Transcript
Intro:
Welcome to the elusive consumer. Today, Ellie is recording live from Futurefest in Toronto. She’s speaking with multiple guests, including James McLeod from Mind Reader Media, Areizu Azerbai from Trendhunter, Auntie Heitanin from Op Lab, Giselle from Warner Brothers, and Luke Thomas from HP. Ellie speaks with James McLeod from Mind Reader Media in this first interview.
James McLeod:
Doesn’t know we’re going to hit the ground running here. So, how are you enjoying yourself here at the Future Fest?
Ellie:
Loving it. I love it here. This is my first time in Toronto. Oh, this is your first time at the Future festival?
James McLeod:
Okay.
Ellie:
It’s been amazing. How’s it been for you?
James McLeod:
It’s absolutely awesome. And I want to talk about a few key things here. One, we’re one of the most diverse cities in the entire world, and as a follow-up to that, this is one of the most diverse, both by gender, race, and socioeconomic background, I’m guessing that I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been from conferences from here to Timbuktu. So to see such a wide birth of people who are looking to learn about the future trends that are going to be happening in society, I think it’s very empowering and enlightening because AI, I feel, is going to be one of the things that is going to revolutionize our society over the next 20 years.
So the team, Jeremy army, and the myriad of other people that I haven’t had a chance to memorize their name yet, I’m looking forward to saying, wow, I was there when we were talking about this in its infancy, right? I’m unsure if you remember, but I remember when the Internet started.
Ellie:
Absolutely. Dial up.
James McLeod:
I’m sorry?
Ellie:
Dial up.
James McLeod:
Oh, dial-up. You’ve got mail. I remember I was there, and I didn’t understand it yet because they’re like, information is going to be going all over the place, and you’ll be able to send this. And it didn’t hit us until certain benchmarks, we had AOL, and we had some of these chat rooms until we had an email that became common for everybody. And then once I grew up with it, while I was in college, university, for those people who know, more Canadian, what happened? I was like, oh, this is going to be going everywhere. It was the idea that somebody could become famous just by being a writer and telling good jokes or eulogizing certain types of data inside.
Ellie:
Isn’t that amazing?
James McLeod:
It’s crazy. Or I could be talking to a wonderful person like Ellie right before me.
Ellie:
Absolutely.
James McLeod:
In front of the greatest conference on Earth.
Ellie:
Right. I mean, what you touched upon there is so much what our podcast is about, bringing data to the masses, making sure you capture everyone’s perspective, and making sure that when you consider doing any research or innovating any product or any services, you are thinking about everyone and understanding what that looks like in terms of diversity, in terms of age groups, in terms of gender. How do you do that in your business?
James McLeod:
My company is Mind Reader Media, and we help brands tell their story via social media.
James McLeod:
So what we do is we always start off and say, what is your client avatar? What does your ideal client look like? But not only that, who is the person that you would like to start talking to as well?
Ellie:
I like that.
James McLeod:
And just as somebody famous, a lot more famous than me, said if you don’t know, what gets measured gets managed. So what data numbers do you have behind this to promote this particular claim? So I’ve run into companies, and they’re like, well, we want to talk to these people, but we really need to know, or our clients are really nobody. And I have to say to them, hey, look, no, it’s not. So let’s start niching down. Let’s start looking at some of the metrics that you have already that are available through the meta, through TikTok, and say, okay, we can start a baseline and say 44% of your audience is female, 60% of your audience is between the age of 25 to 45. What are their interests, and what are their income levels?
And how can we drive growth so that we can maximize them? But what is the area of opportunity that you’re overlooking as well?
Ellie:
Right.
James McLeod:
And some people are a little bit reluctant about that. But with us, we want to say, hey, look, this is your window, and this is your door. You can go through both, but they provide great opportunities. So I really get excited about that. I was not a numbers guy in school. I hated numbers. But now, when you see the opportunity that knowing your numbers provides, it actually excites you because you know that translates to client satisfaction.
Ellie:
Exactly. But it’s looking at what those numbers represent, and its data points are people.
James McLeod:
That’s right.
Ellie:
People are what makes your products and your services. Without those data points, how are you going to improve?
James McLeod:
That’s right.
Ellie:
So you would say you’re a data-driven organization then.
James McLeod:
So, when you’re in social media marketing, you generally have two types of people on your team; they will stay within one of two categories. On the right side, these right-brained people, well, guess what? They are the people who will be a little bit more creative. They might be left-handed, such as me. I ain’t going to name any names.
Ellie:
No particularly.
James McLeod:
But they’re going to be very creative, and they’re going to be worried, concerned, and caught up in all the aesthetics of some of the content and stuff you produce.
James McLeod:
That’s great. But on the other side, you may have a lot of left-brained people, and they are so data-driven. They want to tell the logic behind the story. And what we have to understand is that there’s a convergence point. There’s a point where the logic introduces it, but the decision is driven by the emotion behind all that. So, the best way to make this as a story, and I may have to charge you for this little insight. Step one is to introduce a story. Okay. Mary had a little lamb. Her fleece was white as snow. Okay, that’s a good story. But now, what is the data behind it? Did you know that lambs owned by the woman Mary are 60% more likely to produce more wool than lambs owned by X, Y, and Z?
Now, I’ve merged both the left and right sides of your brain and culminated in being able to help your end user make a stronger buying decision.
Ellie:
Exactly. That’s what research is all about: combining the what and the why to better understand your customers. That’s what we do day in and day out.
James McLeod:
I got to give you a high five on that one, girl. You did a good job on that. You picked that up quicker than football.
All right, football.
Ellie:
Football fan. Then, of course, there is American football.
James McLeod:
American NFL.
Ellie:
We’re going to have a problem here. So football is what you play with your feet, which is American soccer.
James McLeod:
Okay, I understand. Yes, there is a bit of disparity, but that’s also coming back to what we’re talking about. If I say football in America, we’re talking about the NFL and its major teams. But if I’m talking to a client that has a global audience, how are we going to be able to deviate and throw in that one particular word, American football versus soccer? Well, not soccer.
Football. Football.
Ellie:
Football.
James McLeod:
Football. And also there are some people who get offended, Americans who get offended when we say football is the real sport. No, it’s not. But we have to understand what is the mindset that is behind the people who are receiving this message.
Ellie:
Absolutely. And I think it touches upon the important words of the day, empathy and authenticity.
James McLeod:
Yes.
Ellie:
I mean, there’s a lot of talk about it, but how do you stay authentic and truly engage with your customers?
