So I made it through the master's degree in Sweden. Spring and summer were nice. Got out there a lot on the bike into the fields of Skane.
At the graduation I gave a speech about value and what it means to add value in this life. Here is my speech.
Adjö Sverige!
Friday 17 June 2011
Sunday 3 April 2011
Baconmilk
In a recent guest lecture, which many in the class said was the best yet, we were introduced to the idea of Baconmilk. After hearing about this delectable beverage I thought I'd better stop doodling and tune in to what this guy was saying so I could get the recipe!
Baconmilk was used by our guest lecturer Hampus Jakobsson of The Astonishing Tribe as an example of how to bring ideas down to simple three-year-old logic that appeals to the different parts of the consumer.
Scientists in the USA were concerned about obesity levels rising and calculated that drinking lower fat milk would have a measurable impact for many people. A successful marketing campaign to this end found out that they could explain the content of full fat milk by placing a display in the supermarket with a glass of milk next to a sample of bacon that contained the same amount of fat.
People were naturally shocked at how much fat was in each glass and promptly started reading the fine print. Information handouts at the side of the display showed consumers the figures and facts and gave recommendations. The information told them to look out for a special symbol on the milk, which showed that it was healthy. Sales of the lower fat milk increased due to the campaign as people ditched their full cream for skim.
The moral of the story is that there are three parts to a successful message. The consumer is broken down into two parts in Hampus' metaphor: the elephant and the rider.
Elephant: big, cumbersome, has huge inertia, not so bright, slow to react
Rider: smart, nimble, logical
The elephant is our emotional side and the rider is the tiny cognitive brain that sits atop the beast. Usually the huge elephant wins out, but sometimes the rider can influence where the elephant walks. The third part to the metaphor is the road. Both the elephant and the rider like to know that the road is there to follow.
As marketers or entrepreneurs we can learn from Baconmilk like so: the elephant was shocked by the bacon/milk comparison (the equivalent of seeing a mouse), which prompted the rider to have a closer look at the information. Then they looked for the safe path: the markings on the milk packaging that showed which milk was best.
Break it down. Elephant, Rider, Path.
Baconmilk was used by our guest lecturer Hampus Jakobsson of The Astonishing Tribe as an example of how to bring ideas down to simple three-year-old logic that appeals to the different parts of the consumer.
Scientists in the USA were concerned about obesity levels rising and calculated that drinking lower fat milk would have a measurable impact for many people. A successful marketing campaign to this end found out that they could explain the content of full fat milk by placing a display in the supermarket with a glass of milk next to a sample of bacon that contained the same amount of fat.
People were naturally shocked at how much fat was in each glass and promptly started reading the fine print. Information handouts at the side of the display showed consumers the figures and facts and gave recommendations. The information told them to look out for a special symbol on the milk, which showed that it was healthy. Sales of the lower fat milk increased due to the campaign as people ditched their full cream for skim.
The moral of the story is that there are three parts to a successful message. The consumer is broken down into two parts in Hampus' metaphor: the elephant and the rider.
Elephant: big, cumbersome, has huge inertia, not so bright, slow to react
Rider: smart, nimble, logical
The elephant is our emotional side and the rider is the tiny cognitive brain that sits atop the beast. Usually the huge elephant wins out, but sometimes the rider can influence where the elephant walks. The third part to the metaphor is the road. Both the elephant and the rider like to know that the road is there to follow.
As marketers or entrepreneurs we can learn from Baconmilk like so: the elephant was shocked by the bacon/milk comparison (the equivalent of seeing a mouse), which prompted the rider to have a closer look at the information. Then they looked for the safe path: the markings on the milk packaging that showed which milk was best.
Break it down. Elephant, Rider, Path.
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| "Would you like some more skim milk?" |
Thursday 24 March 2011
Limit your lumen hours
The amount of lights that are left on all day in Sweden is astonishing. In almost every home there are lamps in every window and extra lighting here, there and everywhere. No one can blame the Swedes for wanting to keep the place lit up, given that in the winter, there are only a few hours of light each day and for most of them you are at work.
That got me thinking. Where I come from turning off the lights as you leave the room is more or less a habit for people. I mean, why leave the light on when you aren't in the room? That's why they put the switch next to the door.
Often people in Europe (and this is certainly not limited to Swedes) are into energy saving things like energy saving bulbs and other things, but they often don't understand the extent to which they save. Having a fluorescent bulb instead of an incandescent one, doesn't mean that there is no impact and the bulb is 100% good. You might go down from a 70 W globe to an 18 W globe. It produces the same amount of light, but uses less energy, which is great.
What isn't great is that people offload responsibility for turning off the lights when they buy these bulbs. They leave them on 24 hours a day and say "oh they are energy saving." The house I moved into when I first got to Sweden had an obscene amount of lights and they were all on all day. I went round turning them off because it feels strange to leave it on as you leave the room, but it was a losing battle. In the kitchen especially it was an energy black hole: there would have been 20-25 light globes in there.
Also, the place where we have our office at university leaves its lights on seemingly all the time. The main room is something like 200 square metres and has all the lights on, even during the day and on the weekends. Hardly an environmental usage of energy.
It's about personal responsibility. By buying the energy saving globes (which I wholeheartedly support and support because they're cheaper in the long run though the globes cost 10 times more) people think they have done their part and don't need to worry about anything. They shift any blame and responsibility on the energy saving bulb.
Normally a bulb might be on in a room for 3-4 hours a day (lets suppose), but when it is energy saving people forget where the light switch is and just leave it on all day. It uses three times less energy, but is left on for six times longer. Its clearly more energy.
People need to reduce their usage with better bulbs and still remember to turn it off. The maths are simple and the problem of global warming still exists. That's a bright idea — pun intended.
