2023: miedos artificiales y aprendizajes inteligentes

A discovery. A coincidence. A mistake.

A project. A challenge. A tool. A conversation.

A question. An encounter. A possibility.

Trying, and above all, trying again (together).

In the 365 days that 2023 has had, there have been countless occasions for us to learn as a holistic team and as specialists in the different areas our skills belong to. It's one of the goals we renew each year: capitalize on everything we experience to keep being happy good people pursuing digital excellence with sustainable ambition.

That's why we came together and made reflections typical of the moment about what we've learned in the last twelve months. Our CEO Ismael Barros's take on 2023 is that "there were drums of crisis, but we ended the year and still don't know where they come from or how many there are. The social, geopolitical, economic, and technological situation has affected investment in intangibles just when they could and should have the most impact and relevance."

And given such a crucial year, what have Soluble's teams learned?

Artificial Intelligence, 2023's main challenge—and conversation

When we think about transformations, changes, or evolutions in 2023, we have to start talking about Artificial Intelligence. Its presence has been constant in the digital sector and has penetrated what concerns and occupies all our specialties.

In the Visual area, our lead Anna Bohigas told us how "it has been a catalyst for debates, concerns, and possibilities that generates emotions of all kinds". For Julia Vallina, Technology Director, the impact on web development has been direct and significant: "We're still understanding its implications, but it's already changing the way we develop with tools like GitHub Copilot or Vercel AI SDK".

The footprint of AI goes beyond how things are done and also how they are managed; rather, as Marta Factor points out, heading Activation, "it changes the way we understand work, how we're going to spend our time, what role we have, what our value contribution is… and that's a very important part of our life and our purpose as a brand".

Updating

It's not the only update that's kept us alert. For Ada Fàbregas, Product lead, constant adaptation is a basic part of her day-to-day: "We're in a sector marked by changing trends and rapid technological transformations. Some with major impact, like Figma's evolution, which has led us to change the way we work".

This evolution is also happening in the technology area, which in 2023 has managed to solidify the foundations of its stack where we've consolidated the use of Nextjs, Vercel, DatoCMS and have been able to explore and deepen into other areas, like Framer Motion for building animations, the D3 library for graphics, and continue training the team with the new specifications of base languages, for example container queries or View transition API in CSS.

Intelligent and human strategy

Faced with so many changes and developments, there are two words that help us not get lost in the noise: consistency and congruence, or in other words, strategy.

But… what makes a strategy work despite how changeable the environment is? Once again, authenticity. The more weight artificial gains, the more we need to put value on what doesn't change: the essence of the people behind the brands, something we already discussed in this podcast on authenticity in life and in brands.

The impact of authentic strategy isn't just ethical—it also means significant improvements in efficiency in process and results. This year we've learned to use strategy to not get lost in the FOMO of trying everything and go straight to the touchpoint where things actually happen.

Better work = more collaboration

Without being anything new, we've learned to keep leveraging the sum of our human intelligences to go further. Without the integrated approach and collaborative attitude from different areas guided by the Brand Managers, we wouldn't have achieved the richness of results that comes from combining diverse skills and perspectives for our clients and for ourselves as a team and as a brand. It's not just about bringing individual value, but about amplifying collective collaboration with the goal of adding value collectively.

The management team is in charge of driving and facilitating those synergies between remote and distributed teams, as Estela Pedrero, lead of Brand Managers, had already mentioned in the podcast on Manage the holistic vision: "As managers, we must apply coherence, consistency, and common sense in the use of processes, methodologies, and new ways of working, always seeking to ease day-to-day operations and allowing the team to dedicate their time to what truly matters".

But the truth is that improving the process is everyone's responsibility, and we share moments to reflect on and/or question our working methods. A clear example is the increasingly close alignment between design and code approaches, in which Figma has had a very positive impact on the workflow between Product and Technology. Ada and Julia shared all their secrets and learnings with us in a Soluble Goes Live on this collaborative culture is unmissable for any professional in both areas.

What matters to us, as always: people

Bringing out the best in each person so they shine is not a simple task, however, and requires many decisions working together. For example, it's been fundamental to learn how to support our professionals by promoting the career development plan format with a very much our own approach and following the philosophy of Power to Be. And an exceptional signing: bringing Almudena Mestre to the team as People Operations Manager, a role made to drive things to the max humanism also in our organization.

It's essential not to lose sight of the conversation between mental health and work, and for that we've been greatly enriched by alliances with brands that resonate with us like Mentiness, with whom we also spoke in one of our podcasts this year. But that's not all: we believe so much in their purpose that this year we invested in them and their future.

Care for people comes from the team and also, and very much so, from what we do and how we do it with our something-more-than partners. "It's been a year of confirmation, where we've reaped the fruits of relationships we started planting years ago. All of this is about people and caring for them genuinely," says Ismael, with an idea that reminds us a lot of our post on the humanistic approach for brands.

And in 2024…

Experiences remembered, notes taken… and now? Time to capitalize on what we see coming in 2024. For the Activation, Visual, Product, and Technology teams, Artificial Intelligence continues as the primary source of innovation in 2024. Over the next twelve months we'll dedicate our time to delivering value, building judgment, and not getting swept up in the avalanche. Let technology make us more human at work so we can make our brands more human. That's why it'll be critical to come together so processes keep evolving with a focus on streamlining day-to-day.

For this to become reality, we'll keep improving our remote work setup, seeking efficiency, taking care of our physical and mental health, and building our capacity to be, every day, more autonomous individuals within an increasingly aligned team. Ultimately, pursuing that Teal organization goal—we'll share more on this soon—that responds to the needs of today and tomorrow for our brands and our people.

This is our purpose for 2024, a year of transition and challenges that will surely bring us many more learnings. Ismael shares his vision on what's ahead: "Even though we won't see this never-ending crisis recover, I'm convinced that the return on intangible investments made in 2023 will be felt. Those who looked after their brand or digital presence will remain stronger and healthier in the face of adversity".