in the alpine skiing industry and studies the competitive dynamics between incumbent and new entrant firms. Thomas holds a diploma in aerospace engineering from the University BW in Munich, where he graduated at the Center for Technology and Innovation Management in 2001. He has been working with Accenture for two years as an IT consultant in the European high-tech industry. In January 2004, Thomas joined EPFL as a start-up manager for the Executive Master Program in e-Governance. In July 2005, Thomas joined the CSI chair to pursue his doctoral research. Thomas has just returned to EPFL from an academic year at Harvard University's Program on Networked Governance funded by an Ambassadorial Scholarship of the Rotary Foundation International.

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