Swedish Lapland's new beta site

1) This mockumentary satire ad for the ski resort of Åre should make you laugh. A representative of Visit Sweden showed it as part of her presentation to the Swedish Lapland Tourismforum, at which I spoke also. I’d seen it before, but it reminded me that humour — unforced, of course, as a natural expression of one facet of a culture — is, well, funny.

2) Lars Huring, web maven of Luleå-based creative agency Vinter, had us all in stitches gathered round his MacBook Pro watching this two-part segment — “The Stockholm Syndrome” — from America’s incomparable Daily Show. Taxes are too high here for my taste. But the fact remains, educated Swedes (the ones paying most of the tax) all speak excellent English, meaning there are two countries in the EU (Ireland and Britain) they could move to next week and get a job, plus 24 additional EU countries where they are legally entitled to wodrk and reside. If they remain here, and the country’s tax base isn’t shrinking unsustainably, then the Swedish system’s either satisfying them or, as is the premise of this comedy sketch, brainwashing them.

3) On a related point, reading Monocle in a Stockholm cafe today (a pretty damn Moncole thing to do, think of it), I was struck by this, from the PM of Bhutan:

[Gross National Happiness] is based on the theory that since happiness is the ultimate desire of every human being, it is the responsibility of the policy-makers to create conditions whereby citizens can pursue happiness. Happiness is a state that one is able to attain when equilibrium is achieved between the body’s material needs and the mind’s emotional and psychological needs.

According to the never-wrong Wikipedia, the GNH incorporates seven measures of wellness: economic, environmental, physical, mental, workplace, social and political.

I don’t know a thing about Bhutan or how happy its people really are (I’m a little sceptical; to be happy myself, for instance, I need to travel a lot, and US$1,900 a year, which is Bhutan’s 2008 GDP/capita, wouldn’t cover much airfare). Nonetheless, I like that a politician (Jigmer Yoser Thinley his name is) can articulate this thought like that. Also might be nice if brand owners/managers (of place brands and private brands) would take such a holistic view of their marketing practices and their products.