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Convertir els arxius empresarials en un actiu estratègic — Transcript

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0:05Let's see when it comes up here.
0:08I took a photo of myself with you.
0:10That's for the archives, of course.
0:13Um, much like
0:16Professor Diso, I'm a fan of hotel
0:19ledgers,
0:21like I think most of us seem to be here.
0:25This is from last summer. I was checking
0:28into a hotel uh at a small town in
0:32northern Sweden where my wife is from.
0:34We were staying there
0:37and the beauty of this hotel was that
0:39they had the ledgers out
0:42from past days.
0:45So as I was writing my name in the
0:47ledger to the left,
0:49they had the ledger from 1942
0:54for that exact date.
0:57I was adding on to that history. I was
1:01following in the footsteps of all the
1:02other clients who had passed there and I
1:06could check their names. I could check
1:07where they came from. 1942 in the middle
1:09of the war. Sweden was outside of the
1:11war but still
1:14and I could start reflecting on what had
1:15happened. to me one of the best uses
1:18best simple uses of history I had seen
1:21in a long time.
1:26I work at a place called the Center for
1:28Business History
1:30and I will talk a lot about what we do
1:33and a lot of the questions that have
1:35been raised this morning I think we're
1:37going to be touching upon. Who gets
1:38access to archives?
1:42What do we store in archives? What are
1:45the gaps in the archives?
1:48And how do we make sure that private
1:50companies, private entities want to
1:54save?
1:55Because what we work with uh are private
1:59material, private companies
2:03owned material, nothing public. Uh so we
2:07have to work hard to get the companies
2:08to want to save.
2:11This is where I work. This is uh our
2:14archive.
2:15Uh if you're ever in Stockholm, come
2:17look us up. We are 20 minutes outside of
2:20the city.
2:22Um, and we've been there for uh the last
2:2520 years. We just signed a lease for
2:27another 20 years, so we don't have to
2:30move soon, which is nice because we have
2:3187,000
2:33shelf meter of material to take care of.
2:37That's two marathons
2:39of documents, uh, objects, photos, uh,
2:44from about 320
2:46large Swedish companies.
2:50A quick run through of us. We exist for
2:53this. This is our
2:56guiding mission.
2:58Every company should have one vision or
3:01at least a res.
3:03So we exist to preserve and present
3:08the history of Swedish corporations.
3:11Um and we can talk more about why there
3:14should be more like us in other
3:16countries. We think um but you can see
3:19the two preserve and present. We archive
3:23things and we also help the companies
3:26that we archive for to help storytell
3:29to narrate to research their stories
3:31their histories.
3:34Oops.
3:39As you've probably rec realized by now,
3:42we are very commercial activity. We sell
3:44these services. We are actually owned
3:46though uh completely by a nonprofit.
3:48That's another uh twist to our story.
3:52Uh and nonprofits in the Swedish
3:54context, they don't have owners, they
3:56have members.
3:58Typical nonprofits in our world are
4:00sports associations and those things. U
4:03but the members in our case are our
4:05customers. So, we force the customers to
4:09become members, which creates a nice
4:11little loop since we promise them we're
4:13going to save things for eternity.
4:17We have the members interest at heart
4:19and they help us finance this.
4:24We have done this since 1974. We started
4:26small in Stockholm. We grew to cover the
4:29country. Uh we are by now 26 people
4:34primarily archavists,
4:36researchers and then some storytellers.
4:40Uh I'm not an archavist
4:42uh and I don't work in tourism. So you
4:44may wonder what I'm doing here but uh we
4:48have a lot of hospitality services in
4:51the archives and I'll talk about those
4:55and we're a fun place to work if you're
4:56an archavist because you actually get
4:58colleagues.
5:01Most archavists are alone
5:04in their organizations or in the m
5:07municipalities.
5:09So you get colleagues to banter with, to
5:11compare with, to seek advice from, uh,
5:15and hopefully we together then create
5:17something better for for our clients
5:19just by being more people doing it. And
5:22I've already mentioned this that 87,000
5:24shelf meters from 320 Swedish companies.
5:28Some of the companies, just to give you
5:29an example, you see here, some you might
5:33recognize. You may have had that drink
5:36up to the left. You may have bought
5:38clothes from H&M.
5:41Um, probably when you're texting or
5:43calling, you're actually traveling on
5:45Ericson phone lines. Um, Electrolux,
5:50White Goods. Some of them you don't
5:52know. Uh, Electa hopefully you don't
5:56haven't come into contact with because
5:57they do cancer treatment solutions uh,
6:00globally recognized by now. And some are
6:02just locally uh, food retailers like EKA
6:06at the bottom. Uh we actually have the
6:08Nobel Foundations archive as well.
6:12So companies like that. Um I talked
6:15about hospitality. We do have
6:16hospitality archives. Tui at the bottom
6:20there. If you think of traveling as uh
6:23as an ar as a hospitality. Uh so this is
6:26one of the pictures from their archive.
6:30And before I show pictures like this
6:31here, I contact the company and say is
6:34it okay for me to show these pictures?
6:36That's a key concept for us because I I
6:39will be keep talking about our archives.
6:41They are not ours.
6:43They are each depositing company's
6:45private material they have entrusted us
6:48to take care of. Uh but by having so
6:51many there and by being a little
6:53proactive, we make sure that we show
6:56them that they have golden nuggets in
6:58there. Uh, and this Golden Nuggets, uh,
7:01is actually the first Swedish charter
7:03trip in 1955 that went to Mayorca.
7:07It was a 10-hour flight with four
7:09layovers. Uh, and I love the way they're
7:12dressed. This is how you we should be
7:14traveling. Bring out the pearls, put on
7:17the tie,
7:21and I'm guessing this is actually the
7:23home trip because she has a good tan
7:25going back there.
7:29But you can find those pictures in there
7:31uh that tell a story of something else.
