All you need to develop your idea in 54 hours is to be passionate about it, to have a dedicated team and to work in a friendly environment. In fact, we had all of it during the Startup Weekend event in Lund at Ideon Innovation this weekend.

Thanks to the organizers, sponsors and mentors, listed on the event’s webpage, I had three lovely days. After the introduction of the whole “consider the risks, don’t care too much about them and be your own boss” concept, each one of us took on one of the ideas that we shared and liked and started working.

Having Peter Sunde talking about being a rebel, challenging the system and its rules, listening to Sean Duffy and his thoughts on being an entrepreneur, having a break with Clint Nelsen and Alex Falcet and Mattias from JayWay at the stage, wasn’t just fun. It was incredibly inspiring.

Formed the teams, talked about the ideas, got things done, had snacks, salads, drinks and fresh air. In the meantime, got away from our boring day-to-day tasks and solved a problem. Or, at least, found a way to.

Hopefully, this one will be up and running anytime soon. Count me in next time too, guys!

A week ago I was at Volvo Cars headquarters in Göteborg, Sweden. I was among the interviewees for their Graduate Programme. I had the chance to listen to and talk with many friendly and bright people during the information event on Tuesday, 30th of March.

When I asked Gerry Keaney, Senior VP Marketing and Sales, about their future plans for the expansion in China, he said that they will keep on being humble. According to him, trying to educate consumers is not an easy task. What is more, it may not be a winning strategy. Thus, if a client from China wants a long-base S80, equiped with shiny instruments and carbon body elements, he is very likely to get one. In fact, Gerry showed us a long-base, dark and shiny S80, designed for the Chinese market. A man of vision, like the whole Volvo team, he does not underestimate consumers. Although Volvo Cars have had troubles, now their way to the biggest auto market in the world is far more clear. Their saver, Geely, will be an incredibly valuable partner in this journey.

My point is that companies listen to what consumers want. Further, they even ask them – go to the S60’s page, click on the Naughty tests and switch to level 4 of Naughtiness. By the way, S60 is really remarkable! I was there, I saw it, I touched it…

The moment when companies will actually let consumers design the product and market it themselves is not far away. In the meantime, Nokia succeeded again in making their customers happy by releasing the newest version of Ovi Maps for the business headsets E71 and E66. They heard consumers’ feedback.

As Gary puts it here, the whole of the data we have in our heads is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s why I prefer reading blog posts. They contain more knowledge and data links per square inch than text books. Many times more. At least the ones I am subscribed to.

No, seriously, if you can say something in two paragraphs, do you really need twenty pages? By using sophisticated words and phrases you don’t look sophisticated to me. It sounds more like gibberish. In high school my sentences were 150 words long. Each. And they were in German, not in my mother tongue. Do you really think that this is what makes you better at what you do? Get yourself together, dude.

People stay in line all the time – for a slice of pizza, for a train ticket, for a free table. For jobs. Staying in line is boring unless there is someone you can talk with.

Applying for a job through an ugly looking “we-will-filter-you” page, hidden under a long and even uglier domain name is even more boring. Drop-down menus, click here, click there. Just great, makes you feel somewhat desperate, knowing that hundreds of others will do the same. What’s more, most of them will press the very same keyboard buttons in the very same sequence and will choose the same options.

What if I want to do something more than that? You don’t want me to?

I don’t watch TV, I don’t see any commercials. I don’t know anything about your product.

In fact, when I go to the grocery shop, I grab the first package of spaghetti that I see and that doesn’t cost too much, but isn’t too cheap either. Actually, that’s true for everything I buy in a grocery shop. And I go there very often – I am young and a large proportion of my budget goes for food.

How are you going to make me buy your product? By letting me try out each and every one on the shelves?