Tag Archives: Sweden

10.07.16
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Rätt Data i Rätt Kontext

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Introduktion till nätverket Digital CMO

Av Peter Johansson

Digitaliseringen har gett marknadsföringen tillgång till mätbara data och drivit branschen ljusår framåt. Men det ligger en utmaning i tolkandet av dessa data. En utmaning som nya nätverket Digital CMO har tagit sig an.

Reklambranschen är en av de branscher som anammat digitaliseringen på mesta sätt. Idag har reklambranschen inte bara en uppsjö nya digitala kanaler att rulla ut sina budskap via, de kan även bygga sina kampanjer och mäta deras resultat med en precision som snuddar vid individnivå.

Det varma mottagandet av digitaliseringen kommer av naturliga skäl: Det datadrivna tankesättet är en grundstomme i marknadsföringen. Att använda kunddata som verktyg för att skapa relevanta budskap är vad jobbet går ut på, så att säga.

– Data som styrmedel för kommunikation är något som alltid legat naturligt för marknadsförare. Man har ju alltid jobbat med att ta fram sina målgrupper, definiera vem man ska prata med, i vilket sammanhang och sedan tajma det, säger Elisabeth Bitsch-Christensen, nätverksledare för Stockholmskretsens nystartade nätverk Digital CMO.

Inte bara data, data, data

Det gäller dock att inte stirra sig blind på siffrorna. Det finns otroligt många stand-alone verktyg som alla på sitt sätt utlovar Utopia. Men det räcker inte med data på ett pie-diagram som visar vad som har hänt. Det verkliga värdet av dina data kommer först när de tolkas utifrån ett relevant sammanhang. Som den amerikanska tidsskriften Forbes beskrev det när de nyligen vände på statistikern W. Edwards Deming klassiska citat ”without data, you are just another person with an opinion”

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”Without an opinion, you are just another person with Data”.

– Vad vi behöver är system som sätter detta i perspektiv, som ger bakgrund och kontext för den data som visas, och som lägger till aspekter som mänskligt beteende, makro- och mikroekonomiska faktorer och disruption. Vi behöver skapa insikt av data och applicera det till företagets utveckling och mål, säger Elisabeth Bitsch-Christensen.

Hur kan nätverket hjälpa till?

– Det finns otroligt många kloka människor i Stockholm och Sverige som har tagit till sig detta tankesätt från den ena eller andra vinklingen, och dessa människor behöver ett forum där det kan möta kolleger och stakeholders.

Därför har hon startat nätverket Digital CMO. En första träff hölls i september och ytterligare tre träffar är spikade under hösten. Närmast, den 7 november, fördjupar sig nätverket på affärsnyttan med beteendedata. Elisabeth Bitsch-Christensen har bjudit in Mikael Karlsson från Dagens Analys och Andreas Quensel, analyschef på Expressen.

– Vi kommer att bjuda in föreläsare, och själva berätta om våra erfarenheter. Vi tittar på trender och fördjupar oss i rapporter. Vi kommer att kommer att ha kul också, det är en viktig del av marknadsförarnas vardag, avslutar Elisabeth Bitsch-Christensen.

09.29.16
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What really happened at IPExpo Nordic Sept 2016

Cloud or not Cloud is no longer a discussion we need to have at IT trade shows – for most companies today, it’s by default. The discussion is not about the technology platform, it revolves around the transformation which cloud has enabled.

IP Expo is a trade show  on Cloud and Infrastructure, Cyber Security, Datacentre, Data Analytics and Developers. Vendors use it as a platform to show off new technology, and delegates to educate themselves with training sessions and workshops – and some stellar keynotes. It’s held held annually in the UK, but this year for the first time in Stockholm as a pan-Nordic event.

Overall, there was a gap between the vendors’ view of the IT shop floor and how we work, and the visions and experiences of the  Nordic IT professionals listening to thshowflooreir pitches.

