Martin Rövekamp

Interview mit Martin

‍You just organized the first Hamburg CollabDays. What are the CollabDays?

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The CollabDays are a community-driven tech event that mainly focuses on Microsoft 365 and related Microsoft technologies. Originally known as 'SharePoint Saturday,' the name was changed when SharePoint took a back seat and tools like Microsoft Teams became more popular. The charter then decided to rename the event to CollabDays. About ten years ago, one of my best friends, Peter Wiens, and I founded the SharePint community in Hamburg.

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How did the idea to bring the CollabDays to Hamburg come about?

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I was a speaker at the CollabDays in Zagreb, where I gave a talk about intranets. On the flight back, I thought: why not bring it to Hamburg? We have a beautiful city and a large community, but up until then, CollabDays only existed in Bremen. I asked Peter if he wanted to bring it to Hamburg, and he was immediately on board.

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What challenges did you face when organizing the first event?

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The first event is always tricky. Finding speakers wasn’t a problem—we had 40 applications within 24 hours. But finding sponsors and the right venue was a challenge at the beginning.

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How did Tuleva support you with this?

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Tuleva quickly showed support for the event and became the main sponsor, making a significant financial contribution. They also helped with manpower—or better said, "womanpower"—since many of the women at Tuleva involved in events had the necessary networks and provided valuable organizational help.

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What was the highlight of the CollabDays Hamburg for you?

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There were many highlights. We essentially had three events: a pre-dinner, which went really well and was fully prepared and cooked by us. One of our crew members was a chef before becoming a SharePoint developer. I shared an office with him years ago, and he was happy to cook. Saturday went smoothly, even though some of the 180 registered attendees headed to the Baltic Sea due to the good weather. But in the end, others showed up who we didn’t expect. Celebrating the ten-year anniversary of SharePint Hamburg with nearly 80 people was a great way to wrap things up.

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What do you like most about working at Tuleva?

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I like the openness and the freedom to structure my day. You can even say that you don’t want to work on a project, and then a solution is found.

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What sets Tuleva apart from other companies you've worked for?

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At Tuleva, it’s not about sitting in the office from 8 to 4. You can organize your day freely. At other companies, they expected you to show up early and stay late, regardless of how productive you were. That’s different here. I really appreciate the trust.

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Which values are particularly important to you in your daily work?

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Trust and honesty—those are the key points for me.

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What are your responsibilities, and what is your area of expertise?

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As a Modern Workplace Consultant, I handle everything related to Microsoft 365. I also do pre-sales, give webinars, and hold presentations. My specialty is intranets, particularly with products like Mosaik 365 and Omnia Intranet. I consult, implement, and show clients the latest updates.

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How does your work provide value to clients?

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By taking the burden off their shoulders. We listen first, and even if the client already has an idea, we often come up with a better solution together. If it makes their work easier, faster, or less complicated, I’m happy—and usually, the client is too.

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What do you appreciate most about working with your clients?

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We have a good, trusting relationship with all our clients. If there’s something we can’t do, we’re honest and recommend someone who can do it better.

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Which innovative technologies or methods have you used recently in your work?

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We work a lot in the Microsoft space, and since the announcement of OpenAI with ChatGPT, AI has become a huge topic. Copilot has been on the market for about a year, and many clients are interested in it. We also work with Azure OpenAI applications like Omnia, which was the first intranet product to integrate AI. With just a few clicks and short descriptions, you can generate articles with images, sublines, and keywords—all in one interface without having to switch between programs. SharePoint Copilot is supposed to offer something similar soon, but I’ve been waiting two years for it.

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What do you appreciate most about working with your colleagues?

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The willingness to help. Even if someone is solo on a project, you know you can always reach out to colleagues for advice when you’re stuck or need a good idea. That wasn’t always the case in other companies, where billing was more important than collaboration. When people are overloaded and help a colleague, they end up working even more. But we handle it differently here. Even if someone only has five minutes, they’ll still take the time for a quick exchange and offer a tip.

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Tuleva means "future." How do you envision the collaborative workplace of the future?

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I’ve discussed modern work and the future workplace with Martin Weiss and many guests on our show "Martin's Modern Work." There are many approaches, but the biggest change will likely be human-machine interaction. Voice control, AI-powered glasses—there’s a lot coming our way. We already have more computing power in our phones than old mainframes. But in public administration, especially in Germany, it’ll take some time. You’d have to look to Scandinavia for how these things can evolve. With clients, you can see those who are still stuck in paper processes and just starting to digitize, and then there are those at the forefront who are completely remodeling their offices. You also see this with home office regulations. Of course, it’s hard to work from home in a factory, but in administration, I don’t see any reason to require employees to come to the office—at least not every day.

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Will there be another CollabDays Hamburg in 2025?

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Yes, there will be CollabDays again. The date is already set: June 28. We might even start on June 27 with some workshops, maybe four hackathons running in parallel. But that’s not finalized yet. We’re still waiting on some confirmations.

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Martin, thank you for the great interview!