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!

If you’re my brand: Never let me down. Keep on making me smile. Stay cool. Always surprise me. Change when you need to, but stay true to your heritage. Dress nice. Make sure I don’t have to hide our love. If you do something bad – stay honest and tell the truth cause I will forgive you. And finally! Never ever take me for granted.

Tokyo in sunrise – A Brand that didn’t let me down. Taken from my Instagram feed.

If you’ll stick to these simple guidelines – I’m prepared to spend the rest of my life with you and give you my all my love. If not – get lost!

About two years ago I frantically started writing on this blog post. Then the sheer length of it got the best of me and since then it’s been stuck in my unpublished library. Now I thought it’s time to give birth to this baby even though most of it was written about two years ago, before Facebook got big, the iPad and more.

When you read it – remember I pushed publish to share the love, not the excellent writing.

This post covers how you start and run a company practically for free.

The post will guide you all the way from day one until you’re up and running and need to consider things like sales, advertising, process support, crm, intranets, extranets etc etc.

I spend about 1-2 hours a day reading about communication, advertising, social media and innovations through my Netvibes account. What’s truly amazing is the fact that almost every day a new service is launched somewhere in the world (mostly in the US) that replaces the old way to advertise, communicate with clients, run projects, process customer data, run your IT systems, keep track of your finances etc etc. And what’s even more amazing is that all these new services are practically always available free of charge or at least only for a small fee.

So I thought why not spread this knowledge to my blog readers and especially you out there who are running a company or thinking of starting one. Here are some ideas on how to think when setting up a future brand.

So, here we go – How to run your small business without loosing your pants (or the money in your pants that is)

The development within the ‘so-called’ web 2.0 services has now gone so far so it’s possible to run your company practically without any in-house IT systems. Even a larger company could without problems move everything they do online at practically no costs at all.

When you sum it all up it’s time for companies to reevaluate how to do business. Social networking and long tail services are taking over.

So, what if you were to run a company today? What’s the formula? How can you run a business without paying a dime for technology and getting social attention at the same time. Once you got that business idea of yours ready to go. Then it’s time to tell the world. And don’t worry, if you haven’t got one, there’s even resources online that give away business ideas for free.

0.9 Before you start

First thing. In terms of costs, there are two things you should prioritize over everything else and that is: 1. Broadband – get the fastest connection possible. And make sure it’s down and upstream. 2. Get a really good computer. Choose a Mac. Not because I’m against PC but because it’ll support your creativity and once it’s up and running, you’ll never have to restart it again. It just keeps running and running.

A good friend of mine told me “We’re changing our tag line. But in order to know which one to use we’re putting out Google Adwords campaigns for 10 of our finalists. The one that generates the most traffic, that will be our choice”

1. Business plan, marketing plan and a key note presentation.

Whatever you do. Make sure you put it on paper. Putting things on paper forces you to choose carefully. Put whatever you’ve written into the hands of friends and you’ll get great feedback on what you need to fine tune. Do you need inspiration? Visit slideshare.net or Scribd and then get going.

2. Register a domain.

IMPORTANT: Register your domain with the company where you intend to host your website.

IMPORTANT 2: Unless your fancy with code – don’t register with a hosting company that doesn’t have support for auto installers. I personally recommend Bluehost.com. But if you’re a Swede you might wanna check Binero out.

There are of course some other alterantives like Active 24, Bust A Name, Miss Domain and SEDO.

3. Forget expensive software.

Don’t buy software. They’re expensive. You’ll have to buy updates once a year. Instead use online softwares. Most companies need Email, Word, Excel and Powerpoint. For that I recommend Google Apps instead. Some companies may need graphical design tools. Well, then use Gimp or something like Splashup for graphical design.

Inside Google Apps you’ll provide your employees with Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites. On top of that Google Apps is integrated with Salesforce, something I’ll explain more about under CRM.

