Alexander Buschek has been an IT professional for many years. He is passionate about digital transformation and the opportunities it will give businesses — especially SMBs. He is convinced that every business has to embrace digital transformation in one way or another, in order to survive. The sooner a business starts its digital transformation, the better. To support this process, spread awareness, and share experiences, he started a digital transformation blog. Today he is the CIO of Cherry GmbH, well known for their excellent keyboards and MX switches, who hired him because of his profound knowledge of digital transformation and digitalization. Until January 2018, he was the CDO and CIO of Braunschweiger Flammenfilter GmbH, an international valve manufacturing company that employs more than 500 people in several locations worldwide. His main responsibility was the overall digitalization and IT development for the entire PROTEGO® Group. Before joining PROTEGO®, he worked as an entrepreneur consulting SMBs about their IT strategies, providing external project management and overseeing various IT projects, including ERP and CAD implementation and migration. Working with many SMBs gave him a deep understanding of this market. Key Takeaways: [1:18] Marc welcomes you to Episode 72 and invites you to share this episode with like-minded souls. Please subscribe wherever you listen to this podcast, share it on social media, and tell your neighbors and colleagues. [1:47] This week, Marc interviews Alexander Buschek, who is the poster child for someone who completely rebranded himself to become a digital transformation thought leader. [2:00] Last week was the monthly Q&A episode. If you’d like to submit a question to be answered on this podcast, just go to CareerPivot.com, and click on the Contact Me link to submit a question by email, or click on the Send Voicemail tab on the right side of the screen to submit your question by voice. Marc will play your question in the episode. [2:27] Next week’s episode will be Marc’s interview on the Next Avenue podcast. NextAvenue.org is the PBS website for the Baby Boomer generation. Marc was interviewed on Episode 3 about making career pivots. [2:44] Marc reads Alexander’s bio. [4:30] Marc introduces Alexander. Alexander talks about looking for a new job before working with Marc. He sent applications everywhere and didn’t get answers. He also had a difficult bio, being self-employed for more than 24 years, then became the CIO of one of his customers. He decided he needed help and he found Marc. [5:34] Marc started Alexander through the rebranding process. Alexander shares the roadmap he followed. [5:45] The first step was the Birkman assessment to find out who he was, what were his strengths and weaknesses. He learned new things about himself. Marc encouraged him to have a blog, videos, and write a book. He’s still working on the book. [6:38] The roadmap was getting to know himself and writing a white paper, as a preliminary for the blog. Then he started writing the blog and became the thought leader in digital transformation. Then his visibility started. People asked him to speak at conferences, which was a great experience for him. [7:13] Marc frequently told Alexander to be bold. At first, Alexander didn’t see himself as bold. Then he found out he was. He was not reluctant to speak up and do the things he thought were necessary. [8:03] Marc was blown away by Alexander’s resume. Alexander didn’t see himself as a hot commodity, however. He had to learn to understand his achievements and tell people about his experience. [9:16] Alexander’s white paper was about cloud technology. In Germany, many were reluctant to even look into it. So he thought, at least he needed to look into it. He figured out that cloud technology is the future. [10:31] Alexander used Dragon Naturally Speaking to write. You just talk and you see it written in Word. It was very helpful. [11:55] While Alexander was networkin