Inspired by Swedish blogger Fredrik Wass who stated that he will blog for a 100 days in a row I felt I had to get my blog going again. So here we go!

Photographed by Paulina while forecasting trends at the Creative Summit together with among others Brian Solis and Alf Rehn.

In 2011 I was honored to be selected as the keynote speaker for events all over Europe. I delivered more than 80 keynotes on entrepreneurship, creative ideas, future branding, communication and business development, some of them shared here on Slideshare. In more than 90% of the occasions I was given the highest ranking of all the speakers by the audience. Hell, I even spoke for 24 hours in a row without any sleep. In other words – I’m confident I have some thoughts to share on how to deliver a great keynote presentation.

Here are 15 keys to deliver a fantastic keynote presentation.

1. Before even getting on stage – make sure you’ve got your logos, pathos and ethos wired.

What you speak about is 50% of your keynote, but the way you look and sound giving that keynote is the other 50%. The worlds first branding expert Aristotles knew how to make people buy what he sold. He divided the means of persuasion, appeals, into three categories; Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

- Ethos: the source’s credibility, the speaker’s/author’s authority

My credibility when I’m speaking is of course a mix of how I look, my credentials and the way I bring my message forward on stage. A common mistake I see over and over again is when speakers enter the stage and then go; “Before I speak, let me tell you about who I am and the company I’m representing.” This is more or less totally unnecessary since you’re there for a reason. If you do your thing right people will understand that you know your shit. After all, someone invited you so the people in front of you in the crowd will surely expect you to deliver. Remember that no one knows what you will say before you say it so don’t be to hard on yourself if you forget something you were supposed to say!

Who would you listen to if you were a banker? Who would you listen to if you were an Art Director?

An important thing though is to avoid making people angry (if that’s now what your assignment is) by dressing totally wrong, swearing or making fun of things that matter to the people in the room. A certain amount of selling should always be taken into account even if it requires you to dress up differently than you’re used to.

- Logos: the logic used to support a claim (induction and deduction); can also be the facts and statistics used to help support the argument.

When it comes to logos there’s different ways to handle this. Reliable statistics, famous quotes, facts and but also your own observations. However if you only bring up a observation as a proof of your theory you’ll tend to make people feel unsure about your whole presentaiton. But if you make sure to find patterns in historical information and present them in an understandable way you’re usually home free.

In 2007 I spoke about how Facebook would be the worlds most trafficked site with the help of this technical analysis of site traffic.

After all – if you are giving a keynote about future trends or an idea the world have never seen you will have to present logics that support your claims. The history if often your best friend when speaking about things in the future.

- Pathos: the emotional or motivational appeals; vivid language, emotional language and numerous sensory details.

Mirror mirror on the wall! Yes it’s actually true. The more you rehearse the better you get. Use your face, eyes, arms, voice and your whole body. Once you’ve got it wired get out there and rock the party!

2. If you don’t know the subject – don’t speak at all.

The worst presentations I’ve ever given over the years are the ones where I didn’t really master the subject. Avoid moments like that. Of course that shouldn’t keep you from challenging yourselves every now and then. But don’t choose the big arenas for those crying games.

3. Ask what your contractor want

I’ve learned that no one knows your audience better than your contractor. Therefor it’s key that you ask what they want to achieve with your keynote. Make people happy? Make people angry? Make people scared or give people hope. Still I don’t want to much information. It’s important that the contractor doesn’t shape my presentation After all, I am the professional. My solution is the five bullet point rule. Before every presentation I’m expected to give I ask my contractor to send me five short bullets that explains who I’m speaking in front, what they want them to learn, how they want the audience to feel once I’m done and what the goal with the event is.

4. Sell one thing!

This is an easy one so I’ll keep it short – If you’re selling fish don’t make up stories about dead meat. Make sure people understans that know one knows big fish as you do!

5. Drop the corporate bullshit

If you’re representing your company and is expeted to sell something then make sure you share your knowledge and people will ask you in the end what you sell. Nothing sells as competence. Trust people to contact you if they thought you knew what you were talking about.  If you’re on stage purely focused on selling no one will listen to what you’re actually selling.

6. Drop the bullets.

Sometimes the best solution is to make fun of the worst.