Gmail — Offer custom email addresses to your organization with up to 25 gigabytes of storage for each account, search tools to help people find information fast, plus instant messaging and calendar tools built right into the email interface.

Google Talk — Your users can call or send instant messages to their contacts for free — anytime, anywhere in the world. File sharing and voicemail is included, too.

Google Calendar — Your users can organize their schedules and share events, meetings and entire calendars with others. Your organization can also publish calendars and events on the web.

Google Docs — Co-workers can create documents, spreadsheets and presentations and share online files without having to keep track of multiple versions of the same attachment. And it’s all compatible with Microsoft Word.

Splashup is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. With all the features professionals use and novices want, it’s easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once. Splashup runs in all browsers, integrates seamlessly with top photosharing sites like Flickr, Picasa & Facebook, and even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress.

Forget expensive phonecalls.
When it comes to calling, you should of course make sure you have a regular phone number. But when you do, consider IP telephony. Messenger, Rebtel & Skype

Forget conference call systems
Campfirenow and since some time back Skype allows you to hook up 5 screens at the same time.

Forget finance systems
Blinksale, Freshbooks and Billings.

Many of the other sites I’ve written about can be used dependably of where in the world your company resides. But when it comes to financial applications, you really have to find and use a local products.

Blinksale is perfect for anyone in the US who needs to invoice clients for services or products sold. Basically, if you need to send invoices, Blinksale can work for you. What’s really cool also is the fact that if you’re using some of the other online products like Basecamp and Highrise (that I’m writing about below) the Blinksale also makes it easy to import and invoice your clients and customers without having to re-enter their data into Blinksale. Finally, is also has a fine API if you wanna integrate it into your own cloud.

4. Intranet and internal processes

Once your team (or you) are set to go, you may wanna set up the processes that you need in order to run your business. Let’s start with the internal stuff.

Intranet (or actually Intranet 2.0)
Let’s make sure you get an intranet that is alive and kicking. There are a couple of ways you can solve this by putting it all online. Here are three suggestions:

Use a wiki. Wetpaint is an online community where anyone can start their own wiki. Choose from a set of templates and you’re set to go. Of course you can make sure all your content is private. Another alternative is PBWIKI, used by Citigroup and at&t among others.

Use Facebook. Ah, I know what you’re saying. Stupid. But actually not. Facebook with all it’s application makes up the perfect intranet. Just make sure all your employees are set up with a Facebook account and then start a group. Make sure the invites are personal and the group private. Then your’re off. Chattsupport, documents, videos, forums, etc etc etc. Perfect.

Use your own Facebook – Ning. This place was founded in October 2004 to give everyone the opportunity to create their own social networks for absolutely anything. Today Ning powers the largest number of social networks on the Internet.

Finally. My own favorite. Use Yammer. Yammer is like Facebook and Twitter combined and it’s set up in seconds. This is the shit if you wanna create an Intranet 2.0 for your company.

Now when you’re done with the internal stuff, obviously you can use all those three examples to create an extranet towards your best B2B clients.

5. Project management.

Forget Microsoft Project Manager. What you need is a great group collaboration software. And Basecamp is exactly that. As they say themselves: “Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration. Projects don’t fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication. Basecamp solves this problem by providing tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project.” I’ve been using Basecamp in tons of projects and it’s a killer. Not for free, but not far from it.

6. Sale support & CRM

Many companies spend millions on getting their CRM and customer support systems in place. Stupid.

First. Let’s get a little bit 2008 when it comes to customer support. Don’t believe your IT department when they wanna throw a heavyweight system that makes your budgets explode. Instead, use something that is free, something that positions your company as new thinkers and at the same time caring. Use Get Satisfaction for example. Get Satisfaction is a direct connection between people and companies that fosters problem-solving, promotes sharing, and builds up relationships. Thousands of companies use this neutral space to support customers, exchange ideas, and get feedback about their products and services. Get Satisfaction is open, transparent, and FREE. Head in there and register your company. Who knows, maybe it’s even up there and people care about it…or the other way around. In that case, make sure you claim it fast and start supporting your customers.

