EverTalk: Why every website needs a strategy?
In this episode of Evertalk, Senior Developer Timi sits down with Evermade strategists Thierry François and Miikka Vento to decode what strategic thinking truly means in the digital space. They explore why simply building a website isn’t enough, emphasizing the critical need to align digital products with core business goals and genuine user empathy. This conversation breaks down the complex art of “sense-making.” Whether you’re a client, marketer, designer, or developer, tune in to learn why asking “why” repeatedly is the most powerful tool in any strategist’s arsenal.
Episode transcript
This episode’s transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.
Timi: Moikka moi ja tervetuloa tämän Evertalk-jakson pariin. Vedetään tällä kertaa englanniksi, so let’s change the language and discuss about strategic thinking with our strategists, Thierry and Miikka. I’m Timi, Senior Developer here at Evermade. Today we’re going to discuss about what strategic thinking actually means in the context of websites. Things that are commonly overlooked when planning on website renewal, and how Thierry and Miikka actually became and grew into their roles. And maybe we will glance at what the future holds in the world of websites. But let’s start the discussion with an easy one—or maybe not an easy one—but I’m thinking that aren’t all websites basically the same, so why is there a need for strategic thinking?
Miikka: Well, I think I’d like to start with I don’t think any two websites are alike. And it’s just like any two companies aren’t truly alike, or any services alike. There’s always different kinds of motives and needs behind a website or any channel for that matter. So I think strategy comes into play pretty much trying to make a difference. Even if you have two companies or organizations or brands that are exactly similar, I think they still need to differentiate from one another and that’s where strategy comes in.
Thierry: Yeah, I would agree. And I mean, if you end up having those both kind of like company and brand and websites and everything exactly the same, I think there’s a deeper problem rooted somewhere in the business itself and you should check that out before you start making a website. Something’s fundamentally wrong I think. But yeah, no, I don’t think there’s anything two is the same, you know, and the people you do it with is always different. And I think that also at least links me back to like people asking, “Yeah, do you have a template to start working on that project?” and things. I think there’s no single one way to approach any projects. I think we have to figure out who are the people we’re talking with, so who are the partners we build the website with, and who are the audiences and things. And there’s no one way around it. Like the process is always different. We might use similar tools, but we’re going to use them in a very different way each and every single time.
Timi: Yeah. Regarding that, how does it look when you start the process? What are the first things you start to kind of dig from the client and to look into?
Thierry: Yeah well, I think again, is it like always the same first thing? I don’t know. But I think it’s always about asking questions. I like to kind of like just… I like to sit down with them, have a discussion, figure out why are we here for, basically. You know, what are you trying to achieve? Like why are we doing a website? What’s the point of it? What’s the end game basically? You know, trying to see where this sits currently right now in their businesses, where they want to go, and how is that kind of like website, digital product, whatever it is—I mean, it doesn’t have to be a website—how can that actually support them in that journey? And how can I be of help basically.
Miikka: Yeah, and I think like if there is some sort of starting point, I think it’s really about asking like “why?” I think why is probably the most important question for a strategist in general because you might get like, “We want to do this,” and then you ask “why?” and they’re like, “Well, I don’t know.” And that’s kind of where you start digging. And there’s a whole framework of the five whys to kind of dig deep. But usually, usually if there is some like concrete thing that I would add here is usually when we’re talking about companies that actually sell something, I think the starting point is how do they make revenue and how can we support that. And the website kind of is of course from our perspective that’s usually kind of the end game of it. But like Thierry said, they might not need a website, they might need something completely different, whether it’s digital or analog in that sense. But I think kind of understanding where the money comes from essentially, or what message do they need to convey if they are an organization or something like that. What kind of service do they provide, let’s say in public organizations where you’re not actually selling anything but you’re trying to, you know, improve the quality of life or something like that.
Timi: Yeah, go ahead.
Thierry: No that’s true I mean like I think, you know, I guess in our business maybe most of the time, most of the websites we do have a commercial angle. Like Miikka said, they don’t always have to be. You know, you might not always be selling something, you might just be informational and trying to maybe help people out with something. So it’s really about figuring out what are we here to do, you know?
Timi: Yeah. So it sounds that you actually are going into the company and like thinking more of the business they make rather than just the website and the only thing we have been hired to do.