No one wants you to read bullets from corporate slides. We’ve all been there. Stuck in the middle of an audience listening to some boring odd character looking not on us but instead on his own presentation and reading those bullets like dead people read poems…not good. Please stop giving keynotes if you don’t know how to sell your shit! Tons of corporate CEO’s are really good at this. They’re sent off to a stage somewhere in never-never-land expected to deliver a keynote with a deck of slides in their hands prepared by a assistent somewhere. I hate CEO’s speaking of shit they don’t know shit about. What’s up with that?

7. Drop the corporate fonts

Every slide in your deck should be there for a reason!

There’s nothing as boring as a presentation with one headline font and then another one for the rest. You’re on stage to inspire people, teach them something and especially keep them awake. No two slides should be the same.

8. Tell stories from your own life.

Preparing a keynote and a story about how my snowboard career ended.

Nothing brings life to a presentation like your own life. True stories that are coming from your own life are the best. People have never heard them before, they’re authentic and people out of some reason always count them as real stories. Of course, if you end up telling stories about Marsians and shit like that people will probably not belive you.

9. You’ve also got ‘black’ slides in your deck!

This is your most valuable slide!

In the world of photoshop, keynote, powerpoint and prezis maybe the most valuable color of them all – black – is often forgotten. If you’ve got something to say that you really really really want people to listen to. Place a black slide in the middle of the deck and let those words out without distraction. If you’re doing it right you’ll have your audience spellbound.

10. Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse some more.

This is one of the things I’m really bad at. But every time I’ve done a presentation that I’m really proud of I’ve almost rehearsed it. I even rehearse presentations that I know by heart already. You can never rehearse enough!

11. It’s your stage. Then make sure it fits your needs.

One of the key factors to delivering a great keynote is the actuall stage. Far to many times have I entered a stage that didn’t match the venue. Maybe the stage was to big compared to how many people visited the event or vice versa. Every now and then someone has placed a wide table between you and the audience – remove it. If people take their places far back in the room – leave the stage and get closer to them. The last thing you want is an audience that thinks your on stage acting superior and distant.

12. One minute before entering the stage

An audience in Zagreb minutes before I’m entering the stage.

Ok, so you’re all done and prepared to give the speech of your life. Remember those five bullet points I wrote about. Now it’s time to get into presentation mode. When I’m waiting to enter the stage I think about these five bullets. The most important one however is how did my contractor want people to feel once I’m done. If they wanted me to make people happy I’m smiling like a dumbass those last 60 seconds. I they wanted me to provoke the audience I’m getting myself psyched up and angry. If they wanted me to make people feel enlightened I’m getting ready to enlighten people. And then I do my best to keep that feeling alive all through the presentation.

13. If something goes wrong – restart yourselves.

Once you’re up there doing your best you will experience moments of dispair. You might see someone in the audience looking bored, someone looks tired or maybe you’ll get an angry comment. Now is the time to seek your inner strenght. Think back to that presentation mode you were supposed to deliver upon. Take a breath, pause, make people wait and then restart. You’ll notice that this will get you back on track!

14. Never lose track of time.

Make sure you prepare your presenter display right.

Rule number one of all presentations. If you’ve got 20 minutes it’s 20 minutes. Not less and definitely not more. If you’re using Apple Keynote you should make sure to set up your second screen with timer and a clock. Another good idea can be to download an app that Per Axbom told me about. It’s called Timer for iPhone and let’s you set up sections to keep track of time. It’s a great help!

15. Shine!

Now it’s up to you! Rock on!

About 2 month ago I was invited to Best Internet and beautiful Zagreb in Croatia to host a full day workshop on the future of communication. Me another 85 people had a great day where I mixed speaking sessions with, what I love the most, open discussions.

Before this event I was contacted by the leading business newspaper in Croatia – Lider. They wanted me to answer 10 questions that they would base an article on. Today as I was cleaning my desktop on my computer I thought – since you probably understand as much Croatian as I do I thought this could be a good blog post. So here we go.

Johan Ronnestam answers 10 questions about the future of communication (in Croatia to some extent

1. Once you are on the internet your competition is whole world and people speak in one language (mostly english). How can local brands stay local or share national values while ‘living’ in virtual world?

Johan Ronnestam: By being just that – Local. In a globalized world people will look for the unique brand that delivers something beyond what you can shop in every parts of the world, every country and every city. The times when we all wanted Starbucks coffee is soon to be over. Everyone who’s been traveling the last ten years recognize the feeling. You travel all over the world only to find the same brands you can shop for at home. Branding and marketing has always been about differentiation – and that’s why building on local uniqueness is the way forward.

