David Gay-Perret

Organization: The Good Country
Website [no longer active]: www.good.country
Country: Global

Assignment: Increasing awareness about the Good Country and recruiting more citizens in the Nordic Countries

Background

The Good Country was an initiative started by Simon Anholt and Madeline Hung. It stemmed from Simon’s previous work (mostly the Good Country Index and the Global Vote) and the basic idea that, in order to tackle today’s and tomorrow’s global challenges (global warming, conflicts, mass migration, pandemics, terrorism, etc.), the culture of governance worldwide must be changed. It has to evolve from being fundamentally competitive (i.e. governments competing against each other to maximize their citizens’ benefits) to being fundamentally cooperative (i.e. governments making decisions that are good for their citizens AND the rest of the world). The philosophy – or mindset – behind this view is that we are all members of the human race living on a single planet before being citizens of country X.
I got in touch with Simon to offer my help in his work after watching his TED Talk about the Good Country Index. We started working together in August 2018, right before the launch of his project entitled “The Good Country” – a digital country with no territory, open to anyone, and run based on the cooperative mindset described above with the purpose of proving by example that it can be done and that it’s beneficial for both the country’s citizens and the world.
The project had no agreed-upon methods or processes; everything needed to be invented and tested. The main objective was to recruit as many citizens as possible in order to move on to the next phase: testing policy-making processes.

Goal

Establishing, growing and coordinating a network of “ambassadors” – people willing to promote the initiative and help recruit more citizens – in the Nordic Countries.

Responsibilities

• Being the point of contact for all Nordic citizens to answer questions about the Good Country and enroll & train those willing to join as ambassadors.
• Educating & informing existing and upcoming citizens about the ambassador’s role, in an effort to increase their number.
• Leading & coordinating the existing team of ambassadors to define together strategies and responsibilities. Then following up on the implementation and lessons learned in the process, always with the goal of increasing awareness about the Good Country and recruiting more citizens.
• Sharing ideas and best practices with other Regional Coordinators, Simon, Madeline and other people from the Good Country, along with sharing what is learned during these sessions with my ambassadors.

Results

• Successfully put together a network of ambassadors. We were discussing several ideas to inform about the Good Country.
• Working with Madeline to improve how responsibilities were divided and the reporting processes in order to allow the project to scale up without the Regional Coordinator becoming a bottleneck.

Simon and Madeline decided during spring 2019 to discontinue the Good Country project.

Company: Language Team 23
Website: www.linkedin.com/company/language-team-23
Industry: corporate training in language & culture
Country: Sweden

Assignment: Advertising Language Team’s Full Range of Services

Background

Language Team had been delivering successful language courses to the Volvo Group for many years but wanted to expand their activities to include the full range of their expertise: cultural training, consulting, localization…
For 2 years they had tried to find new customers while advertising their services within Volvo, but without success.

Goal

Defining and implementing an action plan to advertise Language Team’s full range of services.

Responsibilities

• Creating a communication strategy:

○ Identifying & gathering motivated individuals
○ Leading and coaching them so they could use their industry knowledge to come up with a marketing strategy: who to target, what to say, how, when…

• Leading the implementation of the communication strategy:

○ Identifying, planning & dividing tasks, following-up, organizing & leading meetings…
○ Upholding interests from non-team members (mostly the company’s board of directors)

Results

• Gathered a team of 4 volunteers from various nationalities
• Within 6 months we established an action plan and decided to target Volvo, then managed to obtain 2 meetings to introduce Language Team’s expertise
• One of these meetings led to a pilot project in India

After this initial success the company changed its priorities and so the project stopped there.

