Jo Smets: 0:00

Bigger companies have the money to invest in starting to build GEO tracking tools instead of SEO tracking tools. I think that's a clear sign of where things are going.

Joeri Billast: 0:08

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast, I'm your podcast host, and we are here at the Web Summit. And today I'm joined by Jo. Hey Jo, how are you? I'm doing great, thank you, Joeri. Thank you for the invitation. Great to have you here, yo, guys. If you don't know Jo Smets, he's the founder of BluePanda and the president of the CCLBL, the Portuguese Belgian Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce. Yo, great to have you here, eh? A fellow Belgian, the fifth Belgian on my podcast since about 260 episodes. Living here, like me, in Portugal. For our audience to understand a bit better, what's your background, what you're doing? Explain a bit. BluePanda is a nearshor partner in digital CRM marketing. For our listeners who are maybe unfamiliar with near shoring, what does it actually mean in practice and why is it becoming strategic for European companies?

Jo Smets: 1:06

Yeah, that's a great question, Joeri. There's a lot of near shoring companies, but indeed it's always a question, what are we doing? If you go back to the basics, it's providing people from a different country to work in another country, and that's what we're doing for Portugal to Europe. They also like the fact that you didn't mention AI yet. It's a bit of twofold where AI gets a big attention, but at the same time it should also be completely integrated with CRM and marketing and everything.

Joeri Billast: 1:31

AI is everywhere here at Web Summit. I think it's at every boot, at every talk. AI. And before we dive a bit further into AI, are there any misconceptions you encounter around near shoring when talking to clients?

Jo Smets: 1:46

Yeah, there's a lot of misconception between near-shoring and offshoring. I believe working with a near shoring company brings you really close to the culture, and that's sometimes not very well understood. Also, it takes a bit of effort to understand the culture of the countries you work with, of course, which in our case is perfect to Belgians and Portuguese.

Joeri Billast: 2:05

Absolutely. I mentioned it already, yeah. Web Summit, AI is one of the big themes this year. You mentioned already AI. I didn't mention it in my first question, but how is BluePanda practically integrating AI, not just for development of CRM, but how do you deliver value to your clients?

Jo Smets: 2:24

First of all, we are a company, right? And any organization needs to today look what it can do with AI, meaning our operational processes are being investigated, recruitment, people management, evaluations, etc. That's something we value a lot, so it has a lot of attention. You need to be ahead of the wave, I would say, and know what tools are happening, what's going on, what are the trends. And then the more important topic is how you combine that into a solution that you can actually apply to your customer.

Joeri Billast: 2:54

Yeah. Your customer is probably expecting everyone is talking about AI. How do you keep yourself up to date with AI because it's moving so fast, then I guess it's also a challenge for you for BluePanda.

Jo Smets: 3:06

The first thing you should do is always follow Joeri Bilast, be at all the great events, and incorporate yourself in the right network. With BluePanda, we're doing this on a global level. We recently joined the global partner network that has a big focus on AI as well. It's called BBN. And in the conglomerate work group, basically, that really looks at what's going on in the world, not only here in Portugal or in Europe, which is a super interesting one.

Joeri Billast: 3:31

Keeps us thank you for mentioning me. I also try to do that. I go to conferences, talk to people, invite interesting guests to my show. You will see that I talk more and more on my show about AI. Now you mentioned the panda in the global, you're in Portugal, you're Belgian. Do you see any differences in how companies adopt AI, AI do in marketing or automation in different countries that you are dealing with?

Jo Smets: 3:59

Yeah, I think there's certainly a trend in certain countries that are more ahead than others. We hear here at Web Summits that China is very much ahead in the AI battle. But if you look at Europe, I believe there's a global understanding that things need to happen. I think the difference is more on smaller versus bigger companies. Corporates are usually a little bit slower, although they have more money to invest in proof of concepts. But it's really in the startup world that you see the big wave. Hey, let's do everything with AI.

Joeri Billast: 4:27

Yeah, and what is the impression that you get if you walk around here at Web Cummit and you go to these different pavilions and you see all the equipment?