7:33Another um now that we're in the hotel
7:35world uh and talking about hotels a lot,
7:38Grand Hotel in Stockholm,
7:42built 120 years ago,
7:45looks the same today as it did then.
7:48It's a fixture. If you've ever been to
7:50Stockholm, it's right there in the
7:51center facing the royal castle. This is
7:54where all the Nobel laureates stay. This
7:56is where all the hot shots get to stay.
7:59Uh, and they have an archive which we
8:02take care of for them and they make good
8:05use of that archive. Um, talking about
8:08the gaps in the archive, of course, we
8:09have a lot of photos, but we also have
8:11the meeting minutes from the board.
8:15We have the staff records
8:17and we get people who come into to us
8:19and say, "Hey, I've been told that my
8:22grandmother used to work for Grand
8:24Hotel. Could that be true? And we say,
8:27"Welcome to research." We ask Grand
8:29Hotel if it's okay that that researcher
8:31comes. They say, "Yes." The researcher,
8:33the person will come and look at the old
8:34ledgers and try to find their
8:36grandmother.
8:39Um, we had a call a couple years ago
8:41from a writer who said that I want to do
8:43a fictional story, but based on the true
8:46lives of those who lived and worked at
8:48Grand Hotel. Uh, and Grand Hotel said
8:51yes. Gave her full access. she came out
8:54with this which actually I just realized
8:57exists in a translation into Castiano
9:00not in Catalam yet. Um
9:04but then she could base that story and
9:07the the owner and manager of that hotel
9:12uh was a woman B minus
9:15who existed who is in that book. a bunch
9:19of the other employees have been like
9:21you do in drama, you put them together
9:23into one person or a couple of person
9:25and you invent some customers, but she
9:28was all it was all based on true
9:29stories.
9:31Um,
9:33and Grandell couldn't have done that if
9:35they didn't have an archive. She
9:37couldn't have written that book without
9:38that archive.
9:40Uh, and to be honest, we didn't create
9:42that archive for them. Grandotell has
9:44always taken care of their things. They
9:46hired us some 25 years because they
9:48didn't want to have the archive in the
9:50basement of the hotel. They wanted it
9:52somewhere properly.
9:55But there are companies uh and you
9:57probably all work for companies like
9:59this that generate history every day and
10:02you need to keep track of that and keep
10:05storing it.
10:07Um, a person at Grand Hotel told me, uh,
10:10actually the the the sier at Grand Hotel
10:14told me that he lives on all the wines
10:19that his predecessors have bought and
10:21filled up the the wine cave.
10:24He has to keep filling it. He does not
10:28want to go down in history as the guy
10:30who didn't fill up the wine celler. He
10:33doesn't want to be that should not be
10:34his legacy.
10:36So think of it like that. You have to
10:38fill up your archive. Keep filling the
10:40archive with whatever happens today. I
10:42am guessing this hotel has been
10:44renovated a couple of times. What did it
10:46look like between the times? Have they
10:49stored it? Uh who owns it? I will go out
10:51and ask them all those questions. Those
10:53are things that we normally go out and
10:54ask companies.
10:59I'll skip that. Um
11:02IKEA
11:06um just to bring out the most most
11:07Swedish thing we have
11:11um
11:13have their own archive. They're one of
11:14the few Swedish companies that actually
11:16have built their own archive in in
11:17recent times. Uh we consulted with them.
11:20They came to us and asked, "How do you
11:21build an archive?" And we're like,
11:22"Don't you want to put it with us?" And
11:24they're like, "Nope, we're going to do
11:25it ourselves because that's the IKEA
11:27way." Beautiful. That's that's great. So
11:30they started building and early on it
11:33looked like this.
11:35Uh a little bit better than the basement
11:38of Bal
11:40uh Boes. Uh
11:44but uh
11:46this was the best part I thought on that
11:48little door. They actually started
11:51listing. They started thinking about why
11:53do we at IKEA need history?
11:59all and this has nothing to do with how
12:01to store it or how to archive it and all
12:03the things that goes into the archive
12:05profession. These are business reasons
12:07why it's important to keep
12:11and I see everybody taking pictures.
12:13Please do. I will be happy to send out
12:14these slides too afterwards if you don't
12:17want to take pictures.
12:22And IKEA has built their own archive.
12:23They've actually turned one the original
12:25warehouse, the very first IKEA warehouse
12:28which is in southern Sweden in a small
12:30town where they are from. It's in the
12:33middle of nowhere. Uh but that was the
12:35first IKEA store. They have now turned
12:37that into a museum.
12:40Um and IKEA has been around for 70 plus
12:44years by now. And so what they've done
12:46is build a museum that talks a little
12:49bit about IKEA and inved it. But the
12:52main thrust of that museum
12:55uh are five living rooms
12:59furnished with IKEA furniture from each
13:02decade.
13:04So in telling their own story,
13:07they also tell the story of how Sweden
13:10what it has looked like over the years.
13:14And I'm saying this because there are a
13:16couple of things that we like when it
13:17comes to storytelling, which is one is
13:20don't talk about yourself.
13:22Don't talk about what you did. Talk
13:23about why you did it.
13:26What did the world look like when this
13:28was first built, when it was
13:31refurbished?
13:33Give whoever is sharing in your history
13:36a sense of the bigger picture. And I'll
13:39I'll come back to that point.
13:43So IKEA is is truly a company that
13:45values its history.
13:48Uh and that's what we work with trying
13:51to make organizations value their
13:52history and more than that because
13:54everybody could value anything. They
13:56need to put a value on their history.
13:59They need to allocate budgets.
14:04To your point earlier though, why didn't
14:06the hotel want to allocate budget for a
14:10proper archive?
14:12And there are tons of reasons and
14:14dynamics depending on the company. Some
14:16are familyowned and maybe there are
14:19family mysteries or family secrets they
14:21don't want to keep. Some are owned by
14:24private uh individuals. Some are owned
14:27by anonymous pension funds
14:30and run by civil servants. There are so
14:32many dynamics that come to play. But the
14:35our our experience is that
14:38no company
14:40cares about their history unfortunately.
