I am preparing myself for my participation in one of the biggest and most important conferences next week: The 5th Global YES Summit – Rework the World gathering more than 1500 people from all over the world in Dalarna, Sweden on June 2-6.
Rework the World is organized by the Tällberg Foundation, known worldwide for their large annual workshops gathering world leaders addressing the over-arching question “How on earth can we live together?”
“Rework the World is responding to the confluence of three major global crises: the financial, the social and the ecological. These crises are related, both in their consequences and their causes. We are in the midst of an inevitable transition. Energy systems must be reconstructed, water sources restored, ecosystems regenerated and cities rebuilt. There is an awful lot of work to be done.
Indeed, the whole world must be reworked.”
I am happy and proud to be part of this by attending the event and being a moderator for one of the workshops; “Rework mechanisms: Communities to promote sustainable change”
I have also taken part in the program Adopt a Changemaker, sponsoring a participant of Rework. Here is my “adopted” changemaker that I have sponsored the trip to the event for:
Gbenga Adenuga is a multi-talented musician and entrepreneur, he is the CEO of headroom Africa, a youth empowerment outfit.
I am looking forward to seeing him and all the other people from all over the world, it will surely widen my perspectives and give me new insights.
I will report more about my adventures in Tällberg here next week.
Here are the TED Talks that we saw, all are very much worth watching:
Dan Pink, 19 minutes: On the surprising science of motivation
Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think.
Clay Shirky 21 minutes: On institutions vs collaboration
In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning.
Ken Robinson, 19 minutes Schools kill creativity
Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types…
This is my all-time TED Talk favourite. Both because of his message, which is so important and right, and his superior way of delivering it. 19 minutes without a single slide, and millions of people watch him in awe, thats skillful!
My congratulations to the U.S. Ambassador in Stockholm, Matthew Barzun, and his crew for organising a great TEDx event at the embassy yesterday. A very fine example for others in diplomacy and the public sector to follow!
There were around 40 attendees, people from the Stockholm chamber of commerce, media, students, embassy staff etc, a good mix.
I liked the program, with great talks (we Swedes have a LOT to learn about public speaking from the Americans), awesome TED Talks and music. An American musician, Ben Sollee, (stranded in Stockholm due to the Icelandic volcano), gave us an unforgettable music piece, singing and playing his cello in a way that I have never experienced before.
The Ambassador, Matthew Barzun gave a talk about his work with the Obama grassroot campaign, with wonderful pictures “From a candidate in a corn field in Iowa to the presidential inauguration in Washington in front of 2 million people”.
Cameras were not allowed in the embassy, so I have no pictures from the event, but here are the TED Talks that we enjoyed:
Adora Svitak, 8 minutes: What adults can learn from kids
Child prodigy Adora Svitak, age 12, says the world needs “childish” thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism.
This is an amazing talk from a 12-year old, with important messages!
Hans Rosling, 20 minutes: Let my dataset change your mindset
Talking at the US State Department this summer, Hans Rosling uses his fascinating data-bubble software to burst myths about the developing world. Look for new analysis on China and the post-bailout world, mixed with classic data shows. .
Hans, as usual, gives an extremely insightful and uplifting talk, all politicians and citizens should watch this!
Read more about it at the Whitehouse blog “Open Government Initiative: “Hands down it is the best event that I’ve attended in all of the years that I’ve been at State” and on the TED blog: TED goes to Washington
I think this is wonderful and hope that we can have TEDx events here in Sweden too. During the embassy event I talked to a guy from the City Hall who expressed interest in arranging an event at the Stockholm City Hall, that would be great!
And what about our own State Department, Regeringskansliet, surely they would benefit from organising a TEDx event too?
I will try to plant a seed there too…
The TEDxStockhom event was small, just 13 people, but highly energetic. Our mixed set of very talented and passionate people created a powerful discussion. As Nicholas Negroponte says: “Creativity comes from difference”!
The event was organized by Ulla-Britt Fräjdin-Hellqvist and me, we had an ambitious theme: Rebuilding Society
The designer Anders Rinman demonstrated his “Future Scenario machine” Urbavista
We started by watching this TED Talk, 17 mins: Tim Brown urges designers to think big
Tim Brown is the CEO of the US “innovation and design” firm IDEO
Our discussions covered a large spectrum:
We live in disruptive times that need change: Financial crisis. Environment crisis. Social crisis.
What are our needs for mobility, really? Cars, are they they problem or the solution? Do we really need our own 2 ton cars that are idle 20 hours per day?
Energy consumption in houses vs cars. The potential of garbage.
