Recently, I published a blog post Chapman Social Media Aid asking companies if they wanted student teams helping them with their social media efforts. Heeding the call was Swedish startup Oricane, a green technology company offering energy efficient software and big data solutions often reducing cost by 98% and power use by 99%.
Had a very pleasant lunch meeting today in the city of Luleå in the province of Norrbotten in northern Sweden with Matz Engman, CEO of Luleå Business Agency (Luleå Näringsliv) currently busy marketing The Node Pole. Matz has had a multifaceted and intriguing career both as an executive in bigger corporations, as an entrepreneur, and even as a Swedish Elite League hockey referee. He had many stories to tell about the two-year sales cycle from initial contact to Facebook’s official announcement to establish themselves just an hour south of the Arctic Circle. Sounds like a challenging sales job to get one of the most iconic brands of our times up here. Ironically, he said that once they had fine-tuned their sales pitch, it was easier to bring Facebook to Luleå than to get a Stockholm-based company to set up shop way up north!