James McLeod:
I think it comes down to what does my client or what do we value as a team? Do we value people being honest with their numbers? Of course we do. We don’t want to hyper fluff stuff, and we want to be authentic. In terms of what have we produced for previous clients? Have we produced strong numbers, poor numbers? Our agency isn’t the strongest with high-level design and aesthetics, but we are very good at being great storytellers. So we say, hey, look, when we approach a particular client whose brand we want to basically market for, we’ll say, hey, look, if you’ve got compelling stories that we can translate via social media, we’re the best team for you. But we’re not going to be out here just to chase a dollar. And we’re not comfortable talking about your message and translating your message.
And that’s what’s very important. And it’s important to be with other brands that feel that same way. Because if they’re moving into an uncomfortable space and starting to talk about things that they have no idea what they’re talking about, it’s going to translate on camera. It’s going to translate into how they speak about certain things. You’ll see that sometimes there have been historical case studies of brands missing the mark completely. I ain’t going to go into them because hopefully, they can be my clients someday. But we’ve seen them, and it’s like, what were you thinking? Well, you went into a space that was inauthentic to you. Maybe you didn’t have, you didn’t run your research. You didn’t do your research. You didn’t have the right people in a room to tell you, hey, look, man, this is a bad idea. You can’t say this around the market.
James McLeod:
You don’t market the New York Yankees into Boston, right? Do we have time for a quick story?
Ellie:
Absolutely.
So here’s an interesting story. My family actually owned a hamburger franchise.
Ellie:
Okay?
James McLeod:
I’m from western New York. It is go Bills, go Sabres, and the rest of the world can keep spinning as long as those teams are first. This was a franchise that actually moved into the western New York market and on their packaging said the official brand. I don’t care if I throw them under the bus. It’s okay.
Ellie:
They’re cool.
James McLeod:
The official brand, the official sponsor of the Toronto Raptors. The Toronto Maple Leafs.
Ellie:
Wow.
James McLeod:
The Toronto Maple Leafs. And the soccer team. Football team. Excuse me. And everybody that was owned under MLSE.
Ellie:
Right.
James McLeod:
Well, you’re doing this in a market that supports a completely different hockey team historically, right? So when they see this, the Immediate customer reflection is, well, why do I want to support you? And you’re supporting an out-of-market team? So we have to understand nuances like that are super important when you’re moving into a country, into a region that you’re not familiar with. If you are in Boston, you don’t support New York, and vice versa. If you are going Maple Leafs, then you don’t go into Sabres territory or any other territory that has a historic lead to it. Because the emotion that is tied to that is so deep. And let’s face it, we both know one of the strongest allegiances that people have across the board is to their sports team. Because why? That is their doggone tribe, of course.
Where do you find your tribe? Like, where do you see, like, food? Food. Okay. All right. Come on. Let me in. Ellie, what are some of your favorite foods?
Ellie:
I think I was talking to a lady earlier in terms of what brings people together. It’s how we dress, how we eat, what we eat. It builds communities. Right.
James McLeod:
So for those of you who are listening on Spotify, all my favorite friends out there. Ellie has the sharpest navy blue. I think she was a stand-in at Suits or something like that with amazing red nail polish. And her hair is absolutely flawless. So make sure that you follow her. What’s your at right now, Ellie?
Ellie:
The elusive consumer.
James McLeod:
The elusive consumer.
Ellie:
On Spotify and Apple. Let me just add that Saint looks fabulous with his orange glasses. So before we let you go, you touched upon a number of things that I want to dig deeper into. You mentioned storytelling capabilities in this era where everything is moving to technology and AI, that’s such an important skill to have. Right? To connect with your clients, with your consumers. What other skills or talents have you identified on your end that are going to survive this new era?
James McLeod:
Agility. Some people talk about strength. Some people talk about intelligence. It is your agility. How fluidly can you move from one particular point to the next? Because guess what? In today’s business economy, in any economy, period, you have to be able to move, pivot, and adjust to what’s going on. It’s like you have to be a cerebral contortionist.
Ellie:
Chameleon.
James McLeod:
A chameleon? Yeah. You have to be able to adapt to those times and yes. As we talked about before, you do need to be able to still stay true to your core values.
Ellie:
But how do those core values still get, represented best in your society? Does that still reflect to everybody? We’ve had a lot of different pushes in terms of community activism, in terms of initiatives, in terms of people wanting to work from home.
James McLeod:
So agility is what’s most important because that will allow you to adjust every single time. Granted, you may have a 200-person workforce that’s behind you, but if they’re not able to adapt, if they’re not able to change, and you are not nimble, especially in today’s workplace, it’s not going to happen.
Ellie:
Right.
James McLeod:
One of the key things that we’ve talked about, or they’ve talked about at the future festival is that employees will not be replaced by AI.
Ellie:
Right?
James McLeod:
Employees will be replaced by other employees who know how to maximize AI. Because there is a learning curve, let’s face it. But the good thing is that we all have the capacity to be great if we take the time to invest within ourselves. Ellie, I think you’re investing a lot into yourself. You out here, you’re grinding, girl.
Ellie:
It’s all about the hustling.
James McLeod:
Amen to that.
Ellie:
Final question, unrelated to anything else, if you had to pick a theme song that plays every time you walk out, what would it be?
James McLeod:
I’m so glad you asked that because I ask myself that every time I see somebody get up and speak, and I’m like, what would I come out to? So there’s a song, a record by Pharaoh monk. It came out literally, like 1520 years ago, featuring Buster rhymes. It’s called get the f up. And it’s a remix of the Godzilla anthem. And it goes bump, bum bump. And I said that’s what I’m. Because I want people to get up. I want them to feel the power, and I want them to be able to receive all the energy that we’re going to be giving out and the great value that I’m going to present to people.
Ellie:
I love it. Saint, thank you so much.
14:58
It’s been a blessing. You are awesome. All right, one more. High five for the rope, and that’s it. Thank you so much.
Intro:
Up next, Ellie speaks with Arezu Azerbai from Trendhunter about event planning, emerging tech trends, and the role of AI.
Ellie:
All right. Hi, Arizu. Welcome to the elusive consumer. So lovely to have you.
Areizu Azerbai:
Thank you so much.
Areizu Azerbai:
Hi.
Areizu Azerbai:
Thank you for having me.
Ellie:
It’s a pleasure. So you are with Trendhunter. I am the organizer behind this amazing event. Tell us a little bit about your role at Trendhunter for sure.
Areizu Azerbai:
Yes, I’m a business developer representative here at Trendhunter, and I’ve been with them for more than one year now. So woohoo.
Ellie:
You’re enjoying it?
Areizu Azerbai:
I am enjoying it very much. It has been a very beautiful journey for myself in my personal life as well as my career because I’ve learned a lot from emerging trends that we are offering our clients. So it is definitely impactful in my personal life as well.
