Beyond the Website: Acquisition Journey Research

NOTE: This is a raw transcript and contains grammatical errors. The curated transcript will be uploaded soon.

Joe Johnston: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Convex 2024. It’s my absolute joy and pleasure to be here today. My name is Joe.

I’m head of conversion at Launch Agency in the UK, and I’m joined by Hilda, who I’ll let her introduce herself.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Yes. Hi, everyone. Pleasure to be here. So my name is Hildur, and I am a product manager here at Icelandair.

Uh, been with Icelandair for the past 12 years, 12 years, uh, for the past three as a, as a product manager. But before I worked in, uh, in web management for, uh, I’ve really been working in, uh, in web management since 2001. So it’s been a long time, but happy to be with Icelandair and looking forward to have this conversation with you, Joe.

Joe Johnston: Yeah, absolutely. Same. Um, maybe let’s introduce the topic and we can talk about what we’re here to discuss today. So just as some context, I’ve had the great joy and pleasure of working with Icelandair for almost a year now.

We started working together as an agency back in January, and we’ve done lots of work together so far. Predominantly, we are working on behalf of Icelandair to help them with acquisition, so new customers and returning customers. But that means that we’ve been looking at both their paid advertising, but also their landing pages and the website. So we thought it would be a really interesting topic today to discuss the idea of doing research to help with the whole acquisition journey from when users online first see a digital advert, but also come onto the website via a landing page and then go through the booking journey.

So we’re going to talk about how we have been doing research to meet the needs of users across the whole acquisition journey. So, uh, that’s our, that’s our topic for today. And, um, so for our, for a little while, I will talk about some of the acquisition research we’ve been doing around the paid advertising, and then we’ll, we’ll dive into the website in a bit more detail, how, how does that sounds, Hilda, sound good.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Sounds great. Sounds like a plan. Sounds like a great plan.

Joe Johnston: Excellent. Okay, cool. So we’ll, um, we’ll start with the, with the first slide then. So I wanted to start with a little bit of context about how I see some marketing agencies and companies, uh, working and, and how that might be working against the user and not for the user.

And so this is about, uh, collaboration essentially. So. When we’re working in experimentation and CRO, sometimes we can get put into our own boxes. And those boxes sometimes look like the website and, and the paid advertising that happens on the other side.

I think this is a potentially something that happens by accident or because the incentives and the objectives and the goals of those two different teams are often Different. There can sometimes be for the paid advertising team, their objectives and goals are to get as many users as possible to the websites. And that’s where their job finishes. And then the objective and the goal of the web team is to help as many people who land on the website, achieve their goals.

And that sometimes that’s booking. Uh, sometimes that’s helping with the existing booking and that’s the goal. Traditionally, let’s say how most companies and businesses operates, and that’s a problem. I think I think it’s a problem because that’s not necessarily how customers see their own journey and how they view their own experience of the acquisition or rather how they go online and actually buy things and become sort of users of a product or a service.

So I think it’s. It’s about six, between six and eight touch points. I think that’s when, uh, what Google last, um, put out in their research, the number of interactions someone has before they buy something from you as a business. And often that involves lots of different touch points.

It can be an ad. On online. It could be Google search listing. It could be something on Meta or or Pinterest or many of the other advertising and social media platforms, but from the perspective of the user, that experience that goes from.

Adds to landing page happens in the blink of an eye. It’s really quick, and sometimes it can happen in as little as one, maybe two seconds, depending on your page load speed and which device you’re on. Um, so from the perspective of the user, the customer, that is one continuous experience. It’s not two different experiences.

And in that speed. If anything, it’s becoming more integrated over time. If you’re in platform on, for example, Instagram, you don’t leave the platform to go to the website. It happens, you know, the browser loads in platform.

So it really does feel like a seamless experience. So we have to start looking at these journeys as being one journey. And we have to, that needs to be reflected in the way that we organize ourselves, but also in the way that we do our research. So I believe, and I think what we’ve been doing.