2. You wrote that brand should offer value, not just sell, sell, sell…They should teach consumers some skills or just share knowledge. I agree, but how to explain it to CEO or CFO? What and when could they expect return on investment?

Johan Ronnestam: First off. It’s really not that different from a non-digital world. The brands you wanna come back to are the brands that offer more than their product. Traditionally this used to be about well educated sales personel, customer magazines, cliniques and more. It’s time to move this knowledge online but with the understanding that online means transparency. It’s easier than ever to compare products and features. So – the online salesmen (sites) gotta focus on value over sales. Sales will follow. When it comes to return on investment I think the answer is long term growth in social networks, search and obviously brand recognition. The social and search part can easily be measured. The brand recognition is tough to isolate – but that’s always been the case. Hasn’t it?

3. Do we really know our consumers? I mean, which are the easiest ways to get to know them or test them?

Johan Ronnestam: No we don’t. We tend to think we know our consumers but the consumer (if you even wanna call them that today) today is not the same as yesterday. People are more like chameleons. We tend to jump back and forth when it comes to identity. We simply don’t wanna be tagged. Online however we can really know what our visitors do and how they perform tasks. But don’t fall into the trap thinking you know who they are. A 18 year old guy from the suburbs wont react the same way twice.

4. What are your predictions concerning investment in internet as a media? What is going to happen with traditional media?

Johan Ronnestam: In a near future I don’t think we’ll look at the landscape as a media landscape. We’ll look at it more as a formated landscape. What I mean with this is that TV commercial won’t be a TV commercial any more. A forced video message however will live on. We’ll always be in need of distributing messages containing products and brands that people never heard of – for that we can not rely on search, social media etc. Someone has to find it first. PR and ambassadors marketing will of course mean a lot for those kind of messages but there will always be a place for interrupted messages like the ones TV, Print and Outdoor deliver today. The effect of the digital revolution however is that the information gathering, the desire and even the sales part of the consumer journey will be digitalised and therefor transformed.

5. In Croatia experts talk about digital revolution, internet marketing campaigns etc, but still, none has the courage to invest or try those virtual project like those in western market. What should the do first (as beginners) and what are the things they should know before investing in internet communication? What are the biggest signals that market (consumers) are ready for that kind of communication?

Johan Ronnestam: Prototypes. Experiments. Failure. Success. Meaning – you’ll have to mark a certain part of your media budget, not your production budget, for experiments that might lead you forward. The internet is unique in the sense that no two solutions are the same for two brands. You have to find your own way forward. One thing is for sure – as we’re seeing a shift in how people consumer brands we’ll also see new winners and losers on the market. The looses, as always when a behavior changes, will definitely be the ones that doesn’t welcome change.

6. How to boost traffic and where does it come from mostly?

Johan Ronnestam: Great brands today and tomorrow are built on great products. If you got em’ people will find you. If you’re product doesn’t stand the competition. Start there.

7. You wrote that faces, copy and design are very important and warned that competitors are just click away. Can you tell us something about that?

Johan Ronnestam: In the real world if you’ve found your way to a car dealer and everything doesn’t meet your demand it’s still for you to get into the car, drive for 30 minutes and find that next dealer. Online that click is just one step away. If your audience doesn’t get your design, understand your navigation, like your tone of voice he/she will type a new search into Google and move to the next brand.

8. What can we expect in future? Boom of conversational marketing? What about virtual advertising?

Johan Ronnestam: I actually think we’re in a 10-15 year period where small brands can bloom. But once those large brands find their way online for real (yep I think most of them suck at online communication) we’ll see how Adwords auctions will be about money again – and large brands got loads of that stuff. However – I do hope some of those small brands find their way up on the global scene

9. What are your thoughts on trend of branded web-series?

Johan Ronnestam: If focused on value regarding the category in which their products exist – great. Otherwise mostly stupid.

10. Internet is all about speed…What about emotions?

Johan Ronnestam: Technology and user interfaces is not what the brand is about. It’s merely the means to deliver the consumer experience of the product. So, photography, video and copy equals emotions. The actual websites however should focus on conversion, usability. By doing so you’ll end up having consumers feeling positive. I think Apple proves that both can be achieved side by side.