Ellie:
I was going to say the theme for this year is the year AI changes you. It’s such a dramatic sentence. What made you guys think of that and talk to us about that in terms of the planning ahead of this event, for sure.
Areizu Azerbai:
Yes. As you know, all the businesses are trying to keep up the pace with this journey. AIS is definitely the biggest thing right now and obviously, we want to make sure, as the largest trend-spotting platform in the world, to help our clients to stay on top of this emerging trend and try to help them to change accordingly. Don’t be afraid of AI. AI is definitely not there to harm us. It is definitely there to help us in our day to day roles in so many aspects. It can help us to simplify what we’re doing and save us a lot of time and other resources.
Ellie:
Right? Do you feel it’s helped you and your role at this company?
Areizu Azerbai:
Oh, yeah, for sure. So at Trend Hunter, we are definitely working on the culture of AI and basically embracing AI as something that is happening and we need to adapt to it. So it has been, I can tell you, six, seven months now that we have been working on so many AI applications in our day to day roles. Definitely, a lot of time-saving processes going on. I personally am really enjoying that. Leveraging a lot of AI tools in order to help us in our day to day roles and also help our clients to stay on top of the cutting edge trends.
Ellie:
That makes a lot of sense. I mean, we’re all excited to be here. It’s been fantastic so far. What part of this particular festival excites you the most?
Areizu Azerbai:
Oh, definitely the trend safaris. Well, basically all of it. I love future festivals the most. This is one of the most exciting events in my whole, entire life and I’m so grateful that I’m working with Trend Hunter and I get to experience this beautiful event. However, trend safaris are literally like bringing the trends to your life. We are going out and seeing the businesses that are living and breathing trends. So that is very impactful for our attendees. They can see after the keynotes that we are presenting on day one, definitely on day two, we are going outside of this seminar and going to different businesses that they actually broke that taboo and started to use the emerging trends, specifically AI, so they are not as scarce.
Ellie:
So we want to show everybody that this actually works and how amazing can be the experience of businesses out there when they’re leveraging AI for their day-to-day life.
Ellie:
And do you think that’s important also from a consumer point of view? So our podcast is all about how to reach the elusive consumers of today because consumer behavior has changed so dramatically over the years. Talking about the pandemic and the last few years now with AI, what are your thoughts there in terms of what AI can do for consumers and the end user?
Areizu Azerbai:
Yeah, for sure. So, as you know, with every chaos, changes are happening. Innovation comes up. So you know that after each chaos, a lot of opportunities are coming with it. And obviously, AI is one of the biggest ones. Even in my opinion, it’s even bigger than a pandemic because it’s something very new to so many people, of different age ranges. It’s not just about a specific Asia, like, not just Gen Z, that they are so used to technology and all of that. Even my parents and grandparents need to get used to that.
Ellie:
Right?
Areizu Azerbai:
So that’s why it’s very important to help them understand and see how they are, basically, what is their perspective, how they would like, and how it’s easy for them to leverage AI in their day-to-day role and life. Not even role, like day-to-day life, because AI is changing our lives in so many different ways. And to be honest with you, we are here today basically to show people how AI is going to change our lives, not even only at our workplace, but in our personal lives as well. So it’s very important for us to see how people are reacting to that and how we can keep up the pace with people’s insights.
Ellie:
Makes a lot of sense. You talked a lot about personal. Let’s talk about Arizu. Yes. What is your, why? What makes you wake up in the morning?
Areizu Azerbai:
Oh, my God. I am waking up every morning to learn, like, literally every morning. My main impression, my main excitement is to learn more and more. And obviously, this is the best opportunity for me, working with Trend Hunter. It’s such a high-speed company. We are every day, like, chasing the emerging trends. And what else can be better than this for me, honestly, I got my dream job, to be honest with you.
Ellie:
So wonderful. I’m so happy to hear that. Before we leave, is there anything you want to leave our listeners with? Any life motto, any key learnings that you’ve absorbed throughout your career or attending these events? Anything you want to say to our listeners?
Areizu Azerbai:
For sure, even every chaos is a learning opportunity, so we never should give up. That is basically coming from a person who has a lot of ups and downs in her personal life. So what I can tell everyone is that every ups and downs of this life is a learning opportunity, a learning curve. So we just should keep going and try to be thirsty for knowledge. And knowledge basically brings that power that we are looking for.
Ellie:
That’s such a great motto to have. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.
Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us today.
Areizu Azerbai:
Thank you so much.
Ellie:
Have a wonderful night.
Areizu Azerbai:
You too.
Intro:
Next up, Ellie talks to Auntie Heitenen from Op Lab, a division of Op Financial group in Finland about innovation in Scandinavia and understanding diverse customer needs.
Ellie:
Hi Auntie, Welcome to the elusive consumer here at the Future Festival.
Auntie Heitanin:
Thanks for having me. Awesome to be here.
Ellie:
So is this your first time here?
Auntie Heitanin:
Yeah, it’s my first time in Toronto. It’s my first time at the future festival. And so far it’s been great.
Ellie:
Wonderful. Tell us a little bit about what you do, auntie.
Auntie Heitanin:
So I work for Op Lab, which is the innovation unit of Op Financial Group. Op Financial group is the largest bank as well as insurer in Finland. So we are the market leader in retail banking, insurance, and corporate banking. And what op lab does is accelerate innovation within the op group. So we like to say that we teach other people at OP how to fish, rather than bringing the fish to the table. So we arrange workshops, we do rapid experimentation, we do customer validation, customer engagement, and lots of different stuff. One also big area is emerging tech, and emerging trends, and that’s why we are here at the future festival.
Ellie:
So you live and breathe technology?
Auntie Heitanin:
Yes.
And you’ve been here before? It’s not your first time?
Ellie:
No, it’s my first time.
Ellie:
So what brought you here? What was it that caught your attention?
Auntie Heitanin:
It’s a coincidence, to be honest. My colleague Franz, who is also here, happened to see were going through what events should we participate in this year. And obviously AI is a big theme that we are looking into. Trent Hunter and Future Festival came top of the list. And we’re like, yeah, we’re going there. Like, all the agenda looked great, sounded great, and, yeah, no regrets so far. It’s great to be here.
Ellie:
Right talk to us a little bit about your consumer strategy, if you could, in terms of your customer strategy and how you approach your customers and consumers.