What about CRM? Yep – no need to buy expensive software here either. Two places where you can get exactly what you need: Highrise and Salesforce. These two online CRM platforms provide Easy-to-use Web-based CRM solutions for sales, service, marketing, and call center operations that streamlines customer relationship management and boosts customer satisfaction. Salesforce is probably my number one recommendation as it is seamlessly integrated with Google Apps. On top of that they’ve already created a slick integration into the iPhone that let’s your salesforce access critical customer information instantly through the iPhone’s familiar touch screen format.

Lately however I’ve gotten more and more fond of Bantam Live that combines the power of Yammer with a typical CRM thinking.

7. Your website

So, the time has come to become public and show your ideas online. If you’ve done what I told you too and gotten yourselves a domain at Bluehost.com. Then it’s easy as one, two, three. There is a beautiful thing called Simple Scripts. It provides you with auto installations of the most common open source content management systems out there. WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Geeklog, Mambo, Xoops…the list goes on.

My recommendation is WordPress. WordPress is originally a blog system that lately is being used more and more as a web content management system. Developers all over the world are adding drag and drop plugins that enable most things you would want on your website. And when it comes to designs, you have about 5000 free templates to choose from. The last couple of month more advanced templates such as Thesis and stuff Woothemes and has been released for a very small price. By using Bluehost auto installer you don’t have to care for anything in terms of configuring databases and emails on forms etc. It just works. All for the price of $6.95 a month…including hosting. Practically FREE.

If you feel you wanna get moving with WordPress. Here’s a guide I wrote some time ago on how to create a WordPress blog that rocks the world.

Once you’re done with the website and your posts and articles pile up, it’s time to burn your feed. Make sure you register your blog/site with Feedburner.

Why a Burned feed is better than a not-burned feed?

• Publicize your content and make it easy for people to subscribe.
• Optimize distribution so that your content is properly formatted for all of the major directories and can be consumed by subscribers wherever they are.
• It allows you to analyze your traffic to learn how many subscribers you have, where they’re coming from and what they like best.

If you’re planning to sell your products online.
Not to worry. Let PayPal handle the payments. If you are planning to sell tons of products, then let Amazon Webstore handle the whole thing. Cost? $59.99 per month. Ok, maybe not free, but a whole lot cheaper than a multimillion dollar system. And I assure you, the Amazon Webstore will work like a charm. If you’re Swedish, then head over to ebutik.se and you’ll be up and running before you know it. Costs for ebutiken? Practically the same as Amazon Webstore.

Oh, and if you’ve set your site up in WordPress you could actually build your site on Thematic and then use the child theme Simple Cart powered by the great plugin WP E-commerce and start selling your gadgets for even less.

You might wanna consider checking who’s the visitor to your site.
Then time has come for another FREE product. Google Analytics. Log on, register and implement on your WordPress driven site. Google Analytics will ask you to submit a site map that makes it easier for them to crawl your site, but not to worry, there is a FREE plugin for that as well. An alternative to Google Analytics is MINT. However, that requires a little bit of technical skills, but it might be worth it.

If you’re this far into the post and have gotten your website up and running. Make sure also to check out Google Webmaster Tools. There’s a lot of goodies there.

8. Company videos and photos?

Maybe you should pay for an expensive solution to make sure there’s now glitches when your clients visits your website. NOOO, open a Flickr account, place all your videos and photography there. This way you’ll make sure you pay nothing for a fantastic streaming and storing solution. Something you normally pay at least a couple of hundred thousand dollars for normally. Cost? $24.95 a year! And oh, I forgot. If you got a hacker in your organization, you can easily use the Flickr API and create your own video and photo applications. Finally the beauty of this is that you can use a simple drag’N’drop plugin to showcase both the photos and the videos on your site and at the same time everyone who think your company is the shit, they can send these things further. By using Flickr you also make sure you have a presence in more than one place. Social networking! Obviously you can also do exactly the same with your videos on YouTube, but maybe it’s easier to place them all in one place.

