February 24, 2025 • 44 mins
On this episode of Human Centered, host Nick Brunker welcomes Dave Altis, Chief Experience Design Officer at VML, to explore the future of websites. As AI and Web3 technologies rapidly evolve, they discuss the limitations of current platforms and the impending shift towards agent-driven, hyper-personalized experiences. Dave shares insights on how brands can navigate this transition, from embracing AI-powered content delivery to designing for emotional connection in an increasingly automated world. They discuss the changing expectations of consumers and the role of storytelling in the age of AI. Get ready to rethink the future of websites and how they'll shape the way we interact with brands online.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nick Brunker (00:02):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to Human Centered. I'm
Nick Brunker, a managingdirector of experience strategy
at VML, and your host for theshow. Thanks for giving us a
listen. Today, we're diving intoa fascinating topic, the future
of websites. As technologyevolves at a breakneck pace, the
way we have interacted and willinteract with brands online is
constantly shifting.
(00:22):
This creates an interestingtension. How do we leverage the
power of AI in emergingtechnologies to create
innovative and personalizedexperiences while still
maintaining the human connectionthat is so vital to brand
relationships? To help usnavigate this landscape, I am so
thrilled and thankful to welcomein Dave Altus, who is our chief
experience design officer atVML. Dave is a leading expert in
(00:45):
experience design and has a deepunderstanding of how emerging
technologies are shaping ourdigital world. Together, on this
show, we're gonna explore thelimitations of current
platforms, the state of play inweb, the influence of AI in web
three, and the ever changingexpectations of consumers.
We'll also get into how brandscan leverage these trends to
create meaningful and impactfulexperiences on web. Dave, so
(01:09):
glad to have you. Welcome to theshow. Thanks for joining us.
Dave Altis (01:12):
Nick. Oh my god. We've been waiting to do this
for so long. Thank you forhaving me. I'm so pumped for
this.
Let's get into it. I love it.
Nick Brunker (01:18):
Let's do it. For those that haven't had a chance
to meet you yet, just give me aquick, you know, thirty seconds
on Dave and what you do at VMLand what your background is.
Dave Altis (01:26):
Nick, as you mentioned, I'm one of our chief
experience design officers, andI have been with VML since
02/2004. And if you go back thatfar in our history, that was
really at the beginning. Almostall we did at VML were website.
So I'm fortunate enough to haveseen this epic evolution in how
platforms have evolved, howpeople consume this content has
(01:47):
evolved, how we as an agencyhave adapted to delivering these
experiences. And so I just thinkit's one of the most exciting
times as we look forward, youknow, one, three, five, ten
years from now and howtechnology and AI are gonna
start influencing everythingthat we do.
And in all honesty, completelyturn over the pond. Everything
(02:08):
is gonna change. Everything thatwe know is gonna change. And so
it's our job now to make surethat our client partners are
ready for that change. It'sgonna be cool.
It's gonna be big, and it'sgonna be hard.
Nick Brunker (02:20):
And I was talking with, Brian Yamada, who's one of
our chief innovation officersfor those listening to the show
and haven't heard that episode.It's a great episode, and we
were we're kind of likening thisthis time that we're in to the
early days of the Internet,where you you knew something was
coming and and coming with aforce, but you really couldn't
put your finger on, alright.Well, how is this actually going
(02:41):
to play out? And I think nowthat we've gone through that
first cycle of evolution, we'rein that that same sort of
feeling like this is this is agame changer. This is not just a
a a small stair step forward.
This is this is a rapid andreally large leap. So given all
of the changes and the thetechnology advancements and the
expectations of customers, youknow, coming out of that. How
(03:03):
would you describe the currentstate of the industry as it
relates to websites?
Dave Altis (03:07):
Oh, man. That's a that's a big question with a a
bigger answer, I think. I lovedin the early days, I got into
the .com when we were handcoding pages, and they were
being delivered over dial up,and every page had to have no
more than a 30 k page wait.Times have changed so much.
Content management systems andbig platforms like the Adobe
Cloud didn't exist at the time.
(03:29):
And so everything we did wasmagic. We were wizards, and it
was just amazing. But at the endof the day, everything was just
a brochure. And we moved intoFlash. Flash allowed us to
deliver these really engagingexperiences that happened at the
same time that we were gettinginto DVD interfaces and CD CD
ROM experiences, and everythingwas a lot more contained within
(03:51):
the real estate of the viewport.
And then here comes enterprisewebsites, companies that really
saw the value of having theselarge repositories. And, you
know, that's where advertisingwas driving people, Nick. Mhmm.
You'd go in and see an ad. Thefirst place you would go is to
the.com to get a little bit moredetail.
I actually still think that'svery, very true today. And
that's ironic because how manytimes have I walked the halls of
(04:14):
our own agency and and haveheard people say, man, websites
are dead. They're irrelevant.And I I would have to agree that
in many ways, that's a truestatement. They have become
irrelevant.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna throw adart at something that I both
love and I hate, and that is thedesign system and the platforms
that deliver these systems. Whydo I love those? I love them
(04:37):
because they came on with apromise of global website
governance and efficiencies forthe content delivery at these
epic enterprise scales. I mean,shoot. Many of the clients that
we work with have upwards of750,000 discrete pages on their
website.
So you need you need anenterprise level platform to
(05:00):
manage all that stuff. Thereason I hate them, though, is
they have become thisrestrictive albatross, a monkey
on the back of all of ourclients. And now what we're
seeing is it's very hard toevolve, and it's very hard to
change. And we end up, I think,I'm gonna use the analogy of
polishing brass. Hey.
Nick, brass is a beautifulmetal. When it's polished, It's
(05:21):
still brass that doesn't hold alot of value. Mhmm. So we get
into a lot of these optimizationmodes. Our website gets a little
tarnished.
Our brass gets a littlefingerprint on it. So we'll
optimize it. We'll move thebutton a little bit. We'll see
if we can optimize the the clickthrough rates of this flow just
a little bit better. Mhmm.
And we've gotten into polishingbrass over and over. The problem
(05:41):
is it's still brass. At somepoint, we're gonna need to smelt
that down, and we're gonna needto go to a whole new metal. And
we're gonna need to upgradethese experiences big time. But
it's almost too difficult.
These platforms are too big, andwe've invested too much money in
them. Mhmm. And therein lies theproblem. And therein, we're at
this fulcrum right now where theindustry is gonna force change.
(06:03):
It's gonna force a lot of thosesystems to be torn down.
Nick Brunker (06:06):
So we think about Web three and, you know, the
injection of all these new theAI functionalities. We talked,
in previous episodes about, youknow, agentic AI where agents
can become kind of a part ofpeople's lives. And and even
you're seeing it in, you know,traditional Google searches. If
you, you know, are asking aquestion, it'll pop up an AI,
(06:27):
generative response to theanswer for your question along
with all the links. Talk aboutthe implications of Web three
and all of those new immersivetechnologies as it relates to
the future of websites, but alsodirectly the the role that you
play, thinking about what doesthe experience look like and and
feel like.
How do you design those sorts ofthings in that world?
Dave Altis (06:46):
Man, we're going back to the days we used to say
content is king, and I thinkwe're heading back to those days
very quickly because ofeverything you just described.
Mhmm. Think about a websitetoday. We are we are in this
mode where I see anadvertisement. I see something
that compels me to to go toa.com.
I land on a relatively staticexperience. Yeah. Yes. There may
be video. Yes.
(07:06):
There may be some interactivity.But at the end of the day, what
we've been doing as designersfor decades is UI polish and
then UX organization. We'reorganizing these hundreds of
thousands of pages into somekind of a labeling and taxonomy
schema to help people do what?Forage through a navigation
until they hopefully find whatthey're looking for. Mhmm.
(07:29):
It's still a very passive andstatic experience. And you know
what? I was talking to one ofour colleagues and one of my
best friends, Eric Looney, andhe had this great quote. And
that is that the web is beingdeconstructed and reformed
because people are bored. Andthat's exactly it.
Websites are dead becausethey're boring. They're just
these giant archives of contentthat we're asking people to sift
(07:52):
through. Mhmm. Along comes AI.ChatGPT revolutionized things,
and we're seeing people movingmore and more of their search
behaviors into AI.
And that has a dramatic impactinto all of the other facets of
how we deliver on web, theperformance content, the SEO and
SEM, the organization of thesites themselves, and how we're
(08:13):
tagging that content. At somepoint, very soon, we're gonna
start to see AI speaking to theAI on these websites, and
there's gonna be a lot moreautomation. And this is where
Web three comes in, a lot lesscentralization of these contents
sitting on a website as itstands today. And so with Web
(08:33):
three, I think we're gonna seemore and more evolution of these
agents and brand agents that aregonna sit in the middle and will
be engaging with these agentswho then go out and pull that
content forward into a morerelevant and timely experience.
And, Nick, I think I think thisis three years out.
(08:54):
This isn't a long time.
Nick Brunker (08:56):
Right.
Dave Altis (08:57):
AI for sure today is not what we think it is, which
is the scientific sci fi versionof it. Skynet's not quite there.
AI is not quite there. But soon,brother, soon, we're gonna see
that kind of advancedintelligence in these
ecosystems, and I can't wait forit.
Nick Brunker (09:15):
So in that mindset, though, how can brands
navigate the transition? Becauseif you think about the pathway
from where we are now and youkinda talk the state of play to
where we may be in the next fewyears, where you are seeing, you
know, AI to AI discussions.Customer's still gonna want what
the customer wants, answers toquestions, being able to
actually achieve whatever theirjobs to be done are. And if web
(09:38):
is the the the landing place forfor something or maybe, you
know, the the technology thatthat they use to get the answers
to those questions. As somebodywho's kind of building the
experience potentially from theground up, if you you you see an
analogy of melting it down to toreform, how do brands navigate
that transition?
Dave Altis (09:58):
I think you have to start prepping a lot of those
foundational things. Forexample, privacy is a big deal
right now. Privacy with cookies,you know, being becoming
obsolete very quickly. Mhmm.What replaces these ways of
authenticating people?