Jo Smets: 4:35

I see a lot of enthusiasm. I see a lot of really motivated people from different countries. That's really cool to see that you have this kind of bulk of different solutions. One thing that I am waiting for is an automation of processes. So, how do we automate with AI a business process today? That's a question that I didn't get answered yet. Although there are some tools that do it, but it's not the main focus today. We see a lot of containerized solutions that I would like to see in a bigger process later on.

Joeri Billast: 5:05

In my next question, I wanted to mention my book, yo, the future CMO. Did an event with UI not so long ago, around AI and also around the book? I explore how modern leaders combine human judgment with machine intelligence. How do you actually balance technology and empathy when you're managing your team, managing your clients?

Jo Smets: 5:28

That's for me a very important question because our company is very much people's focused. The question is how ethical do you stay if you're using AI tools or not? We're talking about a workforce in the future where a part of your team will be agents. Managers need to manage agents, so it's very important. On the level of managing people, it's helping them to embrace it, even if they're positive or negative, and find a way inside AI while using it in a beneficial way for customers. On the trust sides, I think there's all the work to be done. Yeah. There's not enough governance at the moment and regulations. But I believe that will come over time.

Joeri Billast: 6:05

You mentioned all already trust. I have my book, I have my retreats in Torah Synergies, which will be around AI and marketing, which takes place in April. One of the discussions I want to have with people there is how collaboration and trust accelerate through innovation. What are some of the cultural elements that helped Blue Banda stay human while scaling to technology?

Jo Smets: 6:30

Yeah, again, that connection to people for us is extremely important. Want our people to feel home with us and also with the clients we work for. Creating that culture takes a lot of time. You have to build up that relationship with people and with uh working from home kind of policy is that's a challenge today. But keeping investing in that and not only in new technologies or only building your customer base and revenue, but actually investing in human capital that then can work with AI, that is completely AI literate, of course, is I think still key. And for the HR teams and the team leaders need to focus on.

Joeri Billast: 7:06

And now, of course, you're here Portugal as a Belgian, the Portuguese company, lots of Portuguese people that you have in your team. You have also the president of the Belgian Portuguese Chamber of Commerce. Right. How do you actually see these organizations playing a role in connecting the innovation ecosystem across borders?

Jo Smets: 7:26

I believe it's very important to have an organization that has knowledge, the network, and it does something for its members, being it your clients, members, or your employees. And that is actually what CCLBL also does. So the members, there is a specific set of events, knowledge sharing, and networking, of course, very dedicated networking, and of course, information questions. While for a broader public who are also giving a lot, working together with the embassies, for example, we're really giving a lot away to entrepreneurs, to organizations that need help. It's a non-profit organization.

Joeri Billast: 8:02

Yeah.

Jo Smets: 8:03

I have to say an association officially, but we don't have a goal to make a lot of money. Whatever we make, we invest again knowledge in knowledge or networking.

Joeri Billast: 8:12

Yeah, I see that you do a lot of events, networking. When it comes to AI, we already did an event together at UI. How do you look at AI and what you want to do with CCLBL? Is this one of the main topics you want to focus on as a president? Yes, for sure.

Jo Smets: 8:27

Technology and the fact that Portugal is a country with a lot of startups and a lot of innovation going on, needs to be part of it. So, yes, for sure, it's one of the main pillars next to, for example, defense, healthcare, and legal etc.

Joeri Billast: 8:44

Right. So for me, networking is also close to community building. Like my listeners know, my podcast is around Web3, which means for me it's an umbrella term of blockchain, AI, new technologies. Here in Portugal, I see there is really this Web3 community. I see this a bit less for AI, the community, and then it is good that you have this kind of initiatives. But maybe the reason for that is that AI is everywhere. Or what is your opinion?

Jo Smets: 9:11

To pick in on that community for AI, it's indeed something that touches all industries today. It's not one industry, so it's easier to have a community about a certain topic. So that could be a reason why it's more spread out. The second point is communities are today the most important factor, I believe, in marketing as well. So playing a role in that ecosystem to bring people together to talk about AI, something that I believe is very valuable.