 

Among the 52 exhibitors, there very few were outside the box, so to speak. Mostly, they were addressing singular IT challenges such as cyber security, infrastructure or offering access to the “Cloud” ( eh, what!?).  I am not saying it’s not important, just saying that we need to maintain a broader perspective.

 

You can check out some of the exhibitors and their messages and posts on the IP Expo Nordic Facebook page

Transform – don’t wait for digital, it’s already here. And bring your own lunch

Of course, as the conference program is very congested – no scheduled lunch or coffee break (a NO-NO in Sweden, organizers!) – you cannot possibly get the complete picture if you are not a machine and can sustain yourself on battery energy alone. So naturally, I did not see all the aspects of the messaging and content delivered at the sessions, but delegates I spoke with agreed that from their perspective there was really very little news. As a learning experience, it did not quite deliver.

Out of 81 speakers, only 9 were women (!)

The non-profit organisation Womengineer with their programs to engage large corporations in empowering more women in engineering both in education, trainee programs and in careers was given a small corner on the trade show. Luckily, they also had their own session which was extremely well attended, despite the more glamourous main programme in the auditoriums. Similar to the worldwide efforts to inspire girls to code, Womengineer holds Introduce a Girl to Engineering Days – mark your calendars for the next event on March 17, 2017.

Aroshine Munasinghe, Head of Business Relations at Womengineer and Jenny Stenström, blogger had checked out the gender balance  in the conference program – and including themselves, there were 9 female presenters out of 81. Quite unusual for a high profile conference in Sweden.

And I encountered many professional women in the various sessions.

 

Barbará and Carla from Lisbon, Portugal and were extremely satisfied with the content of the sessions and the high technical standard of many of the presenters. Among their personal highlights was Susanne Fuglsang in the Digital Transformation Panel who literally took center stage in challenging a lot of preconceptions on what digital susannefuglsangtransformation is about.

 We should stop speaking about digital transformation – it has already happened. We should focus on making the transformation a strategic objective in top management and more importantly middle management where resistence to change is prevalent.

(Susanne Fuglsang, Executive Producer, Another Tomorrow)

 

Len Padilla of NTT echoed this very well in his Digital Transformation session tugged away in the basement and coinciding with Trend Guru Alexander Bard’s glamourous keynote. Happy to say, we were at least 25-30 people who were brave enough to go against the celebrity flow and took some practical advice in the dungeon, as Len called it.

Not only do you need to involve more levels of your organisation in the process, you need to enable those managers who’s job it is to “keep the lights on”. They are the least willing to take risks, so to truly transform you must learn to encourage and reward risk taking and the consequent potential failure. (Len Padilla, NTT)

Smarter citizens – not devices

What IPExpo Nordic showed, was the obvious focus these large players and other software vendors have on the Nordics as a market, and the effort they are making to gain momentum with their key messages.

The keynotes from Microsoft, IBM and Amazon Web Services were all delivered by some of the company’s top speakers and all on what PR professionals call “on message”.  Gleefully interrupted by a worldclass presentation on how the CIO of the City of Stockholm, Ann Hellenius, and her team will make Stockholm the world’s smartest city.

How? Not by adding infrastructure: We have that already with Fiber Optics Bands reaching 30 times around the globe covering the greater Stockholm area.

No, by defining a smart city as the merger of human, financial and technological interactions to achieve the highest quality of life and the best environment for business. The main focus here is the interaction between citizens and services, between human and machine.

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The best digitalisation is when you do not notice that it’s there (Ann Hellenius, Stockholm City CIO)

Making sense of the data – the Big data

IBM’s visionary Rashik Parmar  addresses similar thoughts on the concept of smarter cities– but at IP Expo Nordic, illustrating that the focus of the presentations was not on the vision but on the product, he showcased IBM’s cognitive intelligence Watson instead.

(The program also had an encounter with Furhat the Robot Head, but alas, Furhat and I are yet to meet in person, so to speak).