Ah. And before you leave this post. Here’s the presentation I held:

I’ve always wanted to write a book. This is NOT it!
So far this year my blog have had more than 115 000 unique visitors and just over 240 000 visits. I’ve written more than 500 blog posts covering everything from design, gadgets, trends, technology, advertising, innovations, personal things, branding and more.

About 28% of the visitors during this last year have ended up reading a post that was tagged with branding. That’s probably not a coincidence since besides trends and creativity I’d say branding is the subject that is the most dearest to me.

When I’ve been looking deeper down into the stats I’ve seen that many of you visitors haven’t really explored my blog beyond the posts on the first page or the actual post you came to read. This is why I thought it made sense to gather them all like this – ‘Top 10 Blog Posts on Future Branding and Communication From Ronnestam.com’ - My first book.

A Book, MashUp, PDF or Whatever You Wanna Call It By Johan Ronnestam

Even though this isn’t actually what I would call a book it’s been the perfect opportunity for me to experiment with the production process of a book. I’ve put a big block in my calendar covering January, February and March and if everything goes right I will present my ‘real’ book sometime in April or May next year. It will be a book on how to integrate future communication with product and service development. One things for sure – I’m doing it on my own. But for now you have to do with this first book, mashup, pdf or whatever you wanna call it.

4 Ways to get your hands on Top 10 Blog Posts on Future Branding and Communication From Ronnestam.com With Love

1. Buy a signed copy of the printed book – 39€ including shipping world wide.

I’ve printed 150 books in Denmark at Norhaven. Out of those 150 I’m giving 50 signed copies away to the first 50 Twitter retweets of this post (if you live outside Sweden you have to pay for the shipping). If you wanna get your hand on one of the other 100 signed ones you either hope to get one at one of my speaking occasions during 2010 or you contact me to buy one for €39 including shipping costs.

2. Download the PDF for free (pay by linking or tweeting this blog post)

Here’s the PDF if you wanna download it and read it off your screen (lower resolution due to file size) or maybe print it yourselves. Like everything else on my blog it’s licensed under my Creative Commons license.

3. Read it on Slideshare or Scribd

Head over to Slideshare or Scribd, it’s your choice. But remember to spread the love and tweet the book.

4. Read each and every blog post here at Ronnestam.com

This is of course the simplest and fastest way. Get going below and if you like it tweet it!

Blog Post 1 – { Originally Posted October 7, 2009 }
All Your Brands Are Belong To Us

Blog Post 2 – { Originally Posted October 7, 2009 }
If you wanna get some brand love tomorrow you better get into the conversation today

Blog Post 3 – { Originally Posted September 26, 2009 }
Dear CEO’s, Board Members and Top Management – what’s more important? Wine or Change?

Blog Post 4 – { Originally Posted February 18, 2009 }
Let’s start a revolution – get of the boat and build yourselves a new brand transportation system.

Blog Post 5 – { Originally Posted February 1, 2009 }
Controlling your brand with creative excellence

Blog Post 6 – { Originally Posted August 25, 2009 }
Seduce us or excuse us – 11 ways to bring your brand up to date

Blog Post 7 – { Originally Posted January 2, 2009 }
Get your clown suit ready if you wanna reach out to consumers in 2009

Blog Post 8 – { Originally Posted March 4, 2009 }
WWRD – 36 things Ronnestam would do differently if he had control of brand that delivered broadband, telecom and television services

Blog Post 9 – { Originally Posted September 8, 2009 }
Why SAAB, Volvo, Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Peugeot, AUDI, Chevrolet, Buick and the rest of the car industry should the adopt the iPhone model and develop the InCar OS

Blog Post 10 – { Originally Posted December 29, 2008 }
Brand and communication predictions for ?2009 by Johan Ronnestam

ps. At the moment I’m trying hard to finalise my predictions for 2010. Keep a look out for that.

Happy New Year!

This post is probably most stupid post one can write since CEO’s and board members seems to have decided to stay behind with the dinosaurs while the rest of us look for new ground where we can thrive and prosper. Basically on average they read three local newspapers of their own choice, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and watch a couple of TV channels. They haven’t got a clue about blogs, feed readers and social networks. But I’ll give it a go anyway.

