[Updated with English version, and slides]

My January gig for Cision (earlier known as The Observer Group) has resulted in a tour to their Scandinavian offices. First out is Cision Finland, who has invited their customers to the Blogit ja Web 2.0 event. Following a small breakfast I open up with the key note Web 2.0-shock! Will social media take over? Web 2.0 sokki – will social media take over (slides). After that Alexander Mason and Sanna Kurkela, both from Cision, deliver their cases and insights. Before lunch we end with a Q&A. Looks exciting. 

Mina tidigare insatser för Obsever (numera Cision) resulterar i en liten Skandinavienturné. Först ut är Cision Finland som bjudit in sina kunder till ett seminarium. Efter en liten frukost inleder jag med keynoten Web 2.0-shock! Will social media take over? Därefter ett par föredrag med Alexander Mason och Sanna Kurkela, båda från Cision. Förmiddagen avslutas med en Q&A. Skall bli otroligt spännande.

[updated after the gig] Beats me why I wrote the original post (text below) in English – sorry folks. It briefly stated that I will speak for European Lilly marketers (excl. F, GB, ES, D, and I). I did also link to the scientific article Interactive media…re-think that introduced the P-C-C triangle model. In any case, the gig tonite (and dinner) was fantastic! – thank you. Please enjoy my slides (pdf) and perhaps a video of my fabulous room shot with my phone this afternoon. As soon as I hear from Turkey this post will be updated again. And in case you believe that social media means less physical meetings – I met with you, right!? Remember, mark some time in your agendas for social media explorations. Perhaps you will then find my blogging guide useful.

[Uppdaterad 2007-04-25] Ett av världens största läkemedelsbolag heter Eli Lilly. När en grupp från deras svenska bolag åker till Geneve för att konferera så får jag vara med och konversera. Dom samlar under en vecka ett 100 tal av bolagets marknadsförare från olika terapiområden. Alla Europeiska länder utom Frankrike, England, Spanien, Tyskland och Italien är med. Under en kväll har jag förmånen att konversera kring bland annat sociala medier, synen på vetenskaplig kunskap och produktutvecklingsprocesser. Det skall bli otroligt intressant, inte minst eftersom vi (Anders Lundkvist och jag) för precis 10 år sedan publicerade vår forskning om hur bland andra läkemedelföretagen påverkades av marknadskonversationer. Och som grädde på moset giget för Socialstyrelsen veckan därpå.

It has suddenly become clear to me that many established Web sites seems out-dated. Well, this is my reflection based on the fact that I personally have become accustomed to the latest Web 2.0 stuff – with all the services, functions and possibilities that follows.

The last few days I have spent a lot of time closely examining more than 20 Swedish web sites. This is because I am again one of the members in the Web Service Award (WSA) jury. (See also my blog post about the upcoming event). WSA is a voluntary competition and the results are based on what actual web site visitors think (pop-up surveys). Our task in the jury is to sort out the finalists and winners from a list of participants with top survey ranks. Sometimes we can just rely on the data, but for statistical reasons the numbers do not always separate the winners from the rest.

When WSA started seven years ago it was easy to see the difference between good and bad contestants, typically because most of them still had to learn how to create a satisfactory web site. It was kind of annoying to see a lot of sites with low functionality, no contact information, terrible aesthetics and lack of conventional wisdom. After a few years our list pointed to generally very good sites (the bad ones still existed, but were sorted out from jury consideration). Over the years the competition (more than the WSA of course) simply resulted in a better (Swedish) Web.

I guess that for the majority of Web surfers, the top ranked sites in this year’s WSA are pretty good. At least that is what the numbers say. But what strikes me is that there is virtually no, I repeat NO, Web 2.0 stuff present. True, there are a couple of exceptions which I cannot share (but you may check the finalists when they are announced tomorrow).

I remember that a few Swedish blogs/MSM’s have discussed the state-of-art Web 2.0 in Sweden, but I can’t find the links right now (will update). No doubt Web sites in my native language will incorporate the latest trends. It is simply mind blowing that it has not happened yet to a lot of them.

Updates:

• 2007-01-18: Regarding state-of-the-art in Sweden I found (via Podradio.nu) Cubma¨s Swe 2.0
• 2007-01-22: Also remembered Top Web Apps in Sweden

Welcome to weconverse, a couple of days later than I intended – but who will care in a decade or two…

For more info about this site, please see the About section.

This was a private gig for the Sales Force from the Nordic region of Observer. It took place in their corporate headquarters in Stockholm.

Please enjoy the handouts from my presentation entitled The Social Media Landscape. At the time of the publication of this post weconverse is pretty thin. Guides and links for your personal exploration will soon be available.

Comments and questions related to this particular gig are most welcome here.