Edge is how we create together at Netlight, it's how we make our working climate inspiring - fragments from Edge Conference 2014 opening speech

Edge is our everlasting search for relevant competence and how we maintain and grow it (just like we have our everlasting search for the right talents and the right engagements)

Edge is making sure we as a company have the necessary current valuable competence and to make sure that shared competence bring value to each and every client of ours.

Edge is how Netlighters create together, challenges each other and creates an inspiring working climate together, for all to develop and grow within. 

Fragments from my opening speach at Netlight Edge Conference 2014, Oslo;

A year has passed since last year’s Edge Conference, when we met in Clarion, Stockholm. And what a year. I get moved to tears when I hear about all the amazing deliveries we’ve made out there. Without naming any of the client we’ve helped, looking at the value we’ve been providing, the increase in revenue, the increase in share price or merely the public success and growing brand recognition.
It’s clear we’re an important part of the IT wonders we see around - and a big part in driving the whole IT industry forward.
And now that is a dream to many of us  – and being part of all that, that is the whole meaning of Netlight to me.

I believe we have mainly three reasons to thank for our success

The everlasting search for the right top talents – and to maintain and grow them

The everlasting search for the right engagements (that is projects and clients) – and to maintain and grow them, to be able to help more

And Edge – the everlasting search for the right knowledge/competence – and to maintain it and to grow it 

So we have Edge - the search for relevant competence and to maintain it and to grow it - but we don’t do it for the knowledge itself, just to become expert in a specific area of our choice, and go brag about it. – no,  what we care about are real life challenges. How can we help our Clients with real life challenges, how can we make them successful, how can we make them become heroes? 

Ok, so how does this Edge-thing work?

At Netlight we learn from each other and create together in all we do. Interrelated with SM and our values, Edge is all about caring about your colleagues and your clients and to take full responsibility. It’s about taking pride in your work and deliveries. It can be to informally discuss challenges and opportunities with a colleague in the corridor or have lunch with someone or a group of people with experience in what you need to dive into or just have someone asking the right questions. It can be to run more formal workshop to carve out what is the current best practice within a specific area or actively attend any of all Netlight Edge Events, such as ccell meet-ups, seminars, workshops, Edge Academy, Edge Conference or what have we…  

Edge is simply about making sure we as a company have the necessary current valuable competence and to make sure that shared competence bring value to each and every client of ours. 

It’s clear to all, but still I must stress, that Edge must always come from below, from each and all of us as equal individuals – it can never be pushed from above. We as individual Netlighter’s take the full responsibility to assure, based on our real-life challenges at our clients, that we always fetch the relevant knowledge from Netlight and the outside world – and that new relevant competence always is cycled back to Netlight, to help others  - This is how we create together.
And of course, Edge isn’t something you do once a day or a couple of times a week, it’s something you do all the time – it’s a mindset.

Edge is on a much higher level, than any tool, process or event. Edge will always remain – in hundreds and hundreds years to come - but tools and processes will come and go to suit our current needs. 

And the reason Edge works out so well goes back to what we’re all about. And what we have said Edge is all about. The everlasting search for right talents, right engagements and the right competence.
And it’s all managed by our values, that we’ve all chosen to live by and that we so preciously maintain.

Is it easy? Of course it’s not. There are no short cuts, only dedication and hard work – but it’s so much fun. 

Just looking at myself, I would never ever be able to do so challenging and so cool things and to deliver so much business value to all my clients – without the knowledge, experience and support I’ve gotten from Netlight throughout the years. That’s Edge.

 Folllow me on twitter: mandus_engman