So, how come I am in Turkey blogging for Nokia during the world championships in basketball? It’s actually part of a wider strategy of Nokia and word of mouth marketing bureau 1000heads from London. As a digital PR nerd, I really like that strategy!

Nokia might not be topping the sales lists in Western Europe and the US right now, but they are doing really well in other parts of the world and still have a massive following all around the globe. One of the reasons is that they are actively networking online and offline with bloggers and techies. See for example womworld.com (@WOMWorldNokia).

In Turkey, we are three bloggers from different parts of world attending:

• Yours truly (@vampyrse), blogger and PR pro from Sweden.
• Mark Schiralli (@ASternWarning), blogger and charted accountant from Australia.
• Pinar Ilik (@pinarilik), blogger and journalist from Turkey.

Pinar, me and Mark getting ready for the Boomers playing Germany.

All three of us were identified by the 1000heads team as bloggers who know basketball. We were then invited to the 2010 FIBA World Championship (@FIBAWorld) in Turkey, with a mission to blog. There’s really no rules about what to write, more than not to break the laws or the regulations of the event. They want a fan’s perspective on and experiences from the games and events, which in turn adds value to the official Nokia bball app, which is freely available through the Ovi Store. Also, Chris Illman (@Chris_illman) and Rhiannon Monks (@uber_rhi) from 1000heads and Luis Orozco (@chivacongelado) from Nokia are accompanying us to make sure we are doing alright in and outside the Turkish basketball arenas.

We do of course learn what their products can and cannot do. But the thing is that we’re not here to neither blog nor tweet out marketing spam about their latest phones, as that in the end would scare off followers both from our own individual online precenses and most importantly from Nokia’s products. We are here to be none others than ourselves!

All this adds up to one thing: geniosity. By sponsoring the World Championship and having us here, Nokia is adding value to both the event itself and to their own services; they are in short strengthening their bond to basketball fans and techies alike.

The Finnish telecom giant are showing a friendly and social face that few companies a tenth or less of their size would ever. It sure is impressive to see that such a big brand has figured out what social media marketing is really about and is carrying it out at full force in a way you would not expect. They truly understand that marketing can be a service and not only a way of conveying an advertisement. Nokia might be a huge machine of an organisation, but they have their ear to the ground and are staying a-top of the mobile phone market because of it.

How to follow us in Turkey? If you have a Nokia phone, you can read our blog posts with the bball app available in the Ovi Store. On Twitter, you can follow our tweets using hashtags #OviFIBA and #Turkey2010.

As I’ve blogged about before, I will spend the upcoming two weeks in Turkey to watch and write about the FIBA World Championships 2010 (basketball) for Nokia/WOMWorld. Just arrived here this morning. The blog posts are available in Nokia’s basketball app, which can be downloaded to their phones from the Ovi Store. But of course I will both blog here and tweet (@vampyrse) as well.

Here’s a little tale about the trip yesterday.

I left Gothenburg a couple of hours after noon, and transfered to the Turkish bound flight in Frankfurt.

The guys at Turkish Airlines blew me away. Or rather their food, produced by Do&Co. Because to be honest, airplanes in Northern Europe do have a higher standard, it’s the service that differs. The main course was ok, but what followed was great: first some crackers with fresh cheese, which I had some red wine to. Then a delicious chocolate cake with cofffee, and to round it off some almonds with soda. Talk about a triple threat (basketball nerd humour). In my final flight from Istanbul to Kayseri, I expected nothing. Maybe a drink. It was after all a domestic flight taking off after midnight. HA! A fresh mixed salad, a turkey sandwich and of course desert: home(?) made almond cake.

In Atatürk Airport in Istanbul, basketball was right about everywhere.

… including the Nokia basketball app!

As I arrived in Kayseri, a chocker awaited me. The guy representing Detur for the World Champs transfer told me there was none for me. ”But, there’s supposed to be one here for me.”… ”Sorry. You can take a cab, but it’s really far away. I don’t know what to do.”

After some discussions, he realised the mistake and could arrange with a ride. Thank god. You’re not all too cocky when you are in the Turkish mountains at 2′o’clock in the morning with no local currency. Anyhow, I ended up on my completely own 20-seat bus. And it was far.

The driver had to stop for gas on the way.

… and in Ürgüp, he had to ask the local police for directions.

Finally, I arrived at Perissia Hotel & Spa at about 4 in the morning. But it was well worth the ride, the mountains are beautiful here and the hotel great. And speaking about food, their breakfast buffet is to die for… they even serve melted chocolate. I’m at risk of returning to Swedes as the Fat Man.