Auntie Heitanin:
So again, being a financial group that is over 100 years old, we are like a banking cooperative. So we are owned by our customers. So that sets the foundation for the customer strategy. So taking it 2023, we still have 150 branch offices in a country that has 5 million people. And some might say that it’s very weird, but how OPC’s customer strategy is that we are a local player. Like, we have the local branch offices and they together comprise the whole thing, what we call the op financial group. And when it comes to innovation, it’s been a huge benefit to have very different kinds of, like, we have Helsinki, which is a big city in Finnish, like Finland terms, but then we have smaller cities in the north. And when we do, Op Lab collaboration with all of the big ones and the small ones.
And it’s great to see the difference between those because they have different needs, and they have different approaches to doing customer like. Overall it’s different. So it’s a pretty interesting field to play in.
Ellie:
Absolutely. We were talking earlier about Scandinavia in general and innovation. It’s such a big hub of startups and technology. Why do you think that is?
Auntie Heitanin:
That’s actually a good question. I think there is obviously lots of talent. I come from a city called Olu. The origin Nokia was founded in Olu.
Ellie:
All right.
Auntie Heitanin:
So for example, in my city like Olu, when the Nokia Mobile business went south, it was definitely a hit to the local economy, but then it was also a blessing because now we can see lots of amazing startups. Amazing. Already scale-ups within the Olu-like northern area. One example is, for example, aura Ring like smart Ring company that was also founded in Olu.
Ellie:
I didn’t know that.
Auntie Heitanin:
So it’s like a very innovative place to be in. But I don’t know. It’s a great question, actually. I haven’t really thought about that too much.
Ellie:
No, I think it’s a cultural mindset thing as well. Growing up there, I saw a lot of that. People are hungry and curious.
Auntie Heitanin:
Exactly, yeah. And it’s also like we want to think that even though Finland is a small country, Finnish people are relatively tech-savvy. For example, mobile banking was introduced already back in 2000 and Finnish people are relatively early adopters when it comes to new tech. So it’s good like a sandbox to play in for startups to first try out stuff and then go abroad, like to Germany, UK, North America.
Ellie:
But also how the government emphasizes sustainability, technology, and innovation. I remember the fact that recycling was always a huge thing in Sweden growing up, and it’s very great to see that governments push that agenda. So, Auntie, I’ve held you long enough, but I do have one last very important question to ask you. If there was a theme song that played every time you walked on a stage, what would that be?
Auntie Heitanin:
Oh, wow. You got me off guard. Theme song. I have to say, this is an odd one. It is French classic le la Duko Nemara.
Ellie:
Well, I don’t know that one. You should listen to that. Look it up.
Auntie Heitanin:
It’s a very dramatic song, and I don’t even know why I know the song, but I know all the lyrics, and it’s such an oddball. I like to get people off the guard as well.
Ellie:
Like you just did too. Yeah.
Auntie Heitanin:
I bet no one else has said le la Dukonimara during your interview.
Ellie:
I love that answer. Thank you so much, Auntie, for joining us. It’s been a pleasure.
Auntie Heitanin:
Yeah, thanks for having me. This was great.
Intro:
Next up, Giselle shares insights on connecting with audiences through authentic storytelling and diversity at Warner Brothers.
Ellie:
Hi, Giselle. Welcome to the elusive consumer here at the Future Festival.
Giselle:
Yes, it’s my first time attending, and I’m enjoying it. I was interested in attending because I work in culture insights, which is a discipline that I started at Warner that really looks at shifts in society, and what’s happening in culture. But then it’s rooted, obviously, in trends and understanding how trends are impacting different generations, how they’re impacting our fans, and what that means for the future.
Ellie:
What brought you to Warner Brothers to begin with?
Giselle:
Yeah, I’ve always loved entertainment ever since I was a little kid. And I’ve always loved movies, specifically classic films. And I’m also a big fan. I actually just came from his hometown. I visited his hometown for the very first time. They had a festival this past weekend. So anyway, long story short, I just love entertainment and movies, and I’m a big believer in the power of storytelling how stories can be an agent for change, and how stories can influence people and their lives.
Ellie:
Absolutely. That’s such a great point. Storytelling is everything to connect with your audience in terms of connecting with your audience. We spoke a little bit earlier about diversity. I know that’s a topic that’s close to your heart. So tell us a little bit about how Warner Brothers are approaching that topic.
Giselle:
Yeah. So there are a few different initiatives. I can’t speak to them in detail, of course, but we’re making a concerted effort to make sure that productions so at that level, in terms of onset, and initiatives are being implemented. So whether that means crew members, whether it means behind the scenes, in terms of who’s in the writer’s room, there are really intentional efforts to bring more inclusivity and different points of view into those environments, but also the corporate environment too, in terms of those of us that work in the corporate space too, and that aren’t on the sets or aren’t off on locations somewhere. And I think a big piece of it is understanding that diversity, for me, a personal definition of it is the breadth of somebody’s life experiences.
Yes, it includes some of these more traditional dimensions, like biological traits or things like gender orientation, so on and so forth. But my personal definition of it, too, is that it’s about the different life circumstances and experiences that really have shaped somebody’s identity and worldview at the same time.
Ellie:
Right. That’s such an important point, especially in a market like North America, where without it you lose true representation.
Giselle:
Absolutely. I totally agree with, you know, I think it’s definitely a work in progress for anybody who is trying to implement de I in their organization. And I think a big part of it, too, is acknowledging that you’re not going to get it right the first time and that it’s a process, and you have to embrace that, I guess, fear of not getting it right because there’s no patent answer and every situation is different. And so I think that as long as the intention is there and it’s authentic and genuine, I think that can only help in pursuing the initiatives that will help get us to a better place.
Ellie:
Right. And a keyword you mentioned there was authenticity. How is Warner Brothers staying authentic?
Giselle:
That’s a really great question, because I think that’s a very challenging thing in any industry. But I think with, for instance, culture work and trying to tap into what’s happening and keeping a pulse on those things, research being very open to always learning and being curious, and even when it’s uncomfortable, even when you’re hearing things that you don’t want to hear, that’s how you grow and that’s how you stay authentic.
Ellie:
Absolutely. Now let’s switch topic to technology innovation. The reason we’re here today. So this theme is the year AI changes you. What are your thoughts there?
Giselle:
Well, I came partly to kind of immerse myself because obviously in the work that I do, I’m reading so much about AI to the point that it’s just become very overwhelming right? And even here at the conference, you can feel a sense of feeling overwhelmed with all the information that’s being presented. And it’s great information. But I think that with AI, there needs to be this spirit of being open and just kind of also being open to taking it at your own pace and not being afraid of it and trying to understand how to apply it to what you’re doing and to your life. And I think something was mentioned yesterday about chaos. The chaos, like, embracing the chaos.
And I took that as a takeaway for myself because I know I can feel a little overwhelmed, but it’s about breaking it down then. So, like, this is happening, try to understand it, take it at your own pace, and then see where it can best go. Again, something that was said today is to enhance your creativity and your productivity.