AI is gonna play a role withthat, but the first thing we
have to do is we have to startthinking about how do we get
(10:21):
privacy compliance withoutauthentication and without
cookies, and that's gonna forceclients into thinking about, you
know, zero or first party data.Mhmm. And that's probably gonna
happen through, like, loyaltyprograms or when I'm starting to
get these relationships evolvedwith these AI assistants that
will handle some of that, cookiebased knowing who you are and
(10:45):
what you're into, and then itwill, again, talk out to these
websites. So, again, a lot of itis that foundational stuff that
we need to do with the contentand the content design so that
we can be ready for AI as itcomes. The second thing is is,
one of our partner agencies herein the WPP network is GroupSJR.
(11:06):
I think they are poised with oneof the next evolutions of how to
engage with web content at an AIlevel. And they've got a product
that is relatively new to marketcalled GX Manager, generative
experience manager. And it is anAI overlay to a website that
sits in an iframe today, but itwill continue to evolve to be
(11:27):
even more integrated. Mhmm. Andit basically trains itself on
all of those discrete pages ofthe site.
And so now your way of engagingwith that content without
necessarily throwing awayeverything you have today, it'll
index all that, and you have amuch more chat GPT style
interface, and it's pulling backexperiential content based on
(11:51):
what you're querying. That'sgonna continue to evolve. Like I
said, AI isn't quite where weneed it to be to be, perfect and
seamless, but our network has atour hand at our fingertips this
amazing new tool. That's gonnabe a step change into where we
get truly agentive AI assistantdriven.
Nick Brunker (12:12):
So in the design process, as somebody who kinda
takes the the the strategicbriefs and kind of, you know,
fuses the the ultimateexperience around the brief and
ultimately the, the businessobjective that that sits above
it, It's gonna change a lot ofthe process on how you would
think about creating the typesof content, the images, the
(12:33):
copy, ultimately, the, you know,customer journey throughput.
It's keeping it obviouslycontained within websites for
now, but the whole way of doingwork in your world changes when
you think about that future,doesn't it?
Dave Altis (12:48):
Absolutely. You know, we've been dealing with
atomic design for a long timenow at the design system level.
Again, there's value in thedesign system. We think about
the small pieces that getassembled. Atomic content is
also something that's notnecessarily new, but that's
gonna be more and more valuable.
And how we tag those contentsnippets, These content
(13:09):
fragments are gonna be more andmore valuable because those are
the things that are gonna bedelivered into these more
relevant AI experiences. And,again, if you think about the
evolution of AI and theconnection of that AI into
wearables, which is gonna helpthat AI understand where I am
and start to be contextual. Isaw a beautiful prototype done
(13:30):
by another agency that I willnot name, but I'm jealous of it,
where they were prototyping outan experience where they were
surfing through social media,and they found a look that they
liked. And they were able tocircle the look and then feed
that look into a brand agent.The brand agent was then able to
(13:51):
compile based on its productoffering different fit ensembles
that would match that, ask theperson if they wanted that put
into their cart, yes or no.
And in this case, it just sohappens that that, was a sport.
And so it was able to then say,I also noticed that you're at
this location. Do you wanna goplay golf? And if so, I'll book
(14:13):
you this appointment at the golfclub. I'll have this outfit
delivered to your hotel so youcan see how everything is
connecting.
That's the dream. Can we do thattoday? No. Can we do that in
five years? Most likely.
And so we never went to awebsite. We never went to a
website, but the agent wasbranded.
Nick Brunker (14:31):
I'm gonna pull on that thread for a minute because
you're talking about a wearable.And then you think about what we
have probably been, you know,asked at nauseam over the years,
which is, well, how's this gonnatranslate mobile first? And I
feel like we're also in aninteresting time where, you
know, mobile first is iscertainly still very much the
(14:51):
state of play. But even as we'rerecording this episode coming
off of, the Super Bowl and yousaw the commercials for those
meta glasses that are arebecoming a little bit more
mainstream now that they've donethe splash of the Super Bowl ad.
Wearables were still feelinglike a a little clunky, a little
future facing, and not not quiteready for prime time.
(15:14):
Do you suspect that, like, whenwe think about the future of web
design, that we're going to morerapidly expand outside of, yeah,
I gotta do the desktop designand all the different screen
variations that come with that.Yes. I've gotta do the mobile
design and all the potentialscreen variations of that. But
getting into that next layer andthat maybe next evolution of AR
(15:36):
where wearables, you know, howdoes somebody, interact with
the, quote, unquote, web whenthey're not on a phone or
they're not on a desktop? Doesthat cross your mind at all as
you you get into this nextphase?
Dave Altis (15:49):
It totally does. And that's, again, where this atomic
content idea is gonna be evenmore relevant. But when you
think about getting rid of thescreens and the wearables and
the on location, you know, we'rethinking a lot about the
screenless experiences. Youknow, at what point do we stop
designing in the viewport? Now,again, are we close to that?
(16:10):
Yes. Is that something we haveto worry about even in the next
five years? Probably not.Another interesting story. We
were doing some brand newconcepts for a new client.
Traditional mode, let's deliverthree concepts. Two of the
concepts were pushing theenvelope. They were much more
experiential. They were stilldesktop and mobile and tablet,
but they were a lot more,breaking the molds of what a
(16:33):
design system would allow us todo under normal design systems.
Mhmm.
The third one was verystructured, very rigid. We had
components. We were puttingpictures in boxes. It was very
familiar. We almost didn't showthat one because it was too
commodity.
It was too much of what'sexpected. Guess which one the
client bought? They bought thatone, and they literally told us
(16:56):
we bought this because werecognize it. And so for us to
get to this next level, we'regoing to have to get a lot of
people who don't like change toembrace change and whole new
ways of doing it. Now we as anagency struggle with this
because a lot of our clientswanna be followers.
We don't have that many thattruly wanna be leaders and be
(17:17):
the first to do something. And Iand I understand that. You know?
These are giant companies thatTotally. That answer up to Wall
Street at the end of the day,and they need performance.
But they're the ones that aregonna be the furthest behind if
we can't help them get poisedtoday for these kind of changes.
Nick Brunker (17:33):
So imagine you're somebody listening to this show
who works for one of those thoselarge companies and is trying
to, you know, inject some ofthat, you know, startup like
mentality or the more scrappy,nimble, Let's test some of these
uncharted waters. What advicewould you give to somebody who's
in that that sort of, anenvironment who is passionate
(17:54):
and excited and maybe, like theexample you gave, seize the
value, but is is running upagainst the realities of I'm in
a huge organization, and it justtakes a long time. How how would
you respond to that, or whatwhat advice might you give them?
Dave Altis (18:07):
I think you actually said it in in that setup, and
that is they've gotta pilot somestuff. Metrics matter,
performance matters, resultsmatter. So we need to look for
strategic opportunities to pilotthese initiatives in more
controlled environments. Andonce we do that, we can then
prove out the value and thenpull that back into the system
(18:27):
and say, this is really working,and we should start to scale
that up. Scale is gonna beimportant after we test it in
these controlled environments.
Nick Brunker (18:35):
VML, has, like, the microcosm of of touching the
entire journey and ends of brandexperience, commerce, and
customer experience all kind ofworking in concert when it's at
its at its peak and at its best.What I find fascinating is that
juxtaposition behind thefunctional and exciting
immersive like experiences thattry to provide customers, no
(18:59):
matter where they are in theirjourney and balancing that with
the emotional connection, thestorytelling. And what I'm I'm
not really wrestling with theconcept of agentic AI and then
future web experiences that arereally powered by these these,
you know, assistantsessentially. But how do you
(19:19):
wrestle with the idea that ifthe web is evolving to something
like that, where there is a, youknow, an emotional aspect to
buying products and, you know,looking for brands to connect
with, etcetera, but there'sstill, like, I'm coming to a
place more often than not, atleast in in the more traditional
commerce world, to solve aproblem, buy a thing so I can do
(19:43):
a thing. And losing that thatemotional connection when you're
not doing the traditionalbrowsing and absorbing of
storytelling if it is soagentic.
How do you maintain thoseemotional connections in a
future where you you weresuggesting it's gonna be super
efficient, efficient as hell,but maybe less emotional. I'm
(20:05):
not sure if that's the realityof where we'll be, but I'm I'm
curious about how you see thattension.
Dave Altis (20:09):
It's interesting these agents and in that little
prototype I shared with youearlier with the, the fit and
the Mhmm. That was based on asports agent, and the sports
agent had a personality. So theemotion was in engaging with
this relatively humanesqueagent, and and the emotion was
there. The way it spoke to youwas there. You know, text to
(20:30):
voice is getting smoother andsmoother and more and more real.
And the more it personalizes andunderstands and learns you as
its human, I think it's gonna bevery easy to maintain that as a
brand representing agent, ifthat makes sense. Mhmm. So
that's gonna be reallyinteresting. And is it gonna be
(20:52):
scary? Yeah.
Probably. You know, it's funnyto go on going back together.
We're not there yet. So we stillhave to think about and you and
I deal with this a lot in ourday jobs. At what point do you
dial up experience versus dialup efficiency and task based,
and let's get the informationquickly, and let's let's get the
sale quickly and get themthrough the shopping cart.
(21:13):
We deal with that every singleday. Here's what we know. People
still are emotional decisionmakers, and there is absolutely
a time when it's very relevantto get in there. I know what I
want. I just need to look at thefeatures, pick my features, and
then buy now.
There's absolutely a role forthat, and that'll be handled
maybe a little different, alittle bit more conversational
(21:35):
as these agents start to becomemore and more part of the
system. But right now, we haveto know where they are in the
buying journey. If I'm still inthe mode of being sold, then we
need to be very emotional, andwe need to storytell. Mhmm. We
need to get in there and letthem see that product and feel
that product.
And at the end of it, bedrooling because they want that
(21:56):
product. Then they're ready topick their features and buy now.
We have too many clients thatforget about that emotional
part, and they feel like theadvertising does that job. It
doesn't. The advertising piquescuriosity.
It's a spark. It's our job whenthey come into our digital
ecosystems to close the dealthrough emotion so that they
(22:17):
will then convert.