Finally, some media clips:

Media are of course all over the event.

Even Turkish Airlines hade their own mag about the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

… and of course you should by yourself a new tv to watch basketball on.

That’s it for now… time to do some touristy things with my fellow blogger Mookie here in Ürgüp!

My life is pretty much sponsored by Twitter right now. It’s starting to get to a point where it’s becoming silly really, just look at my Tuesday;

1. I got up to go to work at Drivhuset, a job I got thanks to Twitter: it was announced by my new boss a Tuesday morning a couple of months ago.
2. I started the day with a seminar at advertising agency Valentin & Byhr. How I learned about it? Through a retweet of course.
3. Next meeting will take place in 20 minutes, with a copywriter I met at a conference thanks to Twitter… and later got to know better at a tweet-up.
4. Late this afternoon, I will meet with a publisher. I have actually not met her at all before, just talked to her on Twitter.

You still think that Twitter is not for real? Well, I’m actually looking forward to an even better tomorrow… thanks to… well, do I need to say it? I think not.

I’m so upset right now. For the umpf-teenth time, a newspaper (or two this time, NSD and Norrbottens-Kuriren) has published news on a crime (rape) in the sports section. Why? Because the accused happens to be an athlete. Excuse me, but what the H*LL does this have to do with it?

The case I’m talking about is Swedish, but could have been any generic case involving an athlete. Because it seems that many editors around the world make the same judgement call as soon as a criminal has a background in sports. I’m sorry, but h-why? It becomes even more perplexing when you see sports writers emulate crime journalism. Again, h-why?

Now, if we are to do it this way… I believe that we should go all the way. Ok? Barack Obama played basketball, so lets put everything his presidency or the Democratic party does in the sports section. Usama bin Laden visited Sweden numerous times as a kid, lets sort him in under domestic politics. Ah, I studied in Italy for a few months, anything that is ever written about me should be in the foreign news.

The sections of the newspapers are really not about the subject, but about which part of the story is sellable. How stupid was I to ever believe otherwise? Journalistic integrity-inschmegrity. Norrbottens-Kuriren and NSD, you are an insult to journalism as long as you continue along this path.

The other day, Swedish blogger Emanuel Karlsten (Google Translate it!) quoted an unknown source about the difference between Facebook and Twitter:

“Facebook is for friends that are now strangers, Twitter is for strangers that should be friends”

Really like that quote, and the little more nastier ones that has being going around as well.

“Facebook is for the friends you had in high school, Twitter is for the friends you wish you had.”

… or alternatively;

“Facebook is for the friends you wish you didn’t know, Twitter is for the friends you wish you had.”

Anyhow, we can conclude that for many, Twitter is a great way to meet new and interesting people from near and afar. People that you really share common interests with, be it on a professional or personal level. Personally, I’ve had the opportunity to meet for instance my new employer, colleagues in the same business as I and friends who I run with every week – I’m all over the map and couldn’t be happier about it.

But there is one thing that is above and beyond my understanding with Twitter, and that is how they are handling languages. Or let me correct myself, how they are not handling them. There are thousands and thousands of people that I would very much like to know around the world, especially from a professional standpoint. The problem is, that the people who I’m referring to is speaking another language and I cannot understand their tweets. So, naturally there’s no point in following them. In the same way as some non Swedish-speaking people have stopped following me the past months, since I’ve gone from tweeting mostly in English to mostly in Swedish. I don’t blame them, it’s quite natural.

Now, to what I don’t understand: why has Twitter not handled this problem before? With just a couple of hours of work, the people behind the social media tool could add the possibility to;

1. … select what language your default and single tweet is in.
2. … select what languages you can read.
3. … let you choose whether to automatically translate and show the rest of the tweets, or to entirely hide them from your feed.

The translation process could of course pose a problem, considering the mess Twitter already is in with heavy traffic. But there is really no reason not to add that the other features right away.

What would the effects be? Well, to name a few;

1. Increased sharing over the borders – more knowledge for the people!
2. Stronger international networks. If you already have a really strong local or national network offline today, there is fewer reasons to use Twitter. Opening the borders could lead to more established business, science and other special interest leaders joining.
3. People with long tail interest would suddenly see a point in joining, some don’t today as there is to few in their sphere of interests on Twitter in for example Sweden. (“There’s only IT and PR people there anyway.”) This would translate to more common use!