Ellie:
Right. One other thing that we’ve listened to today was the generational gaps and the differences in their reaction to AI and technology in general. How do you feel about that?
Giselle:
Well, I do a lot of generational work in my culture, insight work, and I do feel that I’m a proponent in looking at generations in a way where we can all learn from one another, where, yes, there are certain characteristics that definitely apply and represent each of the different generations, but at the same time, I think that we shouldn’t get boxed into thinking that if you’re a boomer, you’re not necessarily going to be embracing this. We’re seeing with TikTok, for instance, TikTok has become very democratized now in terms of who’s on there. You see a variety of different age groups on there and people of different backgrounds. So I think the same is going to happen with AI, to be honest with you.
It’s just going to be very specialized in terms of what it means for you and where you are in your life, your career, and again, how it best can enhance your life.
Ellie:
Right. And what about AI in terms of teams and cultures and getting buy-in from the different generations on your team? How do you handle that?
Giselle:
Yeah, I think that’s another area where it’s going to be a learning process, I think, because if you have a group that’s maybe a little bit more hesitant and reserved about it or fearful about it’s trying to first understand where are they coming from, really kind of understanding what are some of those factors driving why they’re feeling the way that they’re feeling, of course. And then working through that and not trying to sort of force anything on anybody. And as they say, meet somebody where they’re at. So if you again want to take something at a different pace, being open to that and understanding where maybe intergenerational teams can work together and collaborate within the context of AI in a way that works for everybody, that makes a lot of sense.
Ellie:
I want to switch the topic to consumer behaviors. So we’ve seen after the pandemic, and obviously before the pandemic endured, that behaviors changed quite dramatically. In terms of the entertainment industry, what have you seen change and how are you preparing for the future for those changes?
Giselle:
Yeah, I think one of the main things, a few different things, is that we saw the role of entertainment change. Entertainment perhaps before the pandemic was maybe perceived as this frivolous thing or just this thing for leisure. But I think the role of it has really shifted. And you see that people are embracing it for all these different things now, whether it’s education or whether it’s advocacy, and using entertainment as a tool to promote messages. I’m a huge history lover.
And with what’s happening in the US, with different legislation around academic curriculum, around our history, I really am passionate about the opportunity that this presents for entertainment to play a role, for instance, and fill that void where, for instance, kids growing up today that are going through grade school may not learn certain aspects of our culture, the good, bad and the ugly, and entertainment can play that role of exposing them to these things and exposing them not again to sort of with an agenda, but exposing them so that there’s understanding and that there’s awareness so that we can grow and learn from our mistakes as a country and as a people in terms of what has been done in the past. So I’m a big believer that entertainment can play that role.
Ellie:
I love that. That’s such an interesting aspect, entertainment as education. I think that’s often about. Yeah.
Giselle:
And I also think that from a family standpoint, the way that families are engaging in entertainment, particularly, for instance, we know that there were a lot of multigenerational households that emerged as a result of the pandemic. Now, in other cultures, that’s a norm. But I think for the majority of us households, that was a new thing because you had college students moving back home, but you also had families, older adults, who had families moving back home to get help with childcare from their parents. And so it created this interesting dynamic in terms of the multigenerational household and what that means now in terms of entertainment and who watches what, who picks what and kids influencing what their parents are getting into and vice versa. Parents influence what kids are into.
So I think that’s here to stay in terms of this kind of cross-section of influences.
Giselle:
So it’s actually bringing people closer and bringing families back together.
Ellie:
Agree. Definitely.
Ellie:
Very nice. Let’s talk a little bit about trends in terms of trends that you’ve seen or transformative new technology or thoughts or ideas for the entertainment industry. Tell us a little bit about that.
Giselle:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that right now we’re in an interesting inflection point, if you will, because of, for instance, the strike that, thankfully, the writer strike that just ended, and AI. And what does that mean for writers and the future of content? Right. And I think that there is hopefully more of a focus on the emotion that comes from a human being able to tell a story and have that connection with so many different people. People. I often say that with research. It’s so fascinating to me how one person can be so complex and yet we’re trying to understand the mass, and yet the mass is comprised of individuals that in themselves are so complicated. So I think that’s really interesting.
I also think that with trends in entertainment, there’s definitely, I think, a shift towards looking at entertainment, again in terms of well-being and wellness and what it can mean for mental health, what it can mean for, again, your holistic well being, and how it can play a role in that aspect of your life. So, again, similar to what I mentioned before is that it’s moved now, sort of maybe just leisure and this kind of frivolous thing to playing these different roles in people’s lives.
Ellie:
I love that. Well, Giselle, this has been such a pleasure. I have one last question completely unrelated to anything we’ve talked about that I ask all my guests. So if you had to pick a theme song that would play anytime you walked out, what would that be?
Giselle:
That’s a great question. My goodness, that’s an awesome question. So anytime I’m just starting my day and that song comes on. Oh, my word.
Ellie:
Wow. We’ve had everything from Eye of the Tiger, we’ve had Beyonce, we’ve had French songs, we’ve had pretty much everything.
Giselle:
I’m going to say living on prayer because I was blasting that or, like, just singing that out loud last night where I was having dinner, and it just invigorated me. So I’m going to say living on a prayer because it speaks to how I start my day praying. But then also just the hope that you feel as you start a new day and sort of the anticipation and the aspirations you have for the day.
Ellie:
Fantastic answer, fantastic song, fantastic guests. Thank you so much.
All right. Thank you so much.
Intro:
And finally, Luke Thomas, also known as the Earth Shaker, explains his passion for emerging tech and how HP is innovating for the future.
Ellie:
Hi, Luke, and welcome to the elusive consumer here at the Future Festival.
Luke Thomas:
Thank you for having me, Ellie, so.
Ellie:
Nice to have you. We’ve been talking throughout the few days that we’ve been here, and it’s been such a joy and pleasure to get to know you and learn about your passions and everything that you do. But tell our listeners, who is Luke and what does he do?
Luke Thomas:
Luke is the Earth shaker at. So, yeah, I’m a futurist as well at HP, and I talk about the latest tech trends and what the company needs to do moving forward. And I’m also a chief of staff for the CTO in HP as well as HP personal systems. So it’s a dual role. Just love the journey. The company is also going through a different patch and trying to move into services and products as well. So our organization, our team is actually helping towards moving towards that part. So it’s great, and it’s an adventure. So I love adventures.
Ellie:
Right.
Luke Thomas:
I’m called the Earth Shaker because I like to move things and shake things up because that’s what all innovation is about.
