❧ Björn Jeffery

Normally, I only post silly stuff and the odd good reading link here. But I thought I’d attempt to summarize what I’ve been up to this year. For me to remember mainly, but for you too if you’re interested.

January 

I had just come back from San Francisco after working with the Mag+ concept video at Bonnier R&D. That was the last formal part I had in that project, even though I was part of some reference groups and such afterwards.

Most of January went towards preparing an annual trend report called the Global Media Map, which is distributed to the top 400 people within Bonnier. The last week the whole R&D team went back to San Francisco to workshop around what trends we through were going to be the most influential during coming year and beyond. Steve Jobs also decided to unveil the iPad at Yerba Buena Center which stole a bit of attention. 

Started liking Gowalla, and found out where Incase had their office in order to be able to check in there and find some rare items.

Went to Vadstena to have a strategy day and board meeting with Twingly. Great little place.

Was interviewed about digital magazines on TV4.

Me and Jonas also decided to close Being Tyler Brule down because we couldn’t imagine it getting any better than it was. We closed it on New Years Eve, but celebrated it with drinks in January.

BBC’s Annie Mac called the launch of Discobelle Records and the blog-starting-labels-phenomenon “Maybe this is the future of music”.

February

Went around Silicon Valley with the R&D-peeps. Visited Y Combinator, Tapulous, Ribbit, Stanford and Zong. 

Started writing the Media Map together with Jonas Olofsson, and some clever freelancers. Had a big presentation for the Bonnier Top 40 group about data mining which went well, but had me stressed out for weeks before hand.

Did a few unpleasant medical procedures to make sure that my stomach trouble wasn’t anything serious. It wasn’t.

Met a few venture capitalists and tried to learn more about how they think, and how that business works.

Good Old got a full time researcher in Martin Berg. Pretty amazing for a consultancy.

Paulina put the Bonnier Hackday together, but unfortunately I couldn’t spend enough time participating as I would have wanted.

March

Went to Berlin to talk about the design principles behind Mag+ at the FIPP Digital Innovators’ Summit conference. Had a meeting at Axel Springer and had to pass through a airport-style security control to get in. Serious stuff.

Kept working with the Media Map, and started to work a bit with Alex and Emil on a new project following up on Mag+.

Paulina left R&D which was an awful shame.

Discobelle Records released Jamtech Foundation’s “Too Fast”.

Started considering getting a flat around the Mediterranean. Not because I really wanted one, but because I worked out that I could afford it through simply living two metro-stations further out of town. This way of thinking blew my mind and pre-occupied a lot of my thinking for months to come. Still does, to be honest.

April

Went to Miriam’s mother house at Köpstadsö for a few days. A beautiful island in the Gothenburg archipelago.

Participated in the first News+ meeting, sharing some of the research from Mag+ and discussing how much of it was relevant.

Steve Jobs said Popular Science+ was “king of the hill” of the digital magazines on the iPad. The best 13 seconds of 2010, I think.

Booked our summer holiday to Asia. Had to have something concrete to look forward to.

Started to make a photography site for my dad. Still haven’t finished it completely…

Discobelle Records was featured in Dazed Digital

Worked with Caroline at Bonnier M&A to go through a potential acquisition. Never went though, but the process was great fun and informative.

Intended to go to Chicago with Tomas, but the ash cloud put an end to that.

Was invited to the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise to talk about making life easier for companies within digital economy. They listened, but little seems to have happened.

Finished the Media Map! Thank god for that.

Relaunched Being Tyler Brûlé after the protagonist interviewed himself and couldn’t think of a good economy class airline. Hilarious.

May 

Saw Caribou play a great set at Strand with double drum sets.

Went to LIFT10 in Geneva, and did a short speaking demo on stage too. People went around saying that the conference was the TED of Europe. Without having been to TED, I’m sure it wasn’t. Was interviewed by Le Temps about publishing on the iPad.

Sydsvenskan wrote that Good Old was the fastest growing agency in Skåne. Very proud of that. 

Ate at Matbaren with Miriam for the first time. Not the last time either, because it was amazingly scrumtious.

Saw Flight of the Conchords at Cirkus which was hilarious.

Emil called me “A ranting man” which is a name I can live with.