There’s probably several more reasons to, as the Nike crew would put it, just do it… so Twitter people, what are you waiting for?

It’s been almost two weeks since I last blogged, mostly because I just started a new job and all energy has gone towards the new challenge. Starting a new job or assignment is always exciting, but this is something special – having the felling that I am doing some real good while just having fun. At the same time, it is draining to just get into everything.

The first week has been spent doing digital PR nationally and planning local events that will help establish us as a, if not the, leading authority on entrepreneurship in Gothenburg and the rest of west Sweden. We already have the expertise, now it’s just a question of showing everybody else what we can do.

But that’s not it, a lot of things are happening. This weekend, I will take the bus to the east coast of Sweden for Sweden Social Web Camp – where 400 of the leading Swedish experts and users of social media will meet up on an island for an unconference on the subject. Last year seem to have been a lot of fun, so my expectations for this weekend are really high! If nothing else, it’s going to be a lot of fun just to meet up with a lot of people I’ve only met online.

Coming up in a couple of weeks is also the trip to Turkey for the FIBA World Championships in basketball. I received the schedule last weeks, and we’ll be watching some 30 world class games in 15 days and 4 different cities, while blogging about our experiences in Nokia’s new basketball app. You think I’m just a little excited about that too? Expectations, expectations, expectations.

And in between all that, I will be running a 10 km race I’ve practiced for all summer. It’s going to be a couple of hectic weeks, and full of experiences to blog about!

Over the upcoming few days, I hope to make a change in the blog – adding a section with Swedish blog posts. I’ve noticed more and more how hard (and sometimes pointless) it is to write reflections on what happens in Sweden for an international audience. Some things just are not that interesting if you don’t know the background to it. Coming up this week is also some posts on customer service, entrepreneurship and other stuff.

I don’t think they really meant it to be a marketing stunt – my guess is that the guys from onlinepizza.se were actually there to eat their competitor’s food. Still, this is the kind of small scale guerilla type marketing I like. Doesn’t cost anything, but will raise some eyebrows and make people remember you.

The picture was taken yesterday outside outside arena Gamla Ullevi in Gothenburg, during a football game in the Swedish division 2. There’s one fast food restaurant in the arena, Max Hamburgers. Outside, a car is parked, striped with “onlinepizza.se” – who deliver pizza from a number of restaurants around town. Cost of parking? None. Potential number of exposures? Countless, if during a bigger game. Why it works? The friction between competing brands makes people react. No one would notice the car if there hadn’t been a Max restaurant there.

This is what you gotta learn if you are a small entrepreneur: to creatively market yourself at low or no costs. Take note, and have a brainstorm to figure out what you could do. It doesn’t have to be expensive to market your brand or products/services.

The information has left the closet. 90 000 of the reported 260 000 documents that Wikileaks have gotten access to lately became public yesterday. The ramifications for the war in Afghanistan itself could be huge and article after article will be written about it for the upcoming weeks, maybe even months. Beside the war, we could quite possibly also soon see changes in the general political situation in Afghanistan as well as in the countries involved in the US led operations.

I’m going to write a couple of posts on Wikileaks’s latest scoop over the upcoming days. Thus far, I have not had time to read up much on the new development and will stay off any judgements about that. What scares me is that some of these documents could indirectly pose a threat to the lives of thousands of the daughters and sons who are in Afghanistan and Pakistan right now. Hopefully they will not.

In a more local perspective, the possible effects are also highly intriguing. We are approaching the election for the Swedish parliament and it’s a race that is far from decided, with a blue coalition (liberal) fighting a red and green (socialist). The blue side has run the country for the past four years and have had a tough situation to handle during the financial crisis, which has given the reds a small lead for now.

Enter the military reform. Since this summer, we have a professional army after always (in modern times at least) having compulsory military service for men. To become more attractive, the Swedish Armed Forces recently went ahead with a large advertising campaign to lay the ground for this falls’ recruitment. But something went terribly wrong in a sense, as they came up with a campaign that angered many, including me. It was too macho and gave the impression that free speech was an option only available for those who are ‘tough enough’ to sign up for the forces.

Now add 2 and 2. Swedes start to think that our armed forces want to more Top Gun, more United States. Aggression and toughness become the lead words of the army in the minds of the public. Enter Wikileaks: 15 500 enemies, 4 200 civilians and 5 000 of UN and Afghan Army killed in a US lead war against terror. 4 200 civilians? 5 000 of ours and our friends’ forces? Lead by the bully country we want to be more like? And we are far from seeing an end to it all? The public do not care for the grey scales in Afghanistan, as they neither have the knowledge of how such a complex machine works, nor the time to process all information. Even I can’t say that I do, and I’m both interested and have insights from the inside. The general public will see the numbers and stop there – do you think that they will see it in black or white? Do you think they’ll like the association between the Swedish and US armed forces? The new aggressive image of the army could very well become a knife in its own back as the public grow w(e)ary.