Ellie:
Absolutely. We’re going to get to that Earth shaker in a moment. But tell us a little bit about a chief of staff to the CTO of HP. What does that involve?
Luke Thomas:
The chief of staff role is basically making the CTO look great in front of customers and leadership at the same time, prioritizing where she needs to spend time.
Ellie:
Right.
Luke Thomas:
I’m also looking at very strategic projects as well. So trying to figure out, okay, how to get different teams aligned together, because you have to work with the business units, you have to work with leadership teams as well. So how do you get them all together? A lot of negotiations. So people think the chief of staff role is just about supporting just the CTO, but it’s more than that. So especially when you’re doing very high strategic projects, then you have to deal with a lot of people and influence them as well.
Ellie:
Absolutely.
Luke Thomas:
So that’s one thing. And then the other thing is also making sure that my boss’s name is Helen Holder, so making sure that she’s talking at the right places with the right customers and prioritizing her time and her calendar as well with her EA, so making sure that she doesn’t spend too much time in doing things what I do. So I made her life a little bit easier. But yeah, it’s becoming a role that is becoming very resonating too much in the tech space now. I see this happening also in the banking industry, though I’m from Charlotte, I see that there’s a chief of staff role opening up there as well. So I think it’s great because time is precious. Not many folks, most of the Exeters don’t have that much time, so you can offload that to the chief of staff.
So we’re kind of like shadowing the Exeters in a way and prioritizing their time and time spent attending conferences. Like what we’re doing here at the Future Festival and also making sure that we can get people, the leadership to execute those missions as well.
Ellie:
Right.
Luke Thomas:
So yeah, it’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.
Ellie:
Someone’s got to do it. So being a passionate person about innovation and change, and new technologies, are you also involved in your role to help find what’s next and help sort of prioritize which partners to collaborate with, which startups to fund, and so forth? Is that part of your role as well?
Luke Thomas:
Yeah. Well, in this role we work with HP Tech ventures, so I used to be a part of that team before. So we have an HP tech Ventures team. That team is focused on partnering and investing in startups. So this role is like whenever you look at any new innovations where we need to focus on, we go to that team. And that is my ex-boss, Andrew Barbell. I love you, Andrew. So we focus on that team and try to say, hey, this is where we want to look. I mean, everyone’s talking about AI right now. So how do you look at AI in the workforce space? So then we go to the HP tech ventures team. They look at all the startups, that are doing very unique stuff, and we partner with them.
So we have that group dedicated, to doing all those kinds of things, and we get their insights, their advice, and then talk with the startups and figure out whether we need to partner or invest in them.
Ellie:
Right. So in terms of new, exciting technology for you personally, but also from HB’s perspective, can you give us some examples personally?
Luke Thomas:
Everyone knows I’m in the blockchain of crypto, right? I’m an XRP fan. So yeah, I’m actually very excited about this convergence of blockchain AI, and crypto and also the fact that there are more new business cases and opportunities coming about it. Right. I think in a way the pandemic has triggered a lot of things, especially with digital transformation. So it’s triggered with many organizations looking into it. And now with AI, I mean, AI has been there for a long time, right? But I think now with all the buzz that chat, GPT has come above with Gen AI, it’s creating that fact that every company needs to do something about it. So I think that’s great for the industry as a whole.
Luke Thomas:
And I think for me, I just love the fact that once we have regulations for the crypto industry, the growth is going to be more exponential because it’s coming to a point where we take things for granted. What I mean by that is today, for example, when you send money from the US to Canada or to India, it literally takes three days. Let’s say I’m sending $100. The bank would take at least $30 from my end for the transaction fee. So you’re left with $70 and then from the receiving end probably under $5. And that would come after three days. We have accepted that’s the norm.
Ellie:
Right.
Luke Thomas:
But with crypto, with what Ripple is doing, you can do real-time transactions for a fraction of a cent.
Ellie:
Wow.
Luke Thomas:
So if my watchman in India says, hey, I want $10 to my bank account, can you wire it? I’ll say, no way, because the transaction fee is going to be $30. So I would say, hey, wait for your monthly salary and I’ll give you that money. So that has an impact on the GDP of a country as well, because of his willingness to spend that money, which now he has to wait for another 30 days. Right? So there are companies out there trying to disrupt various markets and industries. So I’m very passionate about this convergence of AI, blockchain, and crypto. I think we met one Metawars company yesterday and you were there as well, right? Time flies. So they were talking about. That’s the same thing, right? They’re being a big mall with 100 million were asking the same question.
Luke Thomas:
I don’t want to be in a 100 million sqft mall and then not figure out what to do. Right. And that’s a very good example of the convergence of crypto voice assistant with AI, NLP technology, and all that good stuff. And of course the metaverse world, right? So, yeah, metaverse, I don’t know, maybe went in a bit too early last year. But I think there’s a big fan of digital NFTs, nonfungible tokens. So Nike is doing a great job as well with that market. So, yeah, I mean, maybe paying thousands of millions of dollars for a board ape NFT might not be the thing to do, but I think digital NFTs are great, right? So if I get an autograph from you, Ellie, and later on in the future, you become a celeb. You are already a celebrity, but you become a celebrity.
I’ll say, hey, I have an autograph from Ellie, and there’s no way you have an autograph from Ellie. But then I go and say, no, it’s actually she signed it off the blockchain, and I have that. Then I have a nice, cute 3d printed figurine of you, right? And there’s only five pieces of that. Maybe when someone buys it from me because I’m not a celeb, they say, okay, I’ll buy it for $100, but let’s say someone buys that figurine, let’s say Michael Jordan buys it, and suddenly that value just appreciates, right? So the good thing about that is because I was the original owner of that digital NFT, whatever transactions happen after that, I always get a commission. So I get like a 3%. And that’s what the guy was saying yesterday as well, right?
So I was asking, what’s his business amount? He’s like 3% of the transaction, which is great compared to what people pay for the App Store, right? All the developers pay like 30%. Right? So when you say 30%, 3%. And that’s the beauty of the meta was, because it’s part of the, we are moving this transition from a web two world to a web three world. So I think once you have that in place and where the users have the power. Right. You’re seeing the user-generated content having so much dominance, especially with platforms like TikTok, of course. And how do you further enable them with all these user generated tools also and creative tools out there?
Ellie:
Sure.
Luke Thomas:
And I think that’s where in the future, I think everyone’s going to be an entrepreneur, of course, because they can leverage AI, blockchain, and whatnot. So I’m so excited about the use cases of crypto and blockchain because the moment you say crypto, everyone thinks about bitcoin, right? However there are several use cases. So I think especially in the future of finances, what’s going to happen is this is my belief that the governments are talking about central bank digital currencies, the CBDCs. So right now, you have electronic or digital money, but you can’t put anything on it, right? So right now, say, let’s say I give you some money and then Ellie, and then you say, hey, Luke, I will give you the money back when I have that money in my bank account. And I’m like, hey, it’s been two months. Where is she?