14:43Uh not at least primarily they care
14:46about the next thing, the next step. And
14:49that's in the nature of business. You
14:50move forward. You have to sell your next
14:52room. You have to sell your next
14:54campaign, your next product, develop
14:56your next thing. And if you have a
14:58limited budget, you have to allocate the
15:00budget and it goes to the new things. So
15:03what we're trying to do is piggyback on
15:06the one thing that every company does,
15:07which is uh build staff morale, actually
15:12two things. Build staff morale, HR
15:14activities
15:16and marketing.
15:18And we say that history can help you
15:20with that.
15:22Building the organization and building
15:24the brand. That's why we talk about
15:26history marketing. And when we come to
15:28companies and we try to persuade them,
15:32conversations will flow differently. But
15:34invariably there are four perspectives
15:37that always come out. So now I will I
15:39will quickly run through those. Uh so
15:41you know what you're up against when you
15:42start talking to whoever you need to
15:44talk about about the value of history.
15:46You're going to come across these four
15:47perspectives.
15:49One is that they are going to be saying
15:52that we're not that important. What's
15:55our history? We're just a business. This
15:57is I have limited budget. I don't need
16:00to spend my budget on this because we're
16:02not even our history is not even that
16:04important. H&M said this when we first
16:07approached them. We don't have a history
16:09or heritage. We're just salespeople.
16:13And then we tell them that business
16:16history is part of our larger cultural
16:18heritage. Our history in Sweden is not
16:22just about our kings
16:24or our governments or the big decisions
16:27or wars. It's about all the people who
16:29have built the country and businesses
16:32are hugely important there. And we have
16:34an example. This was our prime minister
16:36for about 40 years. He's reigned for a
16:39long time. Re reelected every three
16:41years but he kept staying on uh par
16:44Albin Hanson. He built modern Sweden in
16:46the 19 from the 1950s and forward. But
16:49if he built modern Sweden, a politician,
16:51we'd like to say that Ingva Camprad from
16:54IKEA gave it furniture
16:58and H&M's passion makes sure it had
17:01clothes.
17:04And you can run the same thing in every
17:06country. All those business businesses
17:10who have been important to who you are
17:14from banks to clothing to interior
17:18decorating what have you. So the one
17:21thing you need to bring home in that
17:23conversation is you are part of
17:25something larger. Assume your place in
17:28that.
17:31The second perspective uh that comes out
17:34is
17:35companies may use their history even if
17:38they're not thinking about it. They may
17:39be history users and history marketing
17:42people without thinking about it because
17:45so many of them throw in that little
17:48established end of the year since
17:53it's there.
17:55They may not do anything else with their
17:56history but they're doing at least that.
17:58And if you can see that in their logo,
18:00you have a a starting point.
18:03Um,
18:06and then once you start walking, you see
18:07them everywhere. This is from Paris last
18:09summer. This is from Mexico this winter.
18:13Uh, this is from Stockholm, from one of
18:16the big uh, restaurant and hotels. Uh,
18:18bringing the world to Stockholm since
18:201863. It's actually on their bins.
18:24You can put it everywhere. Get history
18:25in everywhere. I stepped out of the uh
18:28plane yesterday, out of the airport. The
18:30first thing I saw was the Desta.
18:34They're everywhere once you start seeing
18:35them.
18:38And this is not even that old. I mean,
18:40they're proud that they've been around
18:41for 10 years.
18:44Um, and that's fine.
18:46Use your history. Use the fact that
18:48you're young or old. Here's one that's
18:50even younger.
18:53A paddle court in Portugal.
18:57And some of them start playing with
18:58this. This is the Museum of Nordic
19:00History.
19:03Uh, and one of my favorites is uh
19:06there's uh similar to Costa Brava. Here
19:08we have the High Coast up in northern
19:10Sweden
19:11established 10,000 years ago. That's
19:13when the eyes pulled back.
19:19So they play with it and at least they
19:21have a value of the that it's worth
19:23something that we've been around for a
19:25while. So that gives you something to
19:26work with.
19:28Uh and actually I keep saying that you
19:30see it everywhere. If you see something
19:32nice uh and and feel like posting it,
19:34there's even a Facebook group for you.
19:38Uh
19:41third perspective that comes out is why
19:44should we be telling our story? And
19:45there's actually a very good commercial
19:48reason for it. And I use an old ad to
19:50explain that.
19:52This is an ad from the 1950s uh in
19:55America.
19:57At the time, it was an ad for selling
20:00ads.
20:03And for me, this is also an ad for why
20:06you should tell your story.
20:09If you go and you can look at it. I
20:12don't know who you are, the man, the
20:13grumpy old man says. I don't know your
20:15company or your product or what it
20:17stands for or your customers or your
20:18record. I don't know anything about it.
20:21you wanted to sell me something.
20:25Use your history to lead. Make sure they
20:29know your history. I we say to the
20:30companies before you come in a sales
20:33position.
20:35If I come to a town and I have three
20:37hotels to pick from,
20:40the one with the oldest and most active
20:43legacy. If you're like me, that's the
20:45one you want. It's a choice. Some hotels
20:48may not want to have that. They just
20:50want to be young and fresh. But that's a
20:52choice that they should be making.
20:57So use your history. It's it's almost
20:58your proof point for what you're
21:01promising today that you've been around
21:02so long. The fourth and last perspective
21:05that comes out in conversations
21:08um is that we still have to battle with
21:12that whole image of history.
21:16History that's fun for academics. the
21:18marketing head says or the HR person
21:20says, but you know, we work with the
21:23future here.
21:24I didn't want to put an actual person in
21:27there to pinpoint somebody. So, I
21:29actually asked chat G GB chat uh GPT,
21:33what does a marketing head look like?
21:35This is what they think. And if it's a
21:37woman, it's uh she looks like this.