So, where do we find the political opposition against the war? Primarily on the left wing. How long did it take for them to react? They already have. The leader of the Left Party of Sweden, Lars Ohly;

“This is evidence that the US military has something to hide and proves the absurdity of this warfare.” (SVT)

The Swedish skepticism against our presence in Afghanistan will most likely increase as days passes and the death count becomes public knowledge, and I believe that this will in fact decide the Swedish election this fall. The reds will win if the blues does not surprise us all and change their positive stance towards the war in Afghanistan. In a tight election race, ideological issues like this could be the difference between do and die. Plus, the money spent on fighting a controversial war could potentially be spent on caring for our children and elderly. The situation in Afghanistan matters and could change the outcome of the entire election. Meaning, Wikileaks latest move could potentially change our taxes, our health care, in which age our children first get grades in school, the price of our food and clothes and so on.

This is how important media still is to our society. Never, never believe anyone who says that journalism is dying. It is alive and it is kicking harder than ever.

* * *

My own view on the war and our presence? I think Afghanistan needs our help to rebuild their country, and that sadly includes military support. I don’t care much about the past, the important thing is to secure the future of Afghani children. The American background in the country and around Islam as a religion is disturbing, and should absolutely affect how we do things – but not if we do them. Why Sweden should be there? Well, for one: the days when only our closest neighbors affected us are long gone, our kids’ future depend on the health of the global political arena. Second, we live in abundance and it’s our damn solidary duty to help those who live in despair.

Friday’s post on the immature market of social media gathered some interesting comments and posts here and on Twitter. All seem to point to the fact that we are collectively maturing – that there is in fact an increased genuine interest for more dynamic and open-minded discussions and less SEO smart echo-chambering. Two great reads on the subject are;

• Bisonblog: Birds of a feather no longer flock together – Fredrik Wass, March 13. Google translated from Swedish - original post.
• Doktor Spinn: Spinns Smurftips 28 #PRofSweden – Jerry Silfwer, July 23.

Other posts worth reading on the same subject? Go ahead and post them in a comment, I don’t want to be accused of doing exactly what I was ranting against last week.

Now, I should go out and enjoy the sun… after all, it’s the last week of my vacation.

It’s fascinating to see how a market is maturing right in front of your eyes. I’m of course speaking about social media, and how it slowly but steadily is moving from an entity of its own to what it really is: a group of communication tools. One of the most intriguing phenomena is how self-proclaimed experts are being replaced by real experts.

Social media in the US is relatively mature and one of the primary signs of this is that the thought leaders are people like Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, Deirdre Breakenridge and Jay Rosen – who all have extensive knowledge of the tools, but also an understanding of its real life context. They know communication, PR and journalism, but also know the world and have expertise in where these tools fit. They are the real experts.

If we look at a more immature market, like that in Sweden, we are in a different situation. Here, the thought leaders are mostly those who have proclaimed themselves to be because of seniority: they were here first. There are of course exceptions, like Joakim Jardenberg, but around him there are a number of people who stay afloat as experts by the simple method of exclusion – they exclude people conceived as threats to their status, and whenever they get a chance hit hard at those who do not use the media in a way that they have preached. Their high status is dependent on keeping a tight group together and constantly pushing for each other on Twitter, in physical life and other forums. They are scared to death to be exposed as frauds, no matter if they are or not.

This phenomena is most obvious in panel debates or other situations when there is some type of pressure on developing your arguments. Anybody can take the stage and do a presentation of social media and what it’s good for, but only real experts can argue for and reassess their knowledge live. Sadly, there are few situations where we see this in an immature market, where panel members are most often tight and where “What?” is the central question in most panels instead of “Why?”, “How come?” and “What if?”. If you cannot answer the latter questions, I’m sad to say that you are in fact not an expert.

What excites me is that we are seeing more and more insightful people rearing their heads and gaining ground in social media, like for example long time journalist turned PR pro, Paul Ronge, who just released a book on the subject. A sure sign that the market is maturing after all. Now, I’m eagerly awaiting to see what other experts will come into their own on the social media sky over the upcoming year.