There is however a new Danish player in town since a couple of weeks back. They’re called 23Video. Their business idea is pretty simple. Build your own video portal, host as many videos as you want and pay no more than 675$ a month. Splendid idea for you who wanna host your own stuff.

Whatever you do, you should make sure that you spread those videos outside your own or the network you choosed. An excellent product that I’ve written about long time ago and was reminded about in the comment field of this post is TubeMogul. TubeMogul lets you spread your content over tons of video sites and you’ll get a great overview of how it’s performing.

Let’s move on. It’s time to put that business presentation of yours into action.

9. Creating banners and TV commercials?

Of course you should run banners and TV commercials. But SEO, affiliate programs and Adwords is the shit.

Hiring an agency will of course give you the best results. But, let’s say you’ve just started, since you already spent about $10 on Flickr your pockets are empty. No worries. Now that Google features TV ads on their websites it’s easy to head over to Jivox or Spotmixer and start putting that wonderful piece of your together. Once you have created that wonder ful piece of your’s head over to Videoegg or Google TV ads and start spreading the words.

When it comes to creating your own campaigns and banners you should also consider placing competitions on sites like 99 designs. You’ll get great stuff while paying close to nothing. Look, Robyn does it.

10. Search Engine Marketing – SEO/SEM

Oh, this is probably the most complex thing you can put your mind to. First of all, before you even start you gotta get a shitload of traffic in order to experiment with it. And once you got that valuable traffic you are probably to afraid to try and you won’t make use of your SEO knowledge anyway. But luckily there’s people who can point you in the right direction – Aaron Wall, the founder of SEO Book.com. Of all the books and all the sites I’ve read on SEO marketing when I started writing this post, SEO Book.com was one of the best. Some time ago though Google published their version of a SEO book, and that one is of course free so I’d recommend you try that one first.

Apart from reading up on SEO at home I do recommend you to start following Nikke Lindqvist, Jesper Åström and Simon Sundén. Three friends of mine who shares their ideas through their blogs. Nikke and Simon in Swedish and Jesper in English.

11. Marketing

When I say marketing most people start thinking about sales people, advertising, events and getting articles about your product into newspapers and TV channel. Well, you can do without all of these channels. Think about it – ever seen an ad that sells Google?

What you’ve gotta do is get into Google Adwords, learn about affiliate marketing and get down with Facebook ads. There are of course tons of services out there. But if you become good at these three you’re almost there. If you then on top learn to master social media you’ll end up in those traditional newspapers and TV channels sooner or later anyway. Once you’ve got a database with clients you should get going with MyEmma or the better one – MailChimp. Two great email marketing services that will kick but.

12. You know what….I don’t have any energy left to finalize this post.

I just thought it was important to get it out there. So in order for you to get hold of nr 12 you’ve gotta learn how to do it by yourselves

Go get em!

ps. Feel free to share more ideas and tricks in the comments of this post!

If you are planning to start a company, or maybe running one already then there’s one speech that you just HAVE to watch. It’s this one below featuring Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. It’s freakin’ fantastic and appeals to me as an entrepreneur, a human but first and foremost as a father cause if companies would be grown the same Yvon grew Patagonia I know my daughters will be living and working in a better and more inspiring world!

So here you go. No more excuses!

I am not applying for a new job as a CEO or Marketing Director, but if I did that would be my headline and I would run the brand I’d work for based on the insights that follow.

Steve! Bring it on!

Ok, so you’re s marketing director or even a CEO struggling to beat the he’ll out of your competition? Well, you are not alone. That’s more or less what all brands want, but why then are there so few that actually make a mark that can stand the tests of time?

Here are 14 pointers on how to get your brand charging into the future.

0.1. Before you read anything else. If your product or service doesn’t stand the competition. Get back to the drawing board and make sure it does. Then continue to Nr 1.