That got me thinking. Where I come from turning off the lights as you leave the room is more or less a habit for people. I mean, why leave the light on when you aren't in the room? That's why they put the switch next to the door.
 |
| I do most of the work, but you still need to be "switched on" to the issue! |
What isn't great is that people offload responsibility for turning off the lights when they buy these bulbs. They leave them on 24 hours a day and say "oh they are energy saving." The house I moved into when I first got to Sweden had an obscene amount of lights and they were all on all day. I went round turning them off because it feels strange to leave it on as you leave the room, but it was a losing battle. In the kitchen especially it was an energy black hole: there would have been 20-25 light globes in there.
Also, the place where we have our office at university leaves its lights on seemingly all the time. The main room is something like 200 square metres and has all the lights on, even during the day and on the weekends. Hardly an environmental usage of energy.
It's about personal responsibility. By buying the energy saving globes (which I wholeheartedly support and support because they're cheaper in the long run though the globes cost 10 times more) people think they have done their part and don't need to worry about anything. They shift any blame and responsibility on the energy saving bulb.
Normally a bulb might be on in a room for 3-4 hours a day (lets suppose), but when it is energy saving people forget where the light switch is and just leave it on all day. It uses three times less energy, but is left on for six times longer. Its clearly more energy.
People need to reduce their usage with better bulbs and still remember to turn it off. The maths are simple and the problem of global warming still exists. That's a bright idea — pun intended.
Friday 11 March 2011
Dragons raw!
Here is the teaser for the upcoming movie about the students in the class and how we faced the Dragons at the University. The editing needs a bit of work, but the idea isn't bad...trying to build suspense...
PS Thank God that YouTube finally has customizable size for embedded video...the old videos on this blog were way too wide...Good that Google has finally made some synergy between their products, YouTube and Blogger. Thumbs up.
PS Thank God that YouTube finally has customizable size for embedded video...the old videos on this blog were way too wide...Good that Google has finally made some synergy between their products, YouTube and Blogger. Thumbs up.
Thursday 10 March 2011
Wash me clean
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| The small machines and centrifuge in the middle |
...but thats how the Swedes roll: like all things in the country, washing facilities are built to work well and built to last. Buildings in the country are made solid with all their attachments and peripherals a little bit more heavy duty than needed, so they last for ever.
Underneath apartment blocks in Sweden you will find an equally sturdy laundromat that services the whole building. The machines in there are heavy duty and wash quickly. You can do a whole load (6.5 kg in the normal machines and 10 kg in the big ones) in 37 minutes on normal settings and dry your clothes in as little as 20 minutes.
When you want to wash you need to go downstairs and make an appointment. Usually you can't get a spot on the day, so you need to plan in advance. When it's your turn you get your spot (usually two hours) and then some extra time after that for drying.
 |
| The reservation book |
By sharing these hardcore washing machines you get to have more space in your flat, more efficient washing, less plumbing problems and so on. It also reduces the risk of fires — when you have 100 washing machines operating in different flats, the chances of an electrical fire that could kill hundreds of people as they sleep increases exponentially, therefore it's better to have a centralized system.
Swedes take the scheduling of the washing very seriously. If you are late to start, you lose your spot. If you are late to finish you are likely to have a run in with an angry Swede. I've never received one personally, but I'm told that the normal way for people to scold each other in the laundry is to leave nasty notes and to handle your clothes for you. This could mean putting them in a basket or throwing them on the floor in the corner. The nasty notes in laundries across the country are so well used that they have inspired books and websites to showcase the brilliant creativity that late washing spurs.
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| Tumble driers - the one on the right is somehow special, though I don't know why... |
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| Drying closet and ironing machine (click to enlarge) |
Washing in Sweden is fun.
Monday 7 March 2011
Shout out for Petrone
I just finished and reviewed my Baltic journalist colleague Justin Petrone's book My Estonia 2, the second book in the series.
Petrone's blog Itching for Eestimaa can be found in my "Worth Reading" section to the right. Or you can just click here to read it.
The story I wrote for Alfa English about his new book is here.
Petrone's blog Itching for Eestimaa can be found in my "Worth Reading" section to the right. Or you can just click here to read it.
The story I wrote for Alfa English about his new book is here.
Friday 4 March 2011
Getting across a message
"I see that he has 147 slides in his presentation. Isn't that a bit too long?" Koen, my classmate asked while we were waiting for Sean Duffy, the owner and manager of The Duffy Agency to start his presentation.
We were trying to figure out what program had been used to create the presentation that was sitting idly on the laptop in front of us. I think it was Keynote. Actually we were waiting in the schick office in Malmo because our lecturer Tomas was stuck in his car outside the building and needed to be cut free with the Jaws of Life after his car accident.
The interior of the agency looked a lot like other media agencies I've visited: open plan, stylish, desks cluttered with things. All the interior walls in the place were glass: the sort of environment that aims to breed creativity.
We were there to experience a presentation given to us as part of our master's program in Entrepreneurship, but its focus was very much on social media and whether it was a fad or not. The resounding message from the presentation was: "Use social media to join the conversation with customers, or your days are numbered."
The presentation was classic ad agency style: lots of clean pictures and flashy graphics, sound and so on. It was a nice flash back to my first degree in Australia, which focused on advertising.
In a world that has changed from a top down information flow to where "we have the microphone" social media is now more interesting and more important than ever before: the days of traditional media (TV, radio, print) are gone, as are the seemingly worthless years of Web 1.0.
Thinking back, I don't even know what I used to do on the internet before things like Google and Facebook rose to prominence and we all could participate. I mean seriously? What were people doing online back then? Using the internet in 2000 was something like going for a drive down the highway just to see the different billboards.
Now that the internet more closely resembles a room of talking people, like a bar, rather than one person talking over our heads, like a lecture, companies (and we ourselves) need to take a very proactive stance in order to be seen and heard in the world. After all, if it isn't online it doesn't exist, right?
