tedx stockholm differentia 2015, part I

On a glorious but horribly freezing cold day I spent close to six hours indoors alongside +400 attendees listening to TEDxStockholm talks with the topic being Differentia2015.

Out of the 10 speakers I enjoyed six and four not so much. There was also a very entertaining part where the International Improvisation Theatre Stockholm did an impro.



But seriously, close to six hours and 10 speakers, that was far too long and far too many at one session. When my mind has had time to think things through I'll make a short recap of the talks.



The grand building to the left, Södra teatern (The South Theatre) was the venue.

Now I'm going to take my very full and tired brain to bed and sleep for about 10 hours. tT least.

stockholm ad campaigns

Maybe I see things differently these days, but I distinctly feel there are more fun, inspiring, cute, witty and pretty ad campaigns in Stockholm right now than ever before. I may not be the least bit interested in the product as such, but I can still enjoy a lovely picture, great design, snappy copywriting or smile about some silly wittiness.

So here are a few recent ad spottings that I've smiled about, for various reasons -



Creamy potato salad for easy summer living - fun picture, but I can definitely do without the product. Personally I shy away from semi-cooked food like this and I can't help but thinking of the TEDx talk last week about food additives and adulterated food...



Love the graphic designs in this campaign for the care-guide (Vårdguiden)! The place where you call if you're worried about some seemingly minor injury or condition but you're not sure if you can care for it yourself or need to see a doctor. The girl above is from the same campaign.



A bit of magic in this pretty ad for Tom Tit's Experiment - a popular museum/science centre for all ages some miles south of Stockholm. More great photos at their website.



Obviously something LEGO-ish, but since I'm not really a LEGO-ish person I'm not sure for exactly what. But it looks cool.



I love me a good pun and this is a silly simple Swenglish one, yoghurt sauces for barbecues "Think Hink!" means Think Bucket due to the sauces being sold in plastic jars.

Although nothing is as super adorable as the bunny campaign of course...

tedx stockholm - what's cooking?

Mikael Kristiansen, contemporary circus artist

Yesterday's TEDx Stockholm salon had the title "What's cooking?" with talks about food as a source for filling physical, emotional and social needs.



My favourite talk one was by Ebba Åkerman who has created the "Invitationsdepartementet" (The Departement of Invitations) in order to further integration by encouraging people to invite people from other cultures to dinners in their homes. That cultural clashes can be enriching, educational, creating understanding and new ideas. Perhaps even give you new friends? And eating good food and have fun is never a bad idea. Sharing a meal is food culture at its finest.

So far 42 dinners have been eaten via the Department of Invitations - her aim is to have 10000 eaten before the Swedish election in September.



Favourite talk two was by best-selling investigative reporter and author Mats-Eric Nilsson, whose books sparked a profound debate in Scandinavia about food additives and adulterated food. His work has influenced both consumers and food producers to change habits. He's currently editor-in-chief of Swedish food magazine Hunger.

Personally it was a long time since I bought the kind of food products he talked/write about. Since a basic rule is fewer, fresh, natural, organic ingredients are always better. But I'm still horrified about the dirty business the food industry in many ways is. And still so many people are hungry on this planet of ours...

Here are 3 simple advices that you as a consumer can do to change your life and the world;

1. Read the label on the food package. If you can't pronounce or understand the ingredients list, don't buy the food product!
2. Turn off the auto-pilot when you go to the grocery store. Instead buy food in season.
3. Cook from scratch. Use fresh ingredients you understand.




Dorotea Malmegård, former chef at fancy restaurants all over the world, now running a home restaurant and catering business


Niklas Ekstedt, TV-chef, restaurateur in Stockholm, one being a Michelin star-restaurant, and cook-book author

It was a fine evening spent, but it would have been great with at least one talk that made more of the connection food - health - sustainability - compassion. By someone passionate who has ideas and goals of creating a better society.

By now we're used to the quality of the speakers being very varied at these events (which are still overall very enjoyable of course). Just because someone is a celebrity doesn't mean the someone has something interesting to say, ideas worth spreading.

The truly inspirational oomph we got fed by this awesome guy, Ron Finley, guerilla gardener in Los Angeles. Do listen to the talk! As usual inspirational life stories and passionate, creative ideas for creating a better world always trumps a celebrity status as such.

happiness does work

One of the reasons we started the collaboration of Two Happy Muses was that we felt that too many people are either just putting in time going to work day in day out, week after week, month after month, year after year or are completely unhappy at their place of work. Which is simply awful, this is not how life should be. For anyone.

With the right attitude from the employer, the company, shareholders and employees, not to mention the society as a whole (inequality and gaps between rich and poor being two major factors for unhappiness), we should all be able to create a workplace we love to spend time at (and a planet to spend time on).

And seriously, what is the purpose of economic growth at every cost if people and the planet aren't happy? It's about high time we start seeing work and how work works in quite a new light.

We are all responsible for how we act and react to actions and interactions, whether it be in life as a whole or in a workplace. We're in it together and happiness is so much nicer, on so many levels, than unhappiness.

I think the Action for Happiness movement is one example of a step in the right direction, just the realisation that with small deeds most of us can do so much more to change our own lifes to the better not to mention other people's is a pretty major step actually.

That said, back to the workplace. I listened to a TEDx talk today about how happiness works - listen to it here and it brought up the idea (or why not the truth) that happiness is something universal, it is functional and it makes us thrive. It is important business.

According to recent Gallup polls only 13% of all people are passionate and happy about their work. People happy at work are less likely to get sick, they are less likely to leave the company, they are more productive and companies with happier employers have fewer workplace accidents. The cost of ignoring unhappiness is immense and yet happiness as a motivator and increased revenues factor is not being taken seriously in general.