Thierry: For sure. I mean like I think you have to embed yourself into your clients kind of like business position and things like, you know, you have to empathize. If you can’t do that then you’re not doing it properly and I think that’s the first step is kind of like just having their shoes, where are they, what are we doing, and just like trying to figure things out with them.
Miikka: Yeah I think typically our role is more of an extension of the client in a sense, or we bridge the gap I’d say. Because we have a lot of specialist designers, developers that, you know, digital marketers, but I think our role is usually to go as near the client as possible. And I think that’s probably one differentiating factor for from what we do compared to designers. While they of course also need to understand users and this kind of thing, I think we really need to understand what our client’s business is.
Timi: That is actually a good bridge to the next question I had in mind. What your work actually includes? What you do on a daily basis and how that is visible for the client and other people here at Evermade?
Thierry: Yeah I think as any kind of like I guess strategy work, could be anyway like brand strategy, business strategy and everything, like I think the tangibility of it is always a bit of a question mark a lot of time. It’s like, you know, you end up having a text document and you don’t know what to do next with it. Same with digital strategy or like whatever it is, like what do I get, kind of, what can I do for it. I think since in our context all the time we build a website or we build an application, we have an end game into it. And for us is to figure out basically mapping out that service or that experience, you know? What are we going to be talking about and that is the kind of like the business and the service or something they call products. And like how do we actually talk about this subject for the audience they’re going to be using that experience. And doing this kind of like matchmaking for what do people care about and what are we about. So matching the needs and the truth and trying to find where things start to resonate and really make sense and get people excited. Otherwise you just might end up like talking for pages and pages or like make an app that’s super cool but then the beef is missing, you know, the heart of it, like the core, and it’s just like then you just spent all that time and money and effort for like doing something that nobody really cares about. It can be beautiful and amazingly built, but still people will not care if you haven’t like paid attention to like the why of it.
Miikka: And I think one important word that you actually mentioned earlier is empathy. Like understanding what the user actually needs or wants or maybe even going a little bit further and providing them something they don’t know that they want, but still that brings value. And I think in all formats of what we do whether we do desk study or we do workshops or we do user research, the empathy is kind of always there.
Thierry: It’s like a bit of a like role playing, you know. You have to like take the client’s perspective, you know, “I want to sell my product, I want it to fly off the shelves.” Then you take the perspective of the customer, “Is like, am I sure that’s the right product for me? How do I know?” And this kind of stuff. So it’s like kind of like bouncing from like one perspective to another and trying to kind of like find where things then click together. But um, I think you asked concretely like what do we do and I haven’t said that at all. [laughter] Um, you know, like we do like things like alright, how do you talk about your services, right? And that’s one thing like from the empathy perspective, people tend to be stuck in their own seat. You know, you’ve been doing your work, it’s your job, you know, “Hey, I know how to build a website, I know what coding is.” But like, do you know how to say it to somebody in a way that makes sense for them? Cause they come from a different background, they’re not you, they haven’t been doing it for like so much. How do you make sure you say the right things that are true but still make people move, in a way.
Timi: Yeah, I think quite often we see that organizations or the company is speaking from their own perspective and completely like forgot the customer and how to speak to the customer.
Thierry: That’s it, yeah. You want to try to get the kind of like this outside in perspective and kind of like move it around and, you know, so we can build, you know, we have frameworks and tools and matrixes and things like that so we can build messaging and then we can actually try to, you know, talk about journeys and those kind of things, map that out, how is people gonna go through that experience, what are they gonna be visiting, what are the kind of like different steps? Is it like a conversion maybe of some kind? Maybe they’re trying to make money out of it. That depends on the one product or experience at the time. But like we try to kind of like, how do you talk about it or the thing you want to sell, and how people kind of like discover that information, how do they kind of like, how do you build that experience because you can’t just drop everything on them all at once, you know? There is such a thing as information overload. And it happens to all of us. So how do you map it out? How do you orchestrate everything? So it’s a matter of kind of like articulating, orchestrating, and then briefing, because then like, you know, if I’m finished with my work, Miikka is finished with his work, nice the strategy is done, but then what’s next? Then everybody’s just kind of like looking at themselves like what just happened? Then we’re here to basically help the rest of the whole process. Like, you know, there’s something about content creation, right? Somebody’s gonna have to write that text. You know, we map that out, content creation, like text, visuals and things, there’s a way to kind of like, now we know what we’re gonna be talking about, we know how we’re gonna talk about it, so I know what I need. And then this in turn also helps out designers. What are they gonna be able to, what do they need to design to actually show that information the best way possible, you know?
