Back from Sweden

My keynote Sunday at Växjö University’s Participatory Academy went well, with quite a bit of interaction with the students and educators in the audience.

I’ve posted a Flickr set of photos here.

Another highlight was the time I spent with Pernilla Severson and Lars Mogensen at Malmö, particularly the hourlong meeting with Pernilla’s students about their media habits. Monday night I gave a talk at Malmö University on darknets and mashup culture. More about that at my Darknet blog.

It was my first time in Sweden, so here are some snapshot impressions:

Thumbs up:

– Great weather — 70 degrees most of the time (take a memo, Al Gore)
– amazing, how just about everyone spoke English — and did it well
– everyone I met was quite friendly
– clean ‘n’ tidy streets and parks
– like the unisex bathrooms
– Swedish showers are the best I’ve seen in Europe
– corny but delightful: the gathering at the Glassworks where the locals sang such standards as “Hell and Gore” and “Did the Saints Have Snaps?”
– dependable train service, comfortable rides
– Nice continental breakfasts

Thumbs down:

– Lack of decaf coffee got my nerves all jangly
– Other than breakfast, the meals won’t make you forget French or Italian cuisine anytime soon.
– the dreaded but not expected jet lag. from west to east seems to be more severe than the other way.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.