Paul Janssen’s 17 Years at Fellow Digitals: Driving Digital Transformation and Future-Proofing Workplaces
Blog | Interview with Paul Janssen
What’s the secret to staying innovative and pushing boundaries after 17 years in the same company? The answer lies in the journey of Paul Janssen, who has continually driven innovation and growth at Fellow Digitals. In this blog post, we dive into Paul's incredible 17-year journey with us, highlighting key milestones and insights into the work at Fellow Digitals.
Driving forward the vision of smarter and more efficient workplaces
For Paul Janssen, the philosophy of sticking to the core has been at the heart of his journey at Fellow Digitals. Starting his career in an unexpected field, Paul has spent the last 17 years at Fellow Digitals, driving forward the vision of smarter and more efficient workplaces. He has witnessed the evolution of the Viadesk/Fellow Digitals' design through the years. To showcase this design ánd Paul's work over the past 17 years, we’ve created a video just for you:
From his early days as a chemical analyst to becoming a key player at Viadesk (the predecessor of Fellow Digitals), Paul's career demonstrates his power of adaptability and passion. Over the years, he has led numerous projects that have not only transformed the company’s offerings but have also significantly impacted the way customers interact with their digital environments.
As we look back on his remarkable journey, we explore the milestones Paul has achieved and gain insights into his innovative mindset that continues to shape the future of digital workplaces.
Paul, can you share your story about how you joined the Fellow family?
“Actually, I worked at 2 competitors of Viadesk before I finally ended up here. The market was quite dynamic back then. I really liked the online collaboration, and working in a virtual office, as they called it at that time. Then I found, the job vacancy for a web designer at Viadesk and it was like love at first sight for me. So, I got hired and never left anymore. I worked as a web designer and front-end developer for most of my years at Fellow Digitals (Viadesk/Fellow Digitals), before altering my role as an innovation manager 4 years ago. I try to organize the work for the developers and move in a more strategic and a broader sense to see what's happening in markets.”
What are your most memorable projects over the last 17 years?
“When I came to work at Viadesk, it was more like this virtual office, and the whole social aspect wasn't even there. If you posted a document, you couldn't respond to it, you couldn't like it. There was nothing in that sense, and there wasn't a timeline where people could communicate. One of the first projects that we did, as a team, was making it social. We worked on having a timeline and liking somebody's work and, responding to documents. One of the big things that we had to do was make a responsive tool and make an app. For context, the first iPhone was released in the summer of 2007. It's really hard to imagine making an app during that time, as we didn't have a clue! How do you make, this big desktop interface work on such a small screen? So making an app was one of my first projects.”
What is one project you are particularly proud of?
“There have been many exciting projects, and my favorite is the Accessibility Bit because I love doing that and I think it fits our brand very much. Making our Fellow Intranet and Fellow LMS fully accessible for people with functional limitations was a real eye-opener on this project for me. We worked on that for many years, and it was a really hard project. Finally, we got the certification for Viadesk. These projects have significantly impacted how our clients use our products and interact with their digital workplaces. We are now building the accessibility certification for Fellow LMS. We hope it will be ready in the spring of next year, really looking forward to it!”
What was considered innovative in the past but isn’t anymore?
“Well, many trends many trends come and go, obviously. Today's innovations are more about how we can enhance these basic functionalities with smart, user-friendly features like AI-driven insights, seamless integrations, and, of course, accessibility and inclusivity. With COVID-19, we all had the idea that we are going to build these virtual business communities, but then again, what’s the harm in a simple video call instead of that? What we learned in all those years is that there are a lot of trends that create a kind of hype. But it all dies down gradually.
Generative AI is a current hype and we are looking and researching for the best way to support customers. I actually, read an article that says that only 30 percent of working people in the Netherlands only use generative AI. So, what I think I learned in all these years is that it's best if you stick to your core and do that really, really well. And if a trend comes along, you can judge if it stays or if it doesn't stay. And if it fits your product and service.
Especially for a smaller team, it costs a lot of time and effort and money to build something that is just a hype. And I think in the end, customers aren't really waiting for these kinds of things. They want to have a robust system that works for them. So, listen to the customer and see what their actual problems are and build tools for that to help them with that instead of jumping on every on the hype train, I would say.”
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