Graduation Day

It's late spring in Stockholm, a time when city residents get to enjoy blooming lilacs, white nights, and truckloads of drunken high school graduates reveling in the streets.  Last week, 20 men and women gathered for a more sober, but no less exuberant, diploma ceremony of their own.  The Bonnier Publishing Program 3.0  came to a fitting end at Nedre Manilla, the Bonnier private residence in Stockholm's Djurgården, where the young digital lions of the company were feted before 150 portraits of Sweden's literary heroes.

The Bonnier Publishing Program is a unique media education course offered exclusively to Bonnier employees.  Version 3.0 of the program focuses exclusively on the possibilities and challenges of the web.  20 Bonnier employees from around the world were flown to Stockholm, Helsinki and San Francisco to observe and engage with media innovators around the world.  As part of the program, the participants were given access to 16 companies and over 40 speakers.  Activities included a workshop at Stanford University's dSchool, a study of MTV3 in Helsinki, and a visit to Google's headquarters in northern California.  The program culminated with a Dragon's Den style competition for the best new web business idea, judged by CEO of Bonnier Jonas Bonnier, Head of Research & Development Sara Öhrvall, CEO and President of Bonnier Tidskrifter and Morning Papers Ulrika Saxon, and CEO and President of Bonnier Business Press Casten Almqvist. 

Bonnier Media University Executive Director Stefan Mehr was himself a participant in the second Bonnier Publishing Program in 1991.  Now, as the program's director, he hopes to instill courage and confidence in the next generation of Bonnier digital media leaders.  "I want [the program] to say that Bonnier is a very attractive company," says Mehr.  "The main focus was to get technical people, content people, business and marketing people to speak the same language and work together to create possibilities on the web," says Mehr. 

Beyond the visits to big-name companies and discussions with media trendsetters, participants say the internal networking will make all the difference in their work lives.  Cia Bohlin, a digital media project manager for Bonnier Tidskrifter, says, "It's been about both what we've learned in the program but also what we've learned from one another."

Teemu Lehtonen, head of Subtv.fi and new sites for MTV Oy, agrees.  "For me, it's been about creating a network of colleagues in five different countries," he says.  "It's been a great, great ride."

Interested in being one of the next Bonnier Publishing Program grads?  For now, spots are available exclusively to Bonnier employees who have been handpicked by Jonas Bonnier.  "When you go to the program, you discover how many brilliant, smart, warm, colorful and passionate people there are here," Mehr says.  

Slide show: Graduation Day