Nick Brunker (22:19):
If you take that a step further and say, alright.
You've peaked my interest. Icome to the website in whatever
form, mobile, desktop, orotherwise, and you're starting
to storytell a little bit. Wementioned the the fact that in
a, you know, cookie less worldor a place where zero and one p
data is gonna be, you know,basically the currency of the
(22:39):
future in terms of personalizingexperiences. How do you, in this
current moment, as we progressinto the, you know, the fast
paced new world that we're we'rekind of, provoking thought on
right now, going beyond the,well, it's just the quiz.
Because just asking somebodywhat they want seems like a
relatively easy thing to do.Like, let's infer where we can
(23:02):
and signal, but as signalsbecome harder to infer outside
of just asking, hey. What whatare you looking for? It's hard,
and it's a challenging thing.And then, you know, you layer on
the fact that how do you designsomething that is not just
another quiz, but still resonantand still certainly driving
emotional excitement andconnection?
(23:22):
To take me through some of thattension because that's something
that we're facing, you know, inour day jobs right now. How do
you design something that isable to give the the AI engine
such as it exists today enoughto go on without just saying,
answer these four questions, andwe'll give you what you want.
You know what I mean?
Dave Altis (23:40):
That might be the hardest question I've ever been
asked.
Nick Brunker (23:45):
Could you just solve that for us?
Dave Altis (23:48):
Yeah. I I don't know. It's so funny. Right now,
we're confined by linearengagements. I land on a page.
I come from a certain location.I land on a page. Mhmm. And then
we have some kind of anexperience. And that experience
you know?
I think about recently Acura. Ihad a fantastic quiz where the
(24:11):
advertising drove through it,and the whole quiz was themed
around meditation and wellness.So when you landed there, the
experience itself was extremelymeditative. You had sight,
sound, imagery, and it was thiscomplete experience. But it was
a quiz.
And I remember our own teamdiscussing that, and I'm like,
oh, guys. This is great. This isamazing. And I remember people
(24:32):
going, it's just a quiz. Yeah.
It is. And that's what we've gottoday is we still have to work
inside that box. And so we stillhave the old tools at our
disposal of sight, sound, andengagement. At the end of the
day, we were still quizzing theywere still quizzing in order to
get to, an archetype of persona,which was nothing more than
(24:55):
guided selling. Right?
Mhmm. So how do we start to dothat? I think, again, that's
where as these agents get moresophisticated and more
integrated into our lives andour behavior, they're gonna be a
lot more predictive. Now doesthat mean that when they start
pulling things back intowhatever query I do that it's
going to be are they gonna pullback that same accurate quiz? I
(25:16):
don't know.
I don't know if that's I don'tknow if that'll ever happen. Are
things gonna get much smaller inthese little bites? And the
experience is the agentinteraction itself, not the
content that it pulls back. Sothat'll be interesting. Are we
gonna lose the development ofthese truly dynamic stories
through video and motion andinteractivity?
(25:37):
And and now that experience isgonna be how I'm engaging with
the agent. And is that gonna beour next step of evolving? Mhmm.
Because, of course, you can seehow voice is gonna be a big part
of that. I'm now speaking to thewebsite, and no longer will I be
clicking through a contentforaging path.
Yeah. Who knows how that's gonnaplay out? But right now, we're
still confined with, let's doquizzes. Let's do interactive
(26:01):
things. Glasses are gonna becool as they evolve, but still
they're gonna be limited rightnow.
Show me the weather. Identify aperson.
Nick Brunker (26:09):
Mhmm. And I think those are the utilitarian things
like I mean, we were talkingagain not to to hearken back to
the episode with Brian Yamada.He was at CES. The idea that,
you know, you have computervision attached to basically a
poll for those who are sightimpaired and, you know, between
the the haptics as well as thecomputer vision, it can guide
somebody who has, you know, asight impairment through a
(26:31):
crowded room to get to thebathroom. Because now you're
you're layering thesetechnologies together in order
to create ultimately a solutionand a tool that helps the human
good.
And in this case, a a limitationthat they have that may no
longer be a limitation becauseof all this technology. What I'm
fascinating, by in in that sameidea is that obviously is is
technology to an end. Like, it'sit's something somebody would
(26:55):
definitely be willing to use andpotentially even provide some,
you know, personal signals orpreferences because it's I'm
getting something in return.It's a very transactional
element to be able to use thatsort of technology. With
websites where somebody's notbought a product yet or they're
just searching for something or,hell, even the the in the
(27:17):
agentic world, they're askingtheir agent to go find
something.
The best practices are evolvingfor asking customers to give us
information, the value of whatwe've said is authentication in
order to get something out. Howdo you balance as a design lead
the tension between I wanna helppersonalize, and I'm gonna need
(27:37):
something from you to do thatwith the other side of being too
intrusive or, you know,violating some privacy or being
manipulative? Because we allknow, you know, the more data we
have, obviously, that's good forthe business too. So as a design
leader, how do you talk toclients about that that balance
that you strike?
Dave Altis (27:56):
Oh, man. The second hardest question I think I've
ever been asked. You're on aroll.
Nick Brunker (28:00):
Here for you.
Dave Altis (28:04):
It's ironic. It's our job to have those
conversations. I don't know howmany of our clients are ready to
have those conversations. And sowe haven't yet had to really
cross that bridge because we'restill being asked for a lot of
that commodity work.
Nick Brunker (28:20):
Right.
Dave Altis (28:21):
Without a doubt, as these agentive models get
smarter and more integrated intoour lives, everything that we're
doing today is just gonna becomeobsolete. So so, really, I'm
interpreting your question inthis. How do we help clients get
to the point where they're readyto transition into that? Because
at some point, they're gonnahave to let go. And that's a
(28:42):
tough thing to swallow becausethey've invested millions,
sometimes tens of millions ofdollars in these giant
platforms.
Now I'm encouraged because Adobeis one of our, very critical WPP
partners. They have awareness ofall this too. They're already
working to incorporate AI intoall of their products, whether
(29:03):
it's Photoshop or Adobe Cloud.
Nick Brunker (29:05):
Mhmm.
Dave Altis (29:06):
So they're they're already starting to prime the
pump. So what we're gonna do iswe're gonna, I think, baby step
into it. The next thing is we'renot gonna get rid of Adobe
Experience Cloud. Mhmm. Mhmm.
We're gonna start moving intohow AI that's embedded into that
or even third party AI can startto work with those systems as we
transition. So is that gonnareally force us to change from a
(29:27):
design perspective? Probably notsuper quickly, although even
that's subjective. Years ago, Igot I went to South by, and I
got to watch a keynote with RayKurzweil. And, you know, he
wrote Singularity book.
Amazing. And he was talkingabout the hockey puck of
technology evolution. And atthat time, almost ten years ago,
(29:48):
we were right there at thatlittle curve before it starts to
accelerate up exponentially.Here we are ten years later, and
I think we have come a long way.So we are gonna have to have
these conversations very soon.
So I think it's gonna come downto almost business
transformation planning first.You know? And this is something
that's really important to VML'sCX organization, offering these
(30:10):
business transformationreadiness services and
consulting, if you will, of howto get ready so that it's not
just, all that money we'veinvested into these platforms is
thrown away. All the time andenergy we've put into staffing
up to support them is thrownaway. We don't wanna do that.
We're gonna have to work withthem to transition and be ready.
(30:31):
The same thing applies todesign.
Nick Brunker (30:33):
And you hit on storytelling as part of that
design. What do you believe arethe key elements of storytelling
on websites that resonate withusers on a human level, thinking
about where we are today, and wekind of have the playbook in,
you know, certain ways forstorytelling. Do you see the the
actual strategy behindstorytelling evolving a lot as
(30:53):
well as we move into this thisnew world, or is it still the
same, you know, general key 10poles?
Dave Altis (30:59):
One of my favorite people on earth, Kalida McDade,
who is our global chiefexperience design leader here at
VML, is working with all of us,and we're actually shifting from
storytelling into story living.And it's really exactly what
you're talking about. Storyliving is how we live these
stories, and it's the relevancyof how we engage with brands.
And it's that timeliness and allthe things we've riffed on with
(31:22):
the agentive and understandingI'm at a certain location. And,
you know, it could be that I'meven wearing my Apple Watch and
it's connecting into myheartbeat and it knows that I'm
anxious.
And so it's delivering somethingthat's very relevant at that
moment in time to me. Thatmoment in time is something
that's very, very different thantoday where I'm intentionally
(31:43):
going to a website, leaning in,and I'm searching. Right. And so
story living is gonna, I think,be the evolution of how are we
understanding what people aredoing, thinking, and feeling at
that moment in time and thendelivering the appropriate
content in that moment. And itit could be that if we determine
that Nick Bronker is anxious atthe moment, that we deliver
(32:03):
something that is video or audiothat is designed to calm him,
and that could be sponsored by abrand.
And so it'll be a wholedifferent way to think about
content design based on thosemoments in time and the
connected ecosystem of ourworlds.
Nick Brunker (32:18):
As we think about the other thing that I think
going back to the beginningwhere we're we're trying to
create these experiences thatthat drive connection and work
in concert with all of the othermajor pieces of the ecosystem
where, you know, we talk aboutbrand experience and how
creating the right initial storyto pique somebody's interest to
get them into the website. Howdo we, you know, get them to
(32:40):
engage on the website andultimately convert those same,
like, linear stair steps from Ididn't hear about I didn't even
know about this brand to I am abrand advocate and all the steps
in between. It's not just gonnabe the web is changing because
it's changing at the same, Iwould say, relative speed as as
all the other ecosystems. Howdoes CRM evolve? How does search
(33:01):
evolve?
How does paid media evolve?We're we're in this time where
everybody is kind of in the samesomewhat frenetic transition as
the technology advances. So I amcurious about as we think about
how the role of websites evolvealong with all of the other
touch points somebody might havein their day or how the
(33:22):
ecosystem collectively workstogether. Do you see web having
and maybe this is a two twodirective question. More
responsibility, lessresponsibility, different
responsibilities in relation toall the other things that are in
our ecosystem.