With Iceland there is trying to join up the efforts of research across these two different disciplines, two different teams, so that we have a better understanding of how people are experiencing that acquisition journey. So, like I said, I think fundamentally, this is kind of a collaboration problem or a collaboration issue. And I know that I think this is something that we’ve experienced across different disciplines. Sectors and different industries.

So it’s not necessarily unique to one, uh, but perhaps e commerce and travel have higher, um, it’s more relevant to those different industries because of how most of those new customers come by those offers and those adverts and those experiences. So, yeah, so, uh, I thought I would talk a little bit about how we’ve been doing that together with Icelandair and some of the research we’ve done. So, um, yeah. This was something we did very recently, we did some research into how hmm.

coming across these ads on, for example, Facebook and Meta. So the examples you see on screen here are genuine adverts, genuine ads that, Users would be seeing on Facebook, and these are to advertise some of the flights that users can buy from Pittsburgh to Iceland. And these are just some examples of the kinds of ads that we might be showing. And what we wanted to find out was.

And what we, the objective of this research is to understand how people are reacting to them, what they, how this fits into their typical journey. Does it align with their goals, their fears, their uncertainties and doubts? So yeah, ultimately, how well, Are these ads aligned with the priorities and the challenges of the typical customer who might be considering buying a transatlantic flight to Europe? And sometimes that could be to Iceland, or it could be using a stopover in Iceland and then going to their final destination somewhere else in Europe.

So we are really keen to understand if there’s anything that is unclear, if there’s anything that it is. off putting or distracting? Is there anything that is still giving them anxiety or is unclear from from these adverts? And then lastly, and this is perhaps the most important thing is, is there anything or what is it that those users would expect to see next when they land on the landing page on the website?

This needs to be We need, we need to know this information because if there’s anything that users are expecting to see that is, is not on those landing pages, they then go to, we need to really think about whether we need to update those pages or if we are giving users the wrong expectations from the ads that we are showing them. So either the ad needs to change or the landing page needs to change if those expectations are unrealistic. So, um. What we did and what we, we will do more of, I believe in future is, is as a cyclical thing every now and then is we will show some examples, stimulus in the case of this is these were some ads to around about 10 target customers.

So users who were interested in booking a transatlantic flight in the near future. And we did interviews with those, those people, um, remote videos, and we were asking them a series of questions and showing them the stimulus to get their feedback. And we’ve got some really interesting results. Um, we don’t have a huge amount of time to go into every single, every single response we got back.

So we just cherry picked one or two of the most interesting ones and And actually, Hilda and I were talking about this response we got, which I think is so fascinating. Did you, um, want to share your thoughts on this one, Hilda?

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Yeah, we, we just found this really insightful. this, uh, conclusion enhances just our belief that, uh, authentic images always outperform Photoshopped or overly touched images. And we will keep that in mind going forward then. But we know, of course, And hopefully the world now knows that Iceland is incredibly beautiful, but it can’t look too incredible, you know, in the images that we are using in our, uh, marketing efforts, but, uh, we will really, um, keep this in mind, uh, going forward, even though we normally just, uh, use, uh, untouched images, but, um, in this case, maybe they were It was something there that we just have to, um, have to, uh, keep in mind going forward.

But it was really interesting to, to, to hear this and that people really had to comment on this, the images themselves. And how important they are.

Joe Johnston: I find it so interesting, like you say, because especially now this, there is more and more conversation and discussion and perhaps even controversy around how much AI is being used in the editing and the production of images for marketing purposes. There is some anxiety, I think, amongst consumers and people who are online that the images that they’re seeing are doctors or not real. And, uh, and so this isn’t actually the first time I’ve seen some feedback like this. I’ve seen something similar on another separate research project where the user said that this looks like it’s been made by AI.