Timi: Yeah. And like I guess there you give the designers a kind of a storyboard and all the flows and like call to actions that will be needed on the site.
Thierry: For sure, I actually use a storyboard term like quite heavily. Um, yeah, you know, and then like it works as well the same for like developers and coding, like so you have an idea what the whole experience is built of, so it’s nice to see, you know, right, where is the data coming from? What is the integration point? What is interactive, what is not, what is static, what is dynamic? And, you know, post types and whatnot and taxonomies and, you know, it goes on and on and on and you can keep on defining it. But I think it’s in essence it’s a lot about making sense of things, articulating it, and orchestrating it.
Miikka: Great. Yeah. I tend to call myself a sense maker every now and then when I had to kind of describe what I do since sometimes we don’t even start with like a user perspective but instead we might dive into the client and they might have this feeling or some kind of situation where they know something is wrong but they can’t quite put their finger on it. And we kind of start from actually framing the problem itself and then we start working from there. So what Thierry said about like orchestrating might actually start from orchestrating the client first before we even go into what the rest of the team does or what the project is about but actually kind of making the foundational work there so that we’re actually solving the right thing. And that’s kind of the first why that we start working with. So if we don’t have a clear problem and we haven’t asked why are we solving this problem, we might actually be solving the wrong problem.
Timi: Yeah, it’s just burning the client’s money for no reason.
Thierry: Yeah. That’s very like… but also intact that we know what we’re building like, you know, this is like a digital product and things, but, you know, it could just be that, you know, you have a business and you have some audience but you don’t know what it’s going to be. And how do you figure out what you have to build in the first place, you know? So then that’s where you kind of like have to start to maybe innovate in a bit and kind of like trying to figure out where is the society going, where are people going right now, and where is your business can fit in that place? And what is the product that can support that? So you have like, you know, product innovation and those kind of things to kind of like figure out what to build and for what purpose is. And then we can go into kind of defining that experiences and so on. So there’s a whole kind of like ecosystem or like kind of like a of strategic services if you will, but it cross over from like you know, innovation, business design, service design, and content strategy and content design and so it’s quite a vast things we do. But all of them take similar kind of like sensibility I think.
Timi: So I guess you both have quite a lot of like things you need to know and understand and quite a lot of things that you have had to learn in the past. So what has been your like path, career path to your current role and becoming a strategist? Because I guess that’s not something that you can just like take and grow and be, but you need to kind of have the path to have some kind of a lightbulb moment.
Thierry: I don’t know, is there a strategist school?
Miikka: Well, there is definitely for like management consulting, but that’s not what we do. And like I guess it’s more of sort of a… well, my background is that I was a project manager, then I was a CEO of a smaller agency, then I kind of went into advertising for a little while, worked as a consultant, then came back here again into the kind of website business. And I guess all that kind of accumulated experience started to affect my project management in the sense that I couldn’t really keep my fingers out of the other work, the business side of things. [laughter] And but then it’s really about it sort of is just to decide that you want to be a strategist. And cause that’s when your mindset kind of shifts from thinking about clicks or thinking about color schemes or the latest UI trends into actually like revenue. And how can we generate revenue and how can we support that with these different channels and tools and things that we can do. And it kind of really starts from there, so I don’t think there is like a specific way you can become a strategist. Like our backgrounds are entirely different, for example. But I think it’s more about how you start looking at things.
Thierry: Yeah, true. I mean, our background are very different. But I think there’s a commonality probably and maybe that’s the traits I kind of like, like from like good strategists I’ve admired in a way. Is that diversity. You need and like, you know, we deal every day with clients from different perspectives like there’s no one the same like we talked about. And having that broader sense of understanding and that experience that is so rich and varied really feeds into your ability to shift perspective, be more agile in your work, and understand things more holistically and from a broader perspective, you know? I did not go to a strategy school. I think I started as a… I did electronic engineering when I was very, very young, so, you know, that kind of things, I learned how to do coding, programming, graphic design. I built websites, I’ve built graphic design brochures and like basic, you know, desktop publishing stuff. And, you know, moved on and things and I’ve done some branding, product innovation. Then I moved on, did a bit more of that, some packaging, some kind of like digital strategy, demand generation things, like things that’s kind of like… I don’t know. Look, you know, you just kind of like pick up the skills, pick up the perspective and knowledge and you learn from the people you actually work with and be around so you kind of like feed that into yourself. And, you know, this helps with that sensibility. But I think the tools of the trade, if I could call them a tool, I don’t know, but like anybody could learn it, you could learn it. I mean, you know, anybody can be a programmer, you can code, like anybody could code, right? Just sit down, learn it, you can do it. But then that’s called the hard skill. And the soft skill I think is what makes a big difference. Like um, what is your kind of like, you know, emotional talent, how can you kind of like empathize with the people, how can you understand things? Like those soft skills are very hard to kind of like, you can’t teach them basically. [Timi: Yeah.] So either you gain them by experience the hard way, or you just kind of like have them a bit more naturally but you know, I don’t think there’s one single way into the route to become a strategist.
