Self-description: swb dinosaur, idealist. Jörg Machirus has been working for the swb for thirty-three years, twenty-four of them in private customer marketing and sales. “Nevertheless, I have not become blind to shortcomings in company processes”, he says and smiles, thus perfectly summing up his extraordinary value and competence as a tutor: Jörg has many many contacts and diverse experiences in sales – this is priceless. In addition, there is the wonderful enthusiasm that he has kept over all these years and throughout all the challenges. “I’m a salesman to the core. I can sell anytime, anyplace.” He laughs. Right now, his responsibility is the coordination of regional and national private customer marketing and sales in Bremen, and: “I have several ideas how to launch ‘them’.”
Them? Jörg Machirus is talking about GEOLUMEN from Italy, and about their lighting technology. “There are many possibilities to optimise energy consumption in public space –the town hall, for example, or the city park, of course. The swb has already planted trees in the park, so why not install sources of light? There are so many paths that need illumination.” Jörg is enthused, infectiously so. No doubt: He would convince any customer. This might be despite or because of so many things that still need to be tested. He says that he loves pilot schemes, and he has supervised one or the other pilot project during his career.
“It is always important to think from the customers’ point of view. Energy is getting more and more expensive, so the resourceful simplicity of the kind of product GEOLUMEN offers is easy to communicate. It has great potential for hotels, or it would be great to develop a creative lighting concept for the art hall.”
Jörg Machirus also knows a thing or two about creativity. Besides his being a trained locksmith and master craftsman for mechanical engineering, besides his working in sales, the fifty-three year-old has pursued photography for more than twenty-five years. “I had been dedicated to video for a while, and then I was given a camera as a present.” The fascination for images has not lost its grip on him since. A change of perspective also is what is necessary for the good job he does at the swb. The energy market is subject to rapid change: “You really have to pay attention to where you will be able to achieve added value in the future.” That is why he thinks he is the right person at the right place at the right time, being a tutor at kraftwerk. “There is no greater satisfaction than implementing an idea and seeing it through.” So – what is his gain? He truly benefits from the encounter with the start-ups, because he is forced to leave his own strategic guidelines, to lateral thinking, to learn to move in different structures. “I am a Kümmerer (the German ‘Kümmerer’ is hard to translate and describes a person who enjoys being positively concerned with many things and people), a creative. Our start-ups are super structured – this is where I can learn a thing or two,” he says approvingly. We are talking about a classical win-win-situation – and fun.