And. Uh, that made them, um, not trust the brands, but also they said it makes, uh, it makes it feel like they’re, um, it looks like it was made actually more cheaply because it’s, it’s not very expensive to just come up with a, a prompt that will give, give you a, um, A realistic looking, or perhaps an AI generated looking image. Um, so perhaps there has been a bit of a response to this, and people are craving something that looks more authentic, and looks more original and believable. So yeah, it’s perhaps part of a trend that we’ll see.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: I think so. And people aren’t just in general, we just, everyone, like internet users, almost everyone today, everyone is a bit on guard with, uh, all images and videos. And at least we hope they are, because we just have to be, we always have to educate people that, you know, don’t believe everything you see and stuff like that. So, it kind of flows into, ads as well, of course, you know, so, um, I think it’s just, um, people are more on guard,

Joe Johnston: yeah.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: everything they see in general, I think.

Joe Johnston: Yeah, I completely agree. And perhaps, you know, this has given us the idea for, we have a hypothesis for an experiment we would like to run where we are providing two different creative image sets. One which is, let’s say, far more authentic or user generated. user generated appearance of it so that it looks potentially lower production value in terms of how it comes across, but again, looks less questionable in its authenticity because it is perhaps, um, it doesn’t look quite so, uh, touched up in editing, but there’s also, we, we talked about the idea that it would be quite a fun campaign to say that as Iceland there is almost too good to be true because it is.

Is amazing, you know, you know, um, which I think is a really fun, creative idea potentially for a campaign. Yeah. But so this was just one quote, right? So we, we got this feedback and then we also got loads of feedback, which was, um, around, uh, what people were expecting to see on the landing page.

So specific things in the itinerary, the costs or expected costs of flights and the cities that you’ll be able to fly to the timings of those flights. So all of this rich, uh, that will allow us to write, you know, um, user stories and requirements for those landing pages, uh, and give us a really detailed idea of what those people’s expectations are. And so this isn’t a one and done project. This is an ongoing iterative process, right?

So we hopefully we’ll do this. And then in a few months time, we might do it again, but this was, I found. You know, perhaps the most interesting comment we got back. So

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Yeah. Really.

Joe Johnston: Yeah.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Really good.

Joe Johnston: cool. So just quickly before I hand over to Hilda as well, I wanted to mention, and I, I don’t think that using air table is potentially anything new you won’t have heard of before, or, or it was too controversial, but I do think it’s important to flag that I don’t hear enough about. In the experimentation world, uh, ad testing as well as web testing. And here at launch, we’re really big believers in giving both of those, um, types of experiments and tests equal prominence.

And what we’ve done is we’ve created our own scoring system prioritization system for giving ad experiments a priority score so that we can give them a priority in. the backlog of tests that we want to run on Meta or on Google and whichever platform we’re using. And so those sit alongside our web tests that we want to run. And these different research projects that we do obviously immediately get fed into the backlog of, uh, of tests that we want to run across those different platforms .

So I, I last, My last point, I guess, would be that if you want to have the greatest effect on the customer experience, you shouldn’t just limit your experimentation to your website. And if you’re using something like BWO to do that, you should really be thinking about experimentation across the whole acquisition journey. So using the experimentation functionality within Meta and Google or whichever other advertising platform you’re using. So, um, that would be my plea, I guess, my takeaway.

I will, um, I will hand over to Hilda now.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: yeah, so maybe yes, maybe to begin with a little bit of a background for those who don’t know Icelandair So Icelandair is the flag carrier really of Iceland and has a strong, we have this strong and flexible hub and spoke network due to our It’s, we have this unique geographical position of Iceland being in the middle of, uh, uh, North America and Europe that gives us this ability to serve really four markets simultaneously to, from, via and within Iceland. And the Icelander website is extensive and we offer 14 different languages to serve all our markets. Um, we, um, maybe a little bit of the background of how we work.

We work, uh, with the product of, uh, product operating model, and we have here within digital products, uh, several, uh, product teams. Um, my team consists of, developers, designer, uh, scrum and qa, and as well as, uh, content specialists. And then we, get into our team subject matter experts, uh, just around the things that we’re working on, uh, each and every time. So my team is responsible for, uh, parts of our website, like the, the homepage and then other landing pages, whether they are informative or inspirational.