The potential of this technology of course is enormous, and the Nordic audience, albeit not new to the concept, can relate to the potential of using cognitive intelligence to make the world a better place.

Some of us covering IT innovation, gadgets and business opportunities combined, are always looking for the killer app. For Watson and alike there are many, and Rashik Parmar introduced just one: using Watson analytics to “listen” for cracked wheels on long distance trains.

This is a really important job that used to be a manual one, with a railroad worker hitting with a hammer on each and every wheel at each stop to listen for cracks. According to Rashik Parmar, the ability to filter out everything but the sound defining a crack is unique to the Watson technology – the sheer amount of data involved and the processing required to make this a seamless process and not create delays is unique (at this stage) to IBM’s technology. And this saves lives.

No more -aaS abbreviations, let’s all code

Microsoft’s James Staten, Chief Strategist Cloud and Enterprise Division (The Era of IaaS is Coming to an End) warmly enthused about the hybrid cloud being the future and where Microsoft will continue to invest heavily: The combination of on premise computing and public cloud as a strategy.

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What Microsoft has probably realised is that they need a broader audience for their products and concepts in order to meet today’s real customers – the so-called citizen developers  as defined by Gartner.

Basically, it means that end users are taking over the world of software applications because everyone today can learn to and uses code. And Microsoft wants to help IT departments stay in control via Azure Security Center, among other concepts. Read more on the visions and strategies for Cloud in my exclusive interview with James Staten in my next blog post due in a few days.

Listening to Amazon Web Services Technical Evangelist Danilo Poccia was perhaps not as inspiring for leaps of thought, but all the same very useful and constructive. The Amazon Journey to the Cloud was just that – his step by step introduction to and presentation of the various services in the Amazon Web Services portfolio addressing today’s needs among developers and IT departments.

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The journey as a strategy is what captured the interest of one of the delegates I asked right after the lights were turned on. Per Nordahl, IT Strategy Manager at Telia, found that Amazon could focus more on the journey when walking through the services as a case – many larger enterprises can relate to this story of digital transformation.

 

What is innovation – can we capture this elusive pimpernell

Amazon defines innovation as (f = mechanism + culture).

Unfortunately I could not reach Danilo Poccia to ask how to attach some real metrics to this. But I think an equation like that could help many businesses quantify and qualify their rate of innovation ultimately to get more senior management buy-in for those crazy ideas we all know we need to stay ahead of the game in a digital world.

07.14.16
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The Swedish Model – Or The Importance of being “Lagom”

Lagom is the ticket to successful integration in Sweden

Where else in the world can friend and foe in business and politics exchange their views in an inclusive, open and collaborative setting where everyone equally gets their say, and audiences engage and contribute – and criticise. Disciplined. Cilivized. Respectful. – Getting together on an island to debate everything from ethics to politics. This was Almedalen Week July 2016

Who gets to lead? Whoever shouts the loudest?

Watching the rallies from the US presidential elections always makes me wonder what happened to politics being the voice of the people. There really isn’t much room for debate or separate opinions. It is all about who shouts the loudest, who creates the best TV broadcast friendly setting with American flags, banners or sound bites on signs lifted high by a religiously enchanted audience. They all agree at a rally. Of course they do – they are handpicked to do so, I assume. And the sound bites are carefully crafted, and really not anybody’s opinion. I learned that from the documentary The War Room  on Bill Clinton’s election campaign.

ST. LOUIS, UNITED STATES: Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton (L) waves to supporters as he holds the hand of his wife Hillary, 22 July, 1992 after speaking at a rally. St. Louis was the last stop on the Clinton-Gore campaign's bus tour. The crowd was estimated at 40,000. (Photo credit should read TIM CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton (L) waves to supporters as he holds the hand of his wife Hillary, 22 July, 1992 after speaking at a rally. (Photo TIM CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Feministisk Initiativ

Gudrun Schyman, leader of the Swedish Feminist Party, at a meeting in Almedalen rebuking the speech given by Prime Minister Löfven earlier – with facts, arguments and civility (Photo by the author)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Almedalen on the Swedish island of Gotland, at this annual gathering of everybody who is anybody (and a few nobodies like me) in Swedish society, it appears we all agree despite disagreeing strongly.