Company: SKF
Website: www.skf.com
Industry: roller bearings manufacturing
Country: Sweden

Assignment: Replacing the Translation Coordinator During her Vacations

Responsibilities

• Being the point of contact for all internal translation-related questions
• Requesting quotes, placing purchase orders and authorizing payments for dozens of simultaneous projects (documents, website elements, videos, e-learning courses…)
• Tracking progress of the translation steps and the associated layout work for 30+ source & target languages
• Receiving and forwarding files from suppliers & buyers all over the world to ensure the projects moved toward completion, following several different processes depending on the type of content, project and buyer
• Learning the job by myself (very short training period)

Results

• Customer satisfied – got back in touch whenever the translation coordinator needed replacement
• Created written tutorials summarizing most of the processes and exceptions, to simplify the training of potential future translation coordinators

Company: BTI Studios
Website: www.btistudios.com
Industry: multimedia localization
Country: Sweden

Assignment: Expanding BTI Gothenburg’s Operations in France

Background

The Gothenburg office (Sweden) of BTI Studios offered worldwide localization services for multimedia projects (Internet videos, e-learning, audio guides…) and documentaries. However their French customer base was quite limited and although they felt there was a real potential, they didn’t have the language & cultural expertise or the internal resources to seriously expand there.
At the same time they had to make sure they wouldn’t compete with any other branch or department within BTI Studios, especially BTI France.

Goal

Expanding the French customer base of BTI Studios Gothenburg.

Responsibilities

• Getting the project started:

○ Carrying out a study about specific segments of the French market identified by BTI Studios Gothenburg’s general manager
○ Suggesting a strategy based on that study
○ Helping the general manager to prepare an internal pitch to get key-stakeholders buy-in (especially top management and BTI France)

• Expanding the French customer base:

○ Identifying, contacting and following up on potential leads
○ Participating in fairs and other professional events to get to know people
○ Preparing & conducting sales meetings to introduce BTI’s offering and its relevance to new leads

• Providing customer support and being the first point of contact for new customers while gradually handing them over to project and production managers

Results

• Joined the Sunny Side of the Doc fair to increase awareness about the company
• Promising contacts with various production and distribution companies

Following a major internal reorganisation due to the merger of BTI Studios and IYUNO, the Gothenburg branch (which initiated this project) was closed down and the project canceled.

Company: Glaces des Alpes
Website: www.glacesdesalpes.com
Industry: premium ice-cream manufacturing
Country: France

Assignment: Entering the Swedish Market

Background

Glaces des Alpes has been extremely successful on the French market with their unique business model & product: premium hand-made ice-creams. As for their export strategy, it mostly boiled down to foreign wholesalers contacting them to buy their products rather than a proactive effort.
However they felt the French market would soon be saturated and wanted to look elsewhere in Europe. That’s when I got in touch with them and since Sweden was quite a big market for ice-cream they decided to go ahead and use this as an opportunity to test a proactive export strategy.

Goal

Selling Glaces des Alpes’ ice-creams to Swedish wholesalers.

Responsibilities

• Preparing an export strategy:

○ Carrying out a market study to better understand consumption habits, potential customers and existing competitors
○ Creating a communication strategy to know who to target and what to put forward – the Swedish market is quite different from France and several basic assumptions and unique selling points weren’t valid. So new ones had to be found

• Understanding the industry & Glaces des Alpes:

○ Identifying who does what in the food industry, what regulations exist…
○ Learning about Glaces des Alpes’ manufacturing process, business model, products available…

• Obtaining and carrying out sales meetings to introduce the products to Swedish wholesalers
• Handling customer contact, administrative tasks (purchase orders…), and in general being the single point of contact for the Swedish market

Results

• Found several wholesalers interested
• Communication strategy proved efficient as it created awareness about the company’s unique products and how they could change ice-cream consumption in Sweden
• Discovered trends & processes specifics to the Swedish market that demanded additional investments from Glaces des Alpes in terms of money and time in order to carry out the project

Glaces des Alpes chose to focus on other, less complex and less expensive European markets and to leave Sweden aside for the time being.

Company: PMC Production
Website: www.i-pmc.co.kr & www.nanta.co.kr
Industry: live show creation & production
Country: South-Korea

Assignment: Bringing PMC Production’s Show “Cookin’ Nanta” to Europe

Background

I discovered the Korean show “Cookin’ Nanta” during my studies in Seoul. I thought it was amazing and wondered why it wasn’t available in Europe. So I decided to get in touch with them to see whether I could help bring the show to Europe. After some communication difficulties due to the long distance, they accepted to work with me.