Is central planning in countries like China better for solving city planning problems, compared to the slow “democratic” process we have here? Or can market forces be more efficient?
The need for a market place for ideas.
Catch 22: Our politicians and general public often do not understand complex plans for renewal of cities etc. But if we creative physical models or use 3D graphics to visualize the projects, they understand more but tend to focus on irrelevant details, not seeing the whole perspective.
How can we organize productive long-term discussions about complex issues, discussions with many participants, visualization and that evolves over long timer periods; months, years? Online tools, physical meeting forms etc?
TED Talk: Cathering Mohr builds green, 6 mins:
Catherine Mohr walks through all the geeky decisions she made when building a green new house, looking at real energy numbers, not hype. What choices matter most? Not the ones you think.
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels rockets through photo/video-mingled stories of his eco-flashy designs. His buildings not only look like nature, they act like nature: blocking the wind, collecting solar energy, and creating stunning views.
To all of you who are reading this: you are very welcome with your input and ideas, or if you want to be invited to future TEDx events.
By commenting here in this blog, or by emailing me at henrik.ahlen@alfabravo.com
TEDxViggbyholm was a very ambitious event, organized by Johan Ronnestam, a well-known “consultant, digital media professional, creative director, advertising man, innovator and entrepreneur from Stockholm”.
Johan organized the event in 3 days and attracted 10 speakers and a crowd of 90!
My favourite talk was by Ted Persson, founder of Great Works, with the title: A visual experiment – An attempt to prove that visual thinking is more effective than non visual thinking
I started my TEDx Stockholm weeek at TEDxNorrmalm.
A great event with a good mix of speakers:
The organizer: Josef Conning
Danica Kragic:
“Sensing is easy, perception is hard.
Computer vision and vision for robots.”
Danica is a Professor of Robotics and Computer vision at KTH and leads the multidisciplinary Centre for Autonomous Systems (CAS). CAS develops artificial robotic systems as assistants to people for everyday tasks in everyday environments. In her talk, Danica discussed why it is difficult to make robots use their visual and tactile senses and interact with the environment in the same ways humans do.
Olle Torgny: “From Form to Sense
– Experiences from the post industrial shift, multi dimensional design and the people involved”
Originally industrial designer MFA, Olle has worked in several creative and strategic fields like usability, branding, graphic design, communication and strategic change management. He discussed how companies handle the development and design of products, offerings and other expressions of their enterprise. What the future creative team will look like and how its members will approach their collaboration. Here is more about Olle and his talk.
Ulf Boman: “The future city: From urban sprawl to greendencity”
Ulf is a future strategist at Kairos Future.
In his talk, Ulf talked about the shift from the modernistic city of the 20th century, where living, working and recreation were separated, to the post-modernistic city of the 21st century, where these functions are integrated. What the ever growing city might mean for the future, and how densification and sustainability are key factors in the transition from urban sprawl to ”greendencity”.
Victoria Olausson: “A tale of green marketing”
Victoria is a brand consultant at Sensemakers and has written the awarded book Green Communication, she was also project manager for WWFs Earth Hour. In her talk, Victoria examined green communication, from mechanisms involved in societal shifts to how to meet the needs of green target groups. She also discussed the key to success for a green brand, and how to move from concern to action.
I had to rush after this to the next TED event, so I missed the two final speakers:
Magnus Lindkvist who showed the talk that he held at TED USA in January 2010, not yet pubished on ted.com ännu.
Peter Ueda talked about the medical long term effects of the famine in Biafra.
“Ideas worth spreading” is a concept worth spreading!
When I tell people about my interest in TED and viewing TED Talks online I get the same reactions all the time: “But what is TED?”
Then I explain that it is 5-18 minute long talks by very inspiring people on Technology, Entertainment and Design and many other areas under the theme “Ideas worth spreading”.
But hearing this, most people inevitably ask me: “But how do you find the time to watch these talks?”
How do I find 18 minutes to watch a video on my iPhone while riding the subway, or on my computer at home instead of watching TV? Well, it is not hard…, and very rewarding for a curious guy like me. So I teamed up with Teo Härén to launch TEDxStockholm a year ago, in order to spread this wonderful concept here. We organized 3 TEDxStockholm events, starting small and growing to 200 people in Sept 2009. Then people started asking “But you are not paid for this, why are you doing it?”
So why are we doing this?
It is simple: to expand our minds and meet inspiring people! We are very proud to have been part of the TEDx program from its start, and we were extra happy when we just heard that two of our speakers from TEDxStockholm Sept 2009 have now been invited to speak at TED Global!
Congratulations to Johan Rockström and David Bismark!