It’s just that nobody is shouting. If you do, your message simply won’t be respected. You can say things with emphasis, you can criticize, you can argue, you can disagree. But you let your opponent finish their sentence, you do not raise your voice or shout insults. Everybody is allowed to be there. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. They are not your mortal enemy, they are just different.

It’s called diversity. It’s called freedom of speech. It’s just lagom.

There is no translation for the word lagom – it is a state of mind, a way to view life and human interactions. And relationships. And the weather. What is lagom?

Picture1An urban myth claims that the amount of mead in a viking drinking cup being passed around a group of warriors must be “lagom” – as in be enough for the entire team. “Lag” means team in Swedish. Pass it around the entire team for everyone to have a sip.

 

 

Raised to be lagom

The Swedish Board of School Education  states that in 2015, 94% of all children aged 4-5 attended municipal kindergarden/daycare. If you dive deeper, you realize that an impressive 88.4% of all children living in Sweden with immigrant parents attended these kindergardens. And they are all brought up with the concept of lagom as a way of life and human interaction. This is integration at it’s best.

On a lighter note, here’s a nice review of the differences between a Swedish boyfriend brought up along those principles, and what you could experience with others.

And it’s not a new phenomenon – it’s an integral part of the Swedish welfare state where the decade long focus on gender equality in the home and in the workplace has meant that generations of Swedes today setting the tone and the agenda in business, politics and academia were brought up to be lagom. Brought up to be considerate, attentive and inclusive.

It’s not that easy to be lagom

I am an immigrant myself, coming from Germany, then Denmark and now Sweden. And these are three entirely different cultures in terms of human interaction and behaviour. I will never really be part of this tribe; my values may be to be both considerate, attentive and inclusive – but I am certainly not lagom.

It’s an acquired trait, you restrain yourself from voicing disagreement, you avoid standing out in confrontative situations and you must not take the last cookie on the platter. I can do neither.

But I often meet immigrants and children of immigrants who are mastering the skill and have become part of the tribe in a way I may never be. Amazingly enough, being lagom also meant that when I joined Refugees Welcome Stockholm at Almedalen last week to quietly, orderly walk around in my pink vest, I was stopped by locals and organisations and thanked for our efforts.

Our purpose there was not to shout – it was to remind politicians, opinion makers and media of the fact that these people need help, not rejection.Karin

Karin, a police volonteer from the hectic days of autumn 2015 at the Stockholm Central Train Station stopped me in my pink vest to thank Refugees Welcome Stockholm for continuing our efforts

 

 

 

 

Rosa Stationen – A Refugees Welcome Stockholm integration project

35,000 people came to the Almedalen Week this year in July. That is as many people as Refugees Welcome Stockholm (RWS) received and assisted during the influx of refugees in the autumn months of 2015.

In the autumn and winter of 2015, local Stockholmers, passers by, volonteers from help organisations, young and old rallied at the Stockholm Central Train station to help these people not just with the bare necessities of life but into a new and meaningful existence. It takes a lot more than food, shelter and clothing.

Read more about some of their fates here:  When disruption becomes tangible – stories from a train station. Europe September 2015.

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RWS created Rosa Stationen  a meeting place, where the volunteers who were persevering at the train station, continue their involvement by exemplifying and teaching refugees how a Swede respects and values you and your opinion.

It’s not really a survival technique for refugees – being lagom

Sometimes it is difficult to convey to these people, because the trauma and the fact that they survived their perilous journeys and made it this far, is not because they were lagom in anything.