So that between paid media,between CRM, between, between,
(33:44):
you know, you name any otherchannel even in person. How do
you see web kind of becomingmore important, less important,
or just different?
Dave Altis (33:53):
Bold statement here going out on a limb. You and I
and everybody listening to thispodcast will see the end of
websites in our dates. We willsee the end of websites. And so
I think to simplify that,they're going to become
obsolete. Question is when andwhat are those baby steps to get
there.
Like I said, I think we'll seeplatforms like GX manager be
(34:14):
that kinda next step where thewebsite is still very much
there. And these systems thatsit on top of a website, they're
still very friendly andcompliant to SEO and SEM and all
these things, but searching ischanging. Everything that we do
and how we look for informationis changing. And so the website
(34:34):
site will no longer be adestination. It literally will
not be necessary.
Now you say, but, Dave, wheredoes all that content live?
Yeah. I imagine there's stillgonna be these data data lakes,
data houses that hold thiscontent. They hold the offering
of these companies, but it's theagents talking to agents that
(34:55):
are basically pulling andcompiling. But it's gonna be
that Nick Brunker has his owninterface.
Dave Aldis has his owninterface. Yeah. And the agents
are pulling the content owned bythe brands into my experience.
And I think at the end of theday, my experience may
ultimately even replace a CocaCola agent or a Ford agent, and
it's gonna be the Nick Brunkeragent. Your personal assistant
(35:18):
that is just knowing you, andit's pulling the things that you
like from the brands that areout there.
It's a very different way tolook at it. Now let's talk about
Ford for one hot minute. Yeah.One thing people love to do
right now is go in and build inprice tool and pimp out a ride
Yep. And dream about that Broncoand customize it in every way I
want.
Yeah. Yeah. I think you'll stillbe able to do that. It's just
(35:40):
gonna be not necessarily housedon ford.com. So you'll be maybe
finding an image to go back tomy earlier prototype story.
I'll find an image of an offroad vehicle, pull that into an
agent, and say, man, build mebuild me my version of this. And
it'll come back and say,alright, Nick. Based on what I
know about you, you know, lastmonth, we went out to Moab, and
(36:03):
you love the off road stuff. SoI I got you the the Raptor
package, and we've pimped it outwith the biggest tires on Earth.
And you get the idea.
And it'll basically configurethat thing for you. It'll talk
back to the Ford ecosystem andunderstand pricing, but then
it's also gonna know and, hey.You can get something like this
at a dealer at the street fromyou because it knows where you
(36:25):
are. Mhmm. And so it'll just bethat middle it'll be that middle
agent to connect you to thebrand in a much more seamless
and relevant way than having yougo to a website and interact
with stuff.
Nick Brunker (36:38):
I am wondering if there is a step in the middle,
like, where we are today andthen what you just kind of
articulated with with vision.The the middle ground is brands
still have their owned property,but the owned property is
actually manipulated completelyaround the individual, which
(36:58):
again goes back to the idea oftrue one to one hyper
personalization. But it feelslike the way we're going. And I
know there's no question reallyburied in this just kind of
musing with you, like, talkingthrough it. The idea that if you
go to and we'll just keep theFord example or if you go to, a
Target or any other website,whether it's a retailer or a
brand, There is maybe a generalversion like I know nothing, but
(37:23):
as we get more advanced with thesignals and all of the the ways
that we can personalize, therethere really isn't a, you know,
singular odd.
I'm just gonna go to thebrand.com. It was no. I'm gonna
go to Dave Altus's brand dotcom. And so maybe it is the, you
know, the hierarchy of thenavigation. Maybe it's the page
(37:44):
structure.
Maybe it's the content of like,literally, it is a website
designed for one. And I'm notsure if we I just my mind is,
like, spinning right now about,well, what does that mean for
people like us in our day todays where we still need the
things and the brands still willneed the the guts of it to help
(38:04):
serve the customer and hell,maybe even design the the
containers upon which Yeah. Allthis content lives. But you're
right. We we may be short ofcompletely decoupling websites
from their brands and creatingmore of a one to one where the
website still exists, but reallyit's just the container.
(38:25):
Everything else that's in it ispersonalized down to the person.
Dave Altis (38:28):
What's also interesting is if you're
building a dashboard of contentbased on your querying in a
certain way, and I'm in Londondoing something that's
complimentary to it, theplatform can now be smart enough
and actually play a matchmakingrole. Your ingredients plus my
ingredients could be a newtransformational product that
benefits mankind. And so itcould actually connect Nick and
(38:51):
Dave. So you can start to seehow the platform is still there.
There's still a website, but theintelligence behind it through
AI can be smarter.
We can take care of some of thethings like too many
authenticated experiences in abrand, and now there's just one.
But what happens inside thatexperience is very different for
you than it is for me because ofthe atomic content. Again, this
(39:13):
is Dream Theater. It's nottotally happening right now, but
this is where we're this iswhere we're gonna be going in
that kind of middle ground thatyou're talking about. Websites
won't be totally dead for awhile, but they're gonna get a
lot smarter, and we're gonna geta lot more relevant.
I keep using that word relevant.Mhmm. Less less foraging less
foraging and more tell me whatyou need. Here it is.
Nick Brunker (39:36):
Before we close-up the show and we do fun facts,
which we always do towards theend, is there one area of this
this entire theme that thatexcites you the most? What are
you most excited about inrelation to where your type of
role and where where yourexpertise is gonna go in the
next few years based on all thestuff we talked about?
Dave Altis (39:55):
Damn. I love the challenge of all of it. Just
about every brand that I'veworked on has been a little bit
more on the conservative side, aslower mover, like I said, tends
to be a lot of theseorganizations just because of
their infrastructure tend to befollowers, not leaders. I love
that challenge so much, and Ilove the fact that it never
settles. It never ever settles.
(40:18):
Every day is a differentchallenge. Every day is a new
technology opportunity to bringforward. I'm most excited about
which client wants to be brave,which client is ready to be
brave, and really lean in towhat's possible and be at the
beginning of it, not aftersomebody else already did it.
That's exciting to me. And it'srisky, dude.
(40:38):
It's risky.
Nick Brunker (40:39):
No doubt.
Dave Altis (40:40):
I get it. But you know what? That's what I love
about the career. Who wants towho wants to take risks with me?
Let's go.
I love it. I just fucking do it.
Nick Brunker (40:48):
I love it, man. And in terms of, like, maybe you
off the clock, well, you're notthinking about design, for all
of these these big brands andall the things we just talked
about. I imagine you've got alot of similar passion areas.
Talk about some fun facts aboutDave Altus.
Dave Altis (41:04):
Okay. I, I love, love, love science fiction and
horror and fantasy movies. I'm ahuge consumer of shows. I can't
get enough. I'm also a hugevideo game player.
I've been playing video gamessince this will bait me big
time. My first computer was aTexas Instruments t I ninety
nine four a. Yeah. If you know,you know. Yeah.
(41:26):
My next was a Commodore sixtyfour. You know, and my brother
and I would literally getmagazines, and we would code
machine language to get a Ponglike game. You know? It was
crazy.
Nick Brunker (41:37):
So That's next level.
Dave Altis (41:38):
I've been playing video games since Zork. I didn't
hear myself. I'm a huge RPGplayer. I'm not necessarily the
big MMO guy, but I love to getin and build the character,
build the story, grow, you know,grow that character up to be
powerful and then start it over.And then I like to make shit
(42:00):
with my hands.
I like to build things, whetherit's I make my own handcrafted
soap because I I'd love that.And then I also, like, build my
own deck, attaching it to myhouse.
Nick Brunker (42:13):
Yeah.
Dave Altis (42:14):
So I like to make. I like to do things that are
intubile.
Nick Brunker (42:17):
Sounds on brand. Keep
Dave Altis (42:18):
the brain down.
Nick Brunker (42:19):
Gonna say it sounds on brand for you, both
both your in your day job andoff the clock. What's the
coolest thing you you feel likeyou've made or the the proudest,
moment you've had in terms of,like, hey. I made that shit.
Dave Altis (42:32):
Honestly, my decks. I remember years ago, I was
driving. We were working on aclient in Saint Louis, and John
Cook was involved. And so I'm ina car with John and some other
people, and we're driving fromKansas City to Saint Louis. And
we were just shooting the shitabout stuff.
And I said, oh, I really, reallywanna put a deck on the front of
my house. And and John's like,well, I don't get it. What
(42:55):
what's what's stopping you? Whydon't you just do it? And I'm
like, I'm like, I'm like, I'mlike, I'm like, I'm like, I'm
like, I'm like, I'm like, I'mlike, I'm like, I'm like, I'm
like, I'm like, I'm like, I'mlike, what?
I can't do just build it. Justget out there and do it. And I'm
like, I what? I can't do that.And he's like, I don't
understand.
What are you what are youtalking about? So I built a
deck. I'm like, I love it.
Nick Brunker (43:10):
So John so John was the reason. He's just like,
dude, just go do it in intypical John fashion.
Dave Altis (43:18):
David, you're confusing me. I don't need to
see the problem. Build the deck.
Nick Brunker (43:21):
Home Depot is over there. Just go get the stuff and
go. Right. Oh, man. Dave.
Dave Altis (43:27):
I love it. I love being able to figure anything
out.
Nick Brunker (43:30):
And you know what? You do that so well all day
every day, and it's been anincredible, conversation. Super
insightful as always. Thank youfor finally, getting time on the
books to do this. I know we'vebeen we've been trying to get it
on the books for all thesemonths, and, it means a lot.
You spend spend almost an hourwith us and and chatting about
your experience and yourexpertise, and, I'm excited to
to keep, communication linesopen as this evolves. We'll
(43:52):
we'll do this again. How aboutthat?
Dave Altis (43:54):
Nick, I love you. I love the show. Thank you for
having me on here, and I can'twait to do it again. This is
great.
Nick Brunker (43:59):
Awesome. Again, thanks, buddy. I appreciate you.
And thanks to you all forlistening to Human Centered as
well. To learn more about VML CXpractice and our approach to the
work, you could check us outonline at b m l dot com.
