Do not miss the chance of registering to PLACExNordic with an Early Bird Discount.
Use the code: EarlyBird30  at checkout to receive the discount. Available until Nov 30. 

About PLACExNordic

PlacexNordic is Northern Europe’s meeting place for everyone working with place attractiveness – whether it’s about attracting talent, investment, visitors, or creating thriving communities for the people already living there.

Each year, we bring together city leaders, regional developers, policymakers, researchers, and business innovators to explore and test new ideas to find out what makes places resilient, competitive, and livable.

Next years theme is:

The conference will be held in Skellefteå, Sweden, 2-3 July 2026.  Few places in Europe have recently been as close to the frontline of transformation as Skellefteå, this Northern town have been through an extraordinary journey. The last couple of years Skellefteå have been through attracting one of Europe’s largest green industrial investments, to facing the shock of its collapse, and now guiding the city into its next chapter.
Skellefteå arrange  Society Expo 2026  (SE26) which is a perfect match for PLACExNordic as we are partnering up to offer you a greater value. 27 May- 9 June, 2026 Skellefteå is an international meeting place where the world gathers to explore the future of sustainable societies, innovation, and collaboration. The event will showcase pioneering ideas, groundbreaking projects, and practical solutions that address the global challenges of our time – from green energy and digitalization to inclusion and cultural transformation.

​PlacexNordic is a product of Future Place Leadership AB  a data-led agency that empowers places, cities, regions and countries, to attract and develop people and business.

Most welcome to join us at PLACExNordic 2026!

REGISTER HERE

Contact

The post Early Bird for PlacexNordic 2026 first appeared on Future Place Leadership.

Morten represented FPL in Vegas in early Jan, supported Swedish delegation, and ended up running into old friends by accident in Sin City.

Flying cars, see through flatscreens and driver-less vehicles designed like living rooms were some of the fun highlights Morten saw at one of the biggest consumer electronic shows in the world, CES, held in Las Vegas. As it happens, our team is actually physically present in other countries in the world than just the Nordics, and as such it’s possible for us to facilitate on-the-ground market entry and/or strategic partnership activities in those countries too. Morten is based in Colorado, which makes US related activities his playground, another team member is based in Lisbon, another in Indonesia, another in Athens and so on. A neat little addition to the business! But I digress. What was Morten doing in Nevada? Aside from playing with new, neat toys and being awestruck by space-time gadgets? 

Morten was supporting one of our long, long time partners from Electrification Hub (Sweden) at the event. The key theme was driving transition towards electrified mobility solutions – in other words raising awareness and positioning Electrification Hub, Mälardalen region and Sweden in general as a leader in electrification. There was a large Swedish delegation present at CES, representing and strenghtening the Swedish brand in the US market. A number of startups, companies and public entities were there, as well as a growing Nordic collaborative platform for international export and promotional activities.

We are, after all, a Nordic company incorporated in Sweden, with a HQ in Stockholm. As such we were excited to see Swedes setting record numbers in attendance among the Nordic representation. Though as we know, Swedes have always been strong in the art of building and sustaining a country brand…And as a site note, this was not the first time Morten has attended CES, certainly not the first time attending and building country brands. Years ago when he was still working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, he used to be on the other side of the table hosting the Danish delegations to the event.

Another highlight of the trip was when Morten completely by accident ran into one of the original Youth Goodwill Ambassadors of Denmark, Vlad, originally from Romania. Now residing in Las Vegas with his family as a serial entrepreneur and investor their relationship goes back more than a decade just like our marketeer Elsa, who is an alumni from that programme. Did we ever tell you that we love ambassador programmes for places? We’ve run so, so many of those. One of the best tactics for Talent Attraction and improving place perceptions. 

What’s next? Now many new contacts richer, the next thing is to follow up with the delegation from State of Michigan, who are going green in transportation with the help from Google’s automotive and mobility division. Exciting times!

The post Las Vegas: Trip to CES – The Most Powerful Tech Event in the World first appeared on Future Place Leadership.

January 2024, launching the International Talent Perception Study – with the Netherlands and Sweden as first markets.

As the global competition for talent between countries and regions is heating up, it’s getting more and more important for places to understand the perceptions held by those they need and want to attract – both to tailor their marketing and reception efforts.  

The International Talent Perception Study provides answers and insights in: 

💡 How your target group professions perceive your country or region as a career destination and future home. The report can cover up to eight different professions – including IT, gaming professionals, engineers and life science and health care professionals.   

💡 Attraction factors and the main drivers to move – and obstacles holding people back – for your target groups and target markets.  