Dear CEO and board member. In most cases you’re probably +40 years old. You have a wife, two kids and live in a house that cost above average. Two cars in the garage and a country-side home. You spend weekends together with other CEO’s and board members in order to secure your position in the hierarchical ladder of success (or at least what you define as a success). Vacations are chosen based on where you’re supposed to be rather than where you would like to go.

Or as Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and chief executive officer (obviously an exception) of WPP puts it 13 minutes into this very insightful video below:

“Clients, mediaowners and agencies tend to be run by older people. They’ve got to the top of companies. Change is the last thing they’re really interested in. You want a quiet life, travel around the world and making sure everything’s ok”

It’s your life we’re talking about and I understand you don’t want to rock the boat. That could of course lead to you having to sell your boat, spend your vacation in another place and replace some of those expensive wine bottles of yours with cheaper ones. So sitting tight along with the rest and not challenge the establishment is probably the right thing to do. After all, in 10-20 years there’s another generation coming along – let them change things.

No! Nee! ????! Ne! Ei! ?! Nein! ??! Nei! Nej!

There is no time for that! You have to start changing things now before your company gets run over by a couple of teenagers sitting in a coffee shop disrupting your business. (Not that I don’t love that idea). The world is in a state of change. Companies and brands all over the world are falling behind due to slow leadership.

Since I’m trying to not to be one of those persons who’s all about yelling I’d also like to provide you with a couple of guidelines you may wanna follow:

Every company can and should become an e-Business.

Make everyone in your company think, eat, shit the E. That’s how the military would have said it. And it suits this post pretty good. The digital world turn things upside down in a way we’ve never seen before so you’ve gotta make sure everyone is on the boat.

A common problem is that a few people in the marketing department might have a clue about what goes on. But, without support from you – the board of directors, the CEO, CTO and CFO they’re screwed. Far too many companies sees the internet as yet another business area. But the internet does in fact change every little bit of your company.

The internet cuts horizontally through every part of your business so your future marketing and communication strategy has to do the same.

Communication of tomorrow is not about new formats or channels it’s about a whole new way of thinking about your business.

This new digital order calls for a totally new way of thinking and I don’t believe many traditional advertising agencies know shit about it. The fault is not really theirs, it’s yours. You have to integrate marketing into your product development. On top of that you have to make sure that marketing competence knows all about digital and traditional marketing cause the problem is more complex that dividing things into digital and traditional advertising.

Today we have categorized consultants into categories – Advertising, Internet consultants, PR, Event, Mobile, Direct Marketing, Guerrilla and so on. Tomorrow you will have to get all of those brains into a single one. Of course, your Advertising agency might suggest you put together some sort of workshop with people from each category – THIS IS WRONG.

The problem with such a setup is that it’s a compromise. You can never reach a satisfactory result by having a lead agency that knows traditional communication and then a group of other consultants. You simply have to get it all into one brain cause that single advertising idea has to take every category into account when you develop and launch ideas.

Look at Garmin for example. They develop among other things GPS running watches. The watch syncs my runs via Bluetooth with an online community that shows me where I’ve been running on a Google map. My information is then automatically uploaded to Facebook so that I can share my training data with friends.

Is this social advertising, a product, service or crm?

Ask yourselves – What is marketing, what is product and what is business development.

I say It’s all tied together in a way we’ve never seen before and most of you CEO’s, board members and top management don’t get the full picture.

Of course Garmin advertise their products today, but tomorrow they might rely on viral traffic from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks that is more or less injected into their entire business.

The future mix of communication and advertising is so tied together with business and product development so in order for us communication consultants to deliver a work well done and on brief we have to get new kind of briefs with new kind of objectives. Communication and advertising has to move up the ladder and we have to look beyond advertising. Instead we have to rethink how companies develop and launch products, how companies are organized in order to sell, how the people in a company can be more involved on every level and how a CEO can learn what the digital world can do for his company.

So, integrate advertising, marketing and communication straight into your business development. And if you as a CEO don’t understand these different formats you’ve got nothing there to do!

I call for a new category – let’s call it entrepreneurial advertising. An entrepreneur would never go on with any kind of communication that didn’t deliver. It’s time for you to care about your company in that way too!

You might wanna head back and read one of my older posts: ‘Seduce us or excuse us – 11 ways to bring your brand up to date‘ that broadens my point of view even further.

What’s your business doing there when it should be here

We are out there waiting but we’re not only in front of the TV anymore.