We'd also love to hear yourfeedback on the show. Give us a
rating and offer up yourthoughts wherever you listen to
your podcasts, including Apple,Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, and
more. Have a topic idea or justwanna drop us a line? You can
(44:22):
connect with me on x at nickbrunker, or you can shoot the
show and email. The address ishumancentered@vml.com.
Thanks again for listening.We'll see you next time.
Hi, everyone, and welcome to Human Centered. I'm
Nick Brunker, a managingdirector of experience strategy
at VML, and your host for theshow. Thanks for giving us a
listen. Today, we're diving intoa fascinating topic, the future
of websites. As technologyevolves at a breakneck pace, the
way we have interacted and willinteract with brands online is
constantly shifting.
(00:22):
This creates an interestingtension. How do we leverage the
power of AI in emergingtechnologies to create
innovative and personalizedexperiences while still
maintaining the human connectionthat is so vital to brand
relationships? To help usnavigate this landscape, I am so
thrilled and thankful to welcomein Dave Altus, who is our chief
experience design officer atVML. Dave is a leading expert in
(00:45):
experience design and has a deepunderstanding of how emerging
technologies are shaping ourdigital world. Together, on this
show, we're gonna explore thelimitations of current
platforms, the state of play inweb, the influence of AI in web
three, and the ever changingexpectations of consumers.
We'll also get into how brandscan leverage these trends to
create meaningful and impactfulexperiences on web. Dave, so
(01:09):
glad to have you. Welcome to theshow. Thanks for joining us.
Dave Altis (01:12):
Nick. Oh my god. We've been waiting to do this
for so long. Thank you forhaving me. I'm so pumped for
this.
Let's get into it. I love it.
Nick Brunker (01:18):
Let's do it. For those that haven't had a chance
to meet you yet, just give me aquick, you know, thirty seconds
on Dave and what you do at VMLand what your background is.
Dave Altis (01:26):
Nick, as you mentioned, I'm one of our chief
experience design officers, andI have been with VML since
02/2004. And if you go back thatfar in our history, that was
really at the beginning. Almostall we did at VML were website.
So I'm fortunate enough to haveseen this epic evolution in how
platforms have evolved, howpeople consume this content has
(01:47):
evolved, how we as an agencyhave adapted to delivering these
experiences. And so I just thinkit's one of the most exciting
times as we look forward, youknow, one, three, five, ten
years from now and howtechnology and AI are gonna
start influencing everythingthat we do.
And in all honesty, completelyturn over the pond. Everything
(02:08):
is gonna change. Everything thatwe know is gonna change. And so
it's our job now to make surethat our client partners are
ready for that change. It'sgonna be cool.
It's gonna be big, and it'sgonna be hard.
Nick Brunker (02:20):
And I was talking with, Brian Yamada, who's one of
our chief innovation officersfor those listening to the show
and haven't heard that episode.It's a great episode, and we
were we're kind of likening thisthis time that we're in to the
early days of the Internet,where you you knew something was
coming and and coming with aforce, but you really couldn't
put your finger on, alright.Well, how is this actually going
(02:41):
to play out? And I think nowthat we've gone through that
first cycle of evolution, we'rein that that same sort of
feeling like this is this is agame changer. This is not just a
a a small stair step forward.
This is this is a rapid andreally large leap. So given all
of the changes and the thetechnology advancements and the
expectations of customers, youknow, coming out of that. How
(03:03):
would you describe the currentstate of the industry as it
relates to websites?
Dave Altis (03:07):
Oh, man. That's a that's a big question with a a
bigger answer, I think. I lovedin the early days, I got into
the .com when we were handcoding pages, and they were
being delivered over dial up,and every page had to have no
more than a 30 k page wait.Times have changed so much.
Content management systems andbig platforms like the Adobe
Cloud didn't exist at the time.
(03:29):
And so everything we did wasmagic. We were wizards, and it
was just amazing. But at the endof the day, everything was just
a brochure. And we moved intoFlash. Flash allowed us to
deliver these really engagingexperiences that happened at the
same time that we were gettinginto DVD interfaces and CD CD
ROM experiences, and everythingwas a lot more contained within
(03:51):
the real estate of the viewport.
And then here comes enterprisewebsites, companies that really
saw the value of having theselarge repositories. And, you
know, that's where advertisingwas driving people, Nick. Mhmm.
You'd go in and see an ad. Thefirst place you would go is to
the.com to get a little bit moredetail.
I actually still think that'svery, very true today. And
that's ironic because how manytimes have I walked the halls of
(04:14):
our own agency and and haveheard people say, man, websites
are dead. They're irrelevant.And I I would have to agree that
in many ways, that's a truestatement. They have become
irrelevant.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna throw adart at something that I both
love and I hate, and that is thedesign system and the platforms
that deliver these systems. Whydo I love those? I love them
(04:37):
because they came on with apromise of global website
governance and efficiencies forthe content delivery at these
epic enterprise scales. I mean,shoot. Many of the clients that
we work with have upwards of750,000 discrete pages on their
website.
So you need you need anenterprise level platform to
(05:00):
manage all that stuff. Thereason I hate them, though, is
they have become thisrestrictive albatross, a monkey
on the back of all of ourclients. And now what we're
seeing is it's very hard toevolve, and it's very hard to
change. And we end up, I think,I'm gonna use the analogy of
polishing brass. Hey.
Nick, brass is a beautifulmetal. When it's polished, It's
(05:21):
still brass that doesn't hold alot of value. Mhmm. So we get
into a lot of these optimizationmodes. Our website gets a little
tarnished.
Our brass gets a littlefingerprint on it. So we'll
optimize it. We'll move thebutton a little bit. We'll see
if we can optimize the the clickthrough rates of this flow just
a little bit better. Mhmm.
And we've gotten into polishingbrass over and over. The problem
(05:41):
is it's still brass. At somepoint, we're gonna need to smelt
that down, and we're gonna needto go to a whole new metal. And
we're gonna need to upgradethese experiences big time. But
it's almost too difficult.
These platforms are too big, andwe've invested too much money in
them. Mhmm. And therein lies theproblem. And therein, we're at
this fulcrum right now where theindustry is gonna force change.
(06:03):
It's gonna force a lot of thosesystems to be torn down.
Nick Brunker (06:06):
So we think about Web three and, you know, the
injection of all these new theAI functionalities. We talked,
in previous episodes about, youknow, agentic AI where agents
can become kind of a part ofpeople's lives. And and even
you're seeing it in, you know,traditional Google searches. If
you, you know, are asking aquestion, it'll pop up an AI,
(06:27):
generative response to theanswer for your question along
with all the links. Talk aboutthe implications of Web three
and all of those new immersivetechnologies as it relates to
the future of websites, but alsodirectly the the role that you
play, thinking about what doesthe experience look like and and
feel like.
How do you design those sorts ofthings in that world?
Dave Altis (06:46):
Man, we're going back to the days we used to say
content is king, and I thinkwe're heading back to those days
very quickly because ofeverything you just described.
Mhmm. Think about a websitetoday. We are we are in this
mode where I see anadvertisement. I see something
that compels me to to go toa.com.
I land on a relatively staticexperience. Yeah. Yes. There may
be video. Yes.
(07:06):
There may be some interactivity.But at the end of the day, what
we've been doing as designersfor decades is UI polish and
then UX organization. We'reorganizing these hundreds of
thousands of pages into somekind of a labeling and taxonomy
schema to help people do what?Forage through a navigation
until they hopefully find whatthey're looking for. Mhmm.
(07:29):
It's still a very passive andstatic experience. And you know
what? I was talking to one ofour colleagues and one of my
best friends, Eric Looney, andhe had this great quote. And
that is that the web is beingdeconstructed and reformed
because people are bored. Andthat's exactly it.
Websites are dead becausethey're boring. They're just
these giant archives of contentthat we're asking people to sift
(07:52):
through. Mhmm. Along comes AI.ChatGPT revolutionized things,
and we're seeing people movingmore and more of their search
behaviors into AI.
And that has a dramatic impactinto all of the other facets of
how we deliver on web, theperformance content, the SEO and
SEM, the organization of thesites themselves, and how we're
(08:13):
tagging that content. At somepoint, very soon, we're gonna
start to see AI speaking to theAI on these websites, and
there's gonna be a lot moreautomation. And this is where
Web three comes in, a lot lesscentralization of these contents
sitting on a website as itstands today. And so with Web
(08:33):
three, I think we're gonna seemore and more evolution of these
agents and brand agents that aregonna sit in the middle and will
be engaging with these agentswho then go out and pull that
content forward into a morerelevant and timely experience.
And, Nick, I think I think thisis three years out.
(08:54):
This isn't a long time.
Nick Brunker (08:56):
Right.
Dave Altis (08:57):
AI for sure today is not what we think it is, which
is the scientific sci fi versionof it. Skynet's not quite there.
AI is not quite there. But soon,brother, soon, we're gonna see
that kind of advancedintelligence in these
ecosystems, and I can't wait forit.
Nick Brunker (09:15):
So in that mindset, though, how can brands
navigate the transition? Becauseif you think about the pathway
from where we are now and youkinda talk the state of play to
where we may be in the next fewyears, where you are seeing, you
know, AI to AI discussions.Customer's still gonna want what
the customer wants, answers toquestions, being able to
actually achieve whatever theirjobs to be done are. And if web
(09:38):
is the the the landing place forfor something or maybe, you
know, the the technology thatthat they use to get the answers
to those questions. As somebodywho's kind of building the
experience potentially from theground up, if you you you see an
analogy of melting it down to toreform, how do brands navigate
that transition?
Dave Altis (09:58):
I think you have to start prepping a lot of those
foundational things. Forexample, privacy is a big deal
right now. Privacy with cookies,you know, being becoming
obsolete very quickly. Mhmm.What replaces these ways of
authenticating people?
AI is gonna play a role withthat, but the first thing we
have to do is we have to startthinking about how do we get
(10:21):
privacy compliance withoutauthentication and without
cookies, and that's gonna forceclients into thinking about, you
know, zero or first party data.Mhmm. And that's probably gonna
happen through, like, loyaltyprograms or when I'm starting to
get these relationships evolvedwith these AI assistants that
will handle some of that, cookiebased knowing who you are and
(10:45):
what you're into, and then itwill, again, talk out to these
websites. So, again, a lot of itis that foundational stuff that
we need to do with the contentand the content design so that
we can be ready for AI as itcomes. The second thing is is,
one of our partner agencies herein the WPP network is GroupSJR.