Timi: Yeah but I guess the important part is curious mindset that you always tinker about things and asking the questions as Miikka said. And like trying to understand how things work and how the society around us works.
Miikka: Yeah, it’s about building solutions, you know? That’s it.
Thierry: And I think experience is like one thing of course, like well we’ve been around town for some time so there tends to be patterns and we tend to see the same kind of projects every now and then. But I think one key thing is also like, like you mentioned, that you have to stay curious. And you kind of have to be open to the fact that you don’t know something and be honest about it to yourself especially, cause that then again leads to more curiosity and makes you find out. And I think one thing that is probably common with everyone who does this kind of work is a sort of natural curiosity and quick learning. Like we have to dive into entirely new business areas or fields of industry that we never have worked with, with very unique services or products or whatever, and we just have to absorb a lot of that information really quickly. So kind of throw back to what we do day to day: we read a lot, we write a lot, we think a lot, and try to produce something that like our thinking crystallizes something that is pretty complex into something that we can explain to other people quite easily.
Timi: Yeah sometimes when I come to the office and I see Miikka on the couch lying around, I’m joking like “Hard at work,” but I guess it’s hard work for you. You’re thinking about the problems the client has and…
Miikka: Yeah, and funny thing is that, well, it’s a bit of a cliche, but the great ideas quite rarely come in front of a computer screen, but instead it’s usually that time when you’re doing something entirely different. Of course there are really times when you need to kind of sort of crunch and often just starting to write something or starting to draft something up then actually helps you think. And talking also helps a lot, like well developers are probably familiar with the term rubber ducking. So when you explain a problem to someone else, then you suddenly get an idea how to solve that. And I think that’s like a kind of good tool to transition your brain from kind of just thinking about the problem actually to when you explain it to someone it like actually changes the way your brain processes information, so that’s a good thing too.
Timi: Yeah. By the sound of it, you both have done a lot during your career paths and with various different types of clients. What, if you had to choose, what would be the most memorable moment or memorable project or client you have worked with?
Miikka: There are quite a few. I mean, of course there are some like, I don’t know, awards that you have won or something like that that might be something. But I think the most interesting one or one that I was least prepared for and which has stayed with me pretty much all these years was um, back in my previous agency, I worked with the Finnish National Institute of Accessibility. And we did a website project for them actually. We did a visual a brand renewal for them, then a website, and then an ebook cloning service. And this was back in 2016 or something like that, ten years ago. And that was a time when nowadays accessibility is everywhere, like and it’s become like common practice and there are very good tools and best practices all around the web that you can easily kind of pick it up. Back then, that wasn’t the case. So we essentially only had the WCAG 2.0 guidelines and that was it. And we were basically creating a AAA accessible website and a service, the ebook learning service, without any prior knowledge on accessibility. And yeah, we really didn’t know what we were getting into. [laughter] But that was probably one that has stayed with me quite long and the services are actually still in use, so we did a good job back then.
Thierry: Yeah, I don’t know if I have a favorite to be honest. Um, you know, I’ve done like a lot of like, not always on strategy about work itself like bit across all of it. But yeah no I don’t have a favorite. And that’s stuck to my mind, no. They’re all quite nice and I try to find something I love in every project. Whether it’s something I was expecting or not, but I try to learn something everywhere. And I think as long as I learn something, I’ll remember that. And you know, I’ve done things from, you know, health and wellbeing to mining industry to aviation to like a whole digital system for a country, for half a country, like a region, so… They all have their all challenges and learning moments, I think. But I think what I remember more is actually the clients. There is those special clients sometimes you remember. It’s actually kind of like, I don’t know, something that clicked, and you build that relationship, that partnership, where you can actually move beyond just this transactional thing, agency and client, and you actually start to really collaborate. And have those kind of like deeply honest conversations, which are just kind of like freeing in themselves because you don’t have to worry about who says what to who and how. And you actually just kind of like everybody’s just moving forwards, but now you’re moving at like twice the speed. And that’s kind of like… that’s the thing that kind of really excites me, I like it.