It’s more likely that they had to be fierce, persistent, loud. It is very plausible that these qualities, which ensured their survival, are also the ones who can obstruct a successful integration. A Swede brought up on these ideals has difficulties interacting with and understanding behaviour as “un-lagom” as this. Being “un-lagom” myself, I can relate.

The focus of the newly arrived is on finding jobs to learn the “Swedish Way” which is so much more than learning the language. It will be a long journey for them, but many of the volunteers at RWS have made similar journeys themselves, as children or more recently as young adults.

And they are the most successful, most warmhearted, most outstanding human beings I have ever met. Despite being just lagom.

  • If you would like to learn more about the Refugees Welcome Stockholm integration activities, take a look at the Refugees Welcome Stockholm Website , follow us on Twitter or join our Facebook group
  • The next big project is #GeBarnenAndrum (Create a Safe Haven for the children). You can volunteer or support the effort with a donation

It is through the children we ensure the future and they are the ones who need a safe haven the most.

 

 

 

09.18.15
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When disruption becomes tangible – stories from a train station. Europe September 2015.

This blog is about digital disruption.  A disruption  is a major disturbance, something that changes your plans or interrupts some event or process.

Right now, our comfortable reality is being disrupted – brutally, dramatically. This blog entry is not what I normally write about, but it is important. Here are some destinies from Stockholm Central Station.

My respect for the personal integrity of these refugees arriving to train stations across Europe, struggling to find a way to continue their journey, stopped me from bringing out the camera despite those countless moments that would have been powerful images.

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They say, a picture can say more than a thousand words.

I have no pictures for this story, so I will paint them with my words.

Picture No. 1

Remarkably, hundreds of refugees pass us during our day at the station, but nearly the only littering/garbage left behind are some cigarette stubs, probably from the local people as they light up leaving the station rushing towards their lives.

The transport coordinators (and I, one of the drivers) are standing with our fluorescent vests next to a lamp pole outside Stockholm Central Station. There is a box behind us with some notes and pens. A little girl – 5-6 years old – points at the box. We smile. She walks up to it and looks to us for confirmation, then drops the peel of the pineapple slice she had received in the food tent into the box. She has been brought up to understand that she is our guest, and she does not want to litter.

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Picture No. 2

A determined red haired volunteer muscles her way through the crowds to our lamp post. She wants help for her group, the people she had welcomed on the platform as she could speak their native tongue. There is a boy, with one eye blinded, protruding slightly. A father, 2 more children, a mother, an uncle. The boy’s eye hurts terribly, the redhead wants to find a doctor. We ask her to go to the Red Cross station.

– “No, they said they don’t have a doctor – they said I should ask you, the people with the vests”. We, the volunteers, can organize a car to the hospital but the redhead throws her arms in the air: “They have no time, they finally got train tickets to the North and the train leaves in 3 hours”.

So I take off my vest and go into action mode: “I will take them, I will explain the urgency and get him back in time. I have had my 1-on-1’s with hospitals before.” She explains, they discuss, the mother cries, and the father and uncle take my hand. Please. Yes. The boy looks at me and smiles with his good eye.

This is Sweden. At the hospital we get speeded through. The receptionist calls a friend who works in administration, he speaks Arabic. Their story unfolds as he explains to the doctor what has happened:

Abu Bakr – 10 years old, from Bagdad. His home was bombed, his eye damaged by splintering glass. In Irak, they had tried to treat him, but the medicine they carried had been contaminated. On the fragile rubber boat – in the Mediterranean – when they tried to start the outboard engine, he got an elbow thrust into the eye, and gasoline as well. That’s when it got really bad. Only in Sweden did they find the courage to ask for help. During their exodus they were afraid they might be detained.

The doctor investigates, prepares the prescriptions to take on their onwards journey and sends us to the local pharmacy. I had not really donated money yet, and I do not mind paying for the medication to last the boy for 2 months. With my credit card ready, the pharmacist says: “He is a refugee with no home and no formal identity papers. Regardless of the real price, all the medication is 50 Kroner.” That’s less than 10 Dollars. This is Sweden – and I will pay my taxes with enthusiasm now and in the future.