Joeri Billast: 9:36

When you talk to a client, are they already asking you about AI? And if they are hesitating, how would you approach a new client?

Jo Smets: 9:46

I must say most of the clients today really ask for AI. It's a given in any proposal you do, being it in reassuring, being it in marketing. And if they don't ask for it, you have to propose, I believe. You need to challenge your customer, anyways. If you don't do that, you're not ahead of the markets. Maybe they don't ask it just to test if you are interested in it or not.

Joeri Billast: 10:06

Now, you as a you have known for building teams, have a strong delivery culture. How do you make sure that growth and quality scale together when you have AI that is changing the workflow so fast?

Jo Smets: 10:21

I think we need to embrace the goods and the bads, right? I believe AI can also help with training of people. Besides everything we said before, if employees embrace AI and become literate and fluid, they should also accelerate their learning.

Joeri Billast: 10:39

Absolutely. Now, if a lot of people in marketing and entrepreneurs are listening to this podcast, they should want to give one piece of advice. They want to try to modernize their organization, but not losing that identity with AI. What would it be?

Jo Smets: 10:56

That's the million dollar question. Can I ask you the numbers for the lottery for this Friday? There's a lot of advice that has been given. If I summarize what I hear about Web Summits, I would say you can be positive or negative, but let's try to embrace it. It's not going to stop. So we better be careful, use it. But from the whole bookshelf you have, maybe let's take one. Let's pick this up, see what it can do for your organization. Pick one small process, try it out, see if it works, integrate it with your people and educate your people.

Joeri Billast: 11:27

Yeah, let's also start small, but dig big. Like you mentioned, you are part of BBN, you speak to a lot of leaders in the fields. In these conversations that you had, wasn't anything surprising of any aha moment that you had while by the presentations that you have been seeing at those events?

Jo Smets: 11:47

Several, I'll pick one. For example, the difference in reporting style about marketing SEO, the switch from SEO to GEO, bigger companies have the money to invest in, starting to build GEO tracking tools instead of SEO tracking tools. I think that's a clear sign of where things are going. There is also a question about SaaS software. Are we going to still eat SaaS software in the future? How far that will go, how quickly that will go. These are very interesting thoughts that could shape the future.

Joeri Billast: 12:15

Yeah, is that any any tool that maybe you're using, or maybe you think of using that you have seen now, and you say, Wow, this is an AI tool. I definitely use for BluePanda or for your clients.

Jo Smets: 12:28

I think you have the standard great tools like Calam, Nana Banana, etc., to to use that you should certainly explore, but that's not where it stops. It stops if there's no end to it. There's a thousand of tools. I think the key is to keep up to date with them, try out as many as you can and pick the right. You see the bigger corporate platforms consolidating their knowledge about AI into workable tools. Yeah. But in the end, yeah, you need that's not a tool set you will use on a daily basis for your operations. So you need to be aware of what's going on, pick the right tools and see in the communities around you what works and what doesn't work.

Joeri Billast: 13:09

What are you at this moment now the most excited about trends or tools or maybe conversations you have been having?

Jo Smets: 13:17

Yeah, I find a lot of people still questioning what's going to happen and this open-ends something that interests me a lot, but leaves a lot of room for creativity, innovation, finding new ways. And yeah, so that's certainly interesting for me. On the other side, I do have the data protection, data governance question. How do you bring these solutions to your customers today while promising that their data will not be used in a different way?

Joeri Billast: 13:42

That people ask at the privacy question at this moment, these big companies are building them all. What do you say to a company that indeed comes to you with this privacy question?

Jo Smets: 13:53

Yeah, there are different solutions for this. You can always choose for an on-premise solution and host things yourself, which today is not the most efficient way. Be careful with what kind of processes you implement. For example, sharing your company policies without financial details, without personal details to an LLM is in the end not that big of a problem. Yeah. Just shows how you work and you could give access to your employees or to your customers to question that. If that's available on World Wide Web, it's not so important. But be careful with the sensitive data today. Make sure that you find the right legal people to check the right things.