Right. But in the future, I can put a contract and say that as long as you have that money in the bank account, you cannot even stop it. That money will automatically come to me. So this is great for landlords and all that stuff. So today, with the economy going up so high with inflation and all that stuff going on, a lot of folks are taking advantage of the system. So I remember when I was in California doing Covid, I think California tenants just needed paid like 30% of the rent, right? And people are playing the system, gaming the system because they knew they couldn’t be thrown out and it wouldn’t impact their credit score. But you could put a smart count saying, ” hey, look, if you have that money, come to me. If you don’t have the money, it’s fine.
So these are just a few use cases. I think there are other use cases as well where when people die, like a lot of people died during COVID Right. So there was this inheritance of transfer of wealth and executing the will. All that is a lot of hassle. You had to go behind the banks, you had to go behind all the government agencies. But in the future, the moment the corporation council or whatever issues a debt certificate, then it executes a smart contract and that contract executes the will that will make sure that automatically all the money goes to respective people, what was mentioned in the bill. So just makes your life easy, like doing online payments today rather than signing the queue. So I think that’s the world you’re going to be in.
And I think today I was just seeing the news that this crypto exchange called Kraken will now provide stock trading as well. So in the future, I think everything is going to be tokenized. You want to call it NFT or whatever, but everything will be tokenized. So what that means is I can buy an HP stock with my HP stock, I can buy a coffee, or I can buy a crypto. It doesn’t have to be always settling in whatever thing. So you can do atomic swaps. Probably in the future, they would. I don’t know how the governments are going to play it out because they want to always make you settle in their sovereign currency, fiat currency or a CBDC.
But I think that’s the future we are moving into where you can just swap things; everything will have some value to attach to it.
Ellie:
Sure.
Luke Thomas:
And I think we are all waiting for regulations to come because once you have regulations, this whole market would probably go up like ten to 100 x.
Ellie:
I was going to say you’re talking a lot about the efficiencies and the fact that this improves lives for the wider masses. But what about some of the risks involved? How do you control all of this and the restrictions? For instance, I know there’s a difference between open metaverse and closed metaverse and those limitations. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
Luke Thomas:
Yeah, sure. So for any new technology, right. There’s always risk involved, right? So I remember I come from a telecon domain, right? So when the smartphones came about, everyone’s excited about the cameras.
Luke Thomas:
Sure
But again, people started doing a lot of funny things with the cameras as well, right? But at the same time, people also used cameras to become citizen journalists too, right? And then the selfies market was created by the users at the end of the day. So the same thing goes with the metawars as well. We are at the point wherein most of the stuff that you do in the metawers, the problem is people are still incorporating the web two models in the metawers. The metawers wants to be like a very much an open model, web three model, where the users have control of their avatars where they can. I have a ready player, me avatar, digital avatar, right. But then sometimes it cannot be easily put into different metaverse because the standards are not yet there, right.
So once you have that interoperability between different metawars environments, I think that’s when things get very exciting and that takes time. We have had all those. There’s a reason why now the latest iPhones is supported USBC, right. It’s been there for a long time. So I think once the industry comes together, expecting that to happen overnight is next impossible. It’ll eventually happen. So I think the next couple of years we are still way away from web three metawars world. Sure. I would say we are in like the web two point x world, right? And I would say give it another five to ten years. An od, right? Yeah. People say no, web three is here. I don’t think so.
Ellie:
So for people who are novices in this space and we’re not quite sure where to start to educate ourselves to not only become more familiar with web three, with metaverse, with augmented reality, with crypto et, cetera, what advice would you give? Where should people start?
Luke Thomas:
Start with your phone. So that’s great. That’s a nice place to start. You can do a lot of things on the metaverse on the phone. You don’t need to use those headsets and buy those headsets so as to speak, right? So everyone thinks, okay, metaverse is all about being immersive and all that stuff. It’s an experience at the end of the day, right? So like how you see companies like Amazon, where you want to buy a sofa set before you buy it online, you want to see if it actually fits your house. And now you have all those tools to make sure that with AR VR, you can just position it using your phone and figure out, okay, it fits. You can do that with your phone today.
So I think the same thing goes with the metaverse world or the crypto world is a, to educate yourself, what is going on. There’s a lot of guys out there, a lot of influencers also misleading people. So try to follow the right folks on Twitter. So I get all my news, normal news, crypto news, blockchain, even for some of my research. I get it all from, actually from TikTok and from Twitter. Because the problem is, by the time you read these white papers, it’s good for all these white papers. And nothing against all the technologies out there, but those are all published papers, and it’s already outdated. Things change so fast, right?
So if you want to be up to that, up to date on all those news, I think Twitter is a great platform as long as you follow the right people, and then you take in those inputs and insights from them and then do an evaluation, say, does this guy make sense or not? And then brainstorm. There’s so many community conferences, and you can brainstorm with people who are all trying to empower the common man to be financially independent. That’s my goal at the end of the day, because at the end of the day, we are moving to a world which is very especially next generation. They are all digital natives, right? The first thing they do is play with a phone. That whole cycle of educating them has gone away for me as an Indian.
I mean, if you go today and do any payments India, everyone’s doing through Google payments and Paytm and all that stuff. The reason is because they went through a pain when we had the demonetization going on india. So when that phase happened, it created a lot of pain, but people were still looking for a solution. And that’s how all these mobile payments everything’s digital india right now, but in the US, people, I still get some checks coming to my mailbox. So I think that’s the world we’re moving in, right? So people are not aware, okay, what’s going on in other parts of the world. So I think for a company like HP, right, it’s great for us to showcase some of our products and services in the metaverse, because we bought a lot of companies as well, like HyperX, we bought poly as well.
So people, there’s only so much space that you can show everything across the world. But now people can go to the metaverse environment. They can see and play and touch and feel. So you have all those things right now to go ahead and experience it. And I think that’s the beauty of the metaverse, right. At the end of day, what’s the problem you’re trying to solve? You don’t have to do it all on a metawse. But then there are some experiences people don’t have. Like they want to buy a new laptop. Okay, great. Or a new monitor, right. For example, first thing you want to do is figure out if that monitor actually fits in your home, because the space might not be big, especially in metropolitan cities, like in Toronto, it’s, like, extremely expensive. So people are staying in small apartments or whatnot.
