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.

Mark this weekend in your calendars. TEDx is coming to Sweden and it’s thanks to Teo Härén & Fredrik Härén and Henrik Ahlén who’ve been the driving forces behind getting TEDx here.

The first event is beeing held north of Stockholm with about 40 people attending the party and I’m honored to be one of them. Don’t worry – there will be new events following this one so get your but mouse over to the TEDx Stockholm website and show your interest.

This first event will be all about inspiration and I’m eagerly looking forward to be inspired by God knows who. I do know that homeboy Richard Gatarski has been given a 5 minute slot that he has turned into a crowd sourcing experiment on his blog and I of course think it’s a great idea.

Richard is asking us all to contribute with some sort of inspirational thing communication how to create the “best start in life for our children”.

As always I couldn’t keep my fingers out of the jam. 1 hour later I submitted this:

Now head over to Richard and submit yours!

I am away skiing with my family so expect a ‘low frequency week’ when it comes to blog posts. The rule however is: If I’m having fun you should be having fun too! Here we go:

After Tweeting this @larsthomsen tipped me about another changeling in the end of a Ted speech. Check it out!

Thank you Swissmiss

These are the words of Industrial designer Yves Behar, founder of Fuseprojects while talking at TED. Among other things Yves has designed the OLPC. (One laptop per child project).

So, is this true? Well, I don’t entirely agree. But I do think that promoting a product that doesn’t live up to the standards of it’s competitors is cheating your potential clients and if you wanna beat the living hell out of your competitors, then Yves is absolutely right! This obviously goes for both the product and the communication activities. If you do it right, the stuff will spread like rings on the water.

The thing is that I’m quite surprised how few companies actually understand this or at least pull it off. Sure, the lot of you might think that it costs of fortune to get hold of those people that can innovate your product like that. But it’s a matter of scouting the people that ad that kind of quality to a project, people that think different. Make sure you put them in the same room as the strategy people to ensure the creativity is not off target. On top of that, bring your management into the process and make sure you don’t let them out of the room until they’ve signed for innovation. They’ve gotta understand that innovation equals cash.

So, ask yourself. Have you equipped your brand, product and communication with legs or is it yet another piece of disturbance in the matrix?

psst…Bauldoff pointed me in this direction.