Um, it’s a very exciting, um, area that we are working in and, uh, everything that we do is data driven. And I, we have, uh, what we call a composable website. So we have a headless CMS system that gives us the opportunity to, um, to always be developing, you know, parts of our, of our website, like down to a button. We we’re always doing, we’re always deploying on our web.

We do deploys sometimes every day. Uh, and so we can always be looking into, you know, our, our, uh, the design and, um, and, uh, and really always be, we’re always optimizing the user experience. Um, so I think just in general to be, um, you know, always looking into into the future. It’s a tremendous value in that just to be improving the user experience, uh, with, um, that enhances his usability for a user that of course the users always on top of our mind.

Um, we always want to be updating our branding online. Then, uh, we to have this, uh, overall, uh, you know, our brand identity shows on the web as well as in everything else that we do. Um, the, uh, of course the enhanced performance, um, is super important. Uh, we have to, we, we want to keep the load times.

Always be on guard that that is super efficient for our users. Uh, the SEO, of course, performance is, uh, is important for everything we do. We’re always looking into having better analytics and insights to be able to take those data driven decisions on, uh, on what to work on. Um, and then of course, our end goal is always to increase our conversion rate.

We are an airline selling seats. So of course that is always something that we, uh, we have to keep in mind,

Joe Johnston: a question, Hilda, if you don’t mind me

Hildur Oskarsdottir: yeah, yeah.

Joe Johnston: tell us a bit about how your team is set up in terms of the research that you do? Did you mention that you’re, you’re depending on which project you might put in different expertise from around the business? How does that work?

Hildur Oskarsdottir: if we, of course I work with a roadmap a lot, uh, and our team, uh, has a prioritization there. So we have the, these, uh, just continuous discussions, of course, with our main stakeholders. And, uh, we try as possible to use this product thinking mindset, uh, and, but always with our customers in the first place. Uh, we use.

in our discovery work, uh, like the opportunity canvas from, from Jeff Patton and various other, uh, discovery models, um, that, uh, we have really been practicing on using to, to be able to, um, you know, Get proved that something on a roadmap should have more prioritization than others. But we also have, we have workshops here internally with all our stakeholders, where everyone gets to, you know, chip in and we discuss, you know, prioritization with, with everyone and, um, and have our means to do that. So, but it’s always, it’s this continuous discussion, like in my role as a product manager.

Uh, number one, two and three, you have to be, um, it’s this, it’s this, uh, continuous discussion with stakeholders to show. empathy and, always be, uh, revisiting what we have already been, uh, talking about and this continuous discovery work really, uh, uh, on, when we are then ready to go into development, uh, we have been maybe thinking about and working on gathering data and information about it for, for some time. Uh, but it’s, um, it’s an ever changing, it’s, it’s a discussion that’s always going on.

Joe Johnston: So there’s always, there’s always, uh, a different perspective you can get, right? That’s the thing is, uh, we’re always, always, always trying to, uh, triangulate the problems by doing lots of different types of research.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Yes. I’ll tell you a little bit more about our user research. Yes, please move on. And, uh, one of the things that we had, we used the, in the, uh, like to be able to get some good, uh, Insights from our customers.

What was what we did earlier this year. It’s a, it’s a method called top task analysis. I think it’s interesting to people for people to know about this. You can, you can Google top task analysis and get a lot of a lot of feedback there.

And, um, There is, uh, I think there’s also a book about this. Um, can’t remember the author, but, uh, uh, it’s easily, you can easily Google that. Uh, but, uh, the, the question that we wanted to get answers to was what would be the most important task and content, uh, that our users, that our users wanted to see on our homepage? Uh, we began to help workshops with all our stakeholders here internally to have, and the goal was to.

gather a list of tasks that people wanted to see. We also did one on one user interviews, um, here internally. So after all that work, uh, we had a task list of over 100 tasks that was then shortened down to, to 75. So it’s, it’s quite, it’s quite an amount of, of tasks.