I don't believe that an unreasonably high salary will make you happier, nor will status symbols or shopping in general. Consumerism is neither good for the soul nor the planet. I do believe however that a sense of purpose and meaningfulness will make you happier. And of course a stable financial situation based on a reasonable salary for a job well done at a workplace you enjoy going to with tasks you feel passionate about.

How such workplaces and worktasks should be shaped to create sustainable wellbeing and happiness for both individuals and the planet, that is something we should all take a serious think about. What do you think?

More about how I found my happy place you can read here

Currently dancing a lot to Happy makes me happy.

And watching singing kitty and dancing pony always push my happiness button.

how creative people behave, part II

I blogged How creative people behave, part I two weeks ago, it's about time I wrote part II. Based on the second great article on the subject - 10 creative rituals you should steal. This post is about my personal views on the 10 things mentioned.

1. Take quarterly vacations - would love to, if it was financially possible. I don't think it is for very many of us. But I think the "get off the grid" and relax always is a good thing to do regularly. Staycations with that aim are the not so rich people's version.

2. Regularly hold retrospectives - super important I think. Not only if you work in a group or on projects. As a small business owner you need to do it with yourself regularly, what went well, what went less well, why and how can I improve things for next time. And remember to treat yourself to something special when you've done something really good.

3. Write every day - duh. Absolutely essential for your creativity and well-being! You work so much things, issues, problems through that way. Everything, really, becomes clear with putting the pen to the paper or, as most of us do, tapping the keyboard. You'll find your clarity. And the best thing is that the more you write the more you want to write and the more ideas you get. Heart.

4. Meet interesting people-fund - I can only concur. Going to events where interesting people talk (like TEDx and such) and be inspired. Do lunch with interesting people regularly. Twitter is actually a great source for that. Suggest lunch or coffee and find that most people are delighted to meet up and they're often just as great in irl as online. If you find mindless and forced mingling awkward and unappealing, find a business speeddating event in your area. You never ever know what great things those meetups might lead to... Things rarely happen overnight, but keep you eyes and mind open for people and opportunities and they WILL appear, I'm sure.

5. Surround yourself with inspiring things - well of course! The importance of beauty and inspiration. Creating mood boards is a simple way to do it.

6. Take a nap every day - I never do. Because I know I will not be able to sleep at night that way. And I never really feel like a nap, I'm either wide awake or ready to sleep for many hours, there's no in between for me. To be honest I did take naps daily when I worked at really horrible workplaces, because I was so tired to the bone. It never did any good for me, my creativity, productivity or well-being and I will forever associate the need for daily naps with bad work environment.

7. Envision what you will be remembered for - I find this to be a really good advice! It's another way to set goals, visualize and put your dreams into words. I find that I talk a lot about my dreams and goals these days (have far from always been very clear with that), but I'm not as good on writing them down. Will do that now.

8. Brainstorm in the cafe - spot on! The article mention "bar" and not cafe, but I totally believe in the inspirational and creative buzz you get in a good cafe. I don't do bars. But cafes are some of my happy places.

9. Get out and about - to clear your mind and be inspired when the ideas run dry, take a walk, change the scenery, do people watching, try something new, it's energizing and good for both mind and body.

10. "Morphological synthetis" - hadn't heard about the concept before, but reading about it it makes good sense. Good advice on a creative mindtool.


What did you think about the article?
Are there things there you already practice?
Did you get some good advice to
boost your creativity?

tedx stockholm - embracing failure

Went to my third TedX Stockholm event last week. This time it was called "Embracing failure" and while, as usual, the quality of the speakers is very mixed it was a, also as usual, very enjoyable evening spent. Ideas worth spreading tend to do that.





The charming presenter Gustaf who always manages to say thought provoking things.





My favourite talk was the one by Mona Sahlin, former party leader of the social democrats and almost became the first female prime minister of Sweden (I know it's a disgrace that Sweden of all countries still 2013 has not had a female prime minister!). She held a very touching talk about life, feminism, politics, Nelson Mandela (who was the one who made her get in to politics in the first place) wasn't bothered about her less than perfect English and came off as very human and caring.

"Why is it so important to ask 'Where are you from?' instead of 'Who are you?'" - Mona Sahlin

The conclusion of sorts of the evening is that if we're always afraid of failing (and what is failure?) we'll never cath our dreams and goals. And that by failing (whatever that means) we learn, grow and become more complete as human beings.

"Almost all truly great people have gone through some sort of suffering" - Desmond Tutu

words on creativity

One of my favourite talks from TEDxStockholm on Monday was that of Anna Linda Hultström who, after warming us all up with making us dance a bit and open up for flow, in an entertaining way talked about flow and creativity's important part in life.

Which of course I obviously totally get, but sadly still too many don't seem to.





I really enjoyed her slides. And who doesn't love a good and thoughtprovoking quote?

vegetarians are more intelligent

why am i not the least bit surprised about the conclusion of this study on intelligence and eating habits...

also kathy freston's tedx talk is a good thing to watch on this subject.
lean into it, stop being stupid and a hypocrite.

which in some ways brings me to spam, spam, spam. upon nice requests i changed the comments on blog to no word verification needed. i did so hesitantly since even with wv AND moderation there are issues with spam nastiness. but hey, who knows, maybe it'll be okey with just moderation?

over night i got +20 spam comments, and more coming in during the day. if it continues it's just not doable, neither energy- nor timewise to not have word verification, sorry about that. or well, we should totally blame the nasty spammers for wasting our time and energy.

i've set the comments to 'approve new commentators/sign in'-mode. perhaps that will work. fingers crossed. - edit a few days later; so far so good i think...

leaving comments should be easy for good people, such a pity that we have to abide to the nasty spam people's rules... i bet you they're not vegetarians!