Vicoland has so far refrained from a major PR offensive – but public interest is nevertheless already high. Media such as “Forbes” and “Brandeins” have presented the concept, and in HORIZONT Vicoland founder Hans-Ulrich von Freyberg and CEO Marco Seiler gave the first major interview.
For the marketing and media trade journal, they are old acquaintances, as both are among the pioneers of the digital agency world: Seiler founded Syzygy back in 1995, von Freyberg followed in 2000 with Cocomore. And although both agencies are headquartered in Frankfurt, the paths of the two founders did not cross for a long time – until Seiler came on board at Vicoland last year. What attracted him to the task? “The question of what the working models of the future will look like and what role the human cloud will play in companies’ performance processes is absolutely central,” he says in the interview. After his time at Syzygy, he studied again, psychology with a focus on work and organizational psychology. “In the process, I took a particularly close look at the workforce of agencies,” Seiler reports. “The central issue for all of them is how to find and retain skilled workers. Temporary teams and virtual companies play an important role in this.”
And from the freelancers’ point of view, what is the reason for organizing themselves on Vicoland – they are in demand in the digital market anyway? “Most of them are very well utilized,” von Freyberg confirms to HORIZONT. “But as a self-employed person, you’re a lone wolf and can’t do any big projects on your own initiative.” The idea of Vicoland, he says, is that as members of Virtual Companies, they can also work on large, complex projects: “This way we hit two birds with one stone,” says the Vicoland founder: “The agencies can get hold of good people again and the freelancers can implement attractive projects on their own responsibility.”
This concept also impressed the American market research company Forrester Research. Last year, it ranked Vicoland among the top seven international providers in the Freelance Talent Marketplace Landscape. Why? Quote in the report: “Vicoland goes one step further and allows the formation of expert teams through the Vicoland platform. This allows not only individual freelancers to be contracted, but entire teams of experts.”