(11:06):
I think they are poised with oneof the next evolutions of how to
engage with web content at an AIlevel. And they've got a product
that is relatively new to marketcalled GX Manager, generative
experience manager. And it is anAI overlay to a website that
sits in an iframe today, but itwill continue to evolve to be
(11:27):
even more integrated. Mhmm. Andit basically trains itself on
all of those discrete pages ofthe site.
And so now your way of engagingwith that content without
necessarily throwing awayeverything you have today, it'll
index all that, and you have amuch more chat GPT style
interface, and it's pulling backexperiential content based on
(11:51):
what you're querying. That'sgonna continue to evolve. Like I
said, AI isn't quite where weneed it to be to be, perfect and
seamless, but our network has atour hand at our fingertips this
amazing new tool. That's gonnabe a step change into where we
get truly agentive AI assistantdriven.
Nick Brunker (12:12):
So in the design process, as somebody who kinda
takes the the the strategicbriefs and kind of, you know,
fuses the the ultimateexperience around the brief and
ultimately the, the businessobjective that that sits above
it, It's gonna change a lot ofthe process on how you would
think about creating the typesof content, the images, the
(12:33):
copy, ultimately, the, you know,customer journey throughput.
It's keeping it obviouslycontained within websites for
now, but the whole way of doingwork in your world changes when
you think about that future,doesn't it?
Dave Altis (12:48):
Absolutely. You know, we've been dealing with
atomic design for a long timenow at the design system level.
Again, there's value in thedesign system. We think about
the small pieces that getassembled. Atomic content is
also something that's notnecessarily new, but that's
gonna be more and more valuable.
And how we tag those contentsnippets, These content
(13:09):
fragments are gonna be more andmore valuable because those are
the things that are gonna bedelivered into these more
relevant AI experiences. And,again, if you think about the
evolution of AI and theconnection of that AI into
wearables, which is gonna helpthat AI understand where I am
and start to be contextual. Isaw a beautiful prototype done
(13:30):
by another agency that I willnot name, but I'm jealous of it,
where they were prototyping outan experience where they were
surfing through social media,and they found a look that they
liked. And they were able tocircle the look and then feed
that look into a brand agent.The brand agent was then able to
(13:51):
compile based on its productoffering different fit ensembles
that would match that, ask theperson if they wanted that put
into their cart, yes or no.
And in this case, it just sohappens that that, was a sport.
And so it was able to then say,I also noticed that you're at
this location. Do you wanna goplay golf? And if so, I'll book
(14:13):
you this appointment at the golfclub. I'll have this outfit
delivered to your hotel so youcan see how everything is
connecting.
That's the dream. Can we do thattoday? No. Can we do that in
five years? Most likely.
And so we never went to awebsite. We never went to a
website, but the agent wasbranded.
Nick Brunker (14:31):
I'm gonna pull on that thread for a minute because
you're talking about a wearable.And then you think about what we
have probably been, you know,asked at nauseam over the years,
which is, well, how's this gonnatranslate mobile first? And I
feel like we're also in aninteresting time where, you
know, mobile first is iscertainly still very much the
(14:51):
state of play. But even as we'rerecording this episode coming
off of, the Super Bowl and yousaw the commercials for those
meta glasses that are arebecoming a little bit more
mainstream now that they've donethe splash of the Super Bowl ad.
Wearables were still feelinglike a a little clunky, a little
future facing, and not not quiteready for prime time.
(15:14):
Do you suspect that, like, whenwe think about the future of web
design, that we're going to morerapidly expand outside of, yeah,
I gotta do the desktop designand all the different screen
variations that come with that.Yes. I've gotta do the mobile
design and all the potentialscreen variations of that. But
getting into that next layer andthat maybe next evolution of AR
(15:36):
where wearables, you know, howdoes somebody, interact with
the, quote, unquote, web whenthey're not on a phone or
they're not on a desktop? Doesthat cross your mind at all as
you you get into this nextphase?
Dave Altis (15:49):
It totally does. And that's, again, where this atomic
content idea is gonna be evenmore relevant. But when you
think about getting rid of thescreens and the wearables and
the on location, you know, we'rethinking a lot about the
screenless experiences. Youknow, at what point do we stop
designing in the viewport? Now,again, are we close to that?
(16:10):
Yes. Is that something we haveto worry about even in the next
five years? Probably not.Another interesting story. We
were doing some brand newconcepts for a new client.
Traditional mode, let's deliverthree concepts. Two of the
concepts were pushing theenvelope. They were much more
experiential. They were stilldesktop and mobile and tablet,
but they were a lot more,breaking the molds of what a
(16:33):
design system would allow us todo under normal design systems.
Mhmm.
The third one was verystructured, very rigid. We had
components. We were puttingpictures in boxes. It was very
familiar. We almost didn't showthat one because it was too
commodity.
It was too much of what'sexpected. Guess which one the
client bought? They bought thatone, and they literally told us
(16:56):
we bought this because werecognize it. And so for us to
get to this next level, we'regoing to have to get a lot of
people who don't like change toembrace change and whole new
ways of doing it. Now we as anagency struggle with this
because a lot of our clientswanna be followers.
We don't have that many thattruly wanna be leaders and be
(17:17):
the first to do something. And Iand I understand that. You know?
These are giant companies thatTotally. That answer up to Wall
Street at the end of the day,and they need performance.
But they're the ones that aregonna be the furthest behind if
we can't help them get poisedtoday for these kind of changes.
Nick Brunker (17:33):
So imagine you're somebody listening to this show
who works for one of those thoselarge companies and is trying
to, you know, inject some ofthat, you know, startup like
mentality or the more scrappy,nimble, Let's test some of these
uncharted waters. What advicewould you give to somebody who's
in that that sort of, anenvironment who is passionate
(17:54):
and excited and maybe, like theexample you gave, seize the
value, but is is running upagainst the realities of I'm in
a huge organization, and it justtakes a long time. How how would
you respond to that, or whatwhat advice might you give them?
Dave Altis (18:07):
I think you actually said it in in that setup, and
that is they've gotta pilot somestuff. Metrics matter,
performance matters, resultsmatter. So we need to look for
strategic opportunities to pilotthese initiatives in more
controlled environments. Andonce we do that, we can then
prove out the value and thenpull that back into the system
(18:27):
and say, this is really working,and we should start to scale
that up. Scale is gonna beimportant after we test it in
these controlled environments.
Nick Brunker (18:35):
VML, has, like, the microcosm of of touching the
entire journey and ends of brandexperience, commerce, and
customer experience all kind ofworking in concert when it's at
its at its peak and at its best.What I find fascinating is that
juxtaposition behind thefunctional and exciting
immersive like experiences thattry to provide customers, no
(18:59):
matter where they are in theirjourney and balancing that with
the emotional connection, thestorytelling. And what I'm I'm
not really wrestling with theconcept of agentic AI and then
future web experiences that arereally powered by these these,
you know, assistantsessentially. But how do you
(19:19):
wrestle with the idea that ifthe web is evolving to something
like that, where there is a, youknow, an emotional aspect to
buying products and, you know,looking for brands to connect
with, etcetera, but there'sstill, like, I'm coming to a
place more often than not, atleast in in the more traditional
commerce world, to solve aproblem, buy a thing so I can do
(19:43):
a thing. And losing that thatemotional connection when you're
not doing the traditionalbrowsing and absorbing of
storytelling if it is soagentic.
How do you maintain thoseemotional connections in a
future where you you weresuggesting it's gonna be super
efficient, efficient as hell,but maybe less emotional. I'm
(20:05):
not sure if that's the realityof where we'll be, but I'm I'm
curious about how you see thattension.
Dave Altis (20:09):
It's interesting these agents and in that little
prototype I shared with youearlier with the, the fit and
the Mhmm. That was based on asports agent, and the sports
agent had a personality. So theemotion was in engaging with
this relatively humanesqueagent, and and the emotion was
there. The way it spoke to youwas there. You know, text to
(20:30):
voice is getting smoother andsmoother and more and more real.
And the more it personalizes andunderstands and learns you as
its human, I think it's gonna bevery easy to maintain that as a
brand representing agent, ifthat makes sense. Mhmm. So
that's gonna be reallyinteresting. And is it gonna be
(20:52):
scary? Yeah.
Probably. You know, it's funnyto go on going back together.
We're not there yet. So we stillhave to think about and you and
I deal with this a lot in ourday jobs. At what point do you
dial up experience versus dialup efficiency and task based,
and let's get the informationquickly, and let's let's get the
sale quickly and get themthrough the shopping cart.
(21:13):
We deal with that every singleday. Here's what we know. People
still are emotional decisionmakers, and there is absolutely
a time when it's very relevantto get in there. I know what I
want. I just need to look at thefeatures, pick my features, and
then buy now.
There's absolutely a role forthat, and that'll be handled
maybe a little different, alittle bit more conversational
(21:35):
as these agents start to becomemore and more part of the
system. But right now, we haveto know where they are in the
buying journey. If I'm still inthe mode of being sold, then we
need to be very emotional, andwe need to storytell. Mhmm. We
need to get in there and letthem see that product and feel
that product.
And at the end of it, bedrooling because they want that
(21:56):
product. Then they're ready topick their features and buy now.
We have too many clients thatforget about that emotional
part, and they feel like theadvertising does that job. It
doesn't. The advertising piquescuriosity.
It's a spark. It's our job whenthey come into our digital
ecosystems to close the dealthrough emotion so that they
(22:17):
will then convert.
Nick Brunker (22:19):
If you take that a step further and say, alright.
