Digital Guide and Startup Guide Knowledge Databases
Our “Digital Guide – IT-Fachwissen für alle”, which we have been producing since April 2016, provides freely accessible, internally developed content on websites, hosting, online marketing, IT, and how to be successful on the internet. It has been supplemented since October 2018 by our “Startup Guide – Der Ratgeber für Gründer, Selbstständige und KMUs,” which offers useful information on how to found and manage a business. The two IONOS guides currently comprise roughly 18,500 articles in German, English, Spanish, Italian, and French that are aimed at a broad target group in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, the USA, Canada, and Mexico.
They offer a wide range of information on IT topics, from “how-tos” on internet, e-mail, and password security and network troubleshooting down to explanations of and tips on data privacy and online law. Equally, new digital topics such as artificial intelligence, deepfakes, or the US CLOUD Act are explained in easily understandable terms. Where appropriate, references are made to IONOS product recommendations.
IONOS also offers numerous useful tutorials and webinars that are freely accessible on YouTube. Examples of topics covered include how to delete cookies or successfully optimize search engines. In addition, users of the German-language Digital Guide receive a monthly newsletter on topical issues.
Despite being digital natives, children and young people do not automatically know how to use the internet – and especially social media – responsibly, but have to learn how to do this. As an internet company, we have substantial expertise in the areas of social media, data privacy, and the like, as well as a responsibility to society. One way in which we live up to the latter is through the program for children and young people that is held at schools near our Karlsruhe and Montabaur locations.
In 2017, employees founded an internal initiative, “Sicher im Netz,” as part of a development program. The Group produced a presentation with workshop elements designed to raise awareness among school students of how to behave on the internet. Since personal contacts are the best way of putting information across, the project group created the role of ambassadors, in which employees give the presentation. Including staff in this way also raises awareness of the issue internally.
In the 2020 reporting period, a second team was set up at our Karlsruhe location in addition to our core team in Montabaur, so as to facilitate more intensive communication with local schools, among other things.
The measures focus on using workshops to teach young people about how to use social media and to raise their awareness of the associated risks. Particular attention is paid to security settings in social networks, picture rights, and – in the discussion following the presentation – negative experiences in networks and how to deal with them. The initiative’s new name – “Social Media Safety” – reflects this approach. We launched the program five years ago at our Montabaur location and have regularly received extremely positive feedback from students and teachers there. The school closures ordered in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that no sessions could be offered in local schools in the 2020 reporting period; however, the program will be continued as soon as the regulations permit. In addition, the plan is to expand the program to our Munich and Berlin locations.
Not only does this social commitment by our employees enhance our presence at the schools at our locations, it is also an expression of our social responsibility towards internet users. This initiative combines social and local commitment with our core business.
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