Schriftmarke der Nerd Reoublic. Die Beratung für New Work und Agilität.
Eine Seerose in einem Teich mit grünen Blättern.

25. October 2024

Inside NR

Once upon a time in a design office in Düsseldorf…

It is important to us to give our customers a picture of who we are and what is behind the company Nerd Republic. We are not just another consulting company.If you want to know how the story continues, just read on.It all starts with an ideaIn order to give you a feel for who you're…

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It is important to us to give our customers a picture of who we are and what is behind the company Nerd Republic. We are not just another consulting company.
If you want to know how the story continues, just read on.

It all starts with an idea

In order to give you a feel for who you’re dealing with, you can gain some insight into our founding history here and find out what we were actually thinking.
To start with the most important thing: we didn’t actually think that much at first. It was more a feeling we had that it was time to develop new ways of working. Back then we didn’t know what exactly it would mean, how exactly it would work or what it would be called. Sounds chaotic, doesn’t it?

But it wasn’t really like that. We were highly motivated to get started and simply work things out without getting too mental about the whole thing.
We had a clear goal in mind: we wanted to help rethink business and create sustainable, evolutionary forms of organization.

We want to work better. Working TOGETHER. Live.

Definitely not an easy goal, but that’s exactly what makes it so exciting for us.

The impulse for founding the Nerd Republic came from Stefan. At the time, he was still lecturing at XU Exponential University and discussed Frederic Laloux’s book ‘Reinventing Organisations’ with the students. This led to the motivation to rediscover and reinvent work and organisation.

In August 2022, it was time to get down to business. Together with friends, colleagues and anyone else who was interested in the topic, ideas were collected on what a concept and a journey together could look like.

‘One of the problems with nerds is that they don’t recognise that they are nerds!’ – or in other words: finding a name

The basic concept was sketched out, so we wanted to get started. However, it soon became clear that it wouldn’t be that easy. Organisational matters had to be dealt with more quickly than expected. Including the question of a name for the child.

Our original thought was that it would come to us at some point and until then we would simply get started. Easier said than done, because even when we were creating the email addresses, we realised that the longer we postpone searching for a name, the more work we have to do afterwards to rename all the channels again.

So how do you find a name for a construct that is not yet fully developed?

It was a bumpy road, starting with a mobile phone list with over 40 names, collections of attributes that we could identify with and British pub names. All of these were nice to have but nothing really fitted. We wanted something that suited our working model, so we had to leave the familiar paths. We ended up with names of famous pirate ships. You’re beginning to understand where the ‘nerd’ in our name comes from, aren’t you?

We found out in the process that back then the captains of the Pirate Republic of Nassau called themselves the ‘Flying Gang’.
That sounded a bit too much like a breakdance group for us, but the republic triggered something. After that, the rest almost happened by itself. We had already worked together before we started Nerd Republic, so we already knew each other well. The word ‘nerd’ often came up during small talk that went a little too far at the beginning of meetings. This was also the case after a monologue about films in which the following sentence was uttered: ‘One of the problems with nerds is that they themselves don’t realise that they are nerds’. Everyone laughed, except one person. Can you guess who? 😊

Nerd Republic. The feeling was the right one. Funny and somehow identifiable for all of us. It was a long journey, but it was worth it.

Ein großes hölzernes Segelschiff mit weißen Segeln navigiert unter einem bewölkten Himmel durch neblige Gewässer.

What has the name to do with consulting?

We want to be funny with our name, but also much more. Traditional corporate environments often restrict humour. They promote very clear characteristics and imprints. Workers are rational and ego-driven in a system that demands you to be masculine. If you want to reach the top, you sometimes need elbows, golf and beer with the boss, don’t forget the power and practice it.

This is exactly what we want to change. People are so much more than the mask that unfortunately has to be put on too often for work. We sit in the basement by the fashion train, go ground-hopping at football matches, know every film quote and cry over kittens.

Everyone is a nerd somewhere, and that’s a good thing. Is that relevant for the job?

Not in companies that are machines and use people as resources, while chairs are assets in accounting. Here, every part should be the same.
However, if we rethink companies as a social, creative and innovative system, we see it as a key element to create environments that perceive us as people and that we shape as people.

If we say we want nerds, then we also need the next step in the organisation. Let’s create self-determined systems, far removed from monarchies and dictatorships. Structures that turn informal decision-making hierarchies into formal ones and are driven by purpose. Forms of organisations in which people are no longer just resources, but a lifeline for further development.

Way ahead

Is the great revolution coming? The term revolution comes from the French and describes a rotation around one’s own axis, like a bicycle tyre, for example. However, this also means that after the rotation we are back at the starting point. In our opinion, it’s not the big BANG! but the evolution of organisations. Every plant grows a little differently and that’s a good thing. Some organisations develop faster, others a little slower. Some grow higher, some not so much. We want to support organisations in finding their goal and their way there.