21:42Those are the people we come across that
21:44we still have to convince that they have
21:46to allocate budgets.
21:48And then we keep saying all the things
21:50I've just said and we keep coming back
21:52to Gustav Maler
21:55that tradition is not the worship of
21:56ashes but the pre preservation of fire.
22:00On a side note, I know the French want
22:03to claim that Jean said this, but we
22:05think we found that Mer said it first.
22:10Either way, that's why we keep telling
22:12our history. It's not about dwelling in
22:15the past. It's not about being
22:17nostalgic.
22:19It's about using the knowledge of why we
22:22burn or why we're on fire. Uh on the
22:25note of nostalgia, uh Ted Ryan, who is
22:29he has the best title, he's a chief
22:31archavist at Ford, the motor company,
22:34he's heritage brand manager,
22:37and he goes around saying this all the
22:39time. Nostalgia boring. Retro is cool.
22:43Figure out other ways to frame history
22:47than just as a retelling of old
22:49accounts. Make it a story that says
22:51something.
22:55So those are the four perspectives.
22:59On a quick note, you'll come across
23:01them.
23:03Maybe not all four in the same
23:04conversation, but they will pop out
23:06sooner or later when you talk to
23:09companies. And again, we're talking to
23:11the companies because we want them to
23:14spend time and energy and money on
23:18saving what they're doing right now. And
23:21that's not a given.
23:26We want them to stop thinking about
23:28history as pointing backwards and future
23:32as opposed to the future. We want to
23:34think of history as propelling you
23:36forward, helping you moving forward,
23:39linking the past with today. And a
23:42company that did that really well, I
23:43thought, was KM
23:46when they turned 100 a few years ago.
23:50This was one part of the campaign. They
23:53found an old picture. They took a new
23:55picture and put it together.
23:58And the beauty of this picture is that
24:00it shows two things. It shows
24:02consistency.
24:04They've been flying people for 100
24:06years. It also shows development in the
24:09same picture because she was not allowed
24:11to fly 100 years ago.
24:14Apparently the the the instruments are
24:17better, too.
24:21So, it's not about being stuck in the
24:22past. It's about showing progress. We're
24:24true to the thing we do and we're
24:26developing along the way. Unfortunately,
24:29KLM turned uh 100 in 2020
24:33pandemic planes were grounded. They had
24:36a huge campaign uh and they had to
24:39cancel most of it. Uh they did put out
24:42this one great video that I hope we will
24:45be able to play.
24:50Nope.
25:03See if we can fix it. Otherwise, I'll
25:05send out the link afterwards.
25:12Yeah, we'll do it next time. We'll send
25:13out the link. It's a cliffhanger.
25:17Um, another way to use your history
25:21is to inform your decisions. Today,
25:24Nationwide Building Society, uh, is a
25:26the world's largest building society.
25:28It's in the UK.
25:31It's been around for, uh, many, many
25:33years since 1884. It was founded by a
25:35man named Charles Cooper.
25:38And they have a very structured archive.
25:40They have two archavists on staff,
25:43and they take care of their history. So
25:46much actually that they have distilled
25:49the credo of the company into seven
25:51principles. The magnificent seven and
25:55whenever there's a big decision within
25:56the company there are about to start
25:58something launch something develop
26:01something big
26:03they check the idea against those seven
26:05principles and I won't go through them
26:07all but you get the idea.
26:10It's almost as okay what would Mr.
26:12Cooper do? Would he approve of this?
26:16So that's the other way to use history,
26:17not just for branding, but also to
26:19inform your corporate decisions today.
26:22Should we be launching this?
26:25Should we extend this hotel into another
26:28one?
26:30Uh I talked to uh Chat Mar at one point,
26:34the one of the big five French borders
26:37uh and they were debating whether should
26:39we
26:41expand into table wine, the cheaper wine
26:44with all the the grapes that are left
26:48and that could be checked against the
26:50heritage, the history. Are we violating
26:52the heritage and legacy by doing a
26:54cheaper version of the the good thing
26:57that a shadow go really is all those
27:00things archives and heritage can help
27:02you with.
27:05And just concluding this little part
27:07going back to IKEA Ingva Camprad wrote
27:10the testament of a furniture dealer 40
27:12years before he actually died
27:16but it has 10 points.
27:20So IKEA actually has that already
27:22written down by the founder. What would
27:24Ingvar do for all the big decisions?
27:28And a big decision for IKEA right now
27:30was should we leave Russia
27:33when Russia invaded the Ukraine? And in
27:35the end they did like everybody else. Um
27:39but that was not a given because much of
27:41what IKEA had done over the past 40 year
27:43had been establishing themselves slowly
27:45slowly in Russia helping Russia develop.
27:48It was not a given, but they could
27:49actually go back and sort of check
27:52uh this huge pivotal change in their
27:55strategy. Could they still justify it
27:58with with the legacy and the heritage?
28:01And they could. They thought.
28:05So really we're trying to get companies
28:07to use history strategically
28:12to build brand
28:14to strengthen an organization and
28:16actually to manage manage risk and
28:18change. The example I just gave about
28:20IKEA about leaving a market or
28:23developing
28:24um a lot of retail has been through
28:27changes over the past years with the
28:30development of online retailing.
28:33Should we close stores? Should we open
28:35new ones? And can we find are we
28:39breaking with heritage if we do that?
28:41And maybe some are, maybe some aren't,
28:43but history can help you overcome those
28:45changes.
28:48We call this history marketing when we
28:50sell it.
28:52Um,
28:55and you can see it's a very very
28:58operational way at look looking at
29:00history
29:02as a tool. It is not the history that I
29:05also enjoy learning about the past,
29:08seeing connections. This is a very very
29:12operational way. It's an instrumental
29:14way of looking at history. Uh but if we
29:17can get the companies to save, I'm fine
29:21with that. If this helps them archive
29:23things that we later can have academics
29:28and researchers come in uh and look at
29:31because they actually saved it because
29:32it was in their own self-interest.