Abu Bakr is smiling with his good eye. And he takes 1 Kroner (1.2 cents) out of his pocket and puts it on the desk for the doctor. He wants to pay for himself.

Picture No. 3

The Red Cross teams inside the train station are overwhelmed. A group of people with crying/screaming children crowd the interpreter and a few RC volunteers. They have no onwards ticket, they have no place to stay, their children are hungry. And a little boy runs around with his pacifier in his mouth, and one arm hanging limply in an odd angle from his petite frame. The transport coordinator asks me – You are good with hospitals, can you take the boy to the ER?

Zain is 3 years old. His sister Rawan is 4. Their father is alone, there is no mother and I do not know what happened to her. I also do not ask. Upon boarding the train in Vienna the little boy tripped and fractured his shoulder. He is so small, I would have taken him for 8-10 months, had it not been for his knowing eyes. They asked for help in Vienna, but they said not to worry, no need for X-ray, just board the train.

The local café offers the children food – the father insists on paying. He wants them to eat before we leave, because who knows when they will next get some food. I cannot explain, I am helpless without speaking Arabic. He pulls out a 5 EURO note to give the café, they refuse. He points at the Money Exchange office, wants me to watch the children. He wants to pay. I offer to exchange his money – and he gets a good rate. I give him 500 Swedish Kroner, t’s the only banknote in my purse, and he ceremoniously hands over his 5 EURO note.

At the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital in Stockholm, we wait. The nurse is certain it is broken, but timing is bad – it’s shift change hour and the doctors are in conference. The father had traveled with a group, but he is now afraid that his little family will be left behind. It will be hard for him with two very small children, and nobody to help him watch them. He already looks like he has not slept in a week. And he is badly malnourished. While we wait, the waiting room fills with other children – a small 2 year old waddles over and starts to play with little Zain. Zain is confused, then smiles and responds. They exchange books, move furniture and show each other the little box of juice they were given. Look what I have – I have one too.

The transport coordinator calls me from the station – the other group will leave on the train at 5 pm without Zain, Rawan and their father. They finally secured tickets and they have to look out for themselves. But I feel safe – this is Sweden. The father will not have to stand guard tonight over his few posessions and his little children with no mother. The volunteers at the Red Cross shelter will make sure he gets a good night’s sleep.

Before I hand them back to the Red Cross, I buy pacifiers for each of the children. They only had one each, and each time they dropped it the father had panicked. The little girl – Rawan – chooses two pretty little pink ones, and proudly shows them to all the Red Cross volunteers. As I leave, Zain has fallen asleep on his father’s shoulder wrapped in my jacket. I leave it. I ask the interpreter to say these words to him for good bye: “Thank you – it was an honour for me to be allowed to help you today.” The father nods, he holds my hand, but his grip is weak. He has no response. His too tired to form any words. And he is alone.

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09.09.13
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The ROI of Social Media – or how to convince your boss

Social Media is engagement – if you don’t get it yet, I hope you will very soon. But engagement is very hard to measure, so even if you do get it, your boss might not appreciate the value of your efforts.

That is why you need to create a social media engagement strategy around metrics and value add = ROI. You need to have a conversation.

The traditional way of counting is through “fluffy” things like Facebook Fans/Likes or number of retweets – which I think is just a natural extension of marketing’s best friend: click-through rate on email blasts. It’s hard to leave your comfort zone, even if you are an innovative marketer who really wants to embrace social.

What does it cost you, if you do NOT have a social media engagement strategy?  Here is a link to a free eBook with some good statistics and methods.

At Sweden Social Web Camp (SSWC)) on Tjärö island in August, we tried to look at ROI benefits versus costs. What it boils down to, is tangible, measurable and very convincing:

Source: Salesforce.com

Email marketing on its own is not engagement. And it’s getting harder and harder to use on a large scale.  Let’s talk instead.

