Important Community Information

Today the most important community information that reaches Swedish households in a non-election year was dropped into my letterbox. It is of course - as every Swede knows - the latest IKEA catalog, this time the issue for 2014.

Every Swedish household gets it, most of them will look in it to check what's new, many will start planning what to buy, some will go to one of the stores to look at it and possibly buy it. No matter what they do or how much they get involved they will all know that the new catalog has arrived.

Thats what's called excellent goodwill and brand awareness, no one beats IKEA in those areas in Sweden.

You can browse the U.S. edition here, IKEA Catalogue of 2014

Swedish SecondLife Resident Honored

Billy bookcase birch veneer

Every month my buddy Benja Aquila elects a "LGBT Second Life Resident of the Month" on his blog Benja Aquila's Second Life.

This month he has elected a person with the following characteristics:

• Charming (Yup, must be Apmel!)
• Swedish (Apmel, definitely!)
• Man (Apmel is ALL man, for sure!)
• Famous blogger (Absolutely Apmel!)
• Friendly (Apmel again!)
• Patient (Oh yes Apmel for sure!)
• A very good conversationalist (Apmel! Apmel! Apmel!)
• Multifaceted (No one has more facets than my sweet buddy Apmel!)
• Successful blog (Hell yeah, Apmelito!)

and

• A better ambassador for Sweden than IKEA. (Ab-so-f**king-lu-tely, it can only be Apmel)

The only thing that confused me was "LGBT"so my first thought when I saw the list was, "Ah I have always suspected that my bosom-buddy Apmel was a closet case and now he finally see´s fit to come out, but why did he choose to do it on Benja´s blog? Sure, he is truly deserving of any honor he gets, but isn't he already more famous than the Billy bookcase or even IKEA itself?"

Go to Benja´s blog Benja Aquila's Second Life and tell him how offended you are by his oversight of appointing someone other than Apmel Goosson this month! Even if the man isn't LGBT, he could be gay-for-pay or honorary gay or something like that...

(P.S. Thank you, dearest Benja! XOXOXO)

The IKEA catalog 2011 is here

Yesterday they started the distribution of the IKEA catalog 2011 to all the Swedish households.

This is the 60th edition of this "must-have" for any decent Swede. (Well, nowadays the catalog is actually printed in over 70 million copies in at least twelve languages, but we don´t care too much about that...)

All Swedes have the catalog - whether they admit to the fact or not!

If you ever want to understand Swedes, you must learn the importance and the impact of the latest catalog from IKEA. It doesn´t only signify that autumn is near, it also shows us how our friends and neighbors homes - and prehaps even your own home - will look in a few months time. The latest edition is also discussed in all the design forums and every workplace.

We all claim to hate assembling furniture from IKEA but the Swedish author Fredrik Lindstrom once said "Anyone who believes that IKEA sells simple solutions is wrong. The company delivers "just-the-right-sized problems" to the Swedish people. A successful assembly of a furniture gives the same satisfaction as solving a crossword puzzle."

Just so you know, if you start seeing your Swedish neighbor in Second Life starting to redecorate or building new furniture, you read about it here first. And they were influenced by the latest catalog from IKEA.