Goal

Organizing a Cookin’ Nanta tour in Europe.

Responsibilities

• Understanding the industry and the show:

○ Learning the business models & processes in the industry to know who does what
○ Learning the show’s business details: price, requirements, participants, previous performances overseas…

• Creating a communication & sales strategy (show rather unknown and unusual):

○ Finding similar shows to use as references, deciding what characteristics to highlight…
○ Picking target countries based on Nanta’s historical data and my own abilities

• Introducing Nanta to festivals, arenas, theaters and other venues looking for shows to offer to their audience

Results

• Targeted French-speaking countries & Scandinavia to benefit from my language skills and geographical location (based in Sweden at the time)
• Managed to create awareness about the show in the target markets and to give a clearer picture of what it was
• Found some venues interested. However once it became clear that the few places where Nanta had been in the past had lost money in the process, it became very difficult to convince anyone without first doing major changes in the show’s business aspects
• Gave feedback and insights to PMC Production so they could adjust their European strategy

PMC Production chose to focus on successful Asian markets (where the show was working in its current form) and to leave Europe aside for the time being.

Note: this page gathers a selection of projects I initiated and carried out for myself rather than for a customer.

Project: Starting & Running a Board Game Association

Website: www.meetup.com/international-board-gamers-gbg

Background

I started a group on Meetup.com during winter 2017 with the goal of gathering board game lovers to play together, meet new people and make new friends. The gatherings were held in English in order to attract people from different countries.
The group expanded and in autumn 2017 we moved to a bigger venue. Supported by our growth and several suggestions from the venue’s owners, who saw in this group a potential for much more than gaming sessions only, I decided in spring 2018 to turn it into an official non-profit association: “International Board Gamers”

Responsibilities

• Running the group:

○ Started the group from scratch by defining the goals, creating the Meetup page, finding the venue, deciding when and how long to meet and what to do
○ Managing the practicalities such as updating the Meetup page with new events, booking the venue, answering questions, printing name tags for the participants, welcoming everyone during the events to make sure newcomers are quickly integrated among the veterans…

• Starting the association:

○ Screened and recruited three additional board members, one controller and three election comity members
○ Educated them on their role, the vision, mission, values and strategy of the association
○ Made budget estimates and looked for additional sources of financing
○ Negotiated various advantages with the venue for association members & organizers
○ Managing the project as a whole: defining tasks, creating schedule, allocating work, organizing meetings, leading discussions to reach decisions and generate ideas…

• Running the association as chairman of the board:

○ Organizing board meetings and writing down the agenda
○ Keeping the board and other organizers motivated
○ Coaching, questioning and making sure everyone gets to contribute as best they can
○ Ensuring we define clear goals in accordance with the members’ wishes and the association’s vision & mission and that we reach them
○ Representing the association when dealing with external partners: the city (for potential subventions), organizers of various events we’d like to participate in, our venue…

Results

• 2000+ members on Meetup in June 2020 and counting
• For now bi-monthly gaming sessions with 50+ international participants every time
• Steady inflow of new comers, many of whom come regularly afterwards
• Successfully created a friendly atmosphere, leading most participants to also meet outside and become friends
• Many big ideas for the future and people motivated to carry them out
• Successfully ensured the continuity of the association; it is still active although I resigned as Chairman of the Board and left Sweden

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Project: Utilizing the IP “Chronicles of Galadria”

Website: www.gayperret.com/en/chronicles-of-galadria

Background

I completed the writing of the 6-volumes novel “Chronicles of Galadria” in spring 2009. After letting the whole project rest for a while, I decided I wanted to share that story with the rest of the world, make it available in various formats and perhaps use the intellectual property I had created in other ways.

