Simon Lindberg, NYC

This is my first blog post for Bonnier. My first blog post, period. Yeah, I'm old school like that. Anyhow, my name is Simon Lindberg and normally I work as a research analyst at Sweden's biggest morning daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. But right now is not normally. I'm spending three months at the corporate research department of the magazine publisher Bonnier Corporation in New York City.

It all happened pretty fast. I got the e-mail about the GROW program in October, saw there was a position in my line of work in New York, mulled it over for a week or two, and finally decided to apply.

Mull over? Three months in New York City? It's a no-brainer isn't it? In retrospect, yes it is. I've always been interested in learning new things, so working with research in a different media and a different country had an obvious appeal. But I'll be honest; New York City was the clincher. I'm a city person, so what better city in the world to experience than New York? And although I'd been to the U.S. many times, I'd only been to Manhattan for an afternoon way back when. Besides, I was relatively unfettered so if I ever wanted to go, this was the perfect time.

Well, I applied and in December I got an e-mail telling me I was going to New York City in February. So, here I am. It's been a month and so far so good. Many things are similar but there are also many things that differ between working with research in magazines and in newspapers, and between working with research in the U.S. and in Sweden. And things that differ between working here and there that have nothing to do with research.

So yeah, I am learning a lot just as I expected and hoped. And yeah, I think there are some things that I can teach my colleagues over here as well (there better be, since I put that in my GROW application).

I don't have a fixed idea what I'll blog about in the coming weeks, but I guess I'll write about being in New York City and the above mentioned differences between working in Sweden and the U.S. However, I promise I won't focus on differences in research methods. I want some readers, you know.