Think about your business. You’ve probably got tons of content waiting to be spread. Catalogues, photos, movies, texts, ads, business systems and so on. Well, what are you waiting for? Put it out there. And out there doesn’t mean you should publish it on your own platforms or one that matches your own ideals. Let it loose.

A common mistake is choosing between different social platforms. People ask me – “If I am to publish video online, should I choose YouTube or Vimeo?” I answer every time – “Choose them all!” There is no cost involved. People spend time on different sites. And the more content you have out there, the more traffic you’ll get in return. If you spread content on outside platforms you will in the end receive traffic back to your brand in one way or another. If it’s done by the book it will do wonders for your SEO work.

In order to get the best possible performance from your products and services. Think about what you can do best and work your ass off in order to make your brand the nr 1 source for people enjoying your product category. If you’re in the business of building cars, think, do you build cars for transportation, for fun or for some other purpose. If you think it’s about transportation. Let’s say families. Then do everything in your power to become the brand that makes transportation more efficient, more safe and more fun.

The conversation prism by Brian Solis

So, think about how you can distribute your brand all over the digital world the same way you distribute it in the offline world. The only difference is that distribution online is for free once you’ve turned your content production and communication process around.

Connect not collect

People don’t want to connect to your products or services. They wanna connect to values, beliefs, emotions, passion and personality. Like when I wrote about Telco’s earlier this year: “We are in the entertainment business – let’s act as such”.

The brands that invite people to a conversation, listen to them, show them respect and show that they value people for being people and not potential money – those brands will be the winners.

Creative excellence

I’m not gonna write about this one again since I’ve outline it a post before. But I suggest you read that one once you’re done reading this post.

Get your own fan club

In order for your business to be virally spread. Get fans and let them break the rule.
A problem today is that most things spreading like wildfire on the net tend to break a couple of rules. As a legal business you have a disadvantage against the everyday consumer. However, if you get the everyday consumer on board, let him or her do the dirty work. If they like you they’ll be more than happy to stand on the barricades.

Have a look at Zappos for example. Their CEO has got 1,356,038 followers on Twitter! How many have you got?

Get all your employees on board or actually off board. Seriously, if your employees are reachable with land lines or email. Then why shouldn’t I be able to follow them on twitter or become friends with them on Facebook?

The media 180° turn

Yesterday – we all got communicated to when we were in front of the TV or reading a magazine at a certain time on a certain day. This meant brands had to spend quite a lot of time and money to hit a consumer with their message.

Tomorrow – your message must be on 24/7 standby so that when your potential target searches for whatever you’re selling you hit that consumer one time – and that time you’ve gotta hit on your first shot. Everything that stands in your way will lead to a misfire.

Read all the news not only the filtered stuff

I opened up this post with critique pointed towards the fact that most people read only a few sources of information on a daily basis. That was all ok when leading media companies still had monopoly on information. However today most news you read in for example Wall Street Journal has already been out there for a couple of days and the diversity is not broad enough. That’s what you’ve gotta create your own customized news desk based on what you need to know in order to run your company. I would say you have to move from reading 5-10 sources to 50-100 a day.

Last year I tipped about my own source of information – tons of RSS feeds read through Netvibes that I also use to track my brand. Why not start by following some of the channels I personally follow and then slowly remodel that interface to fit your own needs. Read the post I wrote about it for more information.

To sum things up!

As always there’s tons of more things to do. But that would require me to write a book and there’s just not enough time to do that this weekend. Sooner or later I’ll publish that one as well and then I promise I’ll give each and every board member of a Swedish listed company a copy for free!

Finally before I end this post I’d also recommend you to browse through this presentation that I held last week about 10 trends on future communication. It might light up the path for you even more.

See you on the other side!

This weekend I was one of the privileged ones attending the second TEDxStockholm with among others Hans Rosling speaking. TEDxStockholm is a place for people who believe in the power of ideas and inspiring talks to help shape the face of the future.

A great picture by Gitta Wilén from the first TEDxStockholm. Can you spot me?

Together with another 200 people (who like me created their own name tag) I spent the sunny Saturday inside a cellar and I’ll tell you – if I could have turned myself into a Bat I’d still be there hanging up side down, still inspired still amazed. Thank you Teo Härén and Henrik Ahlen for turning my Sunday into a joyride !