Timi: Yeah, I get it, I get it. But it sounds like you’ve done a lot in the past and you’re a little bit too humble about it. You make it sound like it’s a walk in the park and stuff.
Thierry: Like, maybe I don’t know. I mean, I don’t… Yeah, I don’t… Maybe I’m humble, but I mean it’s a quality, right? You should be, I think.
Timi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, Miikka mentioned 10 years ago. Um, what has changed from 10 years ago and what hasn’t, in the context of websites?
Miikka: From 10 years ago website, everything. You should know, you know definitely well, you should know, everything changes much faster. [laughter]
Timi: Yeah, the technology side, yeah. But like concepts, how the user acts on the website, I’m more into those details in this discussion.
Thierry: You know what, I think I’ve thought about it and I don’t know if I want to change my mind a little bit. I think essentially I don’t know if something has changed fundamentally, right? The end goal is out most often the same, right? Somebody is going to buy something somehow. I think it’s just maybe how you get to that end point changes a little bit and I don’t know. Um, you know, the tools and things, every way, type, and stuff. Everybody’s excited about AI. It’s like, “Woo,” you see it everywhere. But at the end of the day, you user still want to do the same thing. Right?
Miikka: Yeah, I’ll say this officially for the record. I think it’s really good that we don’t do Flash websites anymore. That was a thing maybe not, I don’t know, ten years ago, wasn’t even that popular. But yeah, that’s a nice thing that has disappeared or jQuery like spaghetti that was also terrible. Um, but yeah, I agree on the point that I think ever since like cave paintings it has been the same idea. We have a certain medium and we want to get our point across. I mean, technology changes, 10 years ago we still did like separate mobile versions of websites, um, that kind of thing has changed. But I think like especially in our work, like when we do strategy, it’s pretty much the same thing still.
Thierry: Yeah. Medium agnostic. Doesn’t matter what where you end up, whether it’s digital thing or not even, you know. So…
Timi: Yeah. Okay. Um, if nothing has changed, let’s talk about creating an effective website. Um, what are the core things that client needs to think about and what are the the most vital stuff we want to learn from them when we start the project?
Thierry: I think being concise is one thing that everybody can benefit from. You know. I strive to be, it’s hard to be concise. I think you should be even more today when people have so little time to care about what you have to say. Um, and that means think deeply about what you’re trying to achieve and the why. And what is the one thing… Pick one thing, don’t pick like 10 different things you want people to do, you know? Sign up to five different newsletters, buy a product, and kind of like share to a friend. Like, what is the one single thing that matters the most for your business and for your users, and how do you connect that? Let’s start from there.
Miikka: Yeah, if you could. You can’t, just for the record, it’s never this simple. Uh, but I think having a clear goal, your target audience, and a key message. I think those three things are kind of like super simplified essentially like what you need to have clear in your mind um for first of all the client and then for us and everyone who’s doing anything. Because you can always kind of go back to those, like every single decision you make like, should I do this or that, then you have to ask yourself like okay what was my goal behind it, who am I doing this for, and what’s the point I’m trying to get across. And I think those three things will always guide you in that sense. It’s never that simple to be honest, but it’s a starting point.
Thierry: Yeah I know, it’s not simple to find, it’s not even simple for us either, you know. Like really getting to like the core of things is like the really simplifying them to the core is really really hard I think.
Timi: Okay, um, what is the most like overlooked strategic thing that clients like don’t mind about or just don’t think about or like don’t care at all, but you think that like would make a lot of sense.
Miikka: I don’t know if it’s like overlooked necessarily, but something that we tend to come across quite often is that um, people working in marketing don’t necessarily understand their customers really well. And I think there’s some sort of like fundamental problem especially maybe in in Finnish organizations that often that the purpose of marketing is to tell people what we do. But instead, in at least in my opinion, marketing’s most important task is to understand what our clients want. And in order to understand that, you have to know your customers, you have to know your clients. And kind of starting from that perspective instead of how can we tell about ourselves is probably like a fundamentally a little lacking perhaps in most organizations. So maybe not it might not be even like a strategic thing, it might just be like marketing competence or something like that. But I always think that every good strategy kind of starts from again from the empathy and understanding and you have to know your client and your customer to kind of get to the bottom of that.
