Interested in Sweden – Call a Swede
The Swedish Tourist Board just opened a new service to boost tourism. The program is known as ”The Swedish Number”. The British Metro tried the service and concluded, ”this is pritty amazing – who knew taking to complete strangers could be so much fun.”
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) tested the service. Predictably, the first comment from the MPR reporter was ”you don’t sound Swedish”. I only wish the Swede would have replied ’ooooh reely Bob? Well, jo don’t sound like your from Minnesooooda, dontchaknow’.
Stefan Lindqvist wrote in the Swedish newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad (HD) that he was not impressed with the idea. Fearing the possibility that a Swedish ”Jimmy” (read SD) would tell callers ”we can’t have any more refugees…”. Stefan would rather the Swedish Tourism Board call him for consultation.
Being curious, I went to The Swedish Number and downloaded the app. You can also Google #theswedishnumber to follow what people are saying about the project. I registered, but I got a disappointing reply, ’something went wrong. We have a lot of people that are interested in answering for Sweden. As such, it may take time before you take your first call. We are sorry for this, and we are working hard to give more people the opportunity to answer for Sweden.’
Who knows, if the bugs get fixed, I might be answering random questions about Sweden.
Try it yourself. I would like to hear what you think.