Transcript

00:00.77
Natalija Pavic
Hello, welcome to the show. I’m joined today by my co-host, Taya Sweet, and also our very special guests, Sonia. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do?

00:11.13
Sonja Keerl
Amazing. So I’m Sonia Kerr. By day, i help B2B SaaS companies with their strategy, their messaging, their positioning. And by night and on weekends, I’m creating a network for children to explore different cultures in this world and learn to appreciate and love other countries and people in them.

00:35.54
Natalija Pavic
Wow. So you are literally leading two lives where you’re like a superhero at night.

00:41.35
Sonja Keerl
ah little bit. That sounds very scary when you put it that way, Nat.

00:45.21
Natalija Pavic
I mean, you’re having a positive impact on children. Like you have a lot of influence. So thank you for the work that you’re doing. um And of course, we want to start hot and heavy.

00:55.84
Natalija Pavic
What’s an unpopular opinion that you have?

00:59.72
Sonja Keerl
I find that the older I get, the more unpopular my opinions get and the less I care about if they are unpopular or not, I’ll say.

01:04.15
Natalija Pavic
and

01:08.05
Sonja Keerl
So, you know, I have my unpopular by day and my unpopular by night opinion. Which one do you want hear first?

01:14.40
Natalija Pavic
ah I want to hear both, but let’s start with the night one.

01:19.08
Sonja Keerl
Okay.

01:19.18
Natalija Pavic
Just shake things up.

01:20.55
Sonja Keerl
Is this PG-13?

01:24.06
Natalija Pavic
I don’t know. don’t think podcasts have ratings.

01:26.79
Sonja Keerl
all right, or you can bleep this out.

01:28.19
Natalija Pavic
Okay.

01:28.45
Sonja Keerl
I think we tech folks, and I say we and I include myself in that, have thoroughly fucked up the internet and social media for the next generation.

01:28.53
Natalija Pavic
Okay.

01:30.34
Ty Sweet
Thanks.

01:39.58
Sonja Keerl
I think we are doing so even more now with the AI we’re releasing onto children, and it will harm societies and humanity again. in the future if we as tech people don’t say yes we’re accountable for this and fix it fast.

01:57.28
Natalija Pavic
Yeah. I mean, but that’s, that’s, you raise a good point. And it’s something that, you know, a lot of people, i would say unpopular opinion, maybe, but it’s definitely an opinion I’ve heard before. And I know a lot of people would agree with you.

02:11.34
Natalija Pavic
um But it comes back to this like technology, you know, during the, I was talking about this during the industrial revolution, when we came up with new technologies, we thought of ourselves as driving technology forward.

02:21.70
Natalija Pavic
But at some point, this flipped and society thinks of technology as something that happens to us. And I think everything from the participating in technology to building technology to being practitioners and technologists such as we,

02:37.29
Natalija Pavic
ah People forgot that like we can actually change. We can actually change how it’s used, what’s made, um the impact it has. And I think what’s positive about the work that you’re doing is you’re probably impacting that ah to the positive, if I’m not mistaken.

02:53.25
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Do you know what is interesting is you will have the lip service. When you have this conversation, you’ll have people go like, oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, gosh, I have a child that is six years old. You should see YouTube and what they’re doing here and there.

03:08.22
Sonja Keerl
And then they go like, oh, but now I need to write this algorithm to sell more shit to people.

03:12.34
Natalija Pavic
yeah

03:12.39
Sonja Keerl
right So you have the agreement, but we don’t yet have the action to correct. And to your point, we are tech. We can. I think the majority of the people around us, they don’t have the means.

03:27.78
Sonja Keerl
And they to them, technology does actually happen, I think.

03:34.41
Natalija Pavic
I’ll pass it over to my co-host Ty to see if you’ve got a you’ve got an opinion on this as well.

03:40.38
Ty Sweet
Well, yeah, and and really, I think this kind of goes down the path of what you were talking about, the the knight position that you have in this thing that you’ve created. And I’m probably going to butcher the name. Is it Unimondo?

03:52.61
Sonja Keerl
You’re totally butchering it. It’s called Unomundi.com.

03:55.40
Ty Sweet
see, man.

03:58.41
Sonja Keerl
You can go there, check it out. It’s amazing.

04:00.24
Ty Sweet
Yeah, it’s great.

04:00.51
Sonja Keerl
We’re just building now.

04:02.02
Ty Sweet
and It’s fantastic. I’ve seen a lot of what you’re doing on LinkedIn. So, you know, I’m i’m following it there.

04:05.53
Natalija Pavic
Thank you.

04:07.22
Ty Sweet
um it’s it’s It’s worldwide at this point, right? i’ve I’ve seen you’ve done some things in Africa. You know, obviously you were at a show in London recently doing all that. is is Is building this kind of your kind of contribution back to kind of un undoing some of the damage you you see that that that has been done?