Soft and Hard: Facts & Figures

Finally, here is a link to all the slides I presented at SSWC – there are some wonderful charts and hard numbers from salesforce.com’s extensive customer research. You can use them in your own context. Or  take them to your superiors to get at least as much – if not more – budget for your social media engagement as your colleagues in traditional email marketing.

02.25.13
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Share and Grow – sincere, open, likeable Swedish innovators – you will be sorry you missed it

Conferences, seminars, trade shows, events – the hype this spring are Social Media events. Most of these are focused on understanding social and what it can do for business, still making the point that it really is good for business. But it is – so why do we keep arguing that point?

There is the travelling road show of SMW – Social Media Week which hit the Nordics last week – and then there is SSMX.

SSMX grupp

It’s different. It’s owned by the delegates and it’s as flexible and unpredictable as a friendly amoebae – constantly evolving. These people – and the rest of us – are here growing as a professional, growing our business, growing our influence by sharing what we do with others. Very social.

Sincere – Open – Collaborative – Interested – Authentic – Likeable

Sessions vary from a heavy focus on technical innovation to practical examples to workshops where we sit in a circle and discuss and challenge each other. All sessions are initiated and run by the delegates themselves. Many of them filmed on the spot to share with those not there – take a look at some of them, you will be inspired.

http://video.ssmx.se/

Disruptive Leadership

It’s a myth that the social innovator scene is dominated by young geeks and nerds. I attended a session at SSMX with @johanlange who wrote the book LUCKc taking lean one step further. Once again, one session evolves into a continued exchange, and I will now attend his follow up breakfast sessions in Stockholm discussing out of the box leadership.

Changing the outcome – through Twitter

It’s a myth that social enthusiasts are techies only. I attended a session with @johansbuzz showing just how significant the social presence is in times of crisis by example of the labour union’s perspective of the negotiations with the employees last fall that led to the agreement that kept Scandinavian Airlines flying – at a time where the ultimate worst case was bankruptcy. If you understand Swedish, there is a recording of the session

http://unionenopinion.se/2013/02/unionen-delade-med-sig-pa-ssmx/

Social Customer Service – #UnitedBreaksGuitars

We had an interactive session discussing social customer service by example of airlines. 40 people in the room contacted airlines via three different channels

  1. Twitter
  2. Facebook
  3. Contact Me Forms – Email

Before the session Datasift.com  had analysed 100,000 tweets to/from 33 different airlines to check how responsive they were.

The same winner emerged during the experiment: it took KLM 28 minutes to respond with a qualified/useful answer to the Facebook post. (More on this study and results/experiment in an upcoming blog. Lots of data to analyse.)

What is SSMX – and these unconferences – and how to fertilize innovation?

Try googling SSMX or look it up on Twitter #SSMX (once you learn to ignore a less favourable ongoing Twitter conversation in Japan which had a completely different, and definitely not business facing use of the tag).

Karin Bäcklund SSMX 2013

People share pictures – don’t we all. Here are some nice ones that are truly artistic by @deeped

But they share content, reflections, discussions, presentations, feedback, research and already now feel inspired thinking about how to contribute to the next major sharing event in this community. There are similar unconferences happening across the Nordics, as an example the WebCoast

https://www.facebook.com/webcoast

… in Gothenburg taking the conference out into the region.

Sweden is a big  country with long distances to travel, and not everything happens in Stockholm. Another not to be missed social innovation event is happening over a weekend on an island off the southeast coast called Tjärö. Bring your tent, and beware of the sheep

Hem

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01.25.13
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The most innovative countries in the world. Come see us.

Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland (and Australia and Canada) had the highest internet penetration/usage per capita in the world back in the early 1990s when it all took off. At the time I was a business analyst and spent a lot of effort trying to understand why.

Finally I know:  it’s because it was social.

