Music brings us closer together – 24^th RUBIN User Conference in Nuremberg

The 24^th RUBIN User Conference took place in Nuremberg from the 6^th to the 8^th of September under the motto, “This is where the music plays”. A total of 130 participants got together in the Meistersingerhalle (Master Singers Hall) and exchanged their professional knowledge in an atmosphere of working together as colleagues and got to know the musical merits of Nuremberg.

Henning Könicke, Managing Director of the AFAG Mes­sen und Ausstellungen GmbH (AFAG Trade Fairs and Exhibitions) referred to the metropolitan area as the “Capital of RUBIN Users” in which three co-organisers worked together for the first time. The AFAG, the Meistersingerhalle and the Spielwarenmesse eG worked together with infoteam GmbH Berlin to ensure a most highly professional order of events along with organising an invigorating programme in a great atmosphere. The Meistersin­gerhalle, as the home of the “Twelve Old Masters” of  the Minnesang (courtly love songs of the 12^th through 14^th century), not only due to its motto, but particularly due to the professional team on site, turned out to be an ideal location easy to get around in.

Deploying the open space conference methodology, a total of 23 workshops were organised by the participants themselves and were characterised by open and lively discussions. In view of the variety of RUBIN topics in and around trade fair and event management the users were able to profit from the processes used in other companies, were able to exchange their experiences and were able to garner impulses for their own practical applications. The professional knowledge regarding various customer-specific means of implementing RUBIN that the RUBIN consultants made available underscored communication, to the extent that the prerequisites for the deployment of individual functions for the relevant application case could be illustrated.

Not only the communication in the workshop sessions, but also the joint effort of the co-organisers reflects what Robert Vogel, Head of the Meistersingerhalle, described as a “symbiotic partnership based on trust” between infoteam and its customers, but primarily also denotes this partnership amongst the companies and users: “It is not a gathering of competitors, but in actuality RUBIN users who openly exchange their experiences for their mutual benefit”.

The community thought as a modern term for that which is the core of the infoteam company philosophy, also crystallised in the final round on the last day of the conference. For this Christoph Herlitz, CEO of infoteam GmbH Berlin, made use of a basic assumption on the success of communication espoused by Paul Watzlawick: “The relationship guides the matter and not vice versa”. True to this knowledge the approachable interchange among partners was the prerequisite for the excellent professional results.