04:27.51
Sonja Keerl
let’s be yeah let Let me be honest about the stage we’re at. So we’ve built a concept prototype of a mobile app where kids in Duolingo style can explore their cultures. And we have Una, our lovely agent, as a conversational AI that understands the the cultural context of a child, that understands the age of a child, and in an age-appropriate way articulates the cultural differences from why do they celebrate differently in December to why is the skin color different, all those things that kids ask, and that’s okay that kids ask, but often adults don’t have good answers too. So yeah, it’s a contribution to making the world a better place.

05:09.03
Sonja Keerl
We are right now raising to actually bring this into the app stores, and much of what we’re raising, Ty, is to get the level of security that we need in the platform.

05:20.82
Sonja Keerl
to make it safe for children as well.

05:23.59
Ty Sweet
Yeah, I think that’s fantastic. and And yeah, I think we should all be doing a better job of of doing that and and kind of shielding the next generation from a lot of, you know, a lot of this has gone so far. um and And we really didn’t see it in that way. you know, it was kind of fun and and cute for a while. And then it’s just kind of taken over.

05:40.33
Ty Sweet
um you know, this one ah the whole thing of influencers and and all of that, that that just, that I have no idea of the world that my children live in now. um Right. You know, like they, they, it’s always funny when you, you know they see things like pay phones because they have no idea what that is, right. Or what a landline was or something like that.

05:58.46
Ty Sweet
But also I have no idea about the world that they’re experiencing as well. And so I think this is a great, great contribution. And I, I encourage a lot of people to go in and check that out. I’m wondering though, Sonia,

06:10.10
Ty Sweet
Any other unpopular opinions that you have?

06:13.42
Sonja Keerl
You want to have my day, Sonia, by day unpopular opinion?

06:15.89
Ty Sweet
Yes, Sonia Baidea.

06:16.34
Natalija Pavic
Yeah.

06:17.01
Ty Sweet
Yeah, absolutely.

06:18.57
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, I think that in our day lives, our digital experience, commerce, technology, cloud, we have to acknowledge that the idea that Mark was six years ago at inception is no longer what the world needs today. And it has to evolve in people’s minds, in the way vendors talk about it, in the way analysts look at it as well.

06:46.08
Sonja Keerl
And we have a lot of work to do to make a new version of Mark relevant for brands and buyers out there in the world.

06:56.06
Natalija Pavic
Now you were one of the original founders of Mac, so listeners may not know this, which is very exciting, which is why we are we’re having this conversation today. um Let’s step back a little bit. So I’d love to dig into that, but let’s start with how it started. Could you tell us a little bit about how you guys decided to start and what was that like at the very beginning?

07:18.08
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, so I’ll take you back to 2019. twenty nineteen Actually, summer 2019. That’s important to quickly remember that what that was before COVID.

07:29.36
Sonja Keerl
And that was a time when Forrester Research said that 83% of the sea level… globally wakes up thinking digital is a nice to have.

07:41.38
Sonja Keerl
As we all know, when COVID happened, a few companies had a really rough awakening. But it’s important to know that the idea came before the catastrophe.

07:52.40
Sonja Keerl
um We were a few representatives from vendors and SIs who met in a pub in London in the summer of 2019.

08:04.40
Sonja Keerl
And a lot of good things happened in pubs in London, by the way, and in history. And we were discussing a challenge that we saw where the big, at the time, monolithic vendors were very cleverly…

08:23.38
Sonja Keerl
outplaying all the smaller best-of-breed vendors that we had. And we were at the time coming from the angle of commerce, content management, search, and front-end as a service.

08:35.59
Sonja Keerl
And we realized that there were a few big brands that were looking for ah way out of the re-platforming cycle that people were still in back then.

08:47.95
Sonja Keerl
And we’re looking for how do they get competitive? How can they, as a digital organization, react fast, stay agile, adaptive, flexible? And they were…

08:59.74
Sonja Keerl
bombarded it with this marketing bullshit by the big companies who, however, had all of the bits and pieces. And then individually, a tiny SI with one vendor or with another vendor or yet another vendor would come in and only answer a piece of the actual need this brand had.

09:22.09
Sonja Keerl
And there was just no chance in hell for these brands to see a viable path to their dream’s future state, which was to be agile and flexible.

09:33.60
Sonja Keerl
Because the vendors were too fragmented, because they couldn’t find a voice together to show, hey, composable, headless, API first is possible now.

09:45.22
Sonja Keerl
And it will bring you, dear brand, what you want. Because we were just silenced by the Goliaths in the industry. That was very long-winded, Nat.

09:56.14
Sonja Keerl
But

09:56.48
Natalija Pavic
No, I actually didn’t know any of that um because I’m in the indian industry, but I had no idea.

09:59.10
Sonja Keerl
Oh.

10:03.16
Natalija Pavic
I don’t know what the conversations were said, what was said at the London pub.

10:05.04
Sonja Keerl
Yeah.

