I am Tom Fichtner from Leipzig, soon to be based in Taiwan.
This website covers some of my work and a lot of my hobby photography.

2021

Hello World!

I am soon to be based in Taiwan as an expat. I work for Schenker Technologies GmbH, a computer and laptop manufacturer from Leipzig, Germany. We specialize in customized, high-performance systems and we have a strong commitment on quality control, reliable support and community engagement.

Our main brands are bestware, XMG and SCHENKER. Another affiliated brand is TUXEDO, a sister company that specializes on providing full Linux to similar high-end and portable systems.

My responsibilities

With over 10 years of experience in this particular field, I share a number of responsibilities:

  • Community Management, being the primary public-facing speaker before, during and after all product launches on traditional bulletin-boards and especially on Reddit with a solid degree of transparency and a rapid turnover of public perception into internal solutions and action
  • Product Development, being the main contact window to our ODM system partners for high-end laptop products, managing the flow of information in both directions
  • Product Testing, often being the first one to test engineering samples and leading the team that manages the day-to-day validation and deployment activities in Germany
  • Quality Assurance / ODM Escalation Management, being the first and last line of defence when products do not act as intended, providing efficient solutions and rapid damage control
  • Product Marketing and PR, feeding product definitions and unique selling points to product managers, PR contacts and various related teams
  • Product Customization, managing most of the big and little things that make our products stand out against similar LOEM boutique brands, including software and firmware (BIOS) customization
  • Documentation and FAQ, writing the bulk of non-legal and non-marketing driven public copy for this company in both English and German, including internal product- and support-related documentation
  • Innovation Ambassador, driving suppliers and internal departments towards excellence and innovation while representing our brand to corporate-level contacts in semiconductor global leaders

Our websites:

Our social media and communities

If you would like to learn more about our products and see our community engagement in action, feel free to join any of our social media channels and forum communities. I sign all my comments and replies with my name, so you can go ahead and track my daily activities if you have nothing better to do. ;-)

  • /r/XMG_gg – Our own subreddit is our main English-language forum for support and product discussion
  • XMG/SCHENKER on Notebookcheck – Notebookcheck is hosting a German-language support forum for us. In this forum it’s possible to post anonymously without user registration
  • XMG/SCHENKER on Computerbase – Similar to Notebookcheck, but with a much larger community overall
  • XMG on Youtube – Most of our Youtube activity actually happens in other channels, when people review our product. Whenever someone posts a high-profile review, I’m ususally pinned in the comments with an “Ask me anything” thread where I reply to community questions in real-time. For some recent best-of reviews, check the list below.
  • XMG on Instragram – Original content around eSports and classical marketing activities – usually handled by other team members
  • XMG on Twitter – Follow us on Twitter, but also follow my own private account
  • XMG on Facebook – Yes, we are on Facebook. It’s like IG and Twitter but with even more ads!

Hall of fame

I am listing a few personal favorites of content that I was involved in. For the product reviews, I was either the main contact window to the reviewer or I had a pretty heavy hand in developing or pushing forward the particular product. Sometimes both.

Product Reviews & Trailers
Community Topics

I’m often told by partners in Taiwan that my e-mails are too long. Perhaps some of their screens are too small. Our customers seem to appreciate our verbose, transparent and data-driven writing style. Here are a few significant threads and documents I have written recently for SCHENKER/XMG:

In the future I hope to be able to extend this hobby and publish articles on my personal blog and other outlets.

Follow me

You can follow me on:

Or just send me an e-mail.