Here you can see their talks at TEDxStockholm in Sept 2009:
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This week is the 1-year anniversary of TEDx worldwide, read about it here and catch the spirit in this video, (Teo is at 1:43):
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Now Teo and I are launching the TEDx week in Stockholm.
We have encouraged everybody in our growing TEDxStockholm community to run their own TEDx event here, small or big.
What a great response we got: More than 23 TEDx events will take place in and around Stockholm during 17-24 of April. That is more than 5% of all TEDx events in the world!
Lara Stein- Head of TEDx at TED.COM likes our idea too: “With the launch of TEDx week in Stockholm, Sweden is the first community to truly embraces the vision of TEDx as an open source platform and further the vision of TEDx as whole new approach to global education made possible by the web. We are truly excited to see where this experiment goes.”
Well, so are we, there is already a lot of energy in the air here! To all of you who are engaging yourself in organizing events during the TEDx week: a big THANK YOU!
This time, Teo Hären and I are organizing very small, private events, without our own speakers; TEDxÄlvkarleby och TEDxStockholm. With people from our networks, inspiring TED Talks and mind-expanding discussions.
I will also attend at least 7 of the other events here and report from them on this blog, so stay tuned.
Please note: “These events are not being organized by the TED conferences — they are independently organized TEDx events, operated under license from TED”
Welcome to sign up for these events and don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. These ideas are worth spreading!
The enormous hype around the iPad has also generated a lot of backlash against the flow of paid for iPad content now pouring out from media publishers all over the world.
Pay for content, are you kidding?
Many different payment models are now tested on a large scale:
Financial Times has a different model with a sponsor that offers the Financial Times iPad app for free for two months. From the article about it in the Guardian:
“Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson says his mag’s iPad app is an opportunity to “reset the economics“. What that means – mobile apps, as a new technology, have no pre-existing culture of only-free content consumption, as the web does, offering an opportunity to charge from the start this time.”
And Chris is the author of the famous article “Free“!
The Swedish publisher Bonniers have launched Popular Science on the iPad at the same price as for printed mag, $4.99 , this is the first magazine using their online platform Mag+
Lots of critics are complaining about charging money for online content and just say that it will never work. The Harvard Business Review has one of the more refined articles: “The iPad won’t save the publishing industry from itself”
These critics are right about that in many cases it will be difficult to charge for online content, but how about coming up with some new, better revenue ideas then? This is much harder than just complaining, but it needs to be done now.
Start experimenting with payment models!
The iPad itself will not be the universal solution to the problem of online media revenue. But I am very glad that the iPad has started this flow of payment experiments that can also be used for all other forms of web-based media. There will of course not be just one successful model. There will be many different models that will eventually work for different types of content and target groups. We also need new, smarter forms for advertising and sponsoring of content.
There are many other ways to finance media production and distribution online. For example, why not have a credit system that encourages people to contribute and get credits that they can use to buy more content? For pictures, stories, comments, local news tips etc.
There is a big need now for lots of creative experiments!
People want to pay for content
When Apple introduced the iTunes music store, the sales of iPods exploded and they have since then sold billions of songs online. Apple understood and solved the consumer’s need; “I like this song, I want it now” and made it easy to buy and listen to music.
And look at the cable TV companies: millions of people gladly pay lots of money per month to get commercial-free programs.
The whole media sector is in a global digital disruption period now that we have only seen the beginning of. The only thing we can be certain of is that our media consumption will not be the same in only a few years time and that some old media companies will die the dinosaur death while others will manage to transform themselves and evolve. There will also be many new players out the, creating totally new types of media experiences online based on the new platforms that we see now.
I am now setting new sails, having decided to end my contract as managing director of World Television Sweden.
I have analysed the market and restructured the company in order to meet the increasing demand for webcasts, live videos on the internet.
In this new organisation we have developed cost-efficient production methods and created a smaller, more focused team organised in a similar way to the other European World Television companies. World Television Sweden is now well positioned to grow with the market and has upcoming international partnerships with a lot of promise for the future.
In the light of these changes my role as managing director and business developer is no longer needed to the same extent and I have therefore decided to rationalize away myself.
Now what?
I now return full time to my consultancy company Alfa Bravo, with a mission to help companies improve their products and services.
In my role as business developer I focus on creating new revenue models and being a catalyst for development projects.
For example the whole media sector is now challenged to find digital business models for the rapidly expanding online media world. Other business sectors are facing a growing need for rapid product development.
I also coach companies on how to use the many new forms of digital communication.
I have always been a business networker, so I welcome other professionals to contact me for cooperation.
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