10:06.14
Natalija Pavic
But.

10:06.50
Ty Sweet
i would I would say a lot of bad ideas have also happened in London pubs, right? So not just good ideas, but also bad ideas.

10:14.53
Sonja Keerl
And was this a good one or a bad one?

10:16.23
Ty Sweet
I mean, I think it was a great idea. That’s, yeah, that’s me.

10:20.76
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, so we sat down at the time, um i think that the three ah people that were then most prominent in the inception of the alliance were ah Stephen Fockema, who was at Commerce Tools at the time, Matt Bradbury, who was at IPEM at the time and is now again, and and then myself.

10:38.44
Sonja Keerl
And we started to draw the napkin. And we had this hippie idea. What if we could get competitors with the same mindset that to come together and find one voice, right? So that the actual voice of composability is amplified it because you have the different categories and the direct the direct competition come together and give alternative to the status quo.

11:11.29
Sonja Keerl
And then everybody goes, like, you guys are on crack. This is never going to work. Are you insane? um We got a lot of that. It was a really, really, really rough first few months trying to find allies. Many people who now claim they invented the alliance had an opportunity to join.

11:30.43
Sonja Keerl
And we’re like, yeah, no, we’re not doing we’re not doing anything with our di direct competitor because we have the, and still today, the the core mandate of the alliance is we do not give leads to members.

11:44.05
Sonja Keerl
This is going to be about thought leadership. This is going to be about helping the people who struggle to make a decision because vendor marketing is all over the place, right?

11:47.22
Natalija Pavic
Yeah. Now,

11:53.96
Sonja Keerl
And when you have that perspective of we’re here for the buyers, we’re here for the market as a whole, you can’t transfer leads. And then a lot of vendors were like, yeah. Thank you very much.

12:07.32
Natalija Pavic
now We’ll talk more about how, now obviously Mac has changed a ton in the six short years that it’s been around. I think one of the, we’ll talk about um the future in a bit, but one of the things that has happened is it has allowed vendors who are not fully composable to enter the Mac Alliance, right? And so it’s actually opened the door to the Goliaths to be part of the Mac Alliance, which is not, I think, what the intended purpose of the Mac Alliance was.

12:36.59
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, no, it’s a little more nuanced than that. and So what is now possible? So let let me start by how it used to be.

12:47.49
Sonja Keerl
It used to be very strict that the entire portfolio of a had to be mark compliant and mark compliant meant pretty rough due diligence on the tech and on the go-to market as well which a lot of people don’t know and you know that became quite unpractical a few years in where it was clear that something we hadn’t anticipated at the time, I’ll say.

13:20.48
Sonja Keerl
There was this this almost dogmatic divide that was created, and the idea became you either have something monolithic or you have something mock.

13:35.98
Sonja Keerl
But the idea of composability is, of course, that you have this hybrid state, and that is the reality in the world. So in order to cater to that a bit more,

13:46.95
Sonja Keerl
the criteria was loosened, I guess. I don’t know if it’s loosened, actually, because it’s still very strict. But to allow companies who have a broader portfolio, but still go to market composable with one set with their own brand and their own go to market and still have sort of legacy tech that they don’t actively market anymore, to also join and to also become part of driving the conversation in the industry forward.

14:15.00
Sonja Keerl
That’s essentially what has changed. And I think it was a very good change and a mature change because it reflects reality more. Personally, Nat, I, from the start, wanted it to go further.

14:26.25
Sonja Keerl
I wanted products to be certified. One of my very unpopular opinions within the Mark Alliance. But of course, the challenge you get is that when one product is certified, so imagine a company that has 20 products, five meet Mark composability, 15 do not.

14:44.76
Sonja Keerl
The company will claim All products are mark certified. You and I are marketing. That’s exactly how everybody will abuse it. And that was why, probably rightly so, i was outvoted in the beginning to not do that.

15:03.46
Ty Sweet
So, you know, we could spend the next you know hour and a half talking mock, right? We get to launch our own podcast, right? Just do mock talk. Mock talk with Ty and Nat, right? And see, notice how I put myself first on that one because it was my idea, right?

15:16.78
Ty Sweet
But i I actually want to pivot to something else that that that we worked on recently. And so to kind of put this into some context for for the listeners, we…

15:23.11
Sonja Keerl
Mm-hmm.

15:26.80
Ty Sweet
ah We worked on a project within the last few weeks that you know the deadline for that was was due last week. and And there were some things that we covered ah that you brought a lot of knowledge to the table on, um which you know makes total sense. you know You’re kind of positioned within the industry. You’ve you’ve gone through a lot. You’ve experienced a lot. You’ve seen a lot. You’ve dealt with a lot of different types of things.

15:46.47
Ty Sweet
of technology. And so, um you know, one of the things that that you really kind of opened my eyes to last week was was CMS. Like you you walked me through this kind of whole CMS as kind of a preview to the listeners as well. Kibo is introducing its own CMS.