Joeri Billast: 14:30

Yeah. And yeah, that's a good point. Invo also have the legal people involved because I see this question is also getting asked. Have a lawyer also checking what's possible because they don't know with the data, what you can do and what can happen with it.

Jo Smets: 14:45

Maybe to add, you you still find today websites that don't have a decent GDPR policy. And this is something 10 years back that should be there as a standard for every application. So it will take some time before these rules will be in place. But certainly a good place to start is the EU AI acts that exists today. I don't know all the details yet, but finding out.

Joeri Billast: 15:08

Sometimes it's also that the data is not private, to speak of marketing, that's your that you're getting noticed if I speak about my own book. There are books that have been uploaded or have been are available in this AI, yeah, like in ChatGPT. But for me it's like a marketing instrument. So for a marketing point of view, it can be good. And then you mentioned there are websites that don't have are not GDPR proof. Most websites now are not AI proof, huh? Any thought about that? How you see that evolving? Is this like the next the next big thing that we need to forget about the SEO and focus on showing up in these AI answers?

Jo Smets: 15:48

Yeah, that's for sure. That's not something for the future. That's today already. Yeah. Such five opens the door. So there we go. What I think is maybe more to consider, why are we writing content for a website today? Why are we not having a page where we say, hey, there needs to be an up-to-date article about WebSummits? When you open the website, it's generated by AI. Automatically generated websites based on the persona that's entering, based on the content you want there. You steer it with prompts, you steer it with inputs, but the content itself doesn't need to be written by your own team anymore. I think that's more the future. If you look at advertising or the streams on social media, they are AI based, generated what you see next. When you scroll, it finds what you like most every time update. Ads, same thing. So why not static copy today?

Joeri Billast: 16:45

Yeah, I think a good mix of evergreen content, like what I'm doing with this podcast, it is repurposed into a blog, and then it's findable not only on Google but also on ChatGPT. Now you have your business. What mindset do you think you need to have as an entrepreneur, as a marketer or a marketing director when it comes to AI and everything that's happening today?

Jo Smets: 17:11

You cannot exclude it. That's the mindset. Open-minded for sure, looking at the innovation side of looking at the benefits it can bring. Open-minded, I would say, if you wanted it in one word.

Joeri Billast: 17:21

Is there maybe at the end of this episode one advice that you would give to people that are maybe on the fence, they are hesitating doing AI? Maybe you mentioned it already. What would you say?

Jo Smets: 17:33

Trust yourself. You know what is right. Start looking at it as a technology as a hell and apply it in the way that you think is best for yourself, for the company, and for us.

Joeri Billast: 17:43

I love that advice. Again, trust, trust yourself. It's also one of the pillars of my book, trust. Now, yo, if my listeners are interested in the combination maybe of Nearshore and what you guys are doing in AI and what you have to offer, where would you like me to send them?

Jo Smets: 18:01

Website would be a good start. They have a quick Nearshore site analysis questionnaire. And we're always available for reach out. You won't be talking to AI, you'll be talking to me or somebody of RT.

Joeri Billast: 18:13

Yes, I've seen it. The Nearshore Readiness Analyzer for people who are interested in Nearshore and they want to get a score on how ready they are exactly. Correct. And if people want to connect with you personally, where is the best place to find you?

Jo Smets: 18:27

LinkedIn or email via the website can find us.

Joeri Billast: 18:30

All this information will be available in the show notes, the blog article that is linked to this podcast. Well you it was really a pleasure to have you on the show today here at WebSummits. Thank you for the invitation. It's amazing to be here with so much audience for us. I always like to be at WebSummit and record these episodes here live. If people that are also at WebSummit, or maybe other entrepreneurs that want to learn about AI or they can be interested in mirshouring, mirror showing in Portugal. Share this episode with them. If you are not yet following the show, as I always say, this is a really good moment to do this. Just hit the subscribe button. If you haven't given me a review yet, give me these five stars. This will help me reach an even bigger audience. And of course, I would like to see you back next time. Take care.