Almedalen: First Time and Already Bored – Is This Really the Standard?

I went to Almedalen expecting inspiring conversations, unique encounters, sharp punchlines, and powerful calls to action - yet I can count the actual insights or solutions I brought home on one hand. So please, can we raise the bar together for next year?

This year, it was my turn to visit Almedalen for the first time - the week that you, my industry colleagues, have talked about as the event of the year, making it sound more significant than the moon landing itself. And I just have to ask: Are you serious? Is this what you’ve been raving about all these years? Maybe I missed something, but the only thought circulating in my head was: "How is it possible to make something so interesting, so incredibly uninteresting?"

"You had to be there to understand," many say. But if someone had sent me a two-minute clip of the week, I would have felt like I’d experienced it all. Almedalen veterans see the week as a high school reunion, where the focus is on maintaining old contacts and routinely attending seminars, rather than actually challenging, being challenged, and taking action.

Seminars with three sleepy panelists and the same tired PowerPoints. Senior experts rattling off the same old clichés they stopped believing in long ago. Moderators asking questions that a half-hearted ChatGPT prompt probably generated. No concrete solutions or calls to action, just surface-level conversations that only state the predictable. A program full of interesting and important topics, but where the content rarely lives up to the headlines. Is this really the Almedalen Week you’ve been praising all these years? If so, I feel cheated!

If Almedalen is to avoid a slow death by seminar, I humbly suggest a few measures to raise the standard and create interesting conversations with actual solutions.

Stop Being Terrified of Different Perspectives 

I get that this has been discussed before, but the fact that it was actually this bad at the seminars shocked me. On repeated occasions, I thought: "Of all the people who could speak on this subject, how did you end up with the microphone?"

I’ll humbly admit I wasn’t at every seminar, but of the ones I attended, people of color were only in the panels when the topic was diversity or discrimination. They were conspicuously absent when other topics were discussed. It's almost comical that an event claiming to stand for innovation and new ideas fails on such a fundamental point.

Offer Solutions and Say Something Meaningful 

Important topics and panelists with impressive titles - the conditions were promising, but the outcome was a disappointment. I hoped for deep analysis and concrete answers. Instead, I got the kind of stuff I could have just as easily read in a tired LinkedIn post.

Ditch the Boring Formats and Prioritize Meaningful Interactions 

For a place that claims to be a meeting point for people, there was surprisingly little of that. Does anyone actually find sitting and listening all day long fun or rewarding? The real value lies in the discussions, the different perspectives, and the unexpected conversations.

I went to Almedalen expecting inspiring conversations and sharp punchlines. I don't think what I'm asking for is unreasonable for a place that claims to be the mecca of democracy and creativity. So please, can we raise the bar together for next year?