A Great Simian or just a Monkey
Please visit me at fredrikstenbeck.com This place will not be updated anymore.
cherry valley forever
ojovivo

No title available
Not today Justin

blake kathryn
🪼

oozey mess

⁂
Keni
$LAYYYTER
Today's Document
Cosmic Funnies

tannertan36

No title available
KIROKAZE
Claire Keane

Kaledo Art
Monterey Bay Aquarium

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
i don't do bad sauce passes

seen from United States

seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from France

seen from United States

seen from Bangladesh
seen from Germany
seen from Singapore

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from France

seen from United States

seen from Germany
seen from Germany

seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Bangladesh
seen from United States

seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
@stenbeck
A Great Simian or just a Monkey
Please visit me at fredrikstenbeck.com This place will not be updated anymore.
How much can you find out about one startup community in 24 hours? Jemima Kiss spent a day in Sweden's capital to map one of Europe's most vibrant, and underrated, digital scenes
Great piece on the startups from Stockholm, includes FundedByMe, Tictail, Spotify, Klarna, Magine, Gavagai etc. Some great interviews with e.g. Carl Waldecranz (Tictail) and Johan Jörgensen (FundedByMe amongst others).
Zbee and all those presidents
The Zbee meets Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Clean Motion Advisory Board Member, Göran Lindbergh, meets President Obama. Prior to these events encounters have already occurred with the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
I am biased for sure, but when I reflect over the last couple of months with the Zbee and the company behind, Clean Motion, I must say I am both proud and impressed about both the product and the people involved with the company.
Let's start with the disclaimer. I am a board member, investor and also married to the Marketing & Communication Manager of Clean Motion. So more biased then that is hardly possible to be.
Still I would not write about all of these things if I would not honestly believe in the Zbee and Clean Motion. I think that the product is sincere and has a good purpose, to make urban transportation more efficient and more environmental friendly.
The President of Indonesia and Zbee
Two weeks ago, with extremely short notice the opportunity to show the Zbee at an event in Jakarta appeared. It was for government people and not many outsiders where invited. The Zbee got a last minute invitation. After an extremely long drive from Banyuwangi on east Java to Jakarta (app 800km away) and almost no sleep for the team, the Zbee stood there in a booth (well done John, Peter amongst others).
Hard work is often rewarded and this day the President of Indonesia wanted to see the by now well known Zbee.
Clean Motion also posted a blog post about the event, including when Clean Motion / Zbee and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had it's first encounter, that event included another State Chief, The Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
If the Zbee could talk, my guess would be that it would say something like this.
I am Zbee, who are you?
Clean Motion Advisory Board Member meets President Obama
Göran Lindbergh is a Clean Motion Advisory Board Member and his area of expertise is chemical engineering. During President Obamas visit to Sweden, Göran was one of the few outside of politics that actually got to meet President Obama. So pretty cool that it was an Advisory Board member of Clean Motion that got the honour. In his more daily job, Göran Lindbergh is working at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm with Chemical Engineering.
With this behind us, what is next to come?
If you would like to follow the journey of the Zbee the two best ways is to like Clean Motion on Facebook and also follow the Clean Motion blog.
The most publicly known Silverbakk, Fredrik Stenbeck is moving to Singapore for new adventures. Magnus Elmehav is therefore taking over as CEO. Fredrik will stay as board member and is still a shareholder.
"I will still be heavily involved in the strategic direction etc, but I am no longer involved in the daily operation of the company." says Fredrik
Well, there you have it! New adventures ahead. More on what to come later.
Original post
My 7 year old daughter will blog in school
I am constantly surprised, in a positive way, by the ISS International School in Singapore. This week all new parents got this document home.
Our daughter is in Grade 2 (equivalent to first class in the Swedish system) and already the second week they are setting up open and public blogs.
Why I like that my daughter will blog in school
Kids today are exposed to internet long before Grade 2. Most learn how to manage an iPad or iPhone before the even can walk. Why keep internet away from kids in school? It is much better that they learn the custom and etiquette there instead of doing it all wrong at home alone in front of the computer (or probably a smartphone or tablet).
...great ways for students to improve their ICT skills and get experience using an emerging technology
Well, suck on that for a while. Many schools (hello Sweden) consider the word emerging and even computers/internet to be kind of a scary word (at least during the first years of school). Here the realise (again) that it is an essential part of the world today and a great way to stay connected and get new connection. In ISS students come and go every year and technology and internet is the outmost important way to stay connected with your friends from ISS. it is a great network of friends that is important to keep alive. At least we hope that our daughter will make many new friends and that they will stay friends through the years and meet up all over the world over the years. Without technology this will be a much harder task to manage.
...blogs flatten our classroom