It’s really quite easy. Apple started their brand journey by making sure they had kick ass products.

1. Great branding is not about sticking to graphical guidelines, it’s about sticking to values and beliefs

I think I’ve written about it before. But years ago (1999) I found myself working with Nike after having called them to talk Framfab into a pitch. In one of the first meetings I attended I of course asked for Nike’s visual guidelines. One guy from Nike looked at me and said: “Just don’t touch the logo”. I repeated myself and clarified that I wondered about fonts and colorings. The guy again: “Don’t touch the logo, that’s all”.

How does Nike keep it together then? With great people of course. They act as gatekeepers of the brand. It’s in their spine like I’ve written about before.

2. Do things larger than life

Anish Kapoor knows how to make things larger than life!

Don’t be shy! Whatever you do, don’t expect that people wanna see everyday life things. We wanna get carried along and dream. The way you shape your products and services, your communication and advertising defines the way forward. Have a look at great brands. They go for the max.

3. You can never do wrong if you do different

The biggest reason for most brands not becoming true Superbrands is rationality and not believing in their potential. Take risks. Make mistakes. Turn yourselves into fools. All these things will undoubtedly lead you forward and suddenly you’ll know how to ride the horse that kicks high and outraces the competition.

4. Don’t be smart.

I’ve met far to many companies that tend to think communication and advertising is a all about calculation, analysis and smart things. Of course there are media channels where you should aim for super straight forward messages such as Adwords for example. But in most cases you should aim to create an impact. Make sure people see you and react. Any emotional reaction is better than any rational understanding.

5. Work with the best people, not the best agency

Choosing to work with an agency is not the way to go about it. No agency in the world builds a strong brand. People however, they can build you the brand you want. Either someone within your organization or someone on the consulting side. What they need is the power to change. Usually this power cannot be given to someone, it can only be earned. I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the greatest brands in the world and let me tell you, the people there they either give you power to change by briefing your right and letting strange but powerful ideas through or they steer you with hands of steel. One thing they don’t do is summon big meetings where ideas are being torn apart.

6. Take control of every piece of communication

As a CEO or Marketing Director you’ve gotta own your brand. Day one at work (if you’re an employee) you’ve gotta adopt that brand, build it into your spine and decide to become the best brand in the world. Don’t look at your competition, instead decide how you intend to shape a brand the world has never seen. Every brand has the potential to become a Superbrand. It’s only up to yourselves!

7. Piss people off

Don’t be sloppy. Everything matters. Be a pain in the ass. Take control. Demand greatness. Don’t settle for less. Apple, Nike, Porsche, American Express, Sony, Starbucks etc, these brands we not build by people who said ‘This will do’ These brands were built by people who said ‘We can do better!’

8. Constantly innovate your communication activities

Whenever you’re planning a new communication activity, live by the rule “Creativity is the opposite of routine”. You constantly have to break out of your mold. What makes your client stay put is of course consistency, but It doesn’t have to mean your tactical executions have to stay the same. As long as your activities are on brand and you stick a strong logo to it, you’ll see that people tend to stay with you.

People will stay your fans as long as you treat them this way. The second you start treating them as a mass, as consumers, as numbers in a marketing plan – they’re gone!

9. Your brand equity is measured on the numbers of WOWs, not the media spend

It’s not money (ok a little bit is always good to have) that buys you new customers. It’s the numbers of WOW that does. Only by WOWing people with your products, services and your communication will you gain effects that have a positive impact on your brand.

(Ok, I know that we’re living in Sweden and you believe we don’t wanna stand out. But that does not include you not standing out. We love brands that stand out from the mold cause we dream of doing it ourselves. Brands are built on dreams!)

10. Never base your ideas on history. Base them on the future.

If it’s been done, do something else. That’s the strategy of great brands.

11. Surprises that ends with a smile builds relations

It’s like falling in love. People wanna smile. Smile is what fuels relations and relations is what you’re after. Put smiles on peoples faces and you’ll end up branding their brain. And hey, don’t forget to keep em´smiling!

