Hi world! We are reporting from Stockholm inside the Radisson Blu hotel. We wanted to share our thoughts about the conference that we attended, as well as the city of Skelleftea itself. Overall, we liked coming to the northern part of Sweden, where it was calm, and everything moved at a slower pace compared to many United States cities.
We attended the PlacexNordic conference on the first day, and it was a great start to the conference with the host, Kristina Jonsson, speaking. Her presentation really inspired us about what the city of Skelleftea is trying to improve in terms of inhabitants and even addressed the elephant in the room. She addressed how the Northvolt bankruptcy hurt the city of Skelleftea, where it originally brought in thousands of jobs, and now families had to scramble to figure out what to do next due to the bankruptcy. Luckily, they have a plan in place to bring in new and young citizens into the city of Skelleftea in order to unlock the possibilities that the city could unfold.
Later in the conference, we had our very own Professor Myhr speak about how social media needs to be more “human” in terms of sharing more posts about everyone’s daily lives and even the things that aren’t so glamorous. Back when social media launched, people posted every day. Nowadays, people post maybe once a month. As humans, we want to feel more connected. Companies should also take notes from Professor Myhr. In social media, you need to have four items: credibility, lovability, shareability, and visibility. All four of these items will help businesses and people grow more on social media.
Lastly, we attended an AI workshop led by Chris van Vleuten from the Netherlands regarding AI for Skelleftea and marketing. Chris is known as an AI transformist and is a firm believer that AI is the future. We also agree with Chris in terms of AI being part of our future and growing together instead of “taking jobs away from humans.” We also noticed that Europe is behind the USA in terms of knowledge of AI. Chris was a great speaker and taught many people how to use AI, but it felt like many of the audience members did not know how to use AI. For us, we felt like it was a nice refresher on what we already know about AI.
A fun side note about Skelleftea was the Wood Hotel spa. We went to the spa twice with other students and enjoyed a nice sauna, steam room, and jacuzzi with a great view from the top of the hotel. In addition, the last night at the hotel, we had a group dinner with other attendees, and we got to try deer meat, which was delicious. It was a little bit chewy but for the most part it, it was quite tasty. From an outsider’s perspective, the city has a lot of room to grow, but the city officials have a great plan in place to make sure the city grows in terms of population and brings jobs to the city, where families can grow together. Stay tuned for more!
