Following is a guest post from Hans Kullin, our lead strategist in the Nordic region. Hans does the same kind of work as the rest of the digital strategy team - advising clients on digital strategy and integration, social media, and other related topics. You can learn more about Hans at his twitter or on his personal blog. Please check out our other guest posts too.

Although uptake has probably been slower than in the U.S., blogging has definitely taken off in the Nordic region during the last few years. For example, it is estimated that there are now 350,000 blogs in Sweden and that 21% of the population in Sweden are members of an online community. Customers are sharing opinions and content with each other online through social media. To find out what businesses are doing to tap into this conversation, Burson-Marsteller surveyed the adoption of corporate blogging among the largest listed companies in the Nordic region, with a market capitalization of more than 1 billion euro. We found that 9.1%, or 12 out of the 132 companies have at least one company sponsored blog. Four of those twelve companies with blogs have two or more blogs associated with the company.

But the adoption of corporate blogging is not evenly spread across the region. Ten of the 56 companies (17.9%) that are listed on the Swedish Large Cap list have one or more corporate blogs. That is an even higher percentage than the 14.8% of Fortune 500 companies with corporate blogs, identified in a separate survey by Burson-Marsteller in February and March this year. Corporate blogging is less common in Finland and Norway, were only one company in each country had a corporate blog (of 27 and 25 respectively). In Denmark none of the 24 surveyed companies published a blog.

Other findings:

• Nine out of the twelve companies have commenting functionality enabled on at least one blog.
• Three out of the twelve companies have trackbacks enabled on at least one blog.
• Nine out of the twelve companies have RSS enabled on at least one blog.
• Two out of twelve companies have social bookmarks enabled on at least one blog.
• Industrials is the sector with most blogging companies (4), followed by Telecommunications Services (3), Information Technology (2), Consumer Discretionary (1), Financials (1) and Energy (1).

The commitment to blogs varies a lot between the different companies. While some have integrated the blogs into the corporate site and discuss topics close to the core business, others are treating blogs more as an experiment. For example, two of the Swedish companies (Tele2 and West Siberian Resources Ltd.) have shut down their blogs since the research was performed.
For more information download the full white paper or check out the presentation deck on slideshare.

A recent study by Telefonica and Universidad de Navarra mentioned that 95% of people between the age of 6-18 access the Internet on a regular basis (not to be confused with Internet penetration).  The study also said that 83% of the same age demographic (9-18)  has a mobile phone.  The sample consisted of 21,774 students from Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela.

The most popular activities online are communication - particularly instant messaging followed by social networks.  And as far as mobile goes, texting is the most popular activity - not talking.  The complete report is available at the projects website (www.generacionesinteractivas.org) / PDF 4MBs (in Spanish).

Earlier this week I wrote about President 2.0. As it turns out, President-elect Barack Obama may only be President 1.5 due to the fact that he is likely to have to leave his Blackberry at the door when he takes his oath of office. The NY Times published a story tonight about how he’ll probably have to surrender his blackberry due to the Presidential Records Act. I was kind of looking forward to seeing the President do the blackberry prayer under the table during dinners with heads of state, and thought for sure he’d be googling for answers during press conferences. Kidding.

Kidding aside, President-elect Obama keeps some of his 2.0 cred as the Times also reported that the weekly Democratic radio address will be on YouTube for the first time. Cool.

From the way he ran his campaign to the way he is setting up his office, President-elect Obama is the first to use the Internet as an integral part of both his communications and operations strategy. We talk to clients frequently about how digital media isn’t just about marketing and communications, but rather impacts every area of an organization including HR, operations, sales, etc., and Obama is a case study in proving this to be true. Another truth about digital communications though is that lessons learned offline can truly impact and instruct what works online as evidenced by Obama’s community organizing and fundraising via the Internet.

So, how is Obama setting up his new administration? The NY Times reported today on the job application process and detailed how it is the most comprehensive questionairre ever put forward, covering grown children, ten years of details, and requesting information such as Internet aliases and Facebook links. I’ve used social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn in recruiting for quite a while now, but not from a content audit perspective, but rather to ensure people I was interviewing for digital strategy jobs walked the walk. I would not want to be judged for appropriateness for a job based on my Facebook page or Twitter stream, although I’d think that my LinkedIn profile or this corporate blog I write would be fair game. I guess the question in my mind is around the boundaries between free time and your professional presence and whether or not they are blurring beyond the point of any demarcation. Either way, I’m glad I’m not applying for a job in the White House.

That said, the US federal government has been more aggressive about the use of technology in the past several years, using digital media to connect with stakeholders, educate the public, and create experiences around important topics. Mashable wrote about NASA’s Colab program that includes a blog, twitter stream and second life presence, the Army has been aggressive in using digital for recruiting, and even our work for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has gotten some buzz due to use of YouTube, digital unveilings, and blog outreach.

Given President-elect Obama’s campaign, I was curious to see how he’d leverage digital media in his transitions, and how he’d deliver the change he promised during stump speeches. Sure enough, he is President 2.0, having already launched Change.gov, complete with a blog, a dynamic newsroom, and a request for all Americans to share their stories. I’m excited to see how he evolves the White House, making our president more assessible and our voices louder as President-elect Obama moves into office, and look forward to a wave of new innovations in social media and in government as digital media has a more significant role in shaping our future than ever before. Perhaps there is an opportunity for consumer-generated government!

A few weeks ago my wife comes to me with a flash light, opens her mouth, and says: “Do I have something in my throat, it itches, I feel like I am getting sick”.  I gave a quick look, noticed some spots - as usual my words did not seem to mean much…she went to the bathroom mirror to look for herself.  The next thing I hear is feverish typing, some mouse clicks, and then the aha moment: “I have strep throat”…a simple search on WebMD - white spots on throat produces over 60 results of which most are related to strep throat.  Then she makes an appointment with her doctor to get antibiotics.  She is what Mark Penn (CEO of Burson-Marsteller) calls a DIY Doctor in his book Microtrends – page 91.

Manhattan Research recently came out with a study, Catch the New Pharmaceutical Marketing Wave: Trends & Strategies for Reaching Today’s Healthcare Consumer, which says that over 60 million U.S. adults are Health 2.0 consumers “reporting the use of social media applications for healthcare and medical purposes.”  The most popular activities include reading health blogs, posting health content online, and using online patient support groups.  But now there are also a growing number of individuals that are rating treatments and medicines.

And where is the next trend - mobile, the study shows that already over 10 million U.S. adults use their mobile devices to search for health and medical information…soon it will be that my wife will research her symptoms, make her doctors appointment, provide her medical records, and pay all through her mobile.

Check out Erin’s post about the online Doctor

Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, posted to the company’s corporate blog today announcing that Google has stopped pursuing an advertising agreement with Yahoo. In the post he writes about government regulators and some advertising expressing concerns with the proposal, and also talks about how he believes it would have been good by delivering more relevant ads to users.

I’m all for more relevant ads provided that my information is being protected and that personally identifiable information remains confidential. I also don’t want my personal information being used to deliver ads to others, even people I know.

Far more interesting than this particular partnership is Google’s next move. For all of their success in search they are still looking for that breakout next act. Microsoft had hardware and then software. Apple had the mac desktops and then the iPhone. Google certainly has many successes under their belt, but it is critical that they come up with their next act to maintain their leadership position over the long term. This is not a unique challenge to Google, but given their success and power they have a very bright spotlight shining upon them.