Everyone needs an ego boost.

This morning at the Stockholm Clarion Sign Hotel, groggy from two weeks of travel in Europe – each day a new city and a new country – I was deciding between fried eggs and scrambled eggs in the breakfast buffet when I heard the following:

“Are you Earl Wilkinson? With INMA?”

Not the words I was prepared for in what I thought was going to be an anonymous environment, but welcome nonetheless.

It was Anna-kari Modin, marketing director of the Swedish national press association Tidningsutgivarna and an INMA member. She was meeting with colleagues about press association projects.

What a coincidence!

As we stood in the middle of hordes of breakfast-seekers letting our food go cold, we talked about an interesting Tidningsutgivarna project designed to put data behind consumers’ online consumption habits and comparing those to print consumption. I don’t believe I’ve seen Anna-kari since the London format change seminar in 2004 where she represented her country which was on the cutting edge of that revolution.

Good lead on the Swedish research. And a good reminder that INMA members are everywhere!