Trust as a Nordic tech advantage

On TechBBQ's invitation, I gave a talk in Shenzhen 2 weeks ago on #trust and trustworthiness as a #Nordic tech advantage and on how to deploy it in lower-trust environments such as China and Sub-Saharan Africa. As a Dane abroad, I think a lot about how to bring my Nordic values such as trust, egalitarianism and transparency into other contexts (preferably without being an arrogant Nordic triumphalist!). I’m inspired by how Spotify and Daniel Ek fixed a broken music market in a trust crisis. The task was to make music fans and record labels trust each other again. They piloted and proved the concept in Sweden’s high-trust context and then deployed it to the rest of the world. Daniel insisted that consumers and producers of music have shared interests - and by taking the first step to get record labels to trust him, he helped them work together. He and Spotify put record labels’ interests ahead of their own and guaranteed a year’s worth of revenue in the Swedish market to try out the model. The rest is history. As Daniel Ek did, you build trust by taking the first step and making yourself “controllably vulnerable” – while pointing to a future of mutually beneficial cooperation. You will get burned sometimes, but many other times you will build a shortcut to trust and connection.