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July 19, 2017

Reflections from Almedalen

By Charlotte Naversten

During the first week of July some of the Comprend team went to Gotland to participate in the annual political and corporate summit, Almedalsveckan. Throughout the week hundreds of organisations, political parties, municipalities, NGO’s and corporations held seminars and sessions to discuss and highlight different issues with a focus on politics.

Hot topics this year were sustainability, integration and digital transformation. At the seminar "Survival of the digitalised - business opportunities in a digitized world", leaders from several different industries shared their experiences. The panel highlighted two important aspects of successful digitisation work - firstly it is about being open for new collaborations, and secondly, it is about daring to enter each other's customer journeys. Despite Sweden being a country where digital infrastructure is in place, many people question why digitisation in many industries has not come any further. On this topic, the panel agreed that the problem is often about conservative structures in companies. For established companies to break these old structures and see new digital business opportunities cultural changes are required. Companies need to find solutions to meet consumers' high expectations of personalised digital services.

Some of our sister agencies were also present during the week with a comprehensive programme. Within the newly developed concept, Curated By issues such as diversity, integration and digitisation were raised together with different companies and organisations. Springtime also awarded the "Digital communicator in Almedalen of the year" prize to.

One thing that partially overshadowed parts of the week was the attention that the presence of a Right-wing extremist Party got. For almost fifty years, Almedalsveckan has been a democratic meeting place characterised by respectful conversations between people of different opinions. Many people reacted strongly when a non-democratic party was permitted to rent a space and participate. In response to this the annual diversity parade, arranged by LGBTQ organization RFSL, attracted more participants than ever before.

 

For more information about our activities in Almedalen, contact Charlotte Naversten at charlotte.naversten@comprend.com or +4673985557.