And in a world where increasingly huge numbers of people are able to participate (around a third of the world uses internet every day) we need to get smarter and smarter if we want to be the ones who have a say in how the message is broadcast.
It's both scary and exciting at the same time, but are we becoming more sophisticated?
It is now the age of "oh I need to get online and have a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page." Sure many companies need to do that, but just becuase we have one, does it mean that we are more sophisticated communicators? Are we getting our message across effectively?
Facebook and Twitter have now been around for a few years, but many people still have no idea how to use them properly. Sure you made a group or fanpage or a twitter account, but no one is looking at it because no can see it.
I think I am seeing a gradual shift away from social-media-for-the-sake-of-it mania towards a more useful and balanced approach combining new and old media in a complementary way: by the industry leaders that is. People are now playing to the strengths of the media and have worked out how to use it effectively.
Of course for every industry leader in marketing and communications there are thousands and thousands of stragglers. Many give up, some get better, but social media is starting to mature.
Its those stragglers that inspire talks like the one we had. The Duffy Agency (and probably every other media agency in the world) are still having to spend time and money to convince their client that social media could be useful for them.
No ostrich ever survived by sticking its head in the sand. Until we all start to understand the pros and cons of social media thoroughly, there will always be a debate around what is it useful for and whether we should use it for our own purposes.
We were trying to figure out what program had been used to create the presentation that was sitting idly on the laptop in front of us. I think it was Keynote. Actually we were waiting in the schick office in Malmo because our lecturer Tomas was stuck in his car outside the building and needed to be cut free with the Jaws of Life after his car accident.
The interior of the agency looked a lot like other media agencies I've visited: open plan, stylish, desks cluttered with things. All the interior walls in the place were glass: the sort of environment that aims to breed creativity.
We were there to experience a presentation given to us as part of our master's program in Entrepreneurship, but its focus was very much on social media and whether it was a fad or not. The resounding message from the presentation was: "Use social media to join the conversation with customers, or your days are numbered."
The presentation was classic ad agency style: lots of clean pictures and flashy graphics, sound and so on. It was a nice flash back to my first degree in Australia, which focused on advertising.
 |
| Do you exist now? Will you exist tomorrow? |
In a world that has changed from a top down information flow to where "we have the microphone" social media is now more interesting and more important than ever before: the days of traditional media (TV, radio, print) are gone, as are the seemingly worthless years of Web 1.0.
Thinking back, I don't even know what I used to do on the internet before things like Google and Facebook rose to prominence and we all could participate. I mean seriously? What were people doing online back then? Using the internet in 2000 was something like going for a drive down the highway just to see the different billboards.
Now that the internet more closely resembles a room of talking people, like a bar, rather than one person talking over our heads, like a lecture, companies (and we ourselves) need to take a very proactive stance in order to be seen and heard in the world. After all, if it isn't online it doesn't exist, right?
And in a world where increasingly huge numbers of people are able to participate (around a third of the world uses internet every day) we need to get smarter and smarter if we want to be the ones who have a say in how the message is broadcast.
It's both scary and exciting at the same time, but are we becoming more sophisticated?
It is now the age of "oh I need to get online and have a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page." Sure many companies need to do that, but just becuase we have one, does it mean that we are more sophisticated communicators? Are we getting our message across effectively?
Facebook and Twitter have now been around for a few years, but many people still have no idea how to use them properly. Sure you made a group or fanpage or a twitter account, but no one is looking at it because no can see it.
I think I am seeing a gradual shift away from social-media-for-the-sake-of-it mania towards a more useful and balanced approach combining new and old media in a complementary way: by the industry leaders that is. People are now playing to the strengths of the media and have worked out how to use it effectively.
Of course for every industry leader in marketing and communications there are thousands and thousands of stragglers. Many give up, some get better, but social media is starting to mature.
Its those stragglers that inspire talks like the one we had. The Duffy Agency (and probably every other media agency in the world) are still having to spend time and money to convince their client that social media could be useful for them.
No ostrich ever survived by sticking its head in the sand. Until we all start to understand the pros and cons of social media thoroughly, there will always be a debate around what is it useful for and whether we should use it for our own purposes.
Monday 28 February 2011
My new toy
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| "The best camera you can buy is the camera you carry with you." — Per Nilsson. |
That's because I bought a new camera with Viktorija to replace the old one, which was packing it in after five years of good service.
After a bit of research and a bit more of bothering people I know who should know about cameras and such, I decided that this or its slightly better upgrade would be the best options.
This camera is cheap, light, small and has 12 megapixels (ignore the lying photo) and 5x optical zoom. For almost all intents and purposes, this camera is good enough. Sure it doesn't have a detachable lens or special features or an excellent processor, but for 750 kr (€85 or AU$115) it is the best buy I could have hoped for. It was actually the cheapest camera with a Lithium-Ion battery, but it received better reviews that more expensive cameras with similar features on various websites that I scoured.
After around a decade of digital cameras, more or less all of them are all right for facebook photos and making short videos of strange things you see while travelling. I had been considering buying a Canon G12 (around 6-7 more expensive), which is the bridge between point-and-shoots and DSLRs, but I knew that I would always be afraid to take it out of the house lest it get stolen or broken or scratched or whatnot.
As my friend Per Nilsson said, "The best camera you can buy is the camera you carry with you." If you are too afraid to carry the damned thing, why have it at all? It also conveniently follows the advice of my French lecturer in my Journalism bachelor (who used to be a war correspondent, if you're interested) who said the best advice he could ever give is to always carry a camera with you. As a freelancer, you never know when you are going to see a car crash involving a drunk politician and some school children crossing the street or something like that. You always want to be able to take a photo and sell it. On a less sinister note you could also take photos of your friends at parties and not worry about the camera being stepped on.
