Rethink 2009 - Barcelona

My old friend Martin Lindstrom recommended me (thanks Martin) and, as a result, I was fortunate to be invited to provide a keynote presentation at a marketing conference in Barcelona this month. The conference topic was "Rethink - The Basis of Communication" and was generally about how businesses can deal with marketing in the face of the global crisis.

It was a fantastically interesting event which was made so by the calibre of my fellow speakers.

Martin Oetting, from trnd in Berlin, is an international expert in word-of-mouth marketing (in fact he has just completed a doctoral dissertation on the subject).

Nigel Barlow a British, fortunately now reformed, erstwhile lawyer, had coincidentally written a book called 'Re-think" some years before and was an inspirational proponent of creative thinking. I enjoyed immensely his company and his stimulating ovation.

Steve Hatch is the Managing Director of mediaedge:cia in London. They seem to be doing some very creative and different work (to me, surprisingly so, since they are part of WPP).

Jose Molla, originally from Argentina, but now living in Miami was a swarthy, straight from central casting, Latin American, advertising creative with his own agency called la comunidad.

But I am going to devote most of this post to a professor of economics. Dr. Kjell (pronounced 'Shell') Nordstrom, hails from Stockholm where he is an Associate Professor at the Institute of International Business at the Stockholm School of Economics. We all know that economics is generally impenetrable to all but economists - I have a Master of Economics degree and still my eyes glaze over usually - but Kjell is not that sort of economist. He is best described as a 'Rock Star' economist because that is how he looks and presents. He was riveting! In fact at the end of his key note speech the room erupted with a standing ovation. I challenge anyone to recall the last time an economics presenter received such approval (even adulation) at a business conference.

Perhaps his talk resonated with me because he gave more articulate voice to many of the views I have long held - he even managed to serendipitously identify as an opportunity, one of the nascent business ventures I have been working on for a while now. With Dr. Jonas Ridderstrale, Kjell is the co-author of Funky Business and Karaoke Capitalism. Both are worth reading and provide a very different perspective on the state of the world and how to make money in business.

I'm not going to try to paraphrase Kjell's analysis or words of wisdom because I simply couldn't do them justice - in fact I will endeavour to get him here for an Aussie tour. But some stimulating thoughts from him:

1. The art of making money is not just to have a great idea but to ensure that idea provides a temporary monopoly; there is no money to be made in competition.
2. The world is dramatically changing - not just in the face of the current economic storm - and those changes will have a profound affect on how we do business. For example, we are becoming more urbanised than ever before in history and urban conurbations are developing cultures of their own. An example - the US is not one market it is a number of cities with very distinct personalities and cultures.
3. How about this one - more than 2/3rds of uni students today (the world over) on average are women. Young men have become emasculated - they have given up. This will have a profound impact on the leadership (and culture) of organisations in the future.
4. The family unit is breaking down. Increasingly (and it is accelerating) the majority of households in cities around the world are sole person households. For example, in Stockholm this is 64% of households. This will have a dramatic impact on the shape of business.
5. Many people have, as result of the crisis, written off the USA as a global economic super power. This is a mistake. The US will continue to dominate as one of the top 3 wealthiest nations on earth because it is the only country in the world which is a true meritocracy and is available to anyone regardless of birth. For example, Arnold Swartzeneger, born in Austria, can become Governor of the 5th largest economy of the world; 86% of people working in Silicon Valley were born outside the US; 9 of the top 10 universities of the world are American.
6. There has been a dramatic shift of power (in everything) from the centre to the periphery. This is demonstrated so powerfully with the web which has empowered (well, let's face it) everyone. This changes fundamentally the nature of business.

And on and on it went. If you can, read his books. Even better, if you can, hear him speak. He throws out pearls of wisdom.

One thing is certain to me. We should not expect the world has changed and will change back again. The world has changed. There is no going back. Businesses which will thrive are those that recognise the change is forever and come up with customer inspired solutions to the new world order.