Barely a week at the MCI campus, the first-year students of the Management, Communication & IT bachelor's program had an exciting guest lecture, with none other than Andi Knoll. We know Andi as a popular Ö3 presenter for more than a quarter of a century. While in the early days he actually wrote his first texts on a typewriter and stood in front of the microphone at night, today he entertains no less than 1 million listeners with his show the Ö3-Wecker.
"The medium of radio already fascinated me in my school days at the commercial school in Innsbruck. That's how I ended up working for a small private radio station in South Tyrol. The radio station was often at a standstill for weeks, for example, because lightning struck the station. But I still wanted to have a regular income, so I applied to Ö3 and successfully passed an assessment centre there. That was in 1994," the Tyrolean describes his path to Ö3 in Vienna.
On three Fridays a month, Andi Knoll visits a business ¬ whether it's a shoemaker, a hairdresser or a childcare facility ¬ lends a hand and broadcasts live from the spot. The idea of bringing the Viennese radio station to the regions of Austria came from him and resulted in the format 'Knoll packt an', which has a fixed place in the Ö3 program and is one of his favorites!
During his 3-hour guest visit, the Ö3 anchor knew how to throw the ball to the students. The young audience had already burning questions. Andi informed the MCiT freshmen about his path to Ö3, the Ö3 program, his favorite music, the 120 hours on air at the Ö3-Weihnachtswunder including snoring colleague Robert Kratky. He also spoke about teamwork at Ö3 and used a concrete example for this: In order to ensure operations, the ORF took a special precaution during the corona crisis in April 2020. Some of the station's employees and presenters temporarily moved into the ORF center on Küniglberg: 14 days minimum, on 1,000 m2. But how do you put the team together? Do you take those who you know can do it or those who volunteer? Andi Knoll was also one of those chosen. The general requirements were: "There must be electricity, there must be water and the hits must be on!" His summary: "Getting reliable information makes a difference for the listeners. And you yourself feel quite good about keeping the country informed." In between, there were also points of friction, for example when Robert Kratky noticed that Andi had accidentally eaten his food.
For a team-building exercise, Andi put the students into predetermined teams of six and gave them 20 minutes to come up with a presentation. There were no further instructions. Andi Knoll was interested in what would happen if you throw a bunch of strangers together to form a productive whole.
In any case, the result was impressive: The students drew on all their resources and gave charmingly funny, entertaining and interesting sketches and presentations. The radio presenter was thrilled!
Rebecca Agerer, head of the course, emphasizes: "For me, it is important to skillfully combine theory with practice in my course ‘Teamwork’. Especially since one of the three pillars of our study program is communication, it was obvious for me to knock on the door of a media company. So, why not think big? Andi Knoll was a real stroke of luck for us. I am very pleased that the guest lecture was met with great interest and enthusiasm on both sides. We will definitely strive for a repeat performance.”
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