Now, this is a school and they have realised this. Wow, I am actually impressed. Why so impressed? Well, first of all, they have done it! What I mean is that so many know that blogs and online collaboration/communication helps bringing people together, make them smarter and do great things in shorter time based on better information etc, but so few actually DO IT! I have worked with large international corporations on this topic for way to many years now and I would say that the wast majority know this, but also the wast majority don't dare to take the actual step and dive in. It's kind of the external collaboration/communication dilemma.
Kind of a big thing
And here I have signed a paper (Code of Conduct or subordinate document in a company) on behalf of my daughter to let her school take that step to set up a blog for her. Some might actually think I am kind of strange that make such a fuzz about this.
Well, it might be a small thing, but for me who have been working with corporations within this area this is kind of a big thing (in a good way) and if we let our kids do this at school, why should we not let our employees do it? I guess we could trust them also, they are even grown-ups most of them.
How Twitter suspended my account
For a while ago I had an idea to create a service to find great longreads in Swedish only (not as a business just for fun). Both the longread.se domain and the @longread Twitter-account was free so I grabbed them.
As with many of my ideas I test them on paper and in my brain and 99% do not ever become anything more then just ideas. So, was the case with this longread idea. I still have the domain, but nothing there. I have posted a few posts on the @longread Twitter account, but that was not even related to the imagined service......
...so one day a week or so ago I got an e-mail from Twitter
Hello,
Twitter responds to reports from trademark holders regarding the use of trademarks that we determine are misleading or confusing with regard to brand or business affiliation. It has come to our attention that your Twitter account is in violation of Twitter's trademark policy:
http://support.twitter.com/entries/18367
This account has been suspended. Please reply to this email if you have any questions.
Thanks,
kesh Twitter Trust & Safety
Well, I could not just let that pass. What bother me was that they did not even bother to send me a kind question about the account, I would actually have handed the account to them, just if they had asked, but just shutting it down, not OK!
Hi Kesh,
Yes, I have questions.
Please explain what trademarks and who is behind the request to cancel my account. I am the owner of Longread.se (since I am a Swede that is the domain we use) and longreads.se. Longread is a common term. To suspend without discussion of even notice is not a fair way to deal with issues like this.
I would not have been hostile towards just letting the account go, but without discussion, that is simply not the way to do things. I have been a Twitter user since 2006 (user 58003 with my main account @stenbeck) and this does not fall in good grounds in terms of how you treat your users. I also run a business that adds value to Twitter (Silverbakk.com) with clients like Electrolux, Ericsson, Volvo, Scania etc and even though my Longread-account is just a hobby thing and rarely used, I do not like to the way you have handled this issue, so please explain and elaborate on your decision. In the meantime I expect that the account is alive and still under my control.
Please get back to me with an explanation and some additional facts.
Best Regards
Fredrik Stenbeck
So, I reached out to them and, probably without success, tried to hide that I was really annoyed about how they treated me as a user of their service.
The response just took a couple of days and the account was restored.
Hello,
We have restored your account, and you should promptly make all necessary changes within 48 hours of receipt of this email. Please understand that your account is subject to permanent suspension if it is found to further violate our rules.
If you have created a news feed, fan or commentary account, you need to edit it to comply with Twitter’s best practices going forward. Please review our guidelines here:
http://support.twitter.com/entries/106373
In particular, please review and make changes to these aspects of your profile:
Location
We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
Thanks,
kesh Twitter Trust & Safety
So, Twitter only found that I had entered a wrong Location? It said "Internet". I changed it to Sweden just to be nice (even though I am now based in Singapore).
This was not a great way to treat a user. Next time, just reach out and we can solve it the easy way! As I said, I would even have handed the Longread-trademark-claimer the account without any further claims. Now that won't happen, not without a fight anyway.
Singapore
Almost two weeks ago we arrived to Singapore. Will stay here for a couple of years.
I thought I would do a quick write up on our first 10 days.
School - Sweden vs Singapore (international school)
The thing we were most nervous about was our daughter, how would she manage in school? New language (she understands some english, but that is something different from being the full-time language without fallback), new friends, uniform (not that we were that nervous about that), new teacher, new school system etc etc.
She was so nervous the day before and did not sleep much during the night prior to school start, but as soon as we came to school and a couple of classmates took care of her it changed, since we arrived to school she loves it. It is an international school, ISS International School. People from all over the world. It is hard to even compare to the school in Sweden, everything is just so much more professional.....and both we as parents and our daughter loves it!
....and a few days ago she started to answer in English at home even though we spoke Swedish, they are picking up so fast in that age.
Apartment
It is ridiculous expensive with apartment in Singapore. Whatever you chose it is just bloody expensive, but we knew this and had it in mind when we set up criteria for our viewings. We saw about 10 apartments before deciding. We are moving in on Saturday and are really looking forward to it. Maybe celebrate with a bottle of wine on the balcony. Finally a home and not a hotel without routines etc.
Completely without patriotism I must say that IKEA is a saviour. Just within a couple of hour we have all the basic stuff for a new apartment and can fill up with some more local and personal stuff along the road. IKEA has a fantastic concept and it seems like everyone (especially expats) just love IKEA. Surprisingly few know that it is a Swedish company though, which is kind of interesting.