And, uh, we took that list and sent out the survey. through our newsletter that I recommend that everyone signs up to. And we then asked, participants to prioritize the list to, to like, uh, choose top 10 tasks that they would want to see on our homepage. Uh, we got a really, really great, uh, response, uh, higher than we, we, we thought we would.

And, uh, after that, really, we, we had, we, we believe that we have reliable results that we can then work with. And it’s a really valuable insight going forward. So I would recommend this for everyone who is building up, uh, Either new website or, or, uh, or just want to have this continuous, uh, discovery on their current website.

Joe Johnston: Yeah, 100 percent sounds very valuable. My question would be, what, what was the biggest challenge that you faced during this project?

Hildur Oskarsdottir: It was probably that people initially thought like, okay, nobody’s going to participate in this. It’s way too much because you know, it’s a, it’s a survey. We, we only had one or two questions like for background. It wasn’t, it wasn’t long, yeah, it was one or two questions.

And then this task list and, and people here internally were skeptical that anyone would like bother or have the, you know, time to go through all this, but we had, but we had a really, really good response though. And, uh, we had, uh, it, it helped probably that we had a, a pretty generous, uh, we had like, if you participate, uh, you get a reward.

Joe Johnston: Ah, good.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: gave them, yeah, we had the incentive. We, we gave out some frequent flying points to, to, um, um, yeah, as a reward. So I think that’s, that’s also help. I would recommend that as well.

I think that’s really crucial.

Joe Johnston: 100%. Yeah.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: this out to those who had already signed up for our newsletters. Newsletters of people are then probably interested in, you know, the products and what we offer. So that’s also, I would think, would be helpful. You’re interested in the area already.

Joe Johnston: Yeah, exactly. They’re already, they already have high intent. Uh, don’t know. So yeah, that’s

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

Joe Johnston: Very interesting.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: So, Yeah. So if we then maybe move on to the next slide, just in general, I want to tell you about what we have been doing, um, with user interviews, but we really want to, um, make user interviews really part of our DNA. We know it is super helpful and it’s also just really important to be in this continuous discussion with our, uh, users. So we made a real effort of.

Going out of the office, I can tell you that is, it is an effort, you know, book the time slot, the day we’re going out, out, of the office

Joe Johnston: Yeah. Out of the comfort zone.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: out of the comfort zone. And, and to begin with, it is, a bit difficult, but then somehow you get the hang of it. And we went and we met our customers at airports. We both have, uh, we, we have this international airport here in Iceland at Keflavik.

We, we went there for a, for a whole day. All of the product teams, uh, in fact. And, uh, we had this whole day there, but then we have been going just like on a, on a Friday for a couple of hours on our like domestic airport that we have here, just, it’s very close to our offices here and, um, And then also we’ve been going to hotels here in Reykjavik, uh, where we know that there are, uh, you know, tourists, visitors that have been flying in. Um, so we’ve been having, we’ve just, uh, asked people, uh, kindly to participate and we’ve had really good, good, uh, response to that.

We have used, uh, Figma. To show, uh, design and we have had like clickable, uh, prototypes. We’ve also, uh, had just like blueprints. And, uh, so not like a finalized design, um, and, we’ve just, uh, asked this, uh, people who, who have wanted to participate to, uh, to, uh, perform some assignment.

We’ve monitored, uh, their feedback written all down. We’ve had like, we had previously then, uh, Um, prepared a list of questions, um, to have some comparison, of course, uh, from the answers. And also what I wanted to, um, emphasize that we have gone out with like, uh, not only like product managers like myself. But more of the team members from the, my product team.

So, uh, a developer, a content architect, a content specialist, uh, a designer, and the, and the picture that you see there is Susanna taking note. She’s a developer. She’s taking the notes and, uh, the man that sits there also is our designer and, uh, we have this participant there looking at the screen. So this is at Keflavik airport earlier this year.