My TEDxStockholm name tag

Once home I spent the evening with some friends who had never heard about TED and once again I realized how few people in this country who actually know about the whole TED.com thing.

Nobody, absolutely nobody should spend their life on this wet bowling ball of ours that we call Mother Earth without having spent at least 10 hours of their life on TED.com.

TED is about sharing thoughts on innovation, ideas, research, knowledge and passion. And since I’m personally all about passion I’d like to share one my favorite speeches from TED before you go on and explore on your own. Here is Isabel Allende telling you tales about passion in the most passionate way one can imagine

So, even though this post feels like the most obvious post I’ve ever written I just have to make one thing sure – ALL OF YOU! GO TO TED.COM now if you haven’t been there before. Learn and become inspired.

I don’t know about you but I’ve had a great summer. Most of the time I’ve been spending time with my kids but I’ve managed to sneak in some golf, sailing with my Hobie Cat, boat riding in the Archipelago, BBQ with friends and family and above all – time off. In order for creativity to grow you’ve gotta mix up thinking time with black holes.

Linn och Ebba. My beloved ice cream junkies enjoying the Swedish summer.

Summer however is coming to an end and I’m slowly am firing up my engine. Once that engine is started I do hope we meet – who ever you are.

This autumn I’ll continue to deliver my services to a diverse group of brands and companies that has asked my help in order to create advertising campaigns and strategies that moves their brands and businesses into the future.

My work includes everything from re-branding, art direction, jury-work, integrated advertising campaigns, online strategies, business developments and creative ideas to different agencies worldwide etc.

The next couple of months I’ll tell you more about some of my ‘gigs‘ but for now let’s focus on my speaking appearances.

During the fall you can catch me, Johan Ronnestam, at one of my speaking appearances:

8 & 16 September: Malmö & Göteborg
Keynote speaker – IDG Internetworld Webbdagarna

Webbdagarna is one of Swedens most important events for anyone with an interest of doing business online. That would more or less really mean anyone! Before the summer I was asked the question to deliver the keynote that would kick the event off. Without a blink I accepted.

5 October: Stockholm
Berghs School of Communication – An introduction to tomorrows advertising

This School is considered the worlds best school of advertising. Meeting the students, eager to learn, is one of my most important and enjoyable assignments of the year. See you there if you’re a student that is!

8 October: Stockholm
The NEXT Event by Wednesday Relations directed by Johan Ronnestam – Director and moderator

This is one of the highlights of the year. Wednesday Relations asked me to direct an event for them. The list of speakers is turning this event in to a must see event this year. I’ll be moderating the event together with Wednesday Relations and also introduce and end the day.

13 October: Uppsala
Handelns Dag – Svensk Handel / Swedish Trade Federation

If you’re in retailing you can be sure of one thing – the competition is coming from online businesses, not offline. This is probably why I’m one of the speakers at Handelns Dag 2009 in Uppsala.

20 October: Stockholm
Läkemedelskongressen 2009 – Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Sweden is just about to release the monopoly on running a pharmacy. As a result of this I’ve been invited to talk about digital communication and social media at this years Läkemedelskongressen at the City Conference Centre in Stockholm.

21 October: Tammsvik
Future Brand Academy Seminar – More information coming soon.

The Future Brand Academy is an exiting cooperation I have together with Göran Adlen. We will present more information soon. Until then, hang on to the 21 October in your calendars.

3 November: Stockholm
Successful E-business – Svensk Handel / Swedish Trade Federation

What’s the latest trends within e-business. How should you use social media to market your online presences. What about integrated communication. How can you innovate your business. These are some of the areas I’ll cover when Svensk Handel is arraning a full day focused on E-Business.

25 November: Stockholm
Keynote speaker – Webbstrategidagarna / Online strategy

Soon Christmas. But before then I’ll hopefully enlighten a group of people aiming to strenghten their sense for online strategy at Webbstrategidagarna (Online strategy days)

So, that’s the schedule right now. Keep an eye for updates. Of course I do hope that if you have a seminar, an offsite or just need to enlighten a group of people you get in touch and maybe I can inspire or enlighten your brand too.

Brands all over the world – Google, IBM, Nike, BMW, Porsche, Starbucks, Coca Cola & Levi Straus, they all say the think about sustainability. What about your brand?