Sunday 27 February 2011
Mousse is yummy
Jenny's chocolate mousse
Serves six
Ingredients:
320g (12oz) strong dark eating chocolate
30g (1oz) unsalted butter
6 eggs
pinch of salt
Method:
Separate the eggs, placing the whites into a roomy bowl.
Break the chocolate into small pieces and put them in another roomy bowl set over a pan with a centimetre of barely simmering water. Add the butter and allow both to gently melt. Stir occasionally.
In the meantime, add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and whisk to the soft peak (floppy) stage. In a separate bowl, break up the yolks.
When the chocolate and butter have melted and have been allowed to cool for a couple of minutes stir in the yolks.
Cut and fold in the whites in three batches until seamlessly combined. Pour into ramekins and refrigerate for a couple of hours to set.
You can get more tips on the website where I found it originally.
Saturday 26 February 2011
Functional Drink...WTF?
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| Does it look like medicine, a sports drink, energy drink, drain cleaner......? You deicde. |
These drinks were given out at the jobs fair held by Lundaekonomerna, my faculty's student body. There were multiple energy drinks and health products to take as samples along side evil investment banking firms and IKEA (note: no free furniture) that were looking for trainees.
This drink has tried to differentiate itself as some sort of healthy option among the energy drinks product category, which most people (I understand) think is by definition unhealthy. We've all read the stories about the Jaegerbomb heart attacks and about the hospitalized kids after drinking 13 Red Bulls.
Kickup wants to be different of course: the white bottle, which I think is incredibly ugly and off-putting, is reminiscent of a medicine bottle (psychology: "Its good for you!") and it also has a list of the different vitamins it has on the back — all 13 of them. If you don't know what they are or what the hell they do, don't worry, Daddy (this company) will take care of you (psychology: "You are doomed without us.").
The thing that got my attention with this product is not that it is an energy drink or that it has vitamin supplements or that it is in an opaque bottle, but that it's called "Functional Drink." What exactly does that mean anyway? Perhaps it signifies that unless you drink this, you just don't function properly? Or perhaps it insinuates that other beverages serve no function.
For example:
Water? Forget about it, it is dirty and horrible from the tap!
Beer? It dehydrates you and makes you sleepy!
Tea? For poofters, come on, be a man!
Coffee? Actually in Sweden coffee is untouchable; the drink of champions. Let's not talk about it.
I guess the best thing about this drink for me is the 1 kr I will get when I take it to the recycling station :D
Tuesday 22 February 2011
It aint all beer and roses
Making beer at home using household equipment is fraught with danger. Bacteria that wants to destroy your batch of sparkling beer lurks around every corner. The only way to fight it: douse it in shit loads of chlorine.
Normally I am militant about the way I sterilize my brewing equipment, leaving it to soak with chlorine solution as well as giving it a bit of a wash down with a rag. This time, when I was making a Thomas Coopers Special Edition Pilsner kit, which I picked up in Malmo, I didn't take a good look at the brewing spoon I was using.
Normally I use a metal spoon, but I've been conscious that I could scratch the inside of the barrel and therefore start a bacteria trap. So, I used my friend Brandon's spoon to mix the wort because it had a rubber head.
However, it was my caution that proved to be my downfall: the spoon had a metal handle and where the rubber met the metal, it was coming apart and obviously some nasties were living in there. The result of this was that the whole batch was contaminated and ended up being completely ruined.
See the video for the end result after bottle conditioning (about six weeks).
Normally I am militant about the way I sterilize my brewing equipment, leaving it to soak with chlorine solution as well as giving it a bit of a wash down with a rag. This time, when I was making a Thomas Coopers Special Edition Pilsner kit, which I picked up in Malmo, I didn't take a good look at the brewing spoon I was using.
Normally I use a metal spoon, but I've been conscious that I could scratch the inside of the barrel and therefore start a bacteria trap. So, I used my friend Brandon's spoon to mix the wort because it had a rubber head.
However, it was my caution that proved to be my downfall: the spoon had a metal handle and where the rubber met the metal, it was coming apart and obviously some nasties were living in there. The result of this was that the whole batch was contaminated and ended up being completely ruined.
See the video for the end result after bottle conditioning (about six weeks).
Sunday 20 February 2011
For lazy people
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| The creator of this lovely batch of Tinginys. Yum yum yum. Take one... |
This is a fridge cake, meaning that you mix everything then put it in the fridge for a few hours to make it set. It's called "lazy" because its stupidly easy to make. This should not be consumed by anyone watching their weight carefully. Ever.
Ingredients (exact amounts aren't crucial):
200g butter (82% fat, ie real butter. This is important: no margarine)
1 can (~150 - 200 mL) sweetened, condensed milk
2 or 3 heap tablespoons of cocoa
300g plain biscuits
Tbsp of nuts and/or raisins?
Method:
Break biscuits into small fingernail-size pieces, avoiding crumbs and crushed biscuits. Melt butter in saucepan. Add cocoa and stir in until well combined. Add sweetened, condensed milk. Combine liquid with biscuits and mix. Insert into a clean plastic bag and compress, removing bubbles from mix. Form a shape (flat disc or a roll or ...?). Insert into fridge and chill for four hours. Remove from bag, cut into pieces and eat (one).
Thursday 17 February 2011
Target customer: More money than sense
There are two interesting pricing strategies for us in the entrepreneurship class at university: one is cost-plus (the cost of production plus some sort of fixed margin. This is used for commodities and in industries that have high competition and little variation in quality). Then there is value based pricing (the perceived value to the user is taken into account, regardless of the actual price of production).
Value based pricing is particularly interesting in when it comes to marketing and sales of items that hold little value in themselves. What happens when there are too many players in the market or when some product becomes too generic is that people invent new values and attach them to their product by marketing.
A nice example of this is Moleskin notebooks. In essence, they are bound paper with or without lines. Some of them have other features like calendars. It is the added value that you pay for when you buy this little book for $40. Other notebooks of the same size cost $2. So what do you get, since you paid $38 more than the other guy? One would expect better binding. A nice cover perhaps? The rest is in your head: exclusivity ("look at me poor man, I'm fucking rich!"), luxury ("I'm worth it") and a few other things.
