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We had good fun at Blendle!

30 March 2017

Yesterday evening about 30 women attended the ‘Talks and Drinks’ at Blendle – a well known tech company that tries to make you understand the world by presenting the best editorial content in over 120 sources. It got techy! Just the thing we like.

After a beer and pizza, everyone sat down to listen to three wonderful ladies telling their stories.

‘I didn’t mean to end up here’

Jessica Best, Head of Editorial at Blendle aptly called her talk ‘I didn’t mean to end up here’. In the midst of journalistic crisis she dove into journalism. She quickly moved to digital journalism. She had a problem, she wasn’t using digitals tools for telling stories, but just for clicks. Disillusioned, she turned away from the business she loved. But, when moving to Amsterdam, she landed a job at Blendle, close to her heart. Nirvana, as she puts it.

Jessica Best

As an editor for Blendle, one tries to create access to great news articles. Quite personalised newsletters with quality articles, which people can buy at a low fee. A lot of the work amounts to data science. They talk algorithms! The Editorial crew focusses on selecting the best articles. So she works with stories everyday, reading lots and do a fair share of tailor-curated articles, combined with an easy to use pay,ent method. Is she working on her own articles? Not a the moment, but who knows what the future holds.

Big tiny moments… last forever

Maartje ter Hoeve

Maartje ter Hoeve, MSc student Artificial Intelligence and working on her thesis at Blendle, talks about these little big moments in life which changed the game for you. She for one remembered the time that she said, I don’t want to be a doctor! And the moment when she thought… I’m great a tech stuff – during her linguistics study. She found great inspiration in one of her teachers, who took the time to tell her how she came about what she was doing. She made a choice by joining a programming course, without knowing any Java. Within two weeks she liked it so much, she knew she wanted a career in technology.

Furthermore she simplifies Blendle’s algorithm for the audience, which entices the crowd to ask quite a few questions. Questions about being in a certain news bubble and bursting out of it – and how both the algorithm and the editorial team help you with that.

The brand can’t break UX, but UX can break the brand

Mirte Becker

Mirte Becker, UX lead at WeTransfer, tells us WeTransfer is actually Dutch. Surprise! But that’s only a small part of the story. She tells us how a brand and User Experience (UX) go together. Products or interfaces lately have more or less become the face of the brand – a major shift! Products or interfaces are powerful in this, but Mirte says that in technology products, we’re not using it as an instrument to make people feel a certain way about a brand.

She then moves to how the user interface of WeTranfser is different in that way by stripping everything unimportant. Even the position of the block where you download stuff is recogniseable if the page was empty. WeTranfser became famous for their wallpapers – it became a piece of art, which elevated the product greatly. So brand = user experience. UX designers are not to forget about it: the brand can’t break UX, but UX can break the brand.

After the talks, a few more questions were asked and a little more networking happened. Wonderful stuff. An evening like this makes a Girl Geek like me proud.

If you missed it, check our calendar for future Talks and Drinks (and other events!).

Esther - post author

Esther is software product manager who likes the human factor in IT. If she's not busy doing that, she likes to drive her motorcycle, play sax, ride her racebike, and get in touch with speakers for Girl Geek Dinner.