Broadband was a breeze to order and it is fast. You can't order below 25mbps and the fastest for consumers are 1GBps, not bad. We'll see if the advertised speed is the same as the real speed.
Professionally
Well, a few weeks ago I sold parts of my ownership in Silverbakk and are now just a member of the board. I still will be heavily involved in the strategic work and direction of the company, but the operational work as CEO is handed over to Magnus. So what will I do here in Singapore. In a few weeks I'll let you know, right now everything is just a blur with all the administration and settling down in our new country (we have been here for 10 days now). Even though my next venture is set I see opportunities all over the place. Even though Asia is a boiling pot and has passed west in so many ways, they are also very behind in some areas. The transformation of old business models into new ones are just one example. The Verge had a great piece on the topic, so if you want to read up on that topic both posts are worth the read. It also features Hugh Mason the founder of JFDI in Singapore.
The Verge - Asian Startups Should Stay in Asia
Friendliness
Singapore has a wast amount of expats and people are moving in and out all the time. It seems like there is an eco-system for taking care of newcomers. We have been so well received by everyone, parents at school, people in our network that live in Singapore, random people that we meet etc. Everyone are so friendly and helpful. Helpful in the genuine way, not just a facade. It has helped us a lot in the relocation to Singapore.
I have never experienced so much empathy, friendliness and people that really care as I have done since we moved here and that from, in many cases, complete strangers. It might be that everyone have been in the same position as we are now. However we are grateful for meeting all of these people.
Singlish
It takes a while, but after a few days ou start to get a hang of the Singlish. It is kind of a formalized version of English with a heavy does of asian accent a with many words cut out of the sentence.
An example is the classic:
"Could you pass me the salt, please?" and the answer is simply "Can!" Kind of love it. Google Glass and Siri will have a hard time to penetrate Singapore and I am a bit scared about our daughters english in a few years, but most teachers are from England, New Zealand and Australia, so we should be fine.
So, here I sit on the rooftop of the hotel Forest By Wangz where we stay for the first two weeks. The sun shines and it is about 30C warm. Life is easy and I enjoy it to the fullest! Well, still a lot of things to do before we are completely up and running both private and business wise. But it is fun and I am very comfortable that great things will happen.
Photo credit: looyaa
Kevin Rose interviews Ev Williams about past, present and future. Very personal and relaxed interview. Well worth the watching.
Guns Of Brixton (clash cover) - Jimmy Cliff
how awesome is this?
happy cover friday everyone
Sweden #2 in Global Innovation Index
Wipo (World Intellectual Property Organization) together with Isead and Cornell have released it´s Global Innovation Index and this year there are a few changes. Most notable is Singapore down and USA up. Otherwise the top countries on the list are about the same.
There are many factors, so I recommend reading the report to understand how the index works.
Happy Birthday to Evernote - My Second Brain
This is a tribute-post to Phil Libin and the team at Evernote. Today Evernote celebrate 5 years and have over 65 000 000 users.
Thank you for creating my second brain, I could not work or function as good as I do (?!) without Evernote. I was user 44 216 that signed up and I am a paying customer since a couple of years (three I think). I pay because I like the service, not so much for the additional features that come with a premium account. It just feels good to pay for such a great service.
The original idea of Google Reader described by it's creator Jason Shellen. It was supposed to be named Google Fusion and not contain any social features at all, but Shellen sneaked them in anyway over time. A little peak into the legacy and history of Google Reader that will shut down 1st of July.
Asia Pacific retail e-commerce is forecasted to grow twice as fast as US. Asia Pacific is now the largest retail eCommerce market.
In 2012 it grew 21% and passed US$ 1 trillion for the first time.
I Love Zbee
As some might have noticed in my activity stream on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc I have recently posted quite a lot about a three-wheeled-electrical vehicle called Zbee. Zbee is made by Clean Motion, a company who wants to battle the notion of us travelling in 1.5 ton cars to transport on average one person at 80kg 3-5km. Yes, that is according to statistics how we use our cars today. Instead travel a lot more energy and climate friendly in a Zbee.
Why all of these posts about the Zbee?
Well, first Jenny (my partner in life) joined as head of marketing and communication and when we realized that we constantly talked about the Zbee and both became very engaged in the vision and the product, we caught the moment when it was given to us and SiXX seed-invested in Clean Motion. For me, that meant a place as board member, an honour!
Please do follow and become a fan on Facebook and on Twitter if you are interested in following the journey of the Zbee and climate friendly urban transportation.
Zbee launched in Asia
Currently the Zbee is being launched in Indonesia and production will start this summer in East Java, Indonesia. The first production facility is in Kungshamn and Trollhättan, both on the Swedish west coast.
It seems that Asia and the Zbee have found love and it should be an interesting and great journey to see the Zbee grow in Asia as well as in other regions.
I am very exited to have the opportunity to follow this great and innovative company. The team is amazing and the product is far ahead of competition.
The future of marketing. A video by IBM that really puts the finger on how marketing should be done in the world of today.