Usually people can't justify a rise in price unless there is some discernible change in quality. I mean we aren't complete fools right? We aren't going to pay more just to think that we are somehow cooler than the rest... right? Wrong.
Iittala is a brand from Finland that has taken it in its stride that all consumers are foolish enough and they are going to make them pay a fee to prove it. The company makes candle holders for tea lights, as well as various other home wares.
I admit that their goods are somewhat stylish and nice, but I really laugh about their pricing strategy because it has been so damned successful for them. In Sweden, almost every house that I've been to has at least one of these. Even the house we rent has two of them.
I've added some photos here to exemplify my point about their pricing strategy. Just so you know, there is no difference in size or weight or quality between the different colours. There is simply a new colour. Really. Take a look at the prices. At the time of writing, 100 SEK = €11.49 = AU$15.44.
Evidently this price strategy works because people go to each other's houses and look at the decorations and think to themselves "Oh I don't have the red colour in my Iittala candle holders" then they go home and nag their partner until they give in and fork out hundreds, if not thousands of kronor on these pieces of coloured glass.
If anyone cares to (dis)agree with this, feel free to comment, but more importantly, give me more examples of this please!
Value based pricing is particularly interesting in when it comes to marketing and sales of items that hold little value in themselves. What happens when there are too many players in the market or when some product becomes too generic is that people invent new values and attach them to their product by marketing.
 |
| I added the red arrows. Click to enlarge to see the difference in price. |
A nice example of this is Moleskin notebooks. In essence, they are bound paper with or without lines. Some of them have other features like calendars. It is the added value that you pay for when you buy this little book for $40. Other notebooks of the same size cost $2. So what do you get, since you paid $38 more than the other guy? One would expect better binding. A nice cover perhaps? The rest is in your head: exclusivity ("look at me poor man, I'm fucking rich!"), luxury ("I'm worth it") and a few other things.
Usually people can't justify a rise in price unless there is some discernible change in quality. I mean we aren't complete fools right? We aren't going to pay more just to think that we are somehow cooler than the rest... right? Wrong.
Iittala is a brand from Finland that has taken it in its stride that all consumers are foolish enough and they are going to make them pay a fee to prove it. The company makes candle holders for tea lights, as well as various other home wares.
I admit that their goods are somewhat stylish and nice, but I really laugh about their pricing strategy because it has been so damned successful for them. In Sweden, almost every house that I've been to has at least one of these. Even the house we rent has two of them.
 |
| I added the red arrows. Click to enlarge to see the difference in price. |
Evidently this price strategy works because people go to each other's houses and look at the decorations and think to themselves "Oh I don't have the red colour in my Iittala candle holders" then they go home and nag their partner until they give in and fork out hundreds, if not thousands of kronor on these pieces of coloured glass.
If anyone cares to (dis)agree with this, feel free to comment, but more importantly, give me more examples of this please!
Monday 14 February 2011
Vox populi: heard in class
Our new lecturer Ragnar is a favourite amongst the students. He makes people feel comfortable and more often than not he is laughing about something. The following was heard in class (sources will be protected!)
"You can't just say 'anyhow' in any sentence!!"
"He looks like Santa Claus. He has a beard and smiles a lot. I can imagine him with kids on his knee, giving them presents hehe."
If other funny things are heard in class feel free to put them in the comments :)
"You can't just say 'anyhow' in any sentence!!"
"He looks like Santa Claus. He has a beard and smiles a lot. I can imagine him with kids on his knee, giving them presents hehe."
If other funny things are heard in class feel free to put them in the comments :)
Saturday 12 February 2011
A night out in Malmö
Never underestimate the appeal a man with no face can have on a bunch of girls at a rock concert.
On Friday night we answered David's (a Mexican classmate of mine) call to go to Malmö where he lives for a pre-party and a concert by a friend of his at a local club.
The pre-party started after a sauna session I had with Max and Eric, setting the tone of the evening to "relaxed." At David's house we had popcorn, listened to The Doors and had a few chilled beers.
Every now and then David screamed in his trademark fashion to increase general excitement. David's screams are something like how I would sound if you poured a kettle of boiling water on my back...for him its just pure positive energy though :)
David had promised to go see one of his friends perform at Debaser, a club just near the Malmö city amusement park. We got there just as she was finishing her last song and thanking the crowd for listening. Whoops.
The next band were sort of lame...a local Swedish rock band called "If they ask, tell them we're dead." The sound guy was paying no attention to them, so that didn't help: their lead singer was completely inaudible and the backing vocalist was incredibly loud, so it sounded sort of crap. Maybe if they had been properly amped up, they would have sounded better: I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
After a bit of DJ filler the next band with the man without a face came on. They were called Maps & Atlases. The lead singer/guitarist had such long hair coming out of his head (on the back and the front) that you could barely see any skin. Then he was wearing massive glasses so you couldn't really see his eyes. Imagine a nose emerging from a bush of hair...holding a guitar.
This band played what I later found out to be "math rock" because of its complicated rhythms. Actually they were quite good and the crowd was dancing. Maps & Atlases come from Chicago and are doing their first tour in Europe. See the video below for the song that they opened the set with. (note that his hair in this video isn't as long.)
After the concert I went to check out that desk where they sell CDs. There was an EP for 20 kr (about $4) and I wanted to support the band without shelling out $20 that I don't have to spend so I bought it instead of the LP.
I was dragged back stage by David to go speak to these fellas and I casually mentioned to the hairy guy that I bought his album and showed it to him. He informed me that I had bought the CD of the band who opened for them. That was a bit of a laugh.