15:59.79
Ty Sweet
ah It’s actually out now, but we will have a an episode on this in the future. ah But kind of walking through kind of, you know, the differences there and, and you know, what what we’ve got and, and you know, what what other industry or what other, you know,

16:13.71
Ty Sweet
ah other companies right might might have within the industry, um kind of compare and contrast there. and it he kind of brought to mind um and another question that that kind of comes up a a lot, and it’s and it’s the difference between headless and composable. I think a lot of people think they know, ah but really there’s a lot of different kind of ideas around that. Could you help us kind of define, ah kind of as you see what the difference is between those two?

16:43.70
Sonja Keerl
Okay, let’s do that. That was not a subtle product placement, by the way.

16:50.50
Ty Sweet
yeah yeah Off the top of my head too.

16:51.84
Natalija Pavic
listen and this is our podcast we get to do as many product placements as we want

16:54.21
Sonja Keerl
Oh.

16:55.91
Ty Sweet
Brought to you by Kibo.

16:56.04
Sonja Keerl
I love it. Smooth. All right. Headless versus composable. Okay, where I’m going to start with headless. By the way, very unpopular post I did about a year ago where I said headless is not a thing anymore.

17:10.14
Sonja Keerl
um Headless is super important, but everybody’s got headless now. So it’s not a differentiator, right?

17:15.44
Ty Sweet
Another unpopular decision, another unpopular opinion. Wow. You just, we’ll get through all of them.

17:18.93
Sonja Keerl
You’ll get lots of those.

17:20.42
Ty Sweet
Yeah.

17:21.57
Sonja Keerl
Okay, so what’s headless? ah In a nutshell, for business people, um in the old world of tech, when you would put something up on your website or on your mobile app, then the way it looked was very tightly fused with the content, the products that you actually saw.

17:43.14
Sonja Keerl
Headless has kind of pulled that apart and says, here’s the way we’re showing things and here is what we’re showing. And headless is the stupidest, stupidest word that the industry has come up with because it makes no sense whatsoever.

17:59.58
Sonja Keerl
But that’s what it means. Why is that important? Because front-end technologies and devices are evolving so quickly. Who knows if it it will be normal in half a year to look at things through your Oculus VR set, right? Some people have it, but it’s not normal yet.

18:20.53
Sonja Keerl
You as a brand want to be able to super quickly jump on, lead that wave for your industry. And what you can’t afford is that you will have to rebuild everything under the hood just to serve a new channel and a new medium. So headless is critical. If you have a system that’s not headless yet, oh my goodness, please replace it.

18:40.58
Sonja Keerl
ah But that’s all that it means. And people make all this magic about it. And sure, there’s tons of APIs and REST and GraphQL and all of that stuff. But really, it just means what is shown is in a different logical component than how it is shown.

18:58.70
Sonja Keerl
Composable is much, much harder to define. And if you ask five industry experts, you probably get about 10 different explanations, right?

19:10.89
Sonja Keerl
So composability essentially is defined as I have software and the software is packaged into sub-components that all serve a specific business need that I have. So maybe managing my content, personalizing my content. having a commerce cart, having a commerce search, and you know those individual components.

19:41.95
Sonja Keerl
And you can mix and match, pick and choose what you need to assemble your ideal software solution out of these components.

19:54.76
Sonja Keerl
Now, where composability often goes wrong in the real world is two things. The first one is this modularity in the definition of a composable software means within the stack that a vendor offers.

20:13.90
Sonja Keerl
So many of the vendors that would not be mark in in in that architectural definition could still be composable, but they could have no external ways to hook that in. So they might be composable, but not interoperable.

20:30.33
Sonja Keerl
I’ll show you what that means in a second. And then The other misinterpretation is that you need a technical architect to compose. the The original definition of composing that it is a business person. So it might be a business architect.

20:47.64
Sonja Keerl
It’s good if they have some technical knowledge, right? But someone from the side of the business, not a developer, right? Not a hardcore tech person, but someone with a business mindset that says, oh, now we need this, now we need that.

21:01.22
Sonja Keerl
Now, I wish, and this is one of my hopes for the future of the Mark Alliance in particular, that we can extend composability to include interoperability. So, because I knew you were going to ask something like this.

21:16.54
Sonja Keerl
What is this called in English? i have no idea. i don’t even know what it’s called in German. I only know what called in Dutch. You have these little, can you see this on the camera?

21:24.67
Natalija Pavic
Let’s, ah yeah, and let’s describe to the listeners what we’re looking at. So, Sonia’s just pulled out a prop.

21:27.15
Ty Sweet
Yeah.

21:27.53
Sonja Keerl
Oh, so I have this oh So I have these beads.

21:32.58
Natalija Pavic
It is ah jar of beads.

21:35.02
Sonja Keerl
Right. And you can, and you can like put, I don’t know, do you guys know what these are called?