So we’ve just been setting up some kind of a Working station. Yeah. We just use the facilities that we get every time. But the, the amount of data and insight that you get from this is so important.

And also like for a developer who is writing code all day that he or she actually realizes that there are actual users that are using the code that they’re writing and really, really also important for the designer and the content specialist to, to, you know, to hear firsthand what the user is experiencing.

Joe Johnston: I was going to jump in just because it’s so rare these days to see this kind of in real life face to face. Testing. I think some people call it guerrilla testing, which makes it sound far cooler than it really is. But it’s, um, but because of many different factors, the availability of users online COVID was a big driver, uh, costs, but virtual remote testing has pretty much become the norm these days to do.

quickly and cheaply, um, and especially doing it asynchronously. So you, you’ve set the tasks and then watch the playback of the video rather than doing it at the same time, uh, life and the benefits of doing it face to face. I actually, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Um, I, what I imagine is that you pick up a lot more signals that you might not get if you were doing it online.

Body language is a big one, facial expressions, um, uh, you can probably even better see where people are looking and what they’re missing. And you get the opportunity to ask follow up questions that you might not get to if you were doing it virtually and it was a recorded session. So, yeah, I mean, what, what do you, what are the benefits that you see out some of those?

Hildur Oskarsdottir: definitely. And, and I believe, you know, don’t get me wrong. I believe that mixed methods are really good if you can to do, to do both, um, you know, online and, and in person. Um, but I have to also mention, uh, I read this book called the mom test, the book by, uh, Rob Fitzpatrick.

Uh, it’s a really, uh, you know, it’s a very practical book. It’s not long. You can also listen to it. It’s really, he, um, he’s reading it himself.

Uh, and, uh, it really opened my eyes. Also after doing some interviews where we had, as I said, uh, like a set of questions. Um, but this book, like, it helps you step out of, you know, The questions and just listen to people and dig into real needs to get like honest answers and genuine data. And you have to make, like, if you’re asking, it’s like, when you’re asking your mom, do you think it’s a great idea to do that?

And your mom will always tell you the truth. No, it’s not great. I would never use this. And, and just maybe ask questions like, uh, the last time you uh, booked a flight with an airline, you know, Do you remember, was there anything that, uh, seemed odd or, uh, did you, did you have anything that, uh, came up that you remember, you know, just very open questions that maybe takes people a bit back on, on their experience that they had maybe last, you know, some time ago.

It like, it, it, it takes you a little bit out of the conversation. I think that, but, and this is something that is much easier to do in person, I think, than, than online.

Joe Johnston: Exactly you can you can build potentially more of a rapport more of a relationship, even though it’s only a short one. You can probably build a bit more connection with the person who you’re speaking to. So you

Hildur Oskarsdottir: casual, you know, yeah.

Joe Johnston: exactly. Yeah,

Hildur Oskarsdottir: I think so. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s at least a refreshing look on, on, on, on doing user interviews. And, uh,

Joe Johnston: it’s so awesome there. I would say are in the fortunate position of having a potentially unlimited number of potential participants for this kind of test testing on the doorstep. There are some companies out there who would do anything to have that. Some people, you know, B2B businesses, potentially you have very small, specific users, you know, that could be C suite or people who are very hard to reach or very hard to contact, uh, they would, uh, and for them, research like this would be great.

Desperately expensive because to, to find those people and then get them in a room. So, uh, the fact that you’re taking advantage of that, it’s brilliant. And a hundred percent is the right thing. And any other company that has that is in that fortunate position to have the, the, the target market within reach should be doing this.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Yeah, it is easy for us, I must admit. We just like book a time slot, like it’s, it’s like a, it’s like a meeting slot and we really want to also just, I would just have it, you know, I’m not saying we’re not perfect and it’s not happening every single week, but I would want, um, like, um, Like to have at least an hour every week where we could do user interviews in, in some sort in, in, with some method. It is super important. And, uh, but of course we have always this continuous feedback from our customers through, uh, we always send out a post flight survey.