June

Went to Malmö för Martin’s bachelor party. Great fun in Malmö all day, including singing in the stairway, driving a gocart and getting served a cappucino from the groom-to-be.

Went to Moving Images, probably the best web/tech conference in Sweden. One of the few that accepts complexity. 

Started my Media Map presentation tour in Winter Park, Florida. Went on to Carlsbad, California and got to fly and Embraer 145 for the first time. The flight from LA was so short that the Bonnier peeps couldn’t believe I had done it. This was partly due to some bad travel planning on my part. After I walked from the airport they were even more amazed: “We knew that was theoretically possible, but no one has actually done it.” 

Was interviewed at the Scion Music(less) Music Conference at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles about Discobelle.net and how it has evolved over the years. Someone stood up in the audience and said that they had toured Europe three times off the back of posts of Discobelle.net. That made my day.

Went to Denmark, Finland and Norway with Jonas Bonnier to talk about the Media Map. Germany I did on my own, and I was told that I was going to picked up by “a shuttle”. A man turned up with a brand new, black, Porsche Panamera. Slight confusion but a decent ride to the meeting at least.

Magnus Lindqvist treated me to a private flight over Stockholm in a PA-28, including champagne. One of the best evenings this year.

July

Holiday! Went home to my parents for a few days, and then to Martin and Emma’s wedding where I was a toastmaster in a very hot, but beautiful setting. First time as a toast master and I was very nervous that I would mess it up. But it went fine and it was a lovely and memorable day.

Got my 23 and Me results. It turns out I am more likely to get prostate cancer, and less likely to get diabetes. Mixed feelings for a semi-hypochondriac like me.

Went to Seoul with Miriam and celebrated our three year anniversary. Absolutely loved it. Followed up by going to Tokyo and then Beijing. Flew with Asiana for the first time but was too tired to really notice.

A Korean bather dropped some knowledge about my baldness: “You are bald very young. It is because you have a very hot head. This is serious problem.” He suggested some toothpaste for my poor scalp.

August

Went to SSWC and had a great time. Was expecting more from the sessions, but the social side of it was fun. Had a bad conscience about not doing a session of my own. Maybe next year. Played a sampler while Anja and Gustav dominated the dance floor with their DJ-skills.

Left Gowalla for Foursquare.

Left Bonnier R&D and started up a new project within Bonnier Digital instead, after long discussions.

Went to New York for work and pleasure, and experienced the East Village properly for the first time.

September

Got increasingly interested in Naspers, the South African media company. They’re known for investing in Tencent many years ago, but they’ve done a lot of interesting things since then too.

Spoke at GRID, the internal Bonnier conference. Was impressed by Anders Ynnerman and Elizabeth Gilbert.

Joined Bonnier Digital’s management team and had our first meeting.

Missed the A380 landing at Arlanda, and went to Copenhagen instead. Experienced proper management gossip for the first time.

Had a housewarming party, a few years overdue. Best drink ordered was “vodka-whiskey”. 

Went to St Petersburg and presented the Media Map. First time in Russia.

Started recruiting for the new Bonnier Digital project.

Finally got to Chicago, and ate _way to much pizza. Also caught the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition that I missed in New York by a few days.

October

Lots of recruiting, researching and branding. Learned loads in a very short time.

Went to a UGL course for a week and came back inspired to lead a new team. Not life changing like I had hoped(?), but solid and interesting. Very glad I did it.

Hired a few very talented people.

November

We named our new project, and got a pretty graphical profile to use with it.

Did a lot of researching about marketing on closed platforms. 

Got two (almost over-qualified) students to help me do a strategy project. Very impressed with them so far.

Experienced my first formal budget process. Phew.

Went to Oslo with Miriam but had to leave early due to our hosts getting ill.

Spoke at Stockholm School of Economics MXCL about marketing on iOS.

Got slightly obsessed with statistics in emerging markets.

December

Started to get a proper team in place, and made all the preparations for the coming year. Production starts January 3rd!

Went to London and the NOAH conference. Hung out with bankers in expensive suits and listened to profitable internet companies pitching. Surprisingly good.

Went to Malmö to host a round table session about the future of the games value chain.

And then now - it’s Christmas.

It’s been a great year all in all. No regrets, really. Some sort of transitioning period I suppose, which seems some what fitting for the last year of my twenties.

See you on the other side!