29:34We we have created something good.
29:38Uh and we actually wrote a book about
29:40this uh a couple years ago. I brought a
29:42couple of copies with me. I don't want
29:44to leave with them. So if anybody wants
29:46a copy, please come see me.
29:50Again,
29:53we're trying to get the companies not to
29:54look at history like that, but like
29:55this,
29:57trying to make them use it. And
30:00sometimes we're lucky. Sometimes we we
30:03get a client. Okay, we've we've saved
30:06some stuff in your archive and it is our
30:08anniversary and my CEO said we should do
30:11something.
30:13How can we do it? I I want to use the
30:16the anniversary. It's a good jubilee.
30:18We're turning 100. Ericson is turning
30:21150 this year, for instance.
30:24How can we use it to drive business? But
30:26by the way, uh, and not too much
30:27history.
30:30So, he he wants a uh, normally it's a
30:33marketing manager who wants a product of
30:36some sort that is about history, but not
30:39really about history, he thinks. So,
30:41we're trying to balance that
30:45and we've come up with a process for
30:47effective history marketing. And the
30:49next couple of slides will be very
30:52step by step. This book is a
30:54step-by-step book that I wish I'd had
30:58when I started this job 11 years ago.
31:00So, we wrote it. Um, and I have a
31:04background uh as a PR consultant.
31:08And this is us out here selling services
31:11and trying to get them to want to re
31:14want to buy from us and realize that we
31:16can actually deliver on it. Uh it's a
31:18very salesoriented and serviceoriented
31:20process
31:23and we have four guidelines that we go
31:25through with them
31:27and you've actually all already heard
31:30all of them by now. One, why are we
31:33doing this? Well, as I said earlier,
31:34history is your proof point for today's
31:36promises. Remember the grumpy old man?
31:39This is why you do it. This is why you
31:41do it at all.
31:44How should we do it so it becomes
31:45relevant for today? Actually, so it
31:49doesn't become a lot of nostalgia.
31:53And we say start with the future and
31:54work backwards. Find the root threads
31:58from before
32:00that talk to what you are today and
32:01where you want to go next.
32:05The best part
32:09of our work is when we hit that
32:11bullseye,
32:13which is somebody reads a story or see a
32:16film and thinks it could have been me.
32:21And that's why we want to get everybody
32:23who takes part of our stories to think,
32:24okay, if I had been born then and I had
32:26had that job, this is what I could have
32:29been doing.
32:30that sort of recognition that good drama
32:32gets you, that good literature gets you.
32:38And this I already mentioned, don't talk
32:39about what you did. I've seen too many
32:41timelines, corporate timelines, which is
32:43we were founded then and the CEO was
32:45this and then the product this,
32:48nobody cares. But if you flip that and
32:51you say we were founded because the
32:52world looked like this
32:55and we the world needed a solution to
32:57this. That's why we launched this
32:59product.
33:03And the fourth is is really just basic
33:06communication.
33:08I could be talking to a communication
33:10class or a PR class. And this I would be
33:12saying too, who are we talking to and
33:13why?
33:15that informs if we're going to do this
33:17as a book or as a film, as a series of
33:21Tik Tok videos
33:23or as Insta reels
33:26or maybe all of the above
33:29or maybe we should do it as a proper
33:32research project and invite an academic
33:34to do a white book on us.
33:36depends on how you've answered all the
33:38other three
33:40but also who are you talking this
33:42telling the story to in our 50 plus
33:45years we have done too many big coffee
33:48table books
33:50that nobody read
33:53properly researched
33:56a great material
33:58but nobody takes part in it and as a
34:00storyteller I want people to at least
34:04meet my stories so That's why we've come
34:07up with this uh this fourth point.
34:09Really think about who you're talking to
34:11and why.
34:15And then it's just plain work. This is
34:18storytelling. Set your narrative. We
34:20call it uh make sure you have all the
34:23basic facts. Uh we call it history
34:26sheet, which is a big word for an Excel
34:28sheet. We talk about in identifying the
34:31most poignant stories, fertile facts.
34:33I'll get back to that. And then you
34:35start your storytelling in whatever way
34:37you want.
34:39We joke internally that we've done
34:42everything except pantomime. So we want
34:45to do that.
34:50An important part which I normally if I
34:52have a long even more time uh I I spend
34:55time on which is
34:57the temptation to only tell the good
35:00stuff in a company's history. First we
35:03did this, this was great. Then we did
35:05that, that was even better, and then we
35:07went on to the next success.
35:10No company has that type of history to
35:12start with.
35:14Uh, and nobody wants to listen to that
35:15history. But verify everything.
35:18Fact check and don't cherrypick the good
35:21stuff. But these are again, this is
35:23nothing new. This is good storytelling.
35:27really quickly creating an over
35:29historical
35:31overview.
35:34Uh we think of it as a history sheet. As
35:37you can see, it's a glorified Excel
35:39sheet.
35:43Nothing much uh in it, but a lot of
35:45facts. This is for one company that we
35:47did when they turned 100. We filled it
35:50in with everything that had happened in
35:51their history, big and small. We didn't
35:55value what was important yet, but we
35:58just wanted to make sure we had
36:00everything down. Then you can start
36:02choosing
36:04the important stories,
36:07or as we call them, fertile facts. And
36:09that's not even our expression. When you
36:11steal, steal from the best. we steal
36:14from Virginia Wolf
36:17who in an essay about the art of
36:20biography wrote that almost any
36:22biographer can give us
36:26uh
36:28any biographer should give us more than
36:30just another fact. He should give us the
36:32creative fact, the fertile fact, the
36:35fact that suggests and engenders, tells
36:38a bigger story
36:40and they can be anything.
36:43This I have actually gotten from the
36:45Coca-Cola archavists in Atlanta.
36:49This is a fertile fact for Coca-Cola.
36:50This is the Caven Club in Liverpool in
36:531961.