We measure our CSAT and our MPS score. And of course we always follow those measures, but, uh, Just this to, to, to get us out of the office with those who are actually building the products for our customers. It’s so valuable, but, um, we always have to, as I said, is this one of the points that are on the slide too? We always have to make sure that we revisit the desired outcome.

We know we would never go out unless we like, what is it that we want to get from this? A session that we’re going out with today. And, uh, Teresa Torres, who is, uh, who is, uh, is like one of the product leaders who has, uh, really, uh, has written a lot about product teams and has a really good book that I can recommend called Continuous Discovery Habits. She says like, uh, we aren’t, we shouldn’t be doing research for research sake.

We have, we’re doing research so that we can serve our customers in a way that creates value for our business. And that’s, we, we, we can never forget that, uh, as well. And, uh, and also, also we, we, we try to get, we, we get external help to dive deeper, like from, from, from you guys, Joe and, and, and others. But I always want to emphasize that we have to always.

The team here internally, we always have to learn along the way. And if possible, it would be always great to have someone from our team, you know, being hands on with those user interviews that we, um, um, that we outsource.

Joe Johnston: Yeah, fundamentally, it comes, it kind of comes back to that point around collaboration, doesn’t it? It’s making sure that there are, we hear a lot about being customer centric and customer focused, but the way that we organize ourselves in business is mostly to do with operations and how we, uh, how it’s most sensible to organize, but we should never forget that we’re serving. The customer and they should be our focus. And that includes, like you said, making sure people who are far away from the front line, that they get to speak to people who are using the service as well, to remind them of how it benefits them and how they, uh, what they think and how they, um, So I’m very conscious that we’re almost running out of time.

I think our limits are around about 40 minutes and you’ve mentioned a couple of books already, which sound brilliant and I’ve not read before. So I’m going to add them to my list.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Yes.

Joe Johnston: so I’m going to mention a quick couple before we go. The first one is a bit of a. Core text of the world of CRO and experimentation. So I highly doubt that this will be new to anyone, uh, but it’s experimentation works, the surprising power of business experiments by Stefan Tompki.

I hope I’m pronouncing the second name correctly. Uh, and that’s a fantastic book around how experimentation in business. At any level can be really impactful. And then also I, uh, my second recommendation is it’s a little bit off topic, but in the spirit of travel and exploration, I thought I would recommend one of my favorite books of the last couple of years, which is called Kings of the Yukon and Alaskan Riven Journey.

And it’s by a travel writer called Adam Weymouth. And if you’re, if you’re interested in Canada, if you’re interested in North America, and, uh, Um, Alaska and the, the wilds that they have in Alaska and, and how, um, some of the communities there are being disrupted by climate change. It’s an incredibly fascinating book. So, um, that’s my other recommendation.

Do you have any others?

Hildur Oskarsdottir: yeah, I would want to mention, I mentioned Jeff Patton earlier, and I would really want to, uh, recommend his, uh, book on, uh, user, uh, it’s, uh, it’s called the users, the user story mapping. Yes. And, uh, user story mapping, I really recommend. And, uh, books, uh, from Marty Kagan, Inspired, Empowered, and Transform.

I really want, that’s like, uh, uh, fundamental books in product, uh, for product managers and those who are interested. And, uh, yeah, really want to recommend that, uh, on, uh, just in my spare time. And when I, I really have to mention the, the, um, It’s the Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley. It’s just a, if you want to forget everything and go into another world.

Joe Johnston: Escapism. Your escapism.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: um, yeah, actually that’s, that has been my escapism. Finished them all. But yeah, it’s been super interesting. It was really nice to have this conversation with you Jo and participate in this event.

Joe Johnston: Yeah. Thank you so much. And yeah, I completely agree. It’s been really lovely catching up and looking forward to all the research we’re going to do in future together.

So, um, thanks everyone for watching.

Hildur Oskarsdottir: Thank you.