Responsibilities

• In general: making strategic decisions about what do to with the “Chronicles of Galadria” and prioritizing these projects

• Project 1: publishing an e-book version of the novel – supervising the creation then worldwide distribution & sales of the e-books:

○ Evaluating and selecting distribution platforms
○ Making the creative decisions to produce the e-books, in accordance with the platforms’ requirements
○ Supervising the layout & cover design work carried out respectively by a French assistant and an Australian graphic artist (both located abroad)
○ Managing distribution via the platforms: choosing a price model and potential discounts, picking distribution channels, uploading/updating the files…
○ Keeping track of sales: when, from where, how much…

• Project 2: translating the novel – supervising the translation process:

○ Making the creative decisions to produce the French master file
○ Screening & selecting translators
○ Coordinating translations in several languages simultaneously, with translators from different nationalities, located in different countries
○ Supervising the layout work carried out by a French assistant located abroad
○ Managing distribution via the translation platform: choosing a price model and potential discounts, picking distribution channels, uploading/updating the files…

• Project 3: creating videos combining the text with its soundtrack – supervising the production of the videos:

○ Selecting the text to be used and matching the timing to the music
○ Supervising the editing work (i.e. combining music & text and animating them) carried out by a French assistant abroad
○ Handling broadcast via YouTube

• Project 4: turning the novel into an animation series – finding a production company:

○ Wrote the “Pitch Bible” – a document that introduces the project and helps transitionning from its novel format to an animation series format
○ Looking for a graphic artist ready to illustrate the Pitch Bible and work on the project once started
○ Looking for a production company interested in financing the project to make it happen, while providing feedback & suggestions to improve it

Results

• Novel selling as an e-book through 20+ retailers & libraries, including major ones such as Apple and Amazon
• Novel available in 5 languages
• 15 YouTube videos published

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Project: Introducing Global Directions during the Swedish Publishing Prize

Website: www.global-directions.se [no longer active] & publishingprize.org

Background

After co-founding “Global Directions” – a network of experts in multicultural communication – with a Canadian & Swedish colleague, we came across the opportunity to sponsor the Swedish Publishing Prize (Svenska Publishing Priset) – a competition rewarding written publications in a variety of fields: marketing brochures, programs, yearly reports, magazines…
The deal included a dedicated space during the event where we could advertise our services to the participants. However we had to create all communication material from scratch (logo, roll-up, giveaways, brochures, articles demonstrating our expertise…) with a very limited budget. We also had to work on this project on top of our regular workload.

Goal

Having a booth ready at the Swedish Publishing Prize to be able to introduce Global Directions’ services.

Responsibilities

• Organizing & leading our meetings to identify the communication material needed, the tasks involved, to make all creative decisions (layout, colors, content…), to agree on a schedule and who does what, and to choose suppliers
• Following up & monitoring progress to ensure on-time completion of what was agreed upon
• Making sure communication was running smoothly and that everyone was always on the same page
• Keeping an eye on the budget and obtaining approval from everyone when needed

Results

• All communication material ready on time, within budget and with the expected quality
• Booth up & running during the event and even used the following year as well

As the careers & projects of Global Direction’s founders evolved we decided to finally close the organization down since it no longer represented what we wanted to offer.

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Project: Gathering Teenagers into an Orchestra

Website: www.gayperret.com/en/music

Background

More or less at the same time as I created my first musical compositions, I started dreaming of listening to them when played by an orchestra. The opportunity came during the first year I moved to Sweden, when a friend who was part of a local orchestra offered to help me gather volunteers from his group who would be interested in this project.
We managed to assemble about 10 Swedish teenagers, ranging from around 13 to 20 years old. However my Swedish was almost non-existent, they were not very comfortable speaking English and I had no previous experience leading an orchestra or rehearsals.

Goal

Succeeding in playing correctly three of my pieces.

Responsibilities

• Finding & contacting potential participants to offer them to join
• Planning & leading the rehearsals: picking a date and communicating it, choosing what to focus on, adjusting on the fly depending on who came or not…
• Making all creative decisions pertaining to the music (what to play, who plays what…) while taking into account input from the participants, who were more experienced in the field of orchestras
• Upholding interest & motivation despite the distance: lived in different cities, rehearsal not frequent (max once a month), lots of young people who tend to lose interest when the novelty wears off…

Results

• Managed to keep most of the participants from start to finish
• Short concert covered by the local newspaper
• The participants still remember the adventure
• Opened the way to a song being played by the Gävle Symphonic Orchestra

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