21:40.57
Ty Sweet
I have no idea what it is if you’re doing.

21:40.88
Sonja Keerl
So you, so you have, you put these, you put these little beads onto some holder thing.

21:41.60
Natalija Pavic
You have to show them to us first.

21:48.16
Ty Sweet
Right. And do you like melt them together? Is that?

21:50.46
Sonja Keerl
Yes.

21:50.94
Ty Sweet
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

21:50.95
Sonja Keerl
And then you iron, you iron in them, right?

21:53.08
Ty Sweet
Yeah.

21:53.23
Sonja Keerl
So I had this when i was a kid. My kids love it. This is composable, right?

21:57.42
Natalija Pavic
ah Hang on.

21:57.77
Sonja Keerl
Because,

21:57.94
Natalija Pavic
So what is that thing called? I have no idea. So you’ve got like a, it’s like, it’s like a circle with like a little spikes in it and the bead fit on it in any.

22:00.50
Sonja Keerl
I have no idea.

22:01.61
Ty Sweet
Yeah.

22:01.75
Sonja Keerl
We’re going to look that up and put it in the notes.

22:06.64
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, it’s got little pikes in it and you put the beads on top, right? and then And then some kids just enjoy doing this because it’s super calming and some kids want it to be actually ironed and then it all melts together and you have little things.

22:10.10
Natalija Pavic
Yeah.

22:14.78
Natalija Pavic
Yeah.

22:18.61
Natalija Pavic
Full.

22:21.97
Sonja Keerl
I also have a horse, right?

22:22.17
Ty Sweet
Yeah.

22:24.31
Natalija Pavic
Uh-huh.

22:24.25
Sonja Keerl
And I have this. So you can you can just make amazing little things. Anyway, this by definition is composable because I’m composing this.

22:27.52
Ty Sweet
Yeah.

22:27.62
Natalija Pavic
Huh.

22:27.64
Ty Sweet
you

22:27.70
Natalija Pavic
Right.

22:30.74
Natalija Pavic
right

22:31.98
Sonja Keerl
Now this…

22:32.17
Ty Sweet
yeah you almost make like little ornaments or something with that like that’s kind of yeah

22:34.85
Sonja Keerl
Yeah! Right, amazing, right? So this is composable too, classic Lego stuff, right? I can put this around here, and by the my son made this. Isn’t it gorgeous? Anyway, this is composable too. Now the problem is, it is true that this is composable, and it’s true that this is composable.

22:52.58
Sonja Keerl
There is no way that I can mix these. Like, if I put these beads on here,

22:59.28
Natalija Pavic
On the Lego.

22:59.59
Sonja Keerl
the

22:59.92
Natalija Pavic
If you put the beads on the Lego, they don’t fit.

23:01.02
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, if I put the beads on a Lego, it’s going to be a mess.

23:03.43
Natalija Pavic
Yeah. Right.

23:05.17
Sonja Keerl
It’s going to be a mess. And that’s why we need interoperability standards. I don’t like the word standards. makes me feel like we have a clipboard, right? ah Rules and guidelines.

23:16.21
Sonja Keerl
Let’s go Pirates of the Caribbean here.

23:18.93
Natalija Pavic
Regulation and red tape. I’m just kidding.

23:20.54
Sonja Keerl
You know, but we yeah we need to agree on on patterns and protocols. So that software in our space that is composable is also interoperable with other solutions because only then do brands have the freedom to really mix and match and swap out if and when they need.

23:38.88
Natalija Pavic
and

23:42.44
Sonja Keerl
I’m getting off my pedestal now.

23:45.29
Ty Sweet
Well, but it leads me to kind of the next question that I have about that. um You know, it it it helps to kind of define what that composability is to a point.

23:56.04
Ty Sweet
um and And honestly, the the props helped. Hopefully everyone was was able to see that or at least got something out of the description. But really what I want to know is where do you think, where’s the state of the of composability today within the industry? Where are we at?

24:12.37
Sonja Keerl
In one sentence all over the place. So there is very… Yeah, so in a nutshell, all over the place, right, because there’s very different maturity levels of composable.

24:29.88
Sonja Keerl
um Some are still struggling to get the old tech world and the new tech world really to work together well. We are seeing increasing frustration with the need for SIs to actually be the middleman and really provide the glue between all of the different systems that a brand chooses.

24:59.99
Sonja Keerl
And it’s interesting because when we founded the Mock Alliance, the idea was to save brands from vendor lock-in. And some brands have experienced this iLogin as a consequence.

25:15.96
Sonja Keerl
And that can provide not just

25:18.47
Natalija Pavic
SI lock in. Well, I hadn’t even thought about that. Interesting.

25:21.70
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, it’s a big it’s a big challenge. And the SIs on the Mark Alliance, they are very diligent about leaving giving the IP of the glue back to the brands. But there is SIs out there that will claim the IP, and then you’re really stuck. It’s not a good idea.

