The biggest social reform in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, Hartz IV, was initiated on January 1st. For a successful implementation an early and targeted coordination was required between the participating institutions that were commissioned with the payment of the new unemployment pay II (Arbeitslosengeld II - German abbr. ALG II): the municipalities and regional employment agencies.

With the new law, practical questions came up for these actors: How do I team up the so-called working groups? What are the exact eligibility criteria for the ALG II? How can I optimally use the corresponding software? The advice on these areas is new territory for the municipalities and employment agencies on site. So, the task was to generate and procure a high degree of knowledge in cooperation with the participating authorities in a very short time.

The knowledge platform www.netzwerk.sgb2.info (German abbr. sgb2 for social security statue book, book II) has become a true success story. The BMWA commissioned ]init[ with the implementation of the site that was released already on June 9th of 2004. The login-protected network informs more than 10,000 registered users from the municipalities and employment agencies reliably about the current state of the reform. Moderated by experiences ]init[ editors the users can exchange information in forums or give each other mutual assistance finding that way in co-operation the best solutions. So, the network surpassed being a bare information and opinion exchange portal generating in the process of the knowledge transfers new expertise from the practice.

To this day, 3,000 contributions to the discussions can be found in the internal forum. In the meanwhile over 250,000 monthly page views impressively prove the relevance of this modern communication media for a successful start of Hartz IV.