We chatted about how they had come along in the US. I informed him that I'd never heard of him before, but he wasn't surprised. In the end his manager came in trying to act all tough and kicked us out. I wished hairball good luck on his tour.
On Friday night we answered David's (a Mexican classmate of mine) call to go to Malmö where he lives for a pre-party and a concert by a friend of his at a local club.
The pre-party started after a sauna session I had with Max and Eric, setting the tone of the evening to "relaxed." At David's house we had popcorn, listened to The Doors and had a few chilled beers.
Every now and then David screamed in his trademark fashion to increase general excitement. David's screams are something like how I would sound if you poured a kettle of boiling water on my back...for him its just pure positive energy though :)
David had promised to go see one of his friends perform at Debaser, a club just near the Malmö city amusement park. We got there just as she was finishing her last song and thanking the crowd for listening. Whoops.
The next band were sort of lame...a local Swedish rock band called "If they ask, tell them we're dead." The sound guy was paying no attention to them, so that didn't help: their lead singer was completely inaudible and the backing vocalist was incredibly loud, so it sounded sort of crap. Maybe if they had been properly amped up, they would have sounded better: I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
After a bit of DJ filler the next band with the man without a face came on. They were called Maps & Atlases. The lead singer/guitarist had such long hair coming out of his head (on the back and the front) that you could barely see any skin. Then he was wearing massive glasses so you couldn't really see his eyes. Imagine a nose emerging from a bush of hair...holding a guitar.
This band played what I later found out to be "math rock" because of its complicated rhythms. Actually they were quite good and the crowd was dancing. Maps & Atlases come from Chicago and are doing their first tour in Europe. See the video below for the song that they opened the set with. (note that his hair in this video isn't as long.)
After the concert I went to check out that desk where they sell CDs. There was an EP for 20 kr (about $4) and I wanted to support the band without shelling out $20 that I don't have to spend so I bought it instead of the LP.
I was dragged back stage by David to go speak to these fellas and I casually mentioned to the hairy guy that I bought his album and showed it to him. He informed me that I had bought the CD of the band who opened for them. That was a bit of a laugh.
We chatted about how they had come along in the US. I informed him that I'd never heard of him before, but he wasn't surprised. In the end his manager came in trying to act all tough and kicked us out. I wished hairball good luck on his tour.
Thursday 10 February 2011
Busy week of telling stories
This week has been a very busy one in our degree. We have had the submission of the second round business plan for Venture Cup, a competition in Sweden where you can win money for having the best business ideas. We also had the first round of Dragons at the University, a pitching competition that will be broadcast for TV, where you tell your idea to investors and they tell you if they would invest in your idea (if it were a real pitch). I've never seen the show, but I understand that it is made to be a little bit dramatic, so they might say some nasty things to us in order to get some reactions.
The business plan was the big piece of work that we submitted during the week. Though Biggi isn't very good at interpreting recipes for pizza sauce, he is good as using InDesign to make attractive layouts (see picture). The plan was 31 pages in the end, but it will be expanded to be around double that size by the end of May.
If anyone had been wondering what I am doing for my project in the degree, the one sentence summary there is a pretty good start. You can see some of the furniture prototypes that were made by our researchers in the photos. Of course the rest of the plan won't be uploaded here, but you can get an inkling.
Today for the Dragons at the University, we went to the presentation where around 10 people, including university representatives, business angels, business incubator bosses and more were listening to our pitches all day. Out of 14 groups, we were one of the eight that were chosen who will go through to the next round with the actual investors (the cast of the TV show).
It's been an interesting week for sure and I feel like the degree is really starting to take off rather than being so theory based. On another note, the class has settled into our office space and there is a rhythm to the place now. Everyone who bothers to come to the office has more or less chosen a room they like and tend to work in them every day.
 |
| Click to enlarge. |
If anyone had been wondering what I am doing for my project in the degree, the one sentence summary there is a pretty good start. You can see some of the furniture prototypes that were made by our researchers in the photos. Of course the rest of the plan won't be uploaded here, but you can get an inkling.
Today for the Dragons at the University, we went to the presentation where around 10 people, including university representatives, business angels, business incubator bosses and more were listening to our pitches all day. Out of 14 groups, we were one of the eight that were chosen who will go through to the next round with the actual investors (the cast of the TV show).
It's been an interesting week for sure and I feel like the degree is really starting to take off rather than being so theory based. On another note, the class has settled into our office space and there is a rhythm to the place now. Everyone who bothers to come to the office has more or less chosen a room they like and tend to work in them every day.
Tuesday 8 February 2011
The road giveth and the road taketh...
Riding bikes in winter time can be a tricky thing. Various weather conditions that happen during the season can pop up at any moment and many of them just aren't familiar to me.
Riding bikes through snow is one thing: its tough on the legs because its like riding on the beach. Every now and then the snow buries a pot hole or a lump of ice, which can jump up and surprise you. Then there is regular ice, but somehow if you don't try to turn quickly, the stones for grip put down by the municipality sort that out just fine.
The hard one is when an ice storm hits, producing "black ice." An ice storm occurs when the temperature is below zero, but instead of snowing, it rains. The rain hits the ground and freezes immediately forming a perfectly flat (and incredibly slippery) surface. Its called black ice because its the colour of the road, but its still ice.
I was riding my bike home the other day when I came to the realization that while I was at a friend's house it had been raining and the ground was covered in super slick black ice. I had been riding on the stones that get put down for grip on the bike paths, but suddenly I wound up on a cobble stone road. Noticing that I was going to have serious trouble if I kept riding, but also realizing that I couldn't put the brakes on I decided to stop pedaling and see what would happen. The road was slightly downhill so I was picking up speed. Tentatively I tapped the pedal brakes (where you pedal backwards to stop the wheels), but just this was enough to make me lose control.