25:41.13
Sonja Keerl
But having said that, I do see a lot of vendors now bringing… composing do I want to say middleware?

25:54.82
Sonja Keerl
am I dating myself if I use the word middleware?

25:57.44
Natalija Pavic
It’s not exactly middleware because i know where you’re going.

25:59.20
Sonja Keerl
yeah

26:01.06
Natalija Pavic
You’re going to into the orchestration layer conversation.

26:03.19
Sonja Keerl
into the orchestraus Into the orchestration layer.

26:04.54
Natalija Pavic
Yeah.

26:05.47
Sonja Keerl
And there’s a few vendors that are doing really interesting stuff who are very successfully now implementing AI-driven interoperability.

26:18.80
Sonja Keerl
And now the interesting question will be which vendors are fastest in So that their APIs are so well documented or self-explanatory that they the vendors are ready to cater to interoperability through AI.

26:39.57
Sonja Keerl
And that’s going to be the next race. And also for the brands. That’ll be the the magic that… can make composable feasible across the maturity stages in a few years to come.

26:54.13
Sonja Keerl
right We still have some some hype cycle curves to go through on that side.

27:00.02
Natalija Pavic
It’s interesting because you’re you’re you’re making me have a flashback to my old days at Salesforce where i don’t know how many times I’ve asked SIs to build IP that they own.

27:10.40
Sonja Keerl
Mm-hmm.

27:11.15
Natalija Pavic
ah Just sort of, um i didn’t realize I was was part of that SI lock-in process.

27:18.02
Sonja Keerl
Well, we all were. And sometimes you only see that after the fact.

27:19.35
Natalija Pavic
Yeah.

27:21.44
Sonja Keerl
Like for me, certainly there was a moment to, to I think about two years ago, where was looking at the beast we created in a way and was thinking like, oh gosh, that was not the intention here.

27:21.90
Natalija Pavic
Yeah.

27:35.41
Sonja Keerl
But things grow, things evolve, we learn. The important thing is to course correct and make sure we go back to serving the the industry that we serve.

27:48.61
Natalija Pavic
Well, I know you said you were gonna get off your pedestal, so I’m gonna ask you to get back on your soapbox, please. um

27:54.13
Sonja Keerl
oh

27:55.44
Natalija Pavic
But what do you think is the future? or What do you think the future should be for the composable industry?

28:04.05
Sonja Keerl
I’ll tell you my dream scenario. Okay. So my dream scenario is that as the responsible person for digital all in a brand, I can go in and I have my marketplace of solutions.

28:24.88
Sonja Keerl
I tell that marketplace what my business problem is and what it is that I need to solve. And the marketplace helps me identify which component I need so that it’s ideal for what I already have and want to keep and where I want to go in the future and the resources that I have to go there.

28:50.56
Sonja Keerl
And then i just say, yes, this is it. And it makes my business case. It sends it to my CFO. My CFO says, absolutely, Sonia, go do it.

29:01.95
Sonja Keerl
I press the button. Automagically, i have my one user interface across all the tools that I just created. And whatever agent I work with at the time um can help me to drive this ship.

29:18.55
Natalija Pavic
I mean, you’re just you’re describing a world without sales teams, right? You’re describing a world where we just go and we buy software online ah without having to go through an evaluation process, a negotiation process.

29:32.43
Natalija Pavic
And there is sort of a level of objectivity and how the as opposed to being swayed by how good one vendor is at selling. You are actually understanding the technology and buying what you need.

29:46.73
Natalija Pavic
Only what you need, right?

29:46.66
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, so.

29:48.30
Natalija Pavic
Not everything because that’s how the package comes.

29:52.11
Sonja Keerl
Right, and thank you for bringing me back to reality. Of course, you know, that’s my utopia vision.

29:57.75
Natalija Pavic
I like it. I like it.

29:59.80
Sonja Keerl
but But reality is we will always have the element of branding. I think another unpopular opinion that brands today don’t want to have as much access and exposure to sales people um as sales orgs think.

30:18.61
Sonja Keerl
um I think also there we’ll see more and more, and we’re already seeing that today. i was just at an at an analyst event where a third brands

30:24.98
Ty Sweet
Thank you.

30:29.06
Sonja Keerl
B2B buying decisions, software decisions, are already driven by ChatGPT.

30:35.50
Natalija Pavic
Right. Yes.

30:36.72
Sonja Keerl
That is really crazy. ChatGPT makes the shortlist. Now, I have really extensively worked with all sorts of AI models, bots, agents,

30:48.42
Sonja Keerl
That’s so scary because they are so wrong so often when I know better that it makes me scared for questions people ask where they don’t know better and questions I ask where I don’t know better.

31:00.25
Sonja Keerl
But that is happening today, right? As much as we don’t want it, it is factually happening. for For deals over a million US dollars, right? We’re also not talking about buying a new headset.