Thierry: Yeah. Yeah, I know. Like I mean, and maybe in a way like I don’t mind if they haven’t thought of anything. I think maybe I like it better, you know? So you have a clean slate to play with.
Timi: Yeah, just come to me with a big mess, give me the challenge, bring it, I will love it. Otherwise like you’re doing half the work for me, that’s not the point. We’re here to help them, so like you know if they act like “Please come with everything half prepared, half finished before you come and see me”, what’s the point?
Thierry: Yeah.
Timi: Is it hard to start and continue if the client has already like thought a lot by themselves? Like, which one do you prefer or do you prefer like a clean plate or like something already thought and…
Miikka: Well you know, you have to start reading something, right? So, might as well read what they’ve been thinking because then you actually get a piece of their perspective. So if you have something, let’s share it and you know, let’s look at it together.
Thierry: And I find often that if there has been, I mean there can be very good thinking on the client side, don’t get me wrong on that. But usually it’s the first why where where they kind of stumble. Or at least the second. But that’s the kind of thing ’cause we when we think about things we have trained our brains to think five or four times why this should be done. And we kind of go back to the source. And often in client organizations cause everyone kind of understands what you’re talking about, and there’s a it’s like almost like intuition that is shared between everyone that when you make a suggestion people kind of already understand why you are making that suggestion. And when that is accepted in that kind of circle of peers, you might not think about it that much. But it might not in the end be that clear to whoever you are trying to get that message across. So that’s kind of where our outside perspective sort of comes in. Cause we think about, “Hey we don’t know the things that you do, so we have to ask the why a couple more times in order to get to the bottom of everything.”
Timi: Yeah, I guess there must be like some sort of silent conversion killers as well that are so clear to us and they actually make sense when we say those out loud and the client immediately understands the reasoning behind that.
Thierry: Is that what you’ve seen when you work coding a website without a strategy? [laughter]
Timi: Yeah.
Thierry: Yeah.
Timi: This is a leading question, but…
Miikka: Um, yeah, probably most likely, yeah. I mean, if you forgot to start from the very beginning, I think you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. Yeah, and if we actually talk about like what you asked, slightly more concrete for a while. I think one thing that we often see not of course in our sites, our sites are perfect, uh but sometimes when we browse the web we kind of come across like a dead end. Like you read an article and then you’re just looking at the footer and thinking like what am I going to do next? And I think you should always kind of, it’s a real user experience design thing that you should always kind of have a path forward. And that kind of ties into what would that path be every now and then. And that’s what we think in the strategy part is like alright well you have read this article, what are you gonna read next, why are you gonna read something after that, what are we gonna lead you into? Are we gonna push you into a more of like a conversion here or are you still in the like early stages and you should read more and this kind of thing. And kind of having those… If more of that thinking every time someone writes a piece of content or uploads something to a website or so forth, they always should be thinking what will happen after this one. And I think that’s probably something that could improve conversions all over.
Thierry: Yeah, that is true. It’s very much true. I see that in one client case like regularly. Uh, and also I think like having too much options is similarly bad. Uh, if the client has like or the customer end customer has like a lot of buttons and multiple forms, they don’t know what to do and they are confused.
Miikka: Just you know, go back to like you forgot what’s the core of the purpose of what you’re trying to do, you know, figure out what’s the core, build the hierarchy around it, make sure you know, people can gradually understand it, you know, give the right information at the right time. And then you’re on a good path, I think you start with that.
Thierry: Yeah, and that’s the one thing you need to focus on. Like mentioned previously that you have one goal, work towards that one instead of having like a shotgun spread all over the place and then you get paralyzed from the all the options you have.
Timi: I like this discussion. So your work is like taking a lot of information and a lot of different like aspects from the business and just tunnel it to one goal.
Miikka: Yeah, it’s like curiosity. I think you have to be curious, and like be engaged and those kind of things. I think it’s fascinating. You get to learn so much, right? Cause then if you embed yourselves so deep in a client’s business, you know, from one day you’re talking about, you know, I don’t know, cars business salesman and another time is like kind of like new foods technologies and things. Like you learn a lot of stuff. I think that’s great. Like you actually get to learn things every day on your job.