36:56Somebody had a inmatic with them. Took a
36:58quick shot of
37:01Paul and Ringo from the Beatles before
37:04they were famous.
37:06And if you see in the flurry,
37:10you see Coke bottles.
37:14This is the leading guiding light for
37:17Coke internally.
37:19People having fun drinking Coke.
37:23They want more of that. That's a fertile
37:24fact. They want to keep telling the
37:26story over and over again. Whatever they
37:28do after that should lead back to this.
37:31Uh a fertile fact for Ericson, the
37:34Teleco company.
37:38Uh they were founded in 1876. So they're
37:4120 they're 30 years old uh and they are
37:45receiving a visit from Shanghai.
37:51You see all the the mix of the
37:54westerners and the orientals. On the
37:57back of that picture are actually the
37:58names of the people.
38:01And if you're Erikson today and you're
38:04working in Shanghai, imagine going up to
38:06Shanghai Telecom and saying, "Hey,
38:09we've done business for the past 120
38:11years.
38:12Let's talk."
38:15They're not going to get the deal
38:17because of that, but they will get the
38:19respect even more so in a country that
38:21respects longevity and staying power. So
38:24that's a fertile fact for Erikson.
38:27Uh, and I'll skip that for time reasons.
38:30And then you package your story in as
38:32many ways as you want. Magazines.
38:36Uh this was during the pandemic. A one
38:38of Sweden's four largest bank turned
38:40200. They wanted to do something and
38:42they had planned all these big events.
38:44The pandemic came, everything was
38:45closed. They asked us to do a magazine
38:48that they could send home to the 9,000
38:49employees that they have. And when
38:52you're doing that magazine, you can
38:53might as well do a website. You can do
38:56part of it for films. They did some ads.
38:58We did more films and we did a podcast.
39:01If you've done the research and you have
39:03the stories, tell them in as many ways
39:05as you can.
39:07Uh feed your social media with it.
39:11This is Eric's Electrolux, uh one of
39:14their early fridges
39:19or you build a historical exhibition.
39:22We've all seen it and uh within
39:24companies, I'm sure if you walked
39:25around,
39:27but it's the selection of what goes into
39:29those things that you show in an exhibit
39:31or the things that you decide to write
39:33about. That's what the first two steps
39:35in this process was about. Picking out
39:37the the really telling stories that
39:40share who you are.
39:43And I'm going to finish with three
39:45tourism examples that we've had nothing
39:48to do with, but that I just like because
39:50I've come across them. So, we start in
39:52Dublin
39:54with Guinness.
39:57Um, if you've ever been to Dublin, maybe
40:00you've been to Guinness.
40:03This is their
40:05headquarters and brewery in Dublin.
40:08Still active. This is where they brew.
40:10But they've also turned the original
40:12brewing facility into an exhibition.
40:15Um, and we were actually there, me and a
40:18couple of colleagues. Uh, inside you
40:19even take an escalator up and they take
40:22make sure that you have time in that
40:23escalator when you're standing. They get
40:24a you get a little bit of history.
40:27Uh, and then you can walk around and you
40:30get a tour and they've turned this into
40:31a whole thing. They make money out of
40:33their history. Uh and and you can see a
40:37lot of beverage companies doing this
40:39across the world. Uh so this is us
40:42taking a tour and getting to learn how
40:43to make beer. Uh but the fun part was
40:46that the archive is actually in that
40:48building.
40:50Uh and Eileen Kolan, who's their chief
40:52archavist in the middle there, took us
40:55behind the scenes so we could actually
40:57see the archive
40:59and get a little tour of it. So it's a
41:01living thing in the middle of their
41:03headquarters.
41:05visible to everyone. Not everybody is
41:06let in. Talking about who gets access to
41:09archives,
41:11but they try to get as many people in
41:13there as they can to make sure that more
41:14people see it. And they also use history
41:20uh and what they have in there for
41:22today's products. So, this is a brewing
41:23book from way back, uh, which
41:29they found an old recipe and brought
41:31back an old beer because they want to
41:33build more more beers.
41:37So, that's the way to actually make
41:40money,
41:42hospitality
41:43money out of out of your heritage.
41:47I went to Montreal a couple years ago
41:50and happened to come across this in the
41:53middle of the old town of Y moral.
41:57They were showing on the walls
42:01of the buildings movies from before.
42:06Not old movies, but movies that
42:08illustrated what the people who used to
42:09live there lived. It's like I don't know
42:11the English word for this, but I mean if
42:13you have a tree, you have those annual
42:15lines, the year lines in it. You can
42:18almost see the year annual lines
42:21in in this city of who had lived there,
42:23who have moved in here. And they have an
42:25app that you can download
42:28where you can start
42:30doing tours on your own and more
42:33countries or more cities. Many cities
42:34have this and you can learn a little bit
42:36about the history as you walk there,
42:37your own walking tours. But what was
42:40really interesting here was that I could
42:42stand and that's me standing there.
42:46that great little thing looking out at
42:48something and I would hold up my camera
42:52to a facade and it would show me that
42:54facade from earlier
42:57that I have never seen anywhere else.
42:59This was and I don't know how they did
43:00it and I haven't been able to get hold
43:01of the people but I'm still trying to
43:04because this is fun. This is taking old
43:06pictures of really showing the H lines
43:09in a city.
43:13Uh, and the third one, Motor Valley, you
43:15may have heard of in Italy.
43:17It so happens that most of the big
43:21Italian
43:23car manufacturers plus Ducati for the
43:26motorcycles are along the same highway.
43:30So, they turn that into a tourism
43:33trip
43:34that you can travel and along the uh
43:37that highway and they actually sell it.
43:40You can go on hotels.com or booking or
43:43expedia and buy a tour
43:46for each of those stops have an archive
43:50and an archavist and a brand historian
43:52who can talk a little bit.
43:54Um so those were just three quick ways
43:59to uh to use your history that we've
44:01that I've come across in travels.
