The Sound of Snow

It’s fascinating how snow brings back memories from times long gone. Not only from childhood’s eternal winter holidays, but from ski vacations in Sälen and The Alps and from living in Stockholm where it’s often much colder than here on the West coast.

Fresh snow has a special sound. It was captured quite neatly in the children’s TV show “Trolltider”. Footsteps made by an invisible tomte. Early in the morning it’s even possible to hear snow falling, each snow flake making a faint noise when bumping into another or when coming to rest on the ground. The whole soundscape is kind of muffled. The ultimate fictional winter experience can as always be found in Mark Helprin’s wonderful story “Winter’s Tale”. Very far from the picture The Holiday, trying to con Americans that it actually snows in Surrey.

Today was winter solstice. From now on it gets lighter. And with the snow, it becomes even brighter. Please Santa, let the snow stay and the sun come! Please!

Merry Christmas! God Jul!

Armeria Maritima

Thank you so much for all your votes in the Summer Photo Competition 2009, now closed! Of the 25 votes by mail and comments, seven were for the coastal picture from Orust, number 3.

When I studied biology in high school, our teacher took us on an excursion to the archipelago south of Göteborg. She said: “This flower is called Trift. Let it be the least of what you remember from this class.” Least and only, I’m afraid. The butterfly from Sanssouci, the flowers from Vinterviken and the sheep art from Pilarna were also close to winning.

The winner of this competition was drawn by Navid Modiri (the inventor of 365 Saker att göra/Things to Do) when I met him at Språkcaféet in Göteborg. It turned out to be Britt Lööf (an avid blogger herself) who will receive a bouquet from Fleurop-Interflora in collaboration with the Red Cross.

If you want to look at some really intriguing pictures, have a look at National Geographic and Airbus’ website See the Bigger Picture.

East Meats West

Radisson Hotel in Shanghai is situated by People’s Square where the West and East Nanjing Road meet. From my room at the 28th floor I had a good view of the Renmin Park and of the neon-clad skyscrapers downtown. Despite the abundance of Chinese restaurants I opted for a safe bet, or so I thought, by entering a Pizza Hut. However, market adjustment is always important and obviously Asian customers are more frequent than European ones why it was hard to find some really nice vegetarian food.

Everywhere in the Shanghai region you find advertising for the EXPO 2010. In flower arrangements, in the special stores selling all kinds of goods wearing the EXPO logo and mascot, at the museums, with the street merchants, on posters and so on. Almost 200 countries will participate in this expo that perhaps will be the biggest event ever arranged on earth so far. The location of the expo area is excellent, rather close to the city centre and at the river.

I visited a presentation of the Finnish pavilion and they estimate that it will host 20.000 visitors each day during the six months of the EXPO. In total, 70 million visitors are expected at the EXPO. No wonder all countries are trying to figure out how to make most out of this meeting place, and how to create good business with the Chinese hosts.

Swedish companies have been present in China for quite some time. First the big international corporation started production here. Then came their suppliers wanting to be near their customers. Although service-oriented companies are becoming more frequent, about 80% of the business is still oriented towards sourcing. However, the structure of business is slowly changing, partly because of new demands in relation to Corporate Social Responsibility issues. The Sino-Swedish CSR Cooperation is therefore especially well positioned in time as is the new Sino-Swedish Sustainable Business Program in Shanghai.

I very much hope to go to the EXPO next year. The Swedish pavilion looks exciting and I believe the program will be very interesting too, especially the seminars in the neighbouring regions. Maybe by then I will have read “Where East Eats West: The Street-Smarts Guide to Business in China. Although I’d better practice using chopsticks...

Opportunistic Driving

In Sweden, most people drive according to the traffic regulations. We stick to one lane and when overtaking we go on the left side. Honking is seldom used, and hard shoulders are frowned upon. A red light means stopping, and if you are in a left turning lane, you go left.

This of course means that if you try to apply the same approach in Shanghai, you will not last a day. Not an hour in fact. Here cars always stray between lanes in order to find the quickest one, why it is impossible to predict the movements of the cars in front of you. Why in turn of course it is only natural to warn them about your own ambitions by using the horn or the lights. If you spot slow vehicles in the lanes turning right, you of course can go around them using the left turning lane if it is empty. Since it is sometime difficult to cross the wide streets with many lanes, it is also makes sense to expect bikes, motor bikes and pedestrians in the streets in all directions at the same time. Red lights are more of a recommendation, but the whistle-blowing policemen should always be taken seriously.