You've peaked my interest. Icome to the website in whatever
form, mobile, desktop, orotherwise, and you're starting
to storytell a little bit. Wementioned the the fact that in
a, you know, cookie less worldor a place where zero and one p
data is gonna be, you know,basically the currency of the
(22:39):
future in terms of personalizingexperiences. How do you, in this
current moment, as we progressinto the, you know, the fast
paced new world that we're we'rekind of, provoking thought on
right now, going beyond the,well, it's just the quiz.
Because just asking somebodywhat they want seems like a
relatively easy thing to do.Like, let's infer where we can
(23:02):
and signal, but as signalsbecome harder to infer outside
of just asking, hey. What whatare you looking for? It's hard,
and it's a challenging thing.And then, you know, you layer on
the fact that how do you designsomething that is not just
another quiz, but still resonantand still certainly driving
emotional excitement andconnection?
(23:22):
To take me through some of thattension because that's something
that we're facing, you know, inour day jobs right now. How do
you design something that isable to give the the AI engine
such as it exists today enoughto go on without just saying,
answer these four questions, andwe'll give you what you want.
You know what I mean?
Dave Altis (23:40):
That might be the hardest question I've ever been
asked.
Nick Brunker (23:45):
Could you just solve that for us?
Dave Altis (23:48):
Yeah. I I don't know. It's so funny. Right now,
we're confined by linearengagements. I land on a page.
I come from a certain location.I land on a page. Mhmm. And then
we have some kind of anexperience. And that experience
you know?
I think about recently Acura. Ihad a fantastic quiz where the
(24:11):
advertising drove through it,and the whole quiz was themed
around meditation and wellness.So when you landed there, the
experience itself was extremelymeditative. You had sight,
sound, imagery, and it was thiscomplete experience. But it was
a quiz.
And I remember our own teamdiscussing that, and I'm like,
oh, guys. This is great. This isamazing. And I remember people
(24:32):
going, it's just a quiz. Yeah.
It is. And that's what we've gottoday is we still have to work
inside that box. And so we stillhave the old tools at our
disposal of sight, sound, andengagement. At the end of the
day, we were still quizzing theywere still quizzing in order to
get to, an archetype of persona,which was nothing more than
(24:55):
guided selling. Right?
Mhmm. So how do we start to dothat? I think, again, that's
where as these agents get moresophisticated and more
integrated into our lives andour behavior, they're gonna be a
lot more predictive. Now doesthat mean that when they start
pulling things back intowhatever query I do that it's
going to be are they gonna pullback that same accurate quiz? I
(25:16):
don't know.
I don't know if that's I don'tknow if that'll ever happen. Are
things gonna get much smaller inthese little bites? And the
experience is the agentinteraction itself, not the
content that it pulls back. Sothat'll be interesting. Are we
gonna lose the development ofthese truly dynamic stories
through video and motion andinteractivity?
(25:37):
And and now that experience isgonna be how I'm engaging with
the agent. And is that gonna beour next step of evolving? Mhmm.
Because, of course, you can seehow voice is gonna be a big part
of that. I'm now speaking to thewebsite, and no longer will I be
clicking through a contentforaging path.
Yeah. Who knows how that's gonnaplay out? But right now, we're
still confined with, let's doquizzes. Let's do interactive
(26:01):
things. Glasses are gonna becool as they evolve, but still
they're gonna be limited rightnow.
Show me the weather. Identify aperson.
Nick Brunker (26:09):
Mhmm. And I think those are the utilitarian things
like I mean, we were talkingagain not to to hearken back to
the episode with Brian Yamada.He was at CES. The idea that,
you know, you have computervision attached to basically a
poll for those who are sightimpaired and, you know, between
the the haptics as well as thecomputer vision, it can guide
somebody who has, you know, asight impairment through a
(26:31):
crowded room to get to thebathroom. Because now you're
you're layering thesetechnologies together in order
to create ultimately a solutionand a tool that helps the human
good.
And in this case, a a limitationthat they have that may no
longer be a limitation becauseof all this technology. What I'm
fascinating, by in in that sameidea is that obviously is is
technology to an end. Like, it'sit's something somebody would
(26:55):
definitely be willing to use andpotentially even provide some,
you know, personal signals orpreferences because it's I'm
getting something in return.It's a very transactional
element to be able to use thatsort of technology. With
websites where somebody's notbought a product yet or they're
just searching for something or,hell, even the the in the
(27:17):
agentic world, they're askingtheir agent to go find
something.
The best practices are evolvingfor asking customers to give us
information, the value of whatwe've said is authentication in
order to get something out. Howdo you balance as a design lead
the tension between I wanna helppersonalize, and I'm gonna need
(27:37):
something from you to do thatwith the other side of being too
intrusive or, you know,violating some privacy or being
manipulative? Because we allknow, you know, the more data we
have, obviously, that's good forthe business too. So as a design
leader, how do you talk toclients about that that balance
that you strike?
Dave Altis (27:56):
Oh, man. The second hardest question I think I've
ever been asked. You're on aroll.
Nick Brunker (28:00):
Here for you.
Dave Altis (28:04):
It's ironic. It's our job to have those
conversations. I don't know howmany of our clients are ready to
have those conversations. And sowe haven't yet had to really
cross that bridge because we'restill being asked for a lot of
that commodity work.
Nick Brunker (28:20):
Right.
Dave Altis (28:21):
Without a doubt, as these agentive models get
smarter and more integrated intoour lives, everything that we're
doing today is just gonna becomeobsolete. So so, really, I'm
interpreting your question inthis. How do we help clients get
to the point where they're readyto transition into that? Because
at some point, they're gonnahave to let go. And that's a
(28:42):
tough thing to swallow becausethey've invested millions,
sometimes tens of millions ofdollars in these giant
platforms.
Now I'm encouraged because Adobeis one of our, very critical WPP
partners. They have awareness ofall this too. They're already
working to incorporate AI intoall of their products, whether
(29:03):
it's Photoshop or Adobe Cloud.
Nick Brunker (29:05):
Mhmm.
Dave Altis (29:06):
So they're they're already starting to prime the
pump. So what we're gonna do iswe're gonna, I think, baby step
into it. The next thing is we'renot gonna get rid of Adobe
Experience Cloud. Mhmm. Mhmm.
We're gonna start moving intohow AI that's embedded into that
or even third party AI can startto work with those systems as we
transition. So is that gonnareally force us to change from a
(29:27):
design perspective? Probably notsuper quickly, although even
that's subjective. Years ago, Igot I went to South by, and I
got to watch a keynote with RayKurzweil. And, you know, he
wrote Singularity book.
Amazing. And he was talkingabout the hockey puck of
technology evolution. And atthat time, almost ten years ago,
(29:48):
we were right there at thatlittle curve before it starts to
accelerate up exponentially.Here we are ten years later, and
I think we have come a long way.So we are gonna have to have
these conversations very soon.
So I think it's gonna come downto almost business
transformation planning first.You know? And this is something
that's really important to VML'sCX organization, offering these
(30:10):
business transformationreadiness services and
consulting, if you will, of howto get ready so that it's not
just, all that money we'veinvested into these platforms is
thrown away. All the time andenergy we've put into staffing
up to support them is thrownaway. We don't wanna do that.
We're gonna have to work withthem to transition and be ready.
(30:31):
The same thing applies todesign.
Nick Brunker (30:33):
And you hit on storytelling as part of that
design. What do you believe arethe key elements of storytelling
on websites that resonate withusers on a human level, thinking
about where we are today, and wekind of have the playbook in,
you know, certain ways forstorytelling. Do you see the the
actual strategy behindstorytelling evolving a lot as
(30:53):
well as we move into this thisnew world, or is it still the
same, you know, general key 10poles?
Dave Altis (30:59):
One of my favorite people on earth, Kalida McDade,
who is our global chiefexperience design leader here at
VML, is working with all of us,and we're actually shifting from
storytelling into story living.And it's really exactly what
you're talking about. Storyliving is how we live these
stories, and it's the relevancyof how we engage with brands.
And it's that timeliness and allthe things we've riffed on with
(31:22):
the agentive and understandingI'm at a certain location. And,
you know, it could be that I'meven wearing my Apple Watch and
it's connecting into myheartbeat and it knows that I'm
anxious.
And so it's delivering somethingthat's very relevant at that
moment in time to me. Thatmoment in time is something
that's very, very different thantoday where I'm intentionally
(31:43):
going to a website, leaning in,and I'm searching. Right. And so
story living is gonna, I think,be the evolution of how are we
understanding what people aredoing, thinking, and feeling at
that moment in time and thendelivering the appropriate
content in that moment. And itit could be that if we determine
that Nick Bronker is anxious atthe moment, that we deliver
(32:03):
something that is video or audiothat is designed to calm him,
and that could be sponsored by abrand.
And so it'll be a wholedifferent way to think about
content design based on thosemoments in time and the
connected ecosystem of ourworlds.
Nick Brunker (32:18):
As we think about the other thing that I think
going back to the beginningwhere we're we're trying to
create these experiences thatthat drive connection and work
in concert with all of the othermajor pieces of the ecosystem
where, you know, we talk aboutbrand experience and how
creating the right initial storyto pique somebody's interest to
get them into the website. Howdo we, you know, get them to
(32:40):
engage on the website andultimately convert those same,
like, linear stair steps from Ididn't hear about I didn't even
know about this brand to I am abrand advocate and all the steps
in between. It's not just gonnabe the web is changing because
it's changing at the same, Iwould say, relative speed as as
all the other ecosystems. Howdoes CRM evolve? How does search
(33:01):
evolve?
How does paid media evolve?We're we're in this time where
everybody is kind of in the samesomewhat frenetic transition as
the technology advances. So I amcurious about as we think about
how the role of websites evolvealong with all of the other
touch points somebody might havein their day or how the
(33:22):
ecosystem collectively workstogether. Do you see web having
and maybe this is a two twodirective question. More
responsibility, lessresponsibility, different
responsibilities in relation toall the other things that are in
our ecosystem.
So that between paid media,between CRM, between, between,
(33:44):
you know, you name any otherchannel even in person. How do
you see web kind of becomingmore important, less important,
or just different?
Dave Altis (33:53):
Bold statement here going out on a limb. You and I
and everybody listening to thispodcast will see the end of
websites in our dates. We willsee the end of websites. And so
I think to simplify that,they're going to become
obsolete. Question is when andwhat are those baby steps to get
there.