44:04Um I'm going to close with the beauty of
44:07when two archives meet. It's my last
44:10example and that's just because it's so
44:12fun.
44:14It resulted in this
44:18Ted Ryan that I showed before from Ford.
44:21He's also a Lego fan. He's an aphold
44:25adult fan of Lego.
44:30And I put him in touch with friends at
44:33the Lego archives in Denmark when he was
44:36traveling. He's like, "Do you know
44:37anybody there?" And I sort of knew. So I
44:38put them together. They met. He got a a
44:41private tour of the archives. He was
44:42happy as a seven-year-old
44:45and then they started talking about
44:47product development
44:49and Lego said, "Isn't it about time we
44:51did a T Ford in Lego?" So he put
44:55together their product development team.
44:57The two archavists put their respective
44:59product development teams together and
45:01this came out three weeks ago.
45:05So again in the archives if you have
45:07them unexpected things will happen
45:09unexpected product developments
45:12and as all you archavists know and
45:15especially since you had Eeka here uh
45:18recently and what I've learned is that
45:20archavists share.
45:23We meet and we talk and we exchange best
45:25practices. So keep talking to
45:28archavists, keep meeting the other
45:30archavists. Um and if you want to meet
45:34some more archavists, come to Brussels
45:37in September.
45:40Uh the EKA the big conference that you
45:42had here for the entire EKA has its
45:44subsections. The section on business
45:46archives meets once a year somewhere in
45:49the world. Uh last year it was actually
45:52at Ford. Next year it's going to be in
45:54Mumbai. This year it's going to be in
45:56Brussels
45:58uh on 21st and 22nd of September. If you
46:01can, please come. Uh it's it's about 150
46:06archavists from around the world
46:08exchanging best practices. So keep the
46:11conversation going and if you're ever in
46:12Stockholm, look us up. Thank you so
46:16much.
46:28Did we have time for questions?
46:31If there are any.
46:34There's one in the back.
46:38Yeah.
46:52Hi,
46:53>> thank you very much for the insightful
46:55very interesting uh presentation. It I
46:58believe it was just exactly what we
47:00needed. I mean it was practical applied
47:04theoretical. It had all the issues about
47:06business archives. I found it really
47:08interesting. Um I have two questions. I
47:11mean they are both managerial questions
47:13but they have to do one part of it with
47:15archives management the the second one
47:18with uh history and the writing of
47:21business history. So the first question
47:23would be about the business history in
47:26Stockholm. I mean um
47:29how I mean we know that uh all
47:31corporations they built their strategy
47:33their marketing strategy mainly on
47:35comparison and competition. So in case
47:38for example you have from one sector
47:41from one sector all right thank you uh
47:43you have for example from two or three
47:46hotels from Stockholm or from uh three
47:49breweries you have their uh they give
47:52you their archives how do you manage
47:55trust issues about uh for example uh
47:58transferring things that are part their
48:01patents or uh there are things that
48:03they're doing for the first time and
48:05they manage to have a profit in
48:06comparison with competitor. So this is
48:09about uh archives management. And the
48:12second one is about the production of
48:14history that you have from let's say
48:16that corporations give access to
48:18researchers to read their archives,
48:21write for example uh an article or a
48:24book about it. I mean is there I mean
48:26they are controlling access. Do they ask
48:29to control also the production? I mean
48:33uh what you write about their history
48:36because it definitely affects again
48:37their marketing strategy.
48:39>> Y
48:40>> so that's
48:40>> very very valid questions both of them
48:42and thank you very much. They they are
48:43part of our daily business.
48:45>> It was amazing. Thank you.
48:46>> Uh the first question how do you get
48:48competitor competitors to want to stay
48:51shelf to shelf next to each other? Uh
48:56and it is a trust issue. Uh we build
48:58trust over time. We've been doing it for
49:0050 years now. So we have a general trust
49:02out there. Uh and we can point to the
49:04fact that for instance the four big
49:06Swedish banks all have their archives
49:08with us. They are heavy competitors in
49:11the marketplace but they trust us not to
49:14leak between the archives. Um and it
49:19helps us in that fact that we also don't
49:21have anything that is truly
49:24secret.
49:26We have things that are 10, 15 years or
49:30older. So whatever they're fighting with
49:32today, whatever product they have today,
49:33they will have that internally right
49:35now. It comes to us when it's 10, 15, 20
49:38years old. So that helps too. Um
49:42and and another thing that helps that
49:43fact is that it by having companies from
49:46the same uh same industries and that's
49:50our selling point to each individual
49:51company we become the one-stop shop for
49:53those researchers who later want to
49:55come. So again the four banks uh in
49:581990s in Sweden we had a huge um
50:02financial meltdown which was purely
50:04local. It had nothing to do with with
50:06global financial and there are a lot of
50:08historians right now who want to look
50:10into what happened then uh and the fact
50:12that we have the four banks there we
50:14become a one-stop shop. So we say to the
50:16bank that they should be keeping it with
50:18us again and again again no matter which
50:21bank they are because it will help the
50:23bigger story again to my point of banks
50:26are part of the bigger story.
50:28Um so that is it it is a trust thing but
50:31it it in the in the end it actually not
50:34a a big thing. Uh the second thing is
50:36how much are they willing to talk about
50:40um and two perspectives of that. One is
50:43when we do the storytelling for them. I
50:46mean we are their hired writers if you
50:49will and there will be a temptation to
50:53just again talk about the good stuff. Um
50:55but we have to remember ourselves that
50:58it's the full story we have to talk
50:59about and in the end actually no company
51:03most companies know that the dark sides
51:05of their history is already out there
51:08and if you don't talk about it somebody
51:10else willing
51:13and IKEA Ingva when he was 17 uh he is a
51:16second generation German im immigrant to
51:19start with he had uh associations with
51:24uh young Nazi companies
51:25This was pre-war in Sweden. His
51:28grandmother was a blatant anti-semite.
51:34We've all learned.
