Träslaget is a two day annual event and meeting place where professionals, businesses, organizations, and higher education from the Swedish wood industry converge in Nässjö, in the geographical centre of the industry.
The event includes lectures, networking and meetings transfer of knowledge and experience exchange on the latest technologies, methods, design, product development and business opportunities. It is organised by the energetic Torbjörn Trägårdh.
This morning I was the opening speaker of this years event. The audience was business people, politicians, academics and students and the venue was Träcentrum, the the country’s first of its kind. A centre for education, training and development conference activities related to the wood industry..
I spoke about the dynamics of the market, on how the inevitable globalisation is bringing new challenges to traditional economies, and how this affects industries and individual businesses, and how innovation can be a tool to survive and thrive in todays hypercompetitive environments. As an example of a successful innovation driven company I presented Materia, a business who manufactures furniture but sells environments for successful meetings.
Other interesting speakers during the day were:
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Erik Thorstensson from Creatables, a creative network of designers and engineers working to reduce waste from Swedish production industries, by designing and producing products to be applied in surplus materials in synchronization with the original production.
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Ronny Corsberg from Coompanion, an advisory firm who are experts on setting up and developing business using cooperative business model and legal structures. Corsbergs speech was focused on social innovation and very interesting.
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Mikael Ludvigsson from Glafo, a glass research institute, who works internationally with glass research, development, education and technical support, mainly to glass works, processors and users of glass. It can for instance concern flat glass (in buildings, vehicles and interiors) art glass, container glass, mineral wool, glass fibre and the interface to other materials.
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Karin Darlington and Johannes Falkeström from Business Sweden, the Swedish Trade & Invest Council, who presented models for how companies can successfully go to new world markets.
The full agenda for the event can be downloaded below, and further below is my presentation from this morning.
[slideshare id=22194908&doc=bearing-presentationvidtrslaget2013inssj-130530083536-phpapp02]