We had the pleasure to arrange the 2009 edition of Go Kart Grand prix, at Bohus Hyrkart, one of Sweden’s longest outdoor tracks. This time it was Hall Miba from Alvesta that challenged us, very courageously, might I add.

The high temperature was on the verge of the unbearable and the tension was on top when we started up our engines. The battle that followed was full of provocative over takings and dirty tricks. However, it must be said that whoever won, did so fairly. Who won? It is’nt important. Look at the pictures, and you might find a clue.

Hall Miba are very satisfied with our teamwork where we have, among other things, helped them with successful investments in e-commerce and information screens. We took the opportunity to plan for the coming years and we toasted for continued close cooperation.
/David.

Do you, just like me, have an account on Twitter and one on Facebook and one on LinkedIn, etc? All these communities have status fields (but then again, Twitter is a status field). It’s a full time job keeping them all updated. But fear not, there is a solution! I’ve tried several different solutions actually, but the one that works the best according to my humble opinion is HelloTxt.
You register on their site and in return you get a bot as a new MSN friend (mine is called Fabrizio… hot Italian bot and/or the founder of HelloTxt). HelloTxt was founded in Italy in 2007 with the aim of making life easier for people who belong to multiple social networks and I think it’s the best thing since… well, sliced bread.
With HelloTxt you can post your status once and have it appear automatically on all of your networks, allowing you to keep all of your friends up to date with ease. It also lets you read your friends’ updates from main microblogging and social networks all at once.
You can update your status on the website, or using email or even from your mobile phone or do as i do – use MSN. You can also embed photos and video right into your status updates.
What I’m doing right now? I’m loving HelloTxt!
/ylva.

Last week we had a meeting together with Tele2 Sweden on how to work more with their statistics to see how to improve our work and get better conversion rate. This will be an ongoing task for us and hopefully we can see some result in the near future.

On this meeting we also got the chance to bribe them with some Swedish earthmen (aka Jordgubbar), whipped cream and some sweets to get them into summer feeling.

Last week, Cordovan organized a seminar together with SHL, on the effects of a cooperation between the HR and marketing departments to strengthen a company’s brand. Katarina Berg, HR manager at 3, talked about how she succeeded in becoming the HR manager of the year.

You have probably experienced yourself, that the impression you get from one representative from a company, positive or negative, influences your general perception of the entire company.
Therefore, no matter how good the brand strategy for that company is, one person can ruin it by acting inappropriately. This is exactly why it is extremely important to involve and engage the employees and give them possibilities to express their thoughts and ideas on the company and the brand.

This is to be considered as an ongoing process, not a onetime effort. It requires a lot of work, but if well carried out, the results are well worth while. Luckily, today, there are a lot of great tools that can be helpful in such a process, like an intranet based on social media components (blogs, wikis and different types of feeds).

It’s time to stop just saying that our employees are our biggest asset and start acting like it instead. Want to see an example? Watch this video about Patagonia, an outdoor clothing company. As Katarina Berg said at the seminar; proud people perform.
/ylva.

This week end, my brother got married. He and his wife met on line. For my speech, I took a look at the statistics for on line dating. 20 million people visit at least one online dating service per month. Every year, 120.000 couples get marriage as a result of online dating activities.

It’s not only cyber love; it’s a lucrative business too. On average, those paying for online dating services spend a total of $239 per year. The financial growth of online dating reached $642 million in 2008.

So if you’re not hooked up yet and have $239 to spend, the love of your life may be waiting around the next digital corner.
/ylva.

(Source: Jupiter Research)

For a very near future, that is. Only a couple of days away, actually. This is what it looked like when we put the grill together for our BBQ party on Friday. We hope you can join us!
/ylva.

In a study from December 2008 conducted by comScore regarding the use of social media among European internet users it was discovered that UK, Spain and Portugal constitute top three with approximately 75 % of all Internet users being active in social media. Sweden is way behind as number 10 with only 65 %. Call me prejudiced, but I was really surprised at the results as I was convinced Sweden would have been in the top 3 and not Spain - and definitely not Portugal. But when you think about it, it’s only natural - we’re talking about being social, even though it takes place on the web. And honestly, who are better at socializing - Swedes or Spaniards? But then again, after a few drinks, we Swedes get pretty sociable to. Now don’t interpret this as a call for surfing and drinking…. Cheers! <:o)
/y.

When Al Gore became the international spokes person for taking action against global warming, the environmental movement went from being a bunch of marginalized tree huggers to an international people’s movement. His film, ‘An inconvenient truth‘, has generated 254,852 views on YouTube and his ambulant environmental circus has inspired a whole world.

Today, it’s impossible not to be informed about the environmental problems surrounding us, but do we actually do something with this knowledge? Well, there are some interesting initiatives from the web. My first example is Earth Hour. Through the use of their web site and channels like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, WWF has been able to get an international engagement around the world leaders meet in Copenhagen for the Global Climate Change Conference in December 2009, and on their web site they are urging people on to “vote earth” using their light switch. Background: Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

By the way, have you ever wondered where all our stuff comes from and what happens to it when we throw it away? In that case, you should watch “The story of stuff“. It’s a great little film about… well, stuff.
And if you do have a lot of stuff that still works, but you don’t use it anymore and you don’t want to contribute to the ever growing mountain of garbage, try Freecycle. It’s a network with 6,690,000 members across the globe. Here you can give away your unwanted stuff, or if you’re a poor student, you can get the stuff you need for free. Ingenious!

The Swedish clothing company Polarn & Pyret, POP, help their customers to sell their second hand clothes on the POP web site for free. This is a great idea and it’s twofold; good customer service and the ultimate proof of outstanding quality. Along the same lines, Bubbleroom is a Swedish shopping site that sells designer clothes and offers its visitors a second hand buy & sell section.

So, now it’s up to you. Become a good world citizen, vote “Earth”, take care of your stuff and start freecycling!

//Ylva

Today the football season started and the first match was between Cordovan FC and Daddy.

This match was a Cordovan match right from the beginning since Daddy was missing one guy in their team and had to start the match with -1 person. But in the second half the “real” goolie turned up.

Anyway, the atletic guys at Cordovan FC did a great job and won the game with 3 - 0.

The goals were made by Russell Clark, Magnus Lindau and Stefan Jakobsson

We’re now looking forward to the next game meeting GP on Thursday.

As we have mentioned before, the job as a Post Production Manager at Cordovan has been described as one of the toughest jobs on earth. Today and yesterday our PPM took some pictures that really point out this. See below.