HOW TO PROCEED IN TIMES OF COVID-19? Exchange with other EU Projects

We were happy sharing experiences with colleagues from Port of Hamburg Marketing involved in several INTERREG projects and exchange on how to proceed and succeed project implementation in these special times.

Dr. Andreas Schubert Johanna project (Lead Partner JOHANNA project, Interreg South Baltic South Baltic Programme)

I do not miss the formal outcome because everybody is self-responsible highly motivated and self-manageable. What I am missing is personal contact, the  informal meeting. Not everything is spoken able. When we meet, there is atmosphere, body  language – this can’t be transfer into the Internet. How did Covid influence our project? We had to cancel some study trips and our project but in general we were doing very well. Content is also difficult discuss online.

Stefan Breitenbach, Port of Hamburg Marketing, Head of project division (Lead partner of EMMA and Emma Extension project, Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme)

 If you know people it’s easier to talk communicate, build trust even using the internet . But as soon as you want to do something new with the new group it is difficult to develop trust understanding using phone calls. Recently we experiment a lot with the conferences. We equipped and built super innovative conference room. But anyway, people can be lost with all that Internet connections, technicalities infrastructure‘s. And also not everyone has access to that so we should think about how to avoid that and build this infrastructure in the future.

Johannes Betz, Port of Hamburg Marketing (Communication Manager of Smooth ports project,  Interreg Europe)

The flexibility of John Secretariat is amazing. They really react and are a and understand situation of the project.

Malin Hagberg-Andersson, Karlskrona Municipality (Work package leader in JOHANNA)

We had to postpone everything. As you know in Sweden – we didn’t have to lock down but, in our municipality, we decided to give good example and not get engaged in huge meetings or crowd. So, we couldn’t put a lot of people to give them for example education. I, myself find online meetings more interactive, and more democratic. In the project we have more workshops and talking with everyone in between.

Yana Grundke, Mukran port (partner in JOHANNA and cruise coordinator for Sassnitz- Rügen)

The cruise operators I discussed with for a long time, who I met in Miami or London and we spend lots of time to engage  in my destination, during corona time they simply disappeared. Anyway, I manage to arrange some call for 2022 for Sassnitz. For that I didn’t have to travel to Miami or London. But I could talk with them Because I knew them before.  Right now, it’s not easy to connect. When you were on the fair trade, we just wave to each other and get to know each  other. There were  also a lot of informal meetings that we could know each other and make business. Right now, it is simply impossible.

Aleksander Paulauskas, Strategic Self-Management Institute ((Work package leader in JOHANNA)

Corona crazies gave us a good kick to move to new situation and to new solutions. The new technology gives us opportunities for self-management and self-learning. We don’t need to be in a room with Teacher in the groups of 20+,  where the perception is uneven, depending on capacities and skills of each participants. In my opinion using webinars and Internet for learnig we would not need teachers anymore but the coaches to give guidance. We are more experience than we were year ago.

Inga Gurries, Port of Hamburg Marketing (Lead Partner of Blue Supply Chains, Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme)

If you have a good working group, the corona virus didn’t destroy it.

Adina Cailliaux, Port of Hamburg Marketing (Lead Partner of NSR Connect project, Interreg North Sea Region)

In this new situation I can say that we are more professional right now in the beginning when we wanted to meet in the smaller group, we use the phone and we college other. Right now, everyone is more relaxed hour we are making the video calls, and everyone is keen on the switch to camera even though we are in our private environment sitting in the kitchen and living room with our family around. We are no more relaxed and more professional at the same time.

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