Thierry: And I think our job is very much just that like taking a lot of information and also kind of sifting through what is important, what is not. Cause then again you might have a massive amount of information but picking out what is actually relevant is also like a really key component there. And then again crystallizing it. It’s often not really a single goal but a set of goals that have like a single purpose behind them. But coming up with something that is derived from that huge amount of information and is clear, I mean that’s probably the hardest part of our job.
Thierry: I can see your next question, like “Yeah, if your job is absorbing a huge amount of information, can’t AI just do it for you?” Like everybody’s thinking that. I mean, not yet.
Timi: That’s leading to my last question, like how the future looks like for the websites and our business in general and for your roles as well. As you said, like can the AI think the things for us.
Thierry: Yeah um I don’t know. You can have like the doomsday kind of perspective and the happy one, I don’t know. I don’t do predictions, there’s too many uncertainties. But I think you can see trends and like you know, AI is the one glaring in everybody’s face, everybody’s talking about it, you know. Everybody wants to sell something about AI and with AI, for whatever reason, whether it’s meaningful or not, doesn’t matter, you know. So many webinars flashing in my feed, I should be joining and learning one hour, two hours, three hours, whatever. It’s just like… Sure, I can tell you people will be talking about AI. But I think in general people are now realizing how to use it and what for, or at least starting, I hope, because it’s been long enough now. And I believe it’s a great tool for like automation. And it’s an enabler for a lot of things. And I would like to see more automation and personalization. Because together you can actually then start to create those meaningful experiences, right? If you know, you collected the data the right way, but you know so much about your users, why not give them something that’s actually made for them. Not made for one million of them, but just for one. Like tailored to you, just for you, because you mean you’re special. That’s quite powerful. That’s quite powerful. Yeah, but I think it’s you know, people are having those weird relationship with AI, like personal relationships sometimes because I think people are looking for connection, like it’s a human nature, right? Because you have this community psychology and those kind of things, people kind of like identities get shaped by the community and the people around them. And AI can analyze all of those traits and things and like understand what makes you tick and everything. But if we do nothing with it, what’s the point? So I think we have those great tools and people are only now well some people have figured it out and those kind of things, but I think the masses and the clients and stuff and they’re trying to figure out like what’s the benefit with it. And I think personalization I would love to see that be a big deal. To actually start to do it in a meaningful way. Luckily we have tools for that. There’s a tool for everything, you know. And if there’s not, come and see us, we’ll build it. Yeah. Um, I don’t know. This is what I see. And I don’t think it’s a prediction, maybe it’s a trend or whatever, but I would like to see that at least. That’s a wish. I don’t know. How about you, Miikka?
Miikka: Yeah, I can definitely see that that well, we already know that AI is very good for personalization because it can take into account a lot more things than like let’s say we build personalization rules for example. We usually have like, I don’t know, five or six things that we consider, but then AI can actually like analyze hundreds or thousands maybe even tens of thousands little things that you’ve done along the way. So that’s great. And also another thing that I think that will happen in the near future, this is something I think we’re already seeing it, is this sort of like AI backlash cause we’re getting like I’d like to see AI go into this like hyper personalization mode. But we’re already seeing like AI slop everywhere that it’s bland, it’s everyone does it the same, you can see it’s made with AI. So now we’re kind of seeing especially among younger generations that they’re actually going back into more like rustic experiences, even archaic experiences. Like for example, young people, Gen Z and so forth, are using digital cameras from like mid 2000s just to get a bit more like authentic vibe. And that’s definitely something that we’re gonna see more in future kind of more of a division between something that is even more modern and even more weird and even more technical. And then also like going back to the analog things.
Thierry: I mean I guess in a sense like you know AI is just a tool, tools come and go, but like Miikka was mentioning like having authenticity and those kind of like mega trends, they just they’re very long futures and things, they don’t change that easily or hardly ever. And that’s something people always go back to. Then how you take them back there, that’s up to you.
Timi: I think that’s a great ending to this discussion. Thank you Thierry, thank you Miikka, I really enjoyed this. And thank you for listening us and watching us. If the discussion raised any thoughts or questions, please give us a shout, we’d love to hear from you. All of us can be found from LinkedIn and I’m sure we will happily chat with each one of you if you shoot us a message. And also if you found the episode interesting or thoughtful, please do share it with your friends and colleagues, that would make us really happy. And as a last reminder, all of our past episodes can be listened on Spotify and watched on YouTube, so go and check the previous episodes as well, there’s some great stuff there. Like and subscribe. [laughter]