In less than a second my back wheel was in front of my front wheel and I was falling down on the stones. I managed to fall somehow without hurting myself, sliding along with the bike down the smooth road for about five metres. Getting up rather shocked and checking I hadn't lost or broken anything I moved to the side of the road to gather myself. A woman who was walking behind me at the time of the fall came over and said "Oh I wish I had a video camera at that moment." Well, thanks a lot for your kind words...
After walking home I noticed the metal mud guards were a bit bent and were rubbing on the front wheel, which had warped.
So on Monday when I went to ride again I fixed the mud guard and rode warily on a wonky front wheel. On the way home I went by an unusual route and was going down the hill when suddenly I rode into a small pothole in the bike lane. The jolt was enough to make me pay attention. Suddenly I remembered my wonky wheel and looked down to see if it was completely ruined. Nope, it was now corrected and running nice and straight.
Riding bikes through snow is one thing: its tough on the legs because its like riding on the beach. Every now and then the snow buries a pot hole or a lump of ice, which can jump up and surprise you. Then there is regular ice, but somehow if you don't try to turn quickly, the stones for grip put down by the municipality sort that out just fine.
The hard one is when an ice storm hits, producing "black ice." An ice storm occurs when the temperature is below zero, but instead of snowing, it rains. The rain hits the ground and freezes immediately forming a perfectly flat (and incredibly slippery) surface. Its called black ice because its the colour of the road, but its still ice.
 |
| Damn you, Stoney McStone stone! |
In less than a second my back wheel was in front of my front wheel and I was falling down on the stones. I managed to fall somehow without hurting myself, sliding along with the bike down the smooth road for about five metres. Getting up rather shocked and checking I hadn't lost or broken anything I moved to the side of the road to gather myself. A woman who was walking behind me at the time of the fall came over and said "Oh I wish I had a video camera at that moment." Well, thanks a lot for your kind words...
After walking home I noticed the metal mud guards were a bit bent and were rubbing on the front wheel, which had warped.
So on Monday when I went to ride again I fixed the mud guard and rode warily on a wonky front wheel. On the way home I went by an unusual route and was going down the hill when suddenly I rode into a small pothole in the bike lane. The jolt was enough to make me pay attention. Suddenly I remembered my wonky wheel and looked down to see if it was completely ruined. Nope, it was now corrected and running nice and straight.
Monday 7 February 2011
Biggi's mistake
"I make no mistakes," Biggi told me. Birgir, or Biggi as we call him because its too hard to pronounce the Icelanding R's, is one of my course mates and part of our three man team that is making Bespoke Products for our business start up.
He's the hard man in the group: a real Viking. We often joke that he is the bad cop and I'm the good cop, but the solemn truth is that I'm scared of him. I only joined the group with him because I thought he might beat me up if I didn't. People that get in his way usually end up worse off than when they met him, so it was just plain survival instincts that made me choose him.
I guess I can say it here, behind the safety of my keyboard and screen, that Biggi was foolish enough miss the class pizza party that we had at my house. But later on, he decided that when his parents visited from Iceland that he would use my recipe for the pizza sauce. The problems is that he didn't know how to make it: he put the onion in raw instead of fried (It isn't gazpacho damn it!). This didn't go down very well with the furious Viking warrior.
After my black eye healed enough that I could see out of it, I decided that I'd write this post so I wouldn't forget the lesson.
Its ingredients, then method.
Ingredients, then method.
Ingredients, then method.
Ingredients, then method.
Ingredients, then method.
He's the hard man in the group: a real Viking. We often joke that he is the bad cop and I'm the good cop, but the solemn truth is that I'm scared of him. I only joined the group with him because I thought he might beat me up if I didn't. People that get in his way usually end up worse off than when they met him, so it was just plain survival instincts that made me choose him.
I guess I can say it here, behind the safety of my keyboard and screen, that Biggi was foolish enough miss the class pizza party that we had at my house. But later on, he decided that when his parents visited from Iceland that he would use my recipe for the pizza sauce. The problems is that he didn't know how to make it: he put the onion in raw instead of fried (It isn't gazpacho damn it!). This didn't go down very well with the furious Viking warrior.
After my black eye healed enough that I could see out of it, I decided that I'd write this post so I wouldn't forget the lesson.
Its ingredients, then method.
Ingredients, then method.
Ingredients, then method.
Ingredients, then method.
Ingredients, then method.
Sunday 30 January 2011
Implicit fitness
Sweden is a country that puts its money where its mouth is regarding fitness and providing access to easy exercise for people.
I'm talking about biking and how this country has bike paths all over the place that are built in a complete system (like regular roads almost). They have their own traffic lights and the bike paths are well paved and maintained. They all connect to one another and it makes riding a bike really easy.
Today I decided that because the sun was shining, I would go for a 19 km bike ride to the Burlov Center, halfway between Lund and Malmo. All the way there I had special bike paths that had proper signposts.
This sort of investment is something that Australians could only dream about. There are a few bike paths in Perth for example, but these are disconnected and follow routes that no one actually takes. For example, there is a bike path that follows the train line, but you can take your bike on the train for free. Of course if you don't really want to ride 20 km out to Midland, you get on the train and the whole point of the exercise is lost.
Here it is a bit different: the bike paths run where people want to go in the city and between towns and they are situated between the road and the footpath. It means you can safely ride your bike anywhere without some hideous bogan moron trying to scare you by driving too close in their V6 Falcon while simultaneously telling you to fuck off the road.
Often in dense European cities it is faster to get on your bike and ride than to take the bus or to walk or even drive. Whats great is you can really do it without compromising your safety.
A tacit benefit of all this is that you are doing moderate exercise every day, something that we all need to do in the modern age in order not to be unhealthy. Just by moving around, you get healthier and it is of course free.
I would not be able to back this claim up with numbers, but I even suspect that the health benefits caused by enabling people to cycle everywhere (Swedes do) would somehow cancel the costs of extra doctor's bills that need to be picked up by the state. Being fit naturally protects your body, so you don't need to go get that consultation from an overworked GP to tell you that you should really move more and eat less potato chips.
