On Thursday, 19th of February, creative director Roland Williams brought together a TED-inspired networking event at the FantasyHouse (FantasiHuset) in central Stockholm.  Over a hundred guest turned up to hear, among others, Urbanlife's own Andy Collins engage in a panel discussion about social media and it's impact on society today. The guest list included people from Sony Ericsson, Scandic Hotels, Newsdesk and IP-Only.

In the panel discussion Andy Collins expressed Urbanlife's view of social media as great marketing tools but also the challenges for companies to convert these tools, like MySpace, Twitter and Facebook, into more readers, customers and revenues in their businesses. A view that in large was shared by the rest of the panel members, including dancer Daniel da Silva, known from the Swedish tv-program "Let's Dance".

After the panel discussion Roland Williams gave Urbanlife a few words about himself and the event.

UL (Urbanlife): Can you tell us a little about the background to this event?

RW (Roland Williams): Well, there are a lot of talented people in Sweden, especially within the areas of technology, entertainment and design. Sweden is one of the leading countries in IT, there are fantastic designers here and I have a passion for that. I'm a creative director myself and it just so happens that TED has plans to do this globally, with groups and events like this one. They're going to call them TEDx groups, and all of this is very inspiring to me.

UL: Could you tell us some more about your own work as well?

RW: I meet a mixture of companies - mostly brands that want to meet their consumers' needs in a more compelling way. One of my projects was for 7-Eleven, were I was hired to redesign all of their in-store signage in Sweden - a lot of work, but it was great working with designers and photographers to put it all together. So my thing is really to come up with the strategy, the tone and the experience you get when you walk into a store. It's a lot of fun, and I've met a lot of talented people here in Sweden.

UL: What kind of advice would you like to give to urban entrepreneurs here in Sweden?

RW: I would say, don't give up! It's not easy and a lot of times you'll find yourself walking from one client meeting to the next and it's frustrating. Particularly for us in the urban community that don't have Swedish as our mother tongue - which is very challenging 'cause your identity, especially in the communications business, is in your language. So reach out to the people in your network, get together and see how you can help each other out. Don't make it into a big thing; just get together for coffee, for lunch, whatever. The important thing is that you get together and talk.

For more events pictures please click here
For more information about TED, click here: www.ted.com

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