It’s human nature to want to engage with others, and if you think about the geography and demographics of the above countries, there are a lot of people who are physically isolated from each other and/or the world. If you have to drive 80 km to the nearest library, it makes sense to search for your information online. If you have to drive 80 km to meet up with your peers after work, it makes sense to engage with them on Facebook or Twitter instead. (Especially right now, when there are extreme temperatures (on either end of the scale) in all of the above countries.)

There are many lists of innovative countries provided by various consulting groups and government and independent research groups. There is never a completely unbiased view; it all depends on the metrics. But it is remarkable that all lists, regardless of the research parameters, list the above countries who were Internet early adopters, in the top tier.

What is the Nordics secret sauce of innovation?

Those who say “it cannot be done” are interrupted by somebody already doing it

Sweden – and most Nordic countries – are not necessarily innovation-friendly in terms of startups. But if you are driven by the passion of your idea, and not just by a narrowminded focus on making profit early on, there is a pool of extremely well educated people, the Born Digital Generation, who take nothing for granted, and who just do it. Take a look at the list below to show just a few remarkable Nordics innovation achievements.

Want to be innovation-inspired?

Here’s my suggestion: join the Born Digital Generation in the Nordics on one of these upcoming social media events (listed below). And feel free to ping me @echristensen42 with more events so that the list can be expanded.

Increasingly, these events are not your standard-shelfware of conferences with speakers pitching their products or showcasing their own brilliance. The Born Digital Generation wants to own the discussion and even decide on the agenda through crowdsourcing – or in this case Friendsourcing. These people already know each other – through social media. The events are just a chance to have some facetime.

         
Iceland Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference http://www.rimc.is/en/ March 21-22 Great lineup of visionary speakers
Sweden SSMX – Sweden Social Media Exchange www.ssmx.se February 22-24 Unconference – agenda is friendsourced
Sweden SSWC – Sweden Social Web Camp http://www.swedensocialwebcamp.com/ August 15 – 18 Unconference – 450 creative minds on an island.
Norway Webforum http://web-forum.no/ March 14-15 Setting the stage for social in Norway
         

And here’s a reminder – a list of Nordic innovators you may or may not know were… Nordic (thanks to @dortetoft and Thomas Madsen-Mygdal for the comprehensive list):

  • Linux was invented by Linus Torvalds (Finland)
  • C++ was created by Bjarne Stoustrup (Denmark)
  • Microsofts C# (C Sharp) and so also the .Net-platform came from Anders Hejlsberg (Denmark)
  • PHP-scripting was created by Rasmus Lerdorf (Denmark)
  • MySQL was invented by a Finn and a Swede (not sure of their names, can anyone help?)
  • Ruby on Rails – we can thank David Heinemeier Hansson (Denmark)
  • Opera was built in Norway and Iceland (not sure of their names, can anyone help?)
  • Linus Torvalds (Finland) gave us GIT
  • The Danish company Umbraco provides the CMS-system on the Microsoft platform ( Niels Hartvig)
  • Skype was invented by a Dane and a Swede (Janus Friis, Niklas Zennström)
  • Oh, and don’t forget Spotify (Sweden), Angry Birds (Rovio-Finland) and Minecraft (Sweden)

More references:

http://bizzen.blogs.business.dk/2013/01/28/it-ivaerksaetter-norden-gor-det-godt-men-for-smat/

http://www.swedishtradehistory.com/Assignments/From-circular-to-the-internet/

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/communications-market-reports/cmr12/international/icmr-5.07

http://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii/main/2012rankings.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/switzerland-sweden-are-world-s-most-innovative-countries.html

http://www.ideaconnection.com/blog/2012/07/highlighting-the-worlds-most-innovative-countries/

http://www.wired.co.uk/topics/wired-european-startups

Good people to follow if you want to be on top of Nordics innovation (feel free to add to list – ping me):

@annika

@hampusbrynolf

@trulytherese