Digital Proust Questionnaire: Joel Wahlström

Emakina Group has rapidly grown in recent years, in part thanks to our managing directors leading the way. But who are these MDs, besides leaders in digital, creative and business growth? Let’s sneak a peak inside their heads with this new series: Emakina’s Digital Proust questionnaires!

The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlour game popularised (though not devised) by Marcel Proust. The French essayist and novelist believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. This is an adapted basic Proust Questionnaire for the digital age.

Emakina DBG CEO and serial digital entrepreneur Joel Wahlström really, REALLY likes hotels and founding businesses. Founder and CEO, among other companies and agencies, of Dempsey, he joined the Emakina family when Dempsey became Emakina’s first Nordic agency in early 2016 under the name Emakina.SE, before merging with local partners and neighbours Doe Blomberg Gottberg. The Stockholm based company now operates under the name Emakina DBG.

1. What is your idea of happiness?

Checking into the ideal hotel with my family.

2. What is your greatest fear?

Something bad happening to the ones I love.

3. Which historical figure do you most admire?

Buddha. The word ‘Buddha’ is a title, which means ‘one who is awake’ — in the sense of having ‘woken up to reality’.

4. Which living person do you most admire?

Van Morrison.

5. Who is your favourite writer?

Ernest Hemingway.

6. Who is your favourite fictional character?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Joel did not answer, so the person who posted this article took the liberty to give his own answer.

Rick and Morty‘s Rick Sanchez is the best fictional character ever and he can prove it mathematically.

7. What part of the digital media industry makes you happy?

The constant feeling of being close part of the changing world that we live in.

8. What part of the digital media industry makes you unhappy?

Nothing really.

9. Who/what inspired you most in your career?

Entrepreneurship and the electric start-up scene in Sweden (ever since the year 2000).

10. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Creating 4 different agencies and 2 other companies.

11. What tech company do you wish you had started?

TripAdvisor

12. What digital project would you have most loved to be a part of?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Joel did not answer, so the person who posted this article took the liberty to give his own answer.

FREE DOWNLOADABLE RAM on downloadmoreram.com

13. What is your favourite digital app/ tool?

Expedia is the one I use most, but is perhaps not my favourite though…

14. What digital app/tool that does not exist would you would like to create?

The perfect hotel guide tool.

15. What is the trait you are most proud of in yourself?

The drive to always look behind the next corner.

16. What is the trait you most admire in others?

Inventiveness.

17. What is the trait you most dislike in others?

Pessimism.

18. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Joel did not answer, so the person who posted this article took the liberty to give his own answer.

So I could finish writing Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring before the year 2057, allowing people to go on with their lives. Also, I’d definitely resuscitate
Ned Stark one way or another just to mess with the fans.

19. What is your most treasured possession, and why?

My summerhouse.

Yes, Joel totally painted a white circle on top of the trees surrounding his summerhouse, for some reason.

20. What is your motto?

Free translation from Swedish: ‘The one who has a lot to do, gets everything done. The one who has little to do, gets nothing done.’