I think I’m going to explode. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, I can’t see, I can’t hear, my head is busted, stomach cracked, feet splintered, I am bald, naked… lucky to be alive though.
That’s where so-called modern travelling gets you. Two weeks ago it was Ghana for a long weekend, then up at 5am to go to the Midlands, then on Thursday a flight to Copenhagen and a long train journey to Karslkrona, a prison in Sweden.
Of course the juxtaposition of Ghana and Sweden is interesting and three intensive 12-hour days learning about digital blending on an island is even more so, but my brain has gone. Even worse it’s going to take me 21 hours to get to San Diego tomorrow… and I’m flying bloody Delta. I’ll be joining Steve Jobs at this rate.
Anyway, back to Sweden where I did something that changed my life. The course that the world’s biggest (and quite frankly the best) digital agency LBi invited me to was amazing. I was with the Brand and Marketing directors of Coca-Cola, Sony Ericsson, Johnson & Johnson, Virgin Atlantic and many others.
I would love to tell the deep and intimate secrets of what happened, but what happens in a Swedish digital prison, stays in a Swedish prison. Suffice to say that this gruelling course of digital therapy exhausted all of us but was exhilirating. We not only washed our dirty linen, we also shared our stinky fishes, but you had to be there to know what that means.
These Master Classes are run by a mob called Hyper Island and are a mixture of group tasks, company and individual confessions, presentations and challenges to give an idea of how blending products, marketing, brands and business models should work.
Unusually, I shut my potty-mouth, listened, learnt, finally interacted and met some of the most talented people I’ve ever met. One girl on the course (after I told her I had become a nastier version of my younger self) even told me she thought I was a very kind and interesting guy… I could have cried my eyes out.
Well, that’s digital therapy for you. We ended our experience with dinner in an extraordinary building after arriving on an island by boat and I cannot tell how much it’s changed my attitude, I might even start liking people again.
Naturally, that will change and probably change very quickly. Tomorrow morning when I should be watching two great games of rugby I am flying by paddock to San Diego, a 21-hour journey with an eight-hour stopover in Atlanta… and I’m flying by the aforesaid filth otherwise known as Delta.
Consequently, my current exhaustion and euphoria will be replaced by the familiar inertia and anger and all that time will have been wasted. Blimey, I wish I was in a Swedish prison… words that I thought I could never even say.
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