Given these different approaches to traffic, it makes me wonder to what extent we can export intelligent transport systems. What is intelligent behaviour in these circumstances? Maybe something for Telematics Valley to consider, but also the initiative made by the Swedish Road Administration to commercialise more of its intellectual property in cooperation with Innovationsbron: The Transport Business Booster. But I’m sure that since they are cooperating with international partners such as Ericsson, they will already have accounted for this.

Summer Photo Competition 2009

Today Sweden changed from summer time to normal (winter?) time. We gained an extra hour, which I spent on announcing this “competition”. Otherwise my two jobs, one at Innovationsbron and the other at VINNOVA keep me rather busy.

Although this summer has been a really rainy one, at least in Sweden, somehow I’ve managed to take lots of photos. Want to help me pick the one to symbolise the Summer of 2009? Write down which one is your favourite in a comment to this blog post together with your email address, and at the same time you will enter the lottery with a chance of winning a lovely bouquet of summer flowers. Open until 1st of December.

Look at the Picasa folder with the pictures, and then go back to this blog post and write a comment. It does not show immediately, but you can rest assured that I will take good care of it and put it into the lottery bowl!

Looking forward to your vote!
/Lena

Dressing as Design

I’m probably going to Shanghai during fall and when I told my friends about this one of them quickly asked me to go to an outlet at Nanjing Road and buy 20 shirts for him. Now, I probably won’t have time to do this but I was intrigued about the request. The idea of having someone else buy my clothes is very remote to me as and I also came to realize that I don’t have more than one of any piece of clothing. Unless you count two shirts from The Banana Republic I bought in Boston that share the same design but are totally different with respect to colour and cloth.

This is probably a gender thing. As a woman, I don’t just dress in the morning – I compose an outfit. The clothes I wear are carefully selected in order to fit the weather, the schedule and my mood. To look the same two days in a row is not an option. I think this is good practice in order to stay creative.

My absolute favourite designer is Vivienne Westwood. I hope one day to wear one of her suits (I adore her evening dresses, but I have a hard time picturing myself in one of them). In the meantime I might use the suggestion from The Guardian on how to make you own Westwood dress!

Although some days I certainly wish I had some kind of uniform, when inspiration is nowhere to be found and both the weather and schedule have changed since I did my planning the previous evening...

Prickly Wisdom

I am forever thankful to my friend Katja who recommended me reading Muriel Barbery’s warm and intelligent “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”. This book celebrates learning, but also demands that we do something good or beautiful with our new knowledge.

A great source of inspiration for good deeds is Harvard Business Review’s September issue. In it several important aspects of sustainable business development is covered, very much related to the HINT project I’m working with at Innovationsbron.

Constant innovation is the key to survival, why it is interesting to read about how LEGO and Cisco have approach this issue using the wisdom of the crowd through competitions and end-user communities. Engagement from employees is also important, where a green strategy can boost moral as well as innovation.

Women as an often neglected market because of lack of diversity in company workforces and boards is another topic (although I think this particular article was a little bit traditional in its pick of products). Six key female consumer segments are identified and, yes, I could see myself in this model.

C K Prahalad has written several interesting HBR articles all related to sustainability the last years. In this issue he argues that sustainability of the key driver for innovation and describes five stages for companies on their way towards sustainability. Another piece looks at renewable energy and Bill Clinton talks about how to create value even in the middle of an economical crisis.

Blue Ocean Strategy is described as a way for a company to actually have an impact on the context it operates in. This is a way for the entrepreneur who is not afraid of taking on the double task of changing the world and attracting customers. Like the CSR-driven entrepreneurs in focus in a Nordic research project.

What is also interesting with this issue is that only a few of the articles mentioned above can be found in the “Sustainability + Innovation” section. Apparently, HBR only considers environmental aspects as sustainable. Me, I’m still in favour of the People-Planet-Profit definition of sustainability.

One important aspect of sustainability is of course to be long-lasting. This is the topic of many of Jim Collin’s research project. One of my favourite books is “Good to Great” where, of course, the hedgehog concept is one key to survival.

“A hedgehog concept is not a goal to be the best, it is an understanding of
what you can be best at.” Jim Collins