About Benedikt Koehler < life under electronic conditions

I’m Director Digital Strategy & Research at ethority GmbH & Co. KG, a company based in Hamburg, Germany, specializing in social media monitoring, research and consulting. I’ve studied sociology, ethnology and psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. In 2006 I received a PhD (Dr. phil.) for my dissertation on cosmopolitan sociology and worked as a researcher on media sociology from 2006 to 2009.

I’ve also worked as a free-lance consulting (clients include Burda Community Network, ORF and webmiles AG), given many talks, workshops and theorized about the larger frame of social media. I also initiated the German Social Media Association (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Social Media) which aims at researching and lobbying for social media producers and users.

I’ve been blogging for a year now in my German language blog viralmythen. But after I recently remarked that the English language blog scene in Germany is much to weak, I will try and write some ideas and observations about social media in this brand new English language blog.

I enjoy listening to good music ranging from alternative folk (Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart) to cool jazz (Charlie Parker, Bill Evans) and pop (Talking Heads, Pet Shop Boys). I’m also writing record reviews for German music magazines like Spex or Testcard.