So the last thing you want to have a big ass monitor, and next thing you know, it doesn’t fit on your wall. So I think those kind of experiences, you can provide and provide them with options as well, and also interact and engage with the community, because while you’re shopping, you want to ask someone, hey, dude, what do you think about this monitor? Right? So you can have and have those kind of experience in the metawars, which you don’t do online shopping. Right? So I think those are the challenges that can be overcome once you are in the metaverse, and it’s slowly getting there. So it’s a journey.
Ellie:
It is a journey. Yeah. I want to go back to your role at HP a little bit. Most of us, when we hear HP, will think printers and personal.
Educate us a little bit about what else HP does that is in line with this AI era.
Luke Thomas:
Yeah. So HP is beyond laptops and printers. I just want to put it out there. Right. We have bought amazing companies like Teradichi, Polly, Hyperx. So we are into gaming. We are into workforce collaboration services. We are trying to make the world a much better place. We believe in this mantra on hybrid work as well, because as you see, the house is becoming more and more a space to work, play, entertain yourself. How can HP be a part of that journey for everyone? Right? So I think data is getting very much personalized as well. So we place a lot of emphasis on security and making sure that we are not in a business of selling your data. That is not us. Right. So what we do is make sure that your data is secure.
And we are a company that it’s credible that you can trust your data with because you’re doing all this stuff at home. Right. And what we are trying to do in the next phase is because of inflation and all these things going on. There are so many macros out there, right? So God forbid that oil prices cross $100 per barrel. It has an impact on the consumer electronics devices market. Right. There are things going on in China and in Taiwan. So all that has an impact on us and the inflation that’s going on right now. Right. So here we’re looking at how do we provide bundled services and a subscription services for all our products and services so people don’t have to feel the pain to do an upfront payment.
So we are looking, listening to our customers as well, and we are trying to look at help them to come and create an environment where when they pick a laptop, they know, okay, this is the right headset or the mics and all these kind of stuff that goes along with it, which is optimized for the laptop that they buy and for the printers, too. Right. So instant ink is huge. I would highly recommend you all to get into instant ink. It’s not just a subscription model, it’s a great recommendation engine as well. And what it does is it gives you peace of mind. So it’s an auto replenishment model, wherein once it knows the levels of the in cartridges goes down, it automatically ships to you.
Luke Thomas:
The ink cartridges, you pay like $4 or $5 per month, and boom, it just comes to your thing so you don’t have to like, oh, my God, I forgot to buy my cartridges to print stuff. So I think those are the kind of areas where we have used AI for all that kind of services. So HP has been working on AI for a very long time. It’s just that the market is talking a lot about it now. So we’ve been doing it for a decade and oD.
Ellie:
Right. And your company is also, from what I know and personal experience, very user focused. You talked about listening to your customers and getting closing that feedback loop with your product teams. But how do you go about designing new products and services with the user in mind. So for instance, more accessible tools and more inclusive tools.
Luke Thomas:
Yeah, we have a great NPS score team. So they give us the inputs like what people want from the devices. And again, at the end of the mean though, we focus a lot on the design and how sexy needs to look at still people are still looking at can you give us more battery life, can you make it less heavy for us to go for conferences and all that. So I think there are all these other things that we look at, like can you make it affordable? And all that good stuff is there.
Ellie:
Sure.
Luke Thomas:
But end of the day, if you can give a laptop which lasts for three days without battery, oh my God. So those are the things which we are focusing on, trying to figure out how we can offload that compute. Because now with all this AI data models going on, it takes a lot of juice from your laptops, right? So you need to have it always on. So we are looking at ways how do you can offload that compute onto the edge services and then have a more better user experience on those laptops as well. So speaking with the design teams, speaking with the user experience teams, the business units, because we have something called long term planning as well. So we figure out okay, what’s the plan for the next twelve to 18 months?
And then my team is looking at things beyond that as well. So having that alignment, what I do in the future and those future trends need to align to what we’re doing right now as well. And educating our salesforce, right. Saying that hey, these are the things that’s going out right now because they need to channel that out to their customers at the end of the day. So we have a beautiful customer experience center in Palo Alto and Houston. Please do join and please do come. Always invited. So just to get our customers to know what’s going on over there, right. And see what the experience is like with the 3d printer, right? So a lot many people know that we have, this is one of our incubations which now has come called HX 3D. This is 3d printed keycaps. So it’s cute.
Cozy cats was the first one. Especially markets like in Asia and all they like to personalize, as you can see. I love personalizing my things as well with all these funny t shirts and whatnot. So people like to personalize, be unique, right? And I have my personalized mustache as well. So I think people like to be standing out and especially when you have your laptop or a gaming, especially gamers, they just want to be unique. They are not like when you go to the gaming room if no one says, wow, what a setup. That is a huge disappoint for them.
Ellie:
Right?
Luke Thomas:
So everyone’s focused on lighting, the furniture, the tables, the chair, apart from just so we are looking at all those aspects as well and creating. And again, when you kill somebody, then you have the red effect and all that stuff. So lighting plays a big role as well. So I think that is the kind of experience we are focused on, which traditionally, in the past, we’re like, hey, we just focus on the laptop, don’t focus on anything else. But now I think it’s a whole new experience as well.
Ellie:
Sure.
Luke Thomas:
So I think we have all these devices right now. It’s about how do you take advantage of these devices, even for notifications, right? Because these have all these RGB lights. Let’s say I’m playing too much of Minecraft or whatever, right? And then my lights go red because my mom is calling me up. So I need to pick up that phone call because I’m too immersed in the game. So those very subtle things, we can figure it out right now. We don’t have to do, like, crazy things little by little. Right? And those are the little things that really impact the users experience at the end of day.
Ellie:
Absolutely. And that’s such an important point. Anything from ergonomics to the look and feel of these devices, so much thought and effort and research are put into coming up with that I think a lot of people forget about. So we appreciate it. And one last question for you, Luke, before I let you go.
Luke Thomas:
All right.
Ellie:
If there was a theme song that would play every time you walked out, what would that song be?
Luke Thomas:
Theme song. I’m into trance music, Technotrans. It’s only music, so there’s no language. But I sing the song sometimes when things don’t go my way, which is. Give me hope, Joanna give me hope, Joanna. So that’s my kind of song. Inspiration song every day.
Ellie:
I love it. Mr. Earth Shaker. Thank you so much, Luke, for joining.
Luke Thomas:
Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Ellie:
Thank you. And that’s a wrap.
About Our Guest
Ellie is recording live from Future Festival in Toronto. She's speaking with multiple guests, including James McLeod from Mind Reader Media, Areizu Azerbai from Trendhunter, Auntie Heitanin from Op Lab, Giselle from Warner Brothers, and Luke Thomas from HP.
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