Its how a government should spend tax money, by making cities more livable.
I'm talking about biking and how this country has bike paths all over the place that are built in a complete system (like regular roads almost). They have their own traffic lights and the bike paths are well paved and maintained. They all connect to one another and it makes riding a bike really easy.
Today I decided that because the sun was shining, I would go for a 19 km bike ride to the Burlov Center, halfway between Lund and Malmo. All the way there I had special bike paths that had proper signposts.
This sort of investment is something that Australians could only dream about. There are a few bike paths in Perth for example, but these are disconnected and follow routes that no one actually takes. For example, there is a bike path that follows the train line, but you can take your bike on the train for free. Of course if you don't really want to ride 20 km out to Midland, you get on the train and the whole point of the exercise is lost.
Often in dense European cities it is faster to get on your bike and ride than to take the bus or to walk or even drive. Whats great is you can really do it without compromising your safety.
A tacit benefit of all this is that you are doing moderate exercise every day, something that we all need to do in the modern age in order not to be unhealthy. Just by moving around, you get healthier and it is of course free.
I would not be able to back this claim up with numbers, but I even suspect that the health benefits caused by enabling people to cycle everywhere (Swedes do) would somehow cancel the costs of extra doctor's bills that need to be picked up by the state. Being fit naturally protects your body, so you don't need to go get that consultation from an overworked GP to tell you that you should really move more and eat less potato chips.
Its how a government should spend tax money, by making cities more livable.
Thursday 20 January 2011
EU publishing
If you take a bunch of bureaucrats to work with a bunch of academics across six countries and cultures, you will get a bad product that is late. Its natural that people are just incapable of working unless there is some sort of great motivation.
That was the case with our new course book (published by the EU), which was in the words of my new lecturer 'rescued' from the hands of The University of Palermo. Because of the EU's bureaucratic deadlines and the squabbling between universities, the book was never edited, so its got a lot of crap in it.
For example, on the first page, there is a sentence that beings "Since a small business is not a little big business..." Um...WTF?
Then in the back cover there is a leaflet that asks if you are having trouble reading the text in the program on the CD that comes with the book. No problem, just change the language into Italian and it will be in English. Simple, right? Or as the leaflet in the book says: "Isn't it magic?"
That was the case with our new course book (published by the EU), which was in the words of my new lecturer 'rescued' from the hands of The University of Palermo. Because of the EU's bureaucratic deadlines and the squabbling between universities, the book was never edited, so its got a lot of crap in it.
For example, on the first page, there is a sentence that beings "Since a small business is not a little big business..." Um...WTF?
Then in the back cover there is a leaflet that asks if you are having trouble reading the text in the program on the CD that comes with the book. No problem, just change the language into Italian and it will be in English. Simple, right? Or as the leaflet in the book says: "Isn't it magic?"
Monday 17 January 2011
Pizza party
Sunday heralded the class' first communal dinner, which was a pizza party at my house - about 16 people turned up.
Making dough isn't that easy nor quick, so I asked everyone for a solid RSVP. Lots of guys who went out on Saturday night were pretty happy to say they would take part and have some pizza, but after a few beers they chickened out. Pussies... ;-) In any case we had a lot of fun. No photos unfortunately: the photographers were on holiday.
For those who asked me earlier, here are the recipes I used:
Dough (for 4-6 people)
500 g flour (I used rågsikt, which is a mix of rye and wheat flour)
350 mL water
7 g dry yeast (I used 25 g of live yeast, but these are more or less equivalents)
1.5 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp olive oil
Red sauce (matches dough recipe quantity)
1 chopped onion (optional, but onions are the best thing ever invented, aren't they?)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
1 x 400 g can of tomatoes
0.5 tsp sugar
1 tbsp oregano
salt (to taste)
50 mL water
Balsamic vinegar (to taste, perhaps 1 tbsp - add at the end)
Making dough isn't that easy nor quick, so I asked everyone for a solid RSVP. Lots of guys who went out on Saturday night were pretty happy to say they would take part and have some pizza, but after a few beers they chickened out. Pussies... ;-) In any case we had a lot of fun. No photos unfortunately: the photographers were on holiday.
For those who asked me earlier, here are the recipes I used:
Dough (for 4-6 people)
500 g flour (I used rågsikt, which is a mix of rye and wheat flour)
350 mL water
7 g dry yeast (I used 25 g of live yeast, but these are more or less equivalents)
1.5 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp olive oil
Red sauce (matches dough recipe quantity)
1 chopped onion (optional, but onions are the best thing ever invented, aren't they?)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
1 x 400 g can of tomatoes
0.5 tsp sugar
1 tbsp oregano
salt (to taste)
50 mL water
Balsamic vinegar (to taste, perhaps 1 tbsp - add at the end)
Thursday 13 January 2011
Bank bullcrap
Its always interesting to get used to a new culture, but I'm always surprised how much bank culture changes in every country. I had always assumed that the same bank in different counties would more or less operate in the same way. Its not true however. To this end I have constructed a how-to list for getting paid in Sweden.
1. Get informed by employer (university) what your bank is (Nordea).
2. Go to Nordea to open account. Get told you aren't able to open account. Open account after insisting that its actually possible for you to open an account (its possible). [NB: you open an account so you don't have to pay an 80 kronor (~€7) fee for making transactions]
3. Get cheque in mail (yes thats a real paper cheque in the snail mail. Yes it is 2011, that wasn't a dream).
4. Go to Nordea where you have an account in order to avoid fees to deposit cheque. Be informed that depositing a cheque in the bank costs 50 kr for members.
5. Be informed that if you take a special envelope, only available from the teller (as far as I can tell) and send your cheque to the bank by post (pre-paid by the bank) then you won't pay any fee.
Seriously.
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