💡 What do your target groups and markets associate with your place?   

…and much more, helping you to tailor your marketing and reception efforts, by understanding the needs and desires of your target group profiles.  

Launch markets – with whom you can benchmark yourself   

The first markets for the report are the Netherlands and Sweden.  

In the autumn of 2023 we carried out the study for Sweden as a career destination. This report on Sweden will be published in January 2024, both in a free short version and a longer, tailored version that you can order from us.  

In early 2024 January the second country study will be carried out for the national talent attraction initiative of the Netherlands as well as some of the Dutch regions that are doing international talent attraction.  

Want to know more about the International Talent Perception Study and be among the first ones to get your hands on the Swedish and/or Dutch reports?

 Do get in touch with Marcus,

 +46 708 67 36 34

ma@futureplaceleadership.com  

The post Launching: The International Talent Perception Study first appeared on Future Place Leadership.

Future Place Leadership & Place Leadership Academy are proudly introducing our new and improved flagship conference: PLACExNordic!

We are re-launching the Nordic Place Branding Conference that so many of our partners, collaborators and industry peers within economic development, place marketing, talent attraction, investment promotion, tourism, and place development have come to enjoy over the years.

We hosted the first Nordic Place Branding Conference in 2015, and it has grown to a point where we had participants from 22 different countries joining us in Helsinki this year.

During the same period, the world, our industry and the decision making factors of our target audiences have changed significantly.

Places – both cities and rural areas – in the Nordics, in the rest of Europe and around the world face a bunch of pressing challenges. Climate change, safety, pollution, lack of green areas, lack of sustainable mobility options, declining city centres, empty offices, and ageing population, to name a few.

We simply need to create better, more attractive places for people – and with people. Through place branding and place marketing, but also through development of better places.

It’s only through means of sustainable development we can create truly good, attractive, and healthy places for people – and places that can attract talent, investment and tourists. Place branding as a topic will still be an integral part of the conference, but we will broaden the scope to discuss all themes related to how we create better, more attractive places.

The vision of PLACExNordic is to become the natural meeting place and platform for discussing the future of places.

The first part of our new name symbolises exactly this X factor we believe as fundamental for places, yet one we need to meet, discuss, and develop together in the years to come.

We also continue to drive Nordic values and purpose-driven methodologies centred around empowerment, trust, and co-creation.

Thus we are introducing a Nordic approach and an invitation to a dialogue with the rest of the world with best-in-class cases from not only the Nordics but also the rest of Europe and beyond.

We are very excited to announce that we will be gathering together on May 16-17 2024 in Tallinn, Estonia for our inaugural PLACExNordic conference, in partnership with award winning Estonian Business and Innovation Agency and Work In Estonia! In recent years, Estonia and Tallinn as its capital, have emerged as trailblazers in the fields of place branding and development.

We cannot wait to have you join us on our journey and to meet us in Tallinn.

Sincerely and on behalf of the Future Place Leadership family,

Marcus Andersson
CEO, Future Place Leadership

The post Launch: Nordic Place Branding Conference is now PLACExNordic – The Place Attractiveness Conference! first appeared on Future Place Leadership.

We’ve embarked on three new projects in the field of trend spotting and scenario analysis, for Tourism in Skåne, Region Blekinge and City of Malmö, respectively – and we’re now strengthening our offer in trend, foresight, and future scenario analysis.

The first analysis is about city centre development for City of Malmö in southern Sweden. We are exploring how the function of the city centre is changing and why – and how this might impact the city’s economic, social and environmental values. The analysis will then be used as a foundation for Malmö’s new city centre strategy.

The second project is for Tourism in Skåne, the DMO of the Skåne Region in Sweden, where we’ve been hired to carry out a trend and scenario analysis of global digital transformation trends shaping the future of tourism and destinations. In this assignment we’ll work closely with the Tourism in Skåne team – in workshops and focus groups – to assess the impact of the trends we uncover.

In the third assignment, with Region Blekinge in Sweden, we are conducting a trend analysis of current and future trends impacting Cultural and Creative Industries. This week we presented our findings in a workshop with the Region, where we discussed how these trends might impact the region and the world as a whole in the future. In December we’re heading down to Karlskrona for a co-creating workshop with a group of stakeholders and key actors from the region, in shaping Blekinge’s new development strategy for the cultural and creative sectors.

Get in touch with Marcus if you want to discuss how your place and organisation can understand trends and events shaping places today and tomorrow.

The post 3 New Trend Analysis Studies first appeared on Future Place Leadership.