Sustainability is a beautiful word, especially in terms of how it affects brands. The true meaning of it is ‘the capacity to endure’ and that’s more or less what every brand owner wants out of his brand or company – endurance. Then of course I do think most of you know that the meaning of it today is about authenticity, what your brand actively does in order to make the world a better place tomorrow than it is today. Whatever your business is, rest assured that you are tearing the earth resources down as you’re producing your products and delivering your services. Sustainable brands take responsibility and make sure they’re leaving a better world behind. Only then will you be able to maintain a brand that is loved over time.

One of my regular reads, the David Report Blog, published a ‘bulletin’ on sustainability about a month ago. The report called; ‘A checklist for sustainability’ presents seven steps that will raise questions, thoughts and hopefully provide you with some ideas on how to make sure your brand doesn’t only take but also give something back. The checklist is based on the Sustainable Wheel, a holistic vision of sustainable design developed by the knowledge company Designboost.

It’s a great read and we got no time to loose, so point that clicker of yours below and get started! Who knows, you might end up turning your brand into a modern one. And even better, you might end up making the world a better place while doing so.

Let me tell you how you felt yesterday evening around 5PM in Stockholm, Sweden.

Around 5pm you were all sitting on front row in the Swedish theater Rival where the nice people over at Daytona had reserved a seat for you. Along with another 49 nominees and about 500 in the audience you first listened to a great speech by Morris Packer, nothing revolutionary but what a show. Morris earned some extra cred for using Prezi instead of Powerpoint or Keynote. Then came Katarina Graffman from Inculture and delivered insights on youth culture based on ethnographic fieldwork. Very insightful and very true. Not a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Now the time had come to award the best marketing blogs in Sweden, the Yaba Award and you were all nominated. 3568 people had taken their time to vote. Time for the first category, Trend & Internet – and the winner is YOU.

Suddenly you’re nervous and the stage is yours. A couple of questions later you’re leaving the stage with flowers and a damn nice statue made of glass.

Then came category nr two – Media. This time the winner was Same Same but different, well worth it. Category three – Marketing. And the winners is…ah, you’re second. Please Copy Me sprinted and won with a margin of 31 votes. In your head you sum up the competition. 3568 votes and you received 281 + 278 of those votes. That’s 559 votes, more than 15% of all the votes. Humble, moved, happy and ready to party. It was YOUR day! – Thank you! The evening was of course broadcasted live using Bambuser.

Bilden kommer från Inblicki.se Flickr konto

Torsdagen förra veckan var jag nere i småland och besökte Växjö Konsthall. Det var Mikael Berg på Goodrace som hade lockat dit mig och Björn Jeffrey på Good Old för att föreläsa om kommunikation och sociala media. Goodrace hade tillsammans med Jim Davis Labs annordnat en strålande tillställning som de kallade Inblicki med fin fin uppslutning. Riktigt bra initiativ som absolut uppskattades av mig och förhoppningsvis även av publiken.

Strax innan vi körde igång gjorde Anna Johansson på Kronobergs Radio en intervju med mig som låg till grunden för ett radioinslag som sändes idag klockan 17:00.  Radioinslaget finns också att lyssna på hos Radio Kronoberg.

PS. Soundcloud ovan är coolt när man ska dela med sig av ljudfiler

Mashable directed me to this great presentation by French consulting agency Fabernovel.

If you’re looking for insights on Google – this is it. In 34 slides Fabernovel has dissected the secrets behind Googles plan to take over the world. Reading this doesn’t only give you an insight into Google, but also into how to think when growing your business online. Red-it, favorized on slideshare and blogged it!

Den här veckan är jag bland annat på Stockholms Universitet och pratar om digital kommunikation. Därför hinner jag inte riktigt med att skriva så mycket som jag vill här på bloggen. Men, passar ändå på att bjussa på gårdagens presentation om Internets historia och framtid. Ett urval av viktiga händelser som kommer påverka hur vi utformar kommunikation i framtiden. Presentationen slutar med en länkhänvisning till Kevin Kelly’s tal om Internets framtid. Titta på den om ni inte har gjort det. Klart sevärd.

Right now we’re rebuilding Foreign.se, the website of the digital communication company that I was a part in founding more than 6 years ago.

While it’s down we’ve placed all our work on Flickr. Thought it was a nice opportunity to send my blogreaders that way too. So, head over there to see a selection of what I’ve worked with through out the years at Foreign.