Soon it will be time for the 2024 version of one of Sweden’s most ambitious and well-organised IT events, Atea Bootcamp.
Today, let me tell you how it all started.
In 2006, Atea Sverige, Ementor and Topnordic joined forces under one umbrella. This created the conditions for establishing a new and leading player in the field of IT infrastructure in the Nordics.
For us at the new large Atea, it was about daring to take the place of a new leading player. We simply needed to grow into the big suit that these major mergers had created.
As you may recall, Compaq Computer Corporation (and later HP) had organised big events in Tylösand, outside Halmstad, under the leadership of their legendary marketing manager John Ingvarsson.
While we were working on establishing the new big Atea on the market (including establishing ourselves as the national team in IT infrastructure), the now almost equally legendary marketing manager of Atea, Magnus Sallbring, presented an idea: “Lars, we should take over from HP and create a high-class event in Tylösand, Atea BootCamp – Let´s establish a dynamic meeting place with qualified IT people from all over the country”.
I was attracted by the high ambition of Magnus’s proposal, and together we decided to go all in and create this event.
Atea’s nationwide office network was an important condition to succeed in getting participants from north to south. Especially in the first few years, we benefited greatly from using our large sales force to actively invite people to this event, which we did with the commitment and pressure from the entire management team – We had decided that this would get off to a flying start!
In parallel with inviting customers from all over the country, we worked on creating an attractive agenda. We wanted to give our participants inspiration and confidence in the future. Thanks to the valuable cooperation with key strategic partners such as HP, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Lenovo, Dell Technologies, VMware and many others, we were able to invite leading speakers from all over the world.
It was interesting to follow the evolution of the event. From the first years of hard work to fill the event to a few years later being so attractive that it was sold out in minutes.
I have a beautiful memory from a warm spring evening in Tylösand where I stand and look out over a sea of happy people talking to each other. There were IT managers from all over the country, there were people from the major IT vendors and there were a lot of people fo from Atea. A wave of joy and pride filled me at that moment – It felt so good to be part of establish such an important meeting place!
(Thank you Magnus Sallbring – World class!)
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The picture below shows John Ingvarsson passing the baton to me at our very first Atea Bootcamp. It was a great moment for me that I will never forget.
Dare to think big – and act accordingly – The “Atea boot camp innovation”
