About me

I\’m an ethnic chameleon. I\’m an Adult Third Culture Kid.

Cem Başman

Me, myself and I at Horizon Field by Anthony Gormley at Deichtorhallen in Hamburg. Photo by courtesy of Sandra Schink.

Live. Work. Create. Connect. Play.

Digital Strategist. Based in Hamburg/Germany.

I am an innovation and service driven entrepreneur, founder, managing director, digital producer and contractor, business developer, services architect and a former coder in the IT and web industry. As a pro I’m typically at the intersection of business, design, and technology.

Get connected with me on on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

My current business.

In January 2013 I started a new business as the founder and managing director of Basman+Co in Hamburg, Germany. Basman+Co is a team of experienced professionals, which realizes digital projects. We focus on the holistic view of service benefits for the user: We define, design and develop digital experiences. The products we realize are useful, clear and focused on the essentials. And therefore successful.

My former main business.

Full disclosures and professional life.

Until December 2012 I was a director at AKRA, a software development and IT consultancy company for large established enterprises and for well-funded start-ups in the web economy. I was driving the business unit Future Technologies, where we build and operate software in agile web technologies in Ruby on Rails and Android.

Prior to that my professional roots were in the classic IT economy as a corporate contractor for IT Services Management for large accounts such as large enterprizes and IT service providers in Germany and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). My specialities were: To design and operate time and mission critical large, complex, area-wide IT-related services. Within IT service management I had a focus on ‚IT outsourcing‘ and ‚IT service delivery‘ since many years.

I have founded and run several companies in the IT services industry.

I’m associated with many large projects in Germany and EMEA for service delivery organizations of HP, Siemens Business Services (SBS), T-Systems, a & o group andexempTec where I work as a contractor, business & company developer and senior project manager.

I was the founder and CEO of Basman Informatik which became later one of the two founding pillars of Lufthansa Systems Network (LSN), based in Hamburg and operating worldwide in IT infrastructure services and IT outsourcing. At LSN I was a member of the board for many years and CEO of pob Network Engineering, a subsidiary company of LSN and the engineering competence center of the LSN group. Leaving LSN I co-founded Bizzlogic in Hamburg, a software development company with expertize in Java and J2EE, but where I am not involved anymore.

In my university and early professional years I was a programmer (Assembler, Fortran, Algol, Pascal) in various host systems like IBM 360, PDP, DEC VAX and PC. Then I moved to solution architect, from technical to management, and finally to business. Always as self-employed and entrepreneur.

Non-Disclosures.

Here at this site you won’t find any information presented or discussed with my participation which is due to a non-disclosure agreement of anykind – written or as a verbal gentlemen’s agreement. That’s understood.

Entrepreneurship.

I like the idea of being a ‚creative entrepeneur‘ in opposite of being an ‚arbitrageur‘. I believe in an economy driven by passion where anyone can choose to afford a life of passion, experiencing new learning and personal growth by collaborating with others to create inspiring new businesses whenever they want to – doing what they love most.

Some of my other activities you might have heard of.

I have invented Twittnite and the worlds very first Microblogging Conference (aka Twitter Conference). Brought Startup Weekend and Wordcamp for the first time to Europe. I’ve initiated and organized the Railscamp Hamburg, by the way.

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I’m an ethnic chameleon. I’m an Adult Third Culture Kid.

„Third culture kid (TCK) is a term used to refer to children who were raised in a culture outside of their parents’ culture for a significant part of their development years.[1] The definition is not constrained to describing only children, but can also be used to describe adults who have had the experience of being an ATCK (Adult Third Culture Kid).“ – According to Wikipedia

If you are interested in the TCK topic then you may have a look into the Denizen Magazin.

I am a global citizen.

🇹🇷🇸🇪🇩🇪🇪🇺

I was born in 1953 on a hot August day in Istanbul’s Nişantaşı quarter right downtown at the waterfront at the European shores of the Bosphorus strait in the American Hospital. My family roots are Turkish from my father’s side and on my mother’s side I have a Swedish heritage.

Since my childhood Hamburg, Germany, is my hometown. But I have lived, got educated and worked in several other places in Europe and the U.S., too.

I learned several languages by practice and education: Turkish, Swedish, German, English, and in the course of my career I use all of them. When I’m travelling I try always to pick up bits and phrases of new languages from taxi drivers, hotel receptionists, friends and colleagues. Once in Italy I was asked if I was from Marseille because my French had an definitive southern Italian accent. I had to disappoint them. I speak neither of these languages …

At the bottom line, I suppose, I practice some sort of an individual Pidgin best … since languages are made for contacts and conversations.

Private life.

I live in Hamburg, Germany. I’m father of three sons.

My mantra.

The man in the arena.

Simple life.

A bowl of spaghetti, a roof over your head, shirt tucked into your pants, and someone special you love. You don’t need more to live.

I’m a passionate blogger.

In the blogosphere I’m pretty much a nomad. Something inbetween a blogging bedouin and a wandering bushman. I had already consecutively four blogs since 2001 which I deleted also consecutively after I got bored of their respective concepts. The one you knew best was maybe jimmiz journal. Since April 2007 my personal blog is Sprechblase („speech bubble“ in German).

I’m arguably rather a hunter than a farmer I suppose. I don’t like to look back. I’m more interested in the „now“ and of the future. I like to experiment.

And I’m passionate on Instagram too..

How to pronouce my name?

Cem [dʒɛm]. Or simply say „jam“ or „gem“ in English. Pronounce it short.

Some further current details and linkology for you:

Get in contact.

Here via e-mail and snail-mail.

Via Twitter.

Or connect to my networks:

View Cem Basman's profile on LinkedIn