51:36Uh, and when that first came out, IKEA's
51:38brand dropped and then they started
51:40owning up to it. He was still alive. He
51:42started owning up and saying and talked
51:43about it and talked about it and talked
51:45about it and by now they have all talked
51:46about it so much. So, whenever there's
51:48an IKEA history, that is also part of
51:51the story. They have more things in IKEA
51:53that they have and and pardon my uh
51:57vocabulary now that they have up.
52:01Not just mistakes, proper fuckups.
52:04When they have put glue in the Billy
52:07bookcases that when it was put into warm
52:10rooms started emitting fumes and
52:12poisoning their customers. 1980s
52:16when they have used child labor for
52:19carpet manufacturing
52:21in the 1990s
52:23and they keep telling those stories
52:25internally and externally because they
52:27think that's what built credibility in
52:29in the end brand. Not every company does
52:32that and it's a long process. It took
52:34IKEA a long time to get there but that's
52:36what we can do. We can help them get
52:37there in telling the full story and make
52:40them believable. And the other aspect to
52:42that was if an an external researcher
52:44comes in and then we we and it's it's a
52:48theoretical problem and it's never a
52:50practical problem. It is the
52:51researcher's end result is the
52:53researchers
52:54responsibility. They can write whatever
52:56they want. Uh and the we just make sure
52:59that the company remembers that before
53:00they let them in so they know it.
53:07Long long- winded answer.
53:11more questions.
53:15If not, what?
53:26We're good.
53:30One more.
53:33One last, I'm told. Last one.
53:38>> Yeah. Yeah. Hi. Thanks so much for the
53:40talk. It was um yeah, it was fascinating
53:43to see that you can persuade companies
53:45to archive their material with you. It's
53:48also really interested in the idea of
53:50telling stories and and narratives and
53:53stories always an act of power. So you
53:56tell one story and you don't tell
53:58another story. So I wonder if you could
54:00tell us a little bit about how you go
54:01about deciding which stories to tell and
54:05what group of people are involved in
54:07that um decision.
54:09and the tension between wanting to be
54:13positive about their heritage of the
54:15institution and trying to sell diverse
54:18stories and stories which change over
54:21time according to the social needs of
54:22the time.
54:23>> Yep.
54:24>> Oh, a lot of perspectives in that.
54:26>> Sorry.
54:28Uh I'll take the the basic one is
54:32um
54:35there will always be the temptation to
54:37just talk about the good stuff um and or
54:39the powerful things.
54:41>> Yeah, it's more about how you decide
54:43which stories to tell.
54:44>> So we keep since we have this very
54:46instrumental view on history when we
54:48talk about history marketing and we talk
54:50about it to the companies as a way to
54:53prove your promises today. It's your
54:56proof point. uh or at least supporting
54:58evidence of what you're promising today.
55:00We pick the stories that most have most
55:03relevance for that. Uh we did Atlas
55:06Copco uh big industrial giant uh with
55:09industrial tools for uh mining and
55:12medical and what have you. We did their
55:14140th book. They turned 150 two years
55:18ago and in the meantime they had sold
55:21off the entire mining division. That was
55:2460 70 years of the history that went out
55:26the door. And now we're going to talk
55:28about their 150 years. How much should
55:29we spend on the mining which was a huge
55:31part in the 140 book
55:34and then we just took to heart. We start
55:36with what they're doing today and we
55:38talk about the history that is relevant
55:39from what they do today. There is of
55:42course mentions of what they've done
55:44over the years. Uh but like any big
55:47company who's been around for a long
55:48time especially industrial ones you have
55:50acquired things and sold off things and
55:52acquired things and sold off things. Uh
55:54so we start with today. Um and then once
55:58we've done that you we note to sell is
56:01always go back and check is there
56:02something we are missing something that
56:04is hugely important in that history uh
56:07that would be
56:09just make the rest of the story fall
56:11apart if we didn't talk about it. And
56:13then we add those things. So that's one
56:15way of looking at how we pick things. Um
56:18and I think there was a second layer too
56:20which is also you when you look at
56:23history from today you look at it with
56:24today's eyes.
56:27Um and we learn hopefully we learn more
56:30as we grow older uh and as a society. So
56:32in 10 years if we talk about Atlas
56:34Copico's history again uh we'll probably
56:37do it better. We'll probably have more
56:39nuances to to what we do. And one of the
56:42nuances we brought to the Ericson
56:44history. So they turned 150. Now when
56:47they turned 120 they just talked about
56:49Lars Magnus Ericson the founder and made
56:52a huge thing about the founder.
56:54After that before they turned 130 it
56:57emerged letters between him and his wife
57:01that showed clearly that she was
57:03actually running the company when he was
57:05out selling.
57:09And those were letters between the
57:10husband. They actually emerged from a a
57:12relative who wanted to get rid of things
57:15from their attic.
57:17So we and they keep talking. He's out
57:20there traveling the world and building
57:21infrastructure and he writes back I just
57:24did this and I miss you and the kids.
57:25She writes back and say oh the kids miss
57:27you and by the way uh we have just
57:29invested in this machine and I'm I'm
57:31rejecting that invoice from this
57:33deliverer management by love letters we
57:35start calling it and she does not
57:38appear. we have not thought of to look
57:40for her before and and also in Sweden
57:44they women didn't get the vote uh until
57:461921 they weren't emancipated until 1920
57:50she does not appear in the typical
57:51business records
57:54um the the deal making the letters all
57:58the things that a company leaves behind
57:59she does not appear but clearly it was a
58:02power couple that built this uh company
58:05so I think we'd learned between 120 and
58:08130 Okay. Hopefully we'll learn in 10
58:11years time. Um
58:13I have a one minute sign here. Start
58:15they start playing the Oscar song.
58:18Um just to close uh we have a head of
58:22research where we do our own research
58:23and he keeps reminding me that always
58:25look at the same old history once more.
58:29History is never what it was. He keeps
58:31telling me
58:39Thank you.

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