Like I said, I think we'll seeplatforms like GX manager be
(34:14):
that kinda next step where thewebsite is still very much
there. And these systems thatsit on top of a website, they're
still very friendly andcompliant to SEO and SEM and all
these things, but searching ischanging. Everything that we do
and how we look for informationis changing. And so the website
(34:34):
site will no longer be adestination. It literally will
not be necessary.
Now you say, but, Dave, wheredoes all that content live?
Yeah. I imagine there's stillgonna be these data data lakes,
data houses that hold thiscontent. They hold the offering
of these companies, but it's theagents talking to agents that
(34:55):
are basically pulling andcompiling. But it's gonna be
that Nick Brunker has his owninterface.
Dave Aldis has his owninterface. Yeah. And the agents
are pulling the content owned bythe brands into my experience.
And I think at the end of theday, my experience may
ultimately even replace a CocaCola agent or a Ford agent, and
it's gonna be the Nick Brunkeragent. Your personal assistant
(35:18):
that is just knowing you, andit's pulling the things that you
like from the brands that areout there.
It's a very different way tolook at it. Now let's talk about
Ford for one hot minute. Yeah.One thing people love to do
right now is go in and build inprice tool and pimp out a ride
Yep. And dream about that Broncoand customize it in every way I
want.
Yeah. Yeah. I think you'll stillbe able to do that. It's just
(35:40):
gonna be not necessarily housedon ford.com. So you'll be maybe
finding an image to go back tomy earlier prototype story.
I'll find an image of an offroad vehicle, pull that into an
agent, and say, man, build mebuild me my version of this. And
it'll come back and say,alright, Nick. Based on what I
know about you, you know, lastmonth, we went out to Moab, and
(36:03):
you love the off road stuff. SoI I got you the the Raptor
package, and we've pimped it outwith the biggest tires on Earth.
And you get the idea.
And it'll basically configurethat thing for you. It'll talk
back to the Ford ecosystem andunderstand pricing, but then
it's also gonna know and, hey.You can get something like this
at a dealer at the street fromyou because it knows where you
(36:25):
are. Mhmm. And so it'll just bethat middle it'll be that middle
agent to connect you to thebrand in a much more seamless
and relevant way than having yougo to a website and interact
with stuff.
Nick Brunker (36:38):
I am wondering if there is a step in the middle,
like, where we are today andthen what you just kind of
articulated with with vision.The the middle ground is brands
still have their owned property,but the owned property is
actually manipulated completelyaround the individual, which
(36:58):
again goes back to the idea oftrue one to one hyper
personalization. But it feelslike the way we're going. And I
know there's no question reallyburied in this just kind of
musing with you, like, talkingthrough it. The idea that if you
go to and we'll just keep theFord example or if you go to, a
Target or any other website,whether it's a retailer or a
brand, There is maybe a generalversion like I know nothing, but
(37:23):
as we get more advanced with thesignals and all of the the ways
that we can personalize, therethere really isn't a, you know,
singular odd.
I'm just gonna go to thebrand.com. It was no. I'm gonna
go to Dave Altus's brand dotcom. And so maybe it is the, you
know, the hierarchy of thenavigation. Maybe it's the page
(37:44):
structure.
Maybe it's the content of like,literally, it is a website
designed for one. And I'm notsure if we I just my mind is,
like, spinning right now about,well, what does that mean for
people like us in our day todays where we still need the
things and the brands still willneed the the guts of it to help
(38:04):
serve the customer and hell,maybe even design the the
containers upon which Yeah. Allthis content lives. But you're
right. We we may be short ofcompletely decoupling websites
from their brands and creatingmore of a one to one where the
website still exists, but reallyit's just the container.
(38:25):
Everything else that's in it ispersonalized down to the person.
Dave Altis (38:28):
What's also interesting is if you're
building a dashboard of contentbased on your querying in a
certain way, and I'm in Londondoing something that's
complimentary to it, theplatform can now be smart enough
and actually play a matchmakingrole. Your ingredients plus my
ingredients could be a newtransformational product that
benefits mankind. And so itcould actually connect Nick and
(38:51):
Dave. So you can start to seehow the platform is still there.
There's still a website, but theintelligence behind it through
AI can be smarter.
We can take care of some of thethings like too many
authenticated experiences in abrand, and now there's just one.
But what happens inside thatexperience is very different for
you than it is for me because ofthe atomic content. Again, this
(39:13):
is Dream Theater. It's nottotally happening right now, but
this is where we're this iswhere we're gonna be going in
that kind of middle ground thatyou're talking about. Websites
won't be totally dead for awhile, but they're gonna get a
lot smarter, and we're gonna geta lot more relevant.
I keep using that word relevant.Mhmm. Less less foraging less
foraging and more tell me whatyou need. Here it is.
Nick Brunker (39:36):
Before we close-up the show and we do fun facts,
which we always do towards theend, is there one area of this
this entire theme that thatexcites you the most? What are
you most excited about inrelation to where your type of
role and where where yourexpertise is gonna go in the
next few years based on all thestuff we talked about?
Dave Altis (39:55):
Damn. I love the challenge of all of it. Just
about every brand that I'veworked on has been a little bit
more on the conservative side, aslower mover, like I said, tends
to be a lot of theseorganizations just because of
their infrastructure tend to befollowers, not leaders. I love
that challenge so much, and Ilove the fact that it never
settles. It never ever settles.
(40:18):
Every day is a differentchallenge. Every day is a new
technology opportunity to bringforward. I'm most excited about
which client wants to be brave,which client is ready to be
brave, and really lean in towhat's possible and be at the
beginning of it, not aftersomebody else already did it.
That's exciting to me. And it'srisky, dude.
(40:38):
It's risky.
Nick Brunker (40:39):
No doubt.
Dave Altis (40:40):
I get it. But you know what? That's what I love
about the career. Who wants towho wants to take risks with me?
Let's go.
I love it. I just fucking do it.
Nick Brunker (40:48):
I love it, man. And in terms of, like, maybe you
off the clock, well, you're notthinking about design, for all
of these these big brands andall the things we just talked
about. I imagine you've got alot of similar passion areas.
Talk about some fun facts aboutDave Altus.
Dave Altis (41:04):
Okay. I, I love, love, love science fiction and
horror and fantasy movies. I'm ahuge consumer of shows. I can't
get enough. I'm also a hugevideo game player.
I've been playing video gamessince this will bait me big
time. My first computer was aTexas Instruments t I ninety
nine four a. Yeah. If you know,you know. Yeah.
(41:26):
My next was a Commodore sixtyfour. You know, and my brother
and I would literally getmagazines, and we would code
machine language to get a Ponglike game. You know? It was
crazy.
Nick Brunker (41:37):
So That's next level.
Dave Altis (41:38):
I've been playing video games since Zork. I didn't
hear myself. I'm a huge RPGplayer. I'm not necessarily the
big MMO guy, but I love to getin and build the character,
build the story, grow, you know,grow that character up to be
powerful and then start it over.And then I like to make shit
(42:00):
with my hands.
I like to build things, whetherit's I make my own handcrafted
soap because I I'd love that.And then I also, like, build my
own deck, attaching it to myhouse.
Nick Brunker (42:13):
Yeah.
Dave Altis (42:14):
So I like to make. I like to do things that are
intubile.
Nick Brunker (42:17):
Sounds on brand. Keep
Dave Altis (42:18):
the brain down.
Nick Brunker (42:19):
Gonna say it sounds on brand for you, both
both your in your day job andoff the clock. What's the
coolest thing you you feel likeyou've made or the the proudest,
moment you've had in terms of,like, hey. I made that shit.
Dave Altis (42:32):
Honestly, my decks. I remember years ago, I was
driving. We were working on aclient in Saint Louis, and John
Cook was involved. And so I'm ina car with John and some other
people, and we're driving fromKansas City to Saint Louis. And
we were just shooting the shitabout stuff.
And I said, oh, I really, reallywanna put a deck on the front of
my house. And and John's like,well, I don't get it. What
(42:55):
what's what's stopping you? Whydon't you just do it? And I'm
like, I'm like, I'm like, I'mlike, I'm like, I'm like, I'm
like, I'm like, I'm like, I'mlike, I'm like, I'm like, I'm
like, I'm like, I'm like, I'mlike, what?
I can't do just build it. Justget out there and do it. And I'm
like, I what? I can't do that.And he's like, I don't
understand.
What are you what are youtalking about? So I built a
deck. I'm like, I love it.
Nick Brunker (43:10):
So John so John was the reason. He's just like,
dude, just go do it in intypical John fashion.
Dave Altis (43:18):
David, you're confusing me. I don't need to
see the problem. Build the deck.
Nick Brunker (43:21):
Home Depot is over there. Just go get the stuff and
go. Right. Oh, man. Dave.
Dave Altis (43:27):
I love it. I love being able to figure anything
out.
Nick Brunker (43:30):
And you know what? You do that so well all day
every day, and it's been anincredible, conversation. Super
insightful as always. Thank youfor finally, getting time on the
books to do this. I know we'vebeen we've been trying to get it
on the books for all thesemonths, and, it means a lot.
You spend spend almost an hourwith us and and chatting about
your experience and yourexpertise, and, I'm excited to
to keep, communication linesopen as this evolves. We'll
(43:52):
we'll do this again. How aboutthat?
Dave Altis (43:54):
Nick, I love you. I love the show. Thank you for
having me on here, and I can'twait to do it again. This is
great.
Nick Brunker (43:59):
Awesome. Again, thanks, buddy. I appreciate you.
And thanks to you all forlistening to Human Centered as
well. To learn more about VML CXpractice and our approach to the
work, you could check us outonline at b m l dot com.
We'd also love to hear yourfeedback on the show. Give us a
rating and offer up yourthoughts wherever you listen to
your podcasts, including Apple,Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, and
more. Have a topic idea or justwanna drop us a line? You can
(44:22):
connect with me on x at nickbrunker, or you can shoot the
show and email. The address ishumancentered@vml.com.
Thanks again for listening.We'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.