31:12.72
Sonja Keerl
um So there’s a lot of interesting challenges that come for the sales part, and but we’ll always have the idea of branding, of thought leadership that will influence my magical buyer on their portal in some shape or form.

31:29.28
Natalija Pavic
Well, and and it’s interesting that you pointed out that ChatJPT is now one of the influencers in vendor choices and decisions. So that’s maybe not something people are really considering. But you’ve brought up GenTech.

31:40.99
Natalija Pavic
and We know that AI is now really changing and shifting our industry. And those worlds of AI and composable are colliding. How do you see that interaction or that interplay between like what MAC stands for, composability, what we’re trying to do, and the vendor space, but especially in the commerce space, and AI, agentech, agentech commerce, and what agents how the agents need to operate within this space?

32:08.08
Sonja Keerl
Okay Let me start with the first question I do believe that From a vendor perspective now That vendors who already have clear modularity, clear APIs who are well-documented and expose the business functionality,

32:33.26
Ty Sweet
you

32:33.50
Sonja Keerl
have a unique advantage over other vendors to really leverage agents in a way that will be meaningful for them and their customers.

32:46.27
Sonja Keerl
um they They have a beautiful leapfrogging opportunity here right now. Because as we know, making the capabilities, the tools, the the knowledge ah available to agents in AI is the most important thing.

33:01.11
Sonja Keerl
um

33:04.29
Sonja Keerl
Agents, I feel there’s a lot of talk using the term agents that mixes many different concepts together. So gee when you say agents now, do you mean agents helping in the back end and the software, do you mean consumers and businesses buying with agents?

33:29.79
Natalija Pavic
Both. I would say both. And it’s such a and you’re right. We didn’t really spend a lot… We talked about composable versus headless. We didn’t actually define Mac. ah We should probably define Mac before the end of the podcast. um Both, because you’ve got…

33:44.37
Natalija Pavic
Agents helping B2B buyers and helping B2C buyers, B2C buyers, shoppers. And you have agents helping employees in productivity-related tasks. um both you know Whichever one is the more important um part of the angle to your answer.

34:04.10
Sonja Keerl
yeah Well, I think the the the most immediate one where b brands should ask their vendors for support is using agents for all those tedious tasks in the backend systems to support.

34:20.17
Sonja Keerl
help them just operate faster. um And there’s amazing examples out there where you can have a conversation and stuff just happens, lots of different use cases.

34:32.49
Sonja Keerl
um But then the next level there is to really just articulate the goals. I want to get this stuff out of my warehouse here really fast.

34:46.34
Sonja Keerl
Go. Set up the merchandising strategy for that. Set up the discounts, the promotion strategy. Set up the campaign strategy for that, right? And you see already we’re touching six, seven different systems here.

34:58.84
Sonja Keerl
that an agent needs to be able to meaningfully orchestrate and tap into, get feedback, so that not all of a sudden we’re selling you know twice the amount that we have in the warehouse, or maybe nothing, or get on people’s nerves, which is a big risk with agents.

35:17.06
Sonja Keerl
So that’s the, like, helping with the back-end operations. First, freeing up staff by getting rid of the tedious tasks. Second, helping us to reach our goals, because they can be so much smarter than we are, and they can orchestrate so much better than working with four different departments with humans today.

35:39.55
Sonja Keerl
I hate to say that, actually. It makes my heart bleed. But it is true.

35:46.12
Sonja Keerl
Does that answer your question on the back end?

35:49.01
Natalija Pavic
Yeah, definitely.

35:50.24
Ty Sweet
Absolutely. We’ve gotten the the mandatory AI question out of the way, right? It seems like we have this conversation with everyone, but I guess ah it’s, it’s really important, right? I mean, it’s, that’s the direction everything’s moving in.

36:00.42
Ty Sweet
And I think you’re right. We, you know, even if it is a little bit more pie in the sky, I foresee a future similar to yours where you’re kind of dealing more with agents and and going, Hey, go out and find this for me and find the best price or find whatever and bring that back to me.

36:15.20
Ty Sweet
And that’s going to be an interesting way that we get there.

36:15.88
Sonja Keerl
Yeah.

36:18.28
Ty Sweet
Um, I, you know, we we’ve talked about some of the future and and how you’ve seen some of this stuff. I’ve got a question that I’ve always wanted to ask yeah you specifically, Sonia, because of your kind of role in the industry and and you work with so many clients and so many different companies out there within the commerce space and probably even beyond that, um that kind of

36:28.41
Sonja Keerl
Okay.

36:41.94
Ty Sweet
makes you, it’s kind of mandatory that um you have to stay on top of so many things, right? You have to know what is new, what is coming, what is you know kind of the best path forward.

36:54.26
Ty Sweet
How do you do that? Like, how do you stay on top of everything? Are there tools that you use? Are there are articles that you read? And, you know, you know LinkedIn, and it I’m sure it’s ah a combination of a lot of that, but really, how are you aggregating all of this information to kind of stay on top of so many things?