12. Great ideas communication comes cheap if you let them

Some of the greatest people I’ve worked with have all said they would work for free as long as they get to shine. Most marketing directors focus 90% of their relations with creatives on telling them what they can’t do. Do the opposite – spend 90% of your time telling your creatives you want more.

13. Everything matters!

All in all. Like in every sport you’ve gotta set your mind on winning. People will keep on telling you about the best competitors out there and your answer should always be “I’ll beat the shit out of them” – Managing brands isn’t different. It’s about being the best and beat the hell out of the competition, in everything you do!

14. Set your goals high. Really high. No, I mean reeeealy high!

The title was intended to tease you of course. But then again I’m 100% honest with you. If I’d run a company I would aim to become the best brand in the world, not the best brand in Sweden, Europe or USA. The world, that’s where I’d aim. I can’t see why I’d go for anything less?

Finally, if you’re preparing to write a comment telling that I can’t beat Steve Jobs, forget it! I know I can!

We are born. Even before we’re born our life is being shaped day by day. Every day, every hour and every second life passes by.

Sometimes tons of things happens at once and suddenly we notice a shape, we call these shapes memories. But most of the time life is made up by small things that never form shapes. The truth however is that these small things is what life is all about. The more of em’ you notice, the more you’ll notice life. And the more you notice life, the more you’ll enjoy it!

This all came to me when I looked at this video below found over at Mario Vellandi’s Melodies in Marketing, which by the way is a great blog on Ethical communication.

Thanks Mario, but above all, thanks Everynone for putting images to life!

Whatever you do and whatever you intend to accomplish in life one thing is for sure. It should be something you’re passionate about. Ask yourselves these 10 questions and if your answer is NO to any of them – quit and do something else.

1. Am I doing what I love every day?
2. Am I doing what I love every day?
3. Am I doing what I love every day?
4. Am I doing what I love every day?
5. Am I doing what I love every day?
6. Am I doing what I love every day?
7. Am I doing what I love every day?
8. Am I doing what I love every day?
9. Am I doing what I love every day?
10. Am I doing what I love every day?

You’ll see that once you start follow you dreams other people will notice a halo of energy forming around you. It’s the ‘halo of passion’. The halo of passion leads to success. Nothing is more true than this!

What are you waiting for?

People ask me from time to time why I’m a blogger. I tell them I’m not. What I am is a junkie for inspiration and reflection. A quite passionate one too.

For me this blog is the ultimate tool to log things that shape my life. Things, thoughts, people, objects and so on. I don’t really care what people think about it. The most important thing is what I think about it. My personal space so to say…only more public that most personal spaces.

The time it takes to write something and then press that publish button is just enough to filter the bad stuff away and let the good shit shine.

This video showing a huge flock of birds is exactly one of those things. I just have to put it down in writing. I spotted it this morning on SwissMiss. Birds have been doing this for about 200 million years and they still put on a show no human being can ever top. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating – Nature is the ultimate source of inspiration!

ps. In case you’ve missed the speech by Janine Benyus over at TED.com on Natures Designs you should head over there asap and get inspired!

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.

Saturday morning and I’ve been up since 4 am. Just felt I had to continue writing on my new section ‘My Inspiration’. Well, here it is.

I seek inspiration everywhere. But Steve Jobs and his lifework with Apple is absolutely one my top inspiration sources. Ran into this Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 on YouTube. Steve shares the highs and low of his life.

What strikes me with this one is that Steve in a great way conveys the importance of not becoming a product of your business/background but instead always look for the unknown. Also the fact that sudden changes in life usually leads to something better as long as you keep our fire burning. (Something I’ve experienced myself).

Two quotes from Steve Jobs I personally live by too.

• Steve Jobs – “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose”
• Steve Jobs – “The only way to do great work is to love what you do”

Here’s the speech!