37:14.50
Sonja Keerl
I listen a lot, I think is the the first answer, and to very different types of voices. So to your point, I know a lot of people at vendors, and there is a few people who consistently projected trends and changes in a remarkable way.

37:38.06
Sonja Keerl
Those are people, when they speak up, I listen a little closer than to many of the bla voices that you hear everywhere, right? um I’m also old enough to just call people and like to talk to people on the telephone, which is like super weird. Sometimes I call someone, they’re like, are you okay?

37:57.92
Sonja Keerl
I’m like, yeah, I just wanted to talk to you. um But I do a lot of listening. um I also have the luxury through the Mark Alliance to speak a lot to and

38:11.98
Sonja Keerl
I don’t like the term users. People, responsible people in brands. and At a level like VPC level. I was just in Chicago and there were like 200 people. i And I had the the amazing opportunity to host several round tables and discussion groups.

38:31.13
Sonja Keerl
And that gives you that link back into reality where some companies are really at. And to your point earlier, there were companies there who were not allowed to even start looking into agentic, ah you’ve let alone use ChatGPT, right? And then you see, oh, wow, like this one world is all in the clouds about where we can go. And rightly so, because they should lead the conversation. But the reality for big Fortune 500 companies at times is they’re not allowed.

39:05.44
Sonja Keerl
yet. That’s interesting. um By the way, if you are in one of those companies, please rally for experimenting because you are behind. um And then I have also the fortune to talk to a lot of industry analysts.

39:19.47
Sonja Keerl
Now, that’s a really interesting audience to listen to because some analysts are future forward, five years ahead thinkers.

39:31.84
Sonja Keerl
And they have these very abstract ideas. Some speak to brands I don’t speak to every day. Like they have these 30 minute conversations, like five to 10 a day.

39:44.96
Sonja Keerl
They hear things in the market that I don’t hear, but they tell me and they tell us. And we can then bring that into our kaleidoscope of what’s happening but they also talk to other vendors and hear what’s going on there so i can really recommend if you have a chance to always involve analysts but understand is this a type of analyst that is a big future thinker or is it someone that’s very close to the pulse of now or tomorrow right and then when you have all of these pieces of information

40:18.51
Sonja Keerl
You need to really step back, go in the forest, go sit in the garden and find the patterns, right? And that’s what I love doing. What is, if this happens, what does happen then? Second level, third level consequences, playing those out, what’s likely to happen? It’s like like industry right?

40:39.07
Sonja Keerl
right And um I get weird joy out of that. But that’s that’s how I try to stay on top. And, you know, I do miss things too because stuff’s going on where I think, nah, that’s never going to happen. And then, bam, it’s there, right?

40:56.32
Sonja Keerl
um But I do the best I can by listening. um And I wish more people would listen more and speak less.

41:07.22
Natalija Pavic
Wow, Sonia, that was amazing. um Is it too late to define the Mac Alliance? Can we just define it real quick?

41:13.45
Sonja Keerl
Yeah, yeah. Also, I would really like for us not to define it so much because the original acronym, the Alliance even has changed, recognizing that it was just too technical, too much in the plumbing. Essentially, the idea is providing a space for…

41:28.91
Sonja Keerl
for the best practices and successful implementations of modular, composable, interoperable solutions. And if we start to define the what the old M and the A and the C and the H for, we’ll get into weeds that are no longer meaningful.

41:47.32
Natalija Pavic
All right. Last question for you, Sonia. If somebody wanted to ah participate in your night job, your organization, where would they find Mundi and how could they contribute?

41:58.85
Sonja Keerl
Amazing. So thank you for asking that. So you can find Unamundi on unamundi.com. That’s our website. There you can get the sneak peek into the app build. We’re building out loud right now.

42:12.34
Sonja Keerl
You can also contact us at info at unamundi.com, especially if you want to contribute to the fundraiser. Look how I smoothly put that in. And if you really, really, really want to do us a favor, follow us on LinkedIn, Una Mundi. If you have kids, subscribe to the YouTube channel. They can see ah lesson examples and the videos from Una in there. And tell us what they say. Tell us what you think.

42:39.46
Sonja Keerl
ah Because we are still exploring what’s going work and what may not.

42:46.45
Natalija Pavic
Sanya, thank you so much.

42:49.26
Sonja Keerl
Well, thank you for having me. That was a lot of unpopular opinions in the end, wasn’t it?

42:53.67
Natalija Pavic
I loved it. I love learning. I always learn something new from you.

42:56.36
Ty Sweet
Always, always.

42:57.42
Natalija Pavic
Always.

42:57.42
Ty Sweet
Yeah.

42:58.82
Sonja Keerl
Thank you.

43:00.90
Ty Sweet
All right. And to everyone else until next time.