London, June 28, 2023
8:36 a.m.
I see Ruben in the hall of etc. venues in London and see if he looks nervous. Today is going to be an exciting day. This afternoon he is scheduled to speak before a room packed with experimentation experts at the Experimentation Elite Summer Conference. Tonight it will be announced whether he has received his nomination for Practitioner of the Year is going to cash in during the connecting Experimentation Elite Awards. In addition, we have been nominated one more time for an award in the category Agency team of the year, in cooperation with our client DPG Media. 
8.45
Jaap and Joshua from DPG Media had come in a little earlier. I'm chatting with them about the meeting they had yesterday with Airtable have had. Apparently it had been very enjoyable and there are interesting (AI) features coming up in our favorite database tool. 

9.05
The first presentation of the day is by Craig Sullivan and is titled Demystifying AI: Practical use cases for Research, CRO & Experimentation. He discusses at breakneck speed an impressive amount of different ways you can use AI in CRO. Everyone is instantly awake and we gain inspiration to optimize our own work processes. Watch the full session below: 

The most important lesson? We don't have to see AI as a threat that is going to take over the world (as in The Terminator). According to Craig, we can better think of AI as a robotic exoskeleton (as in Aliens) that makes us stronger as specialists, but that we must drive ourselves. 
“AI is not going to take away your job, someone who can work with AI better than you is going to take away your job!”
9.40
The second speaker, Erin Wiegel (Senior product design manager at Deliveroo, formerly Booking), shares a new model for experimentation in organizations. She is a good speaker and I can see Ruben's nerves increasing a bit. He leans toward me and whispers “high bar...”
12.45
After talks by Luke Frake (user growth lead at Spotify, among others; his most important lesson was “pay attention to your people!”) and Kenda MacDonald (the always energetic advocate of the - ethical - application of psychological knowledge in CRO), it's time for lunch. After this, one more talk and then it's Ruben's turn.
As for the food, there is a lot of choice and actually everything tastes good. It is served in a kind of bento box, which not only looks nice, it is also very convenient for standing and networking. In particular, the Pan fried cod And I like the falafel salad. According to Jaap from DPG, the Slow-cooked Chicken highly recommended. 
14.05
Host announces Ruben de Boer for his presentation A Holistic Approach to Experimentation. In the presentation he cleverly combined three of his favorite topics: habits, personal growth & company-wide experimentation. 
He gives practical tips for how you can cause the change within your organization that you would like to see:

• Better experimentation starts with yourself
• Stop nagging, but engage people in the desired change
• In doing so, use knowledge from behavioral science: 
  • make it easy
  • give sufficient autonomy
  • Furnishes the physical and social environment appropriately
  • Involve senior management as soon as possible to set rules and standards
  • Provide appropriate rewards and incentives

I can tell right away that he is comfortable when he makes a few unrehearsed jokes within the first few minutes. The reaction from the audience is positive and afterwards he is justifiably pleased with how it went. 

16.25
Closing out the day is Lukas Vermeer (director of experimentation at Vista) on stage. He is a good speaker and talks about the hero's journey he is on since he switched from Booking.com to Vista. One of the questions he keeps getting is ‘shouldn't we be afraid of interaction effects?’
His answer is, “no, but we should be afraid of people who are afraid of interaction effects.” 
Complicated perhaps, but fortunately I wrote a blog earlier this year about interaction effects. (And fortunately for me, Lukas comes to the same conclusion as me.)
17.10
The day's program is over. We are getting ready for the evening. First we have drinks at the event venue, then we move to the Leonardo Royal Hotel London St Paul's for the Experimentation Elite Award ceremony. 
21.33
We sit at the table with our colleague Naomi, with Joshua and Jaap from DPG, with Annemarie from VodafoneZiggo, with Denise from Bol.com and with Online Dialogue founder Ton Wesseling. The main course arrives. Everyone at the table except Ton has the salmon baked on the skin with cream sauce and bimi. 

22.20
The award ceremony is about to begin! Excitingly, the first category is Practioner of the Year. Ruben is nominated ... and wins! Hooray, congratulations Ruben! A well-deserved crown to many years of fantastic work for the experimentation community. 

22.24
We have not yet recovered from the joy or the winner of the second category is announced, viz. Agency team of the year. We win this one, too! Together with Jaap and Joshua from our client DPG Media we walk to the front to receive the award and have our picture taken. Our congratulations and thanks for the nice cooperation to Jaap, Joshua and everyone else at DPG Media!

22.55
It can't get any better tonight! Co-founder of Online Dialogue Ton Wesseling is also called forward. He wins the Experimentation Legend of the Year award. An oeuvre prize that is well deserved if you look at how he has put the field on the map in the past 20 years, in the Netherlands and far beyond.

23.57
After the awards ceremony, it is time for the final round at the pub next to the hotel. We have a closing drink and look back on a great day. Tomorrow is the presentation of the Data Professional of the Year Award and colleague Naomi Smulders is nominated... 
 

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This article was written by Joost Baalbergen, Lead Psychology at Online Dialogue. Want to know more about our work for DPG Media? Then read the interview with Joshua Kreuger on the secret behind DPG Media's experimentation success.  By making you subscribe to our newsletter keep you up to date with the latest news, key events, awards and more. You will receive an update in your mailbox every three weeks. And after reading this Experimentation Elite event report, do you think ‘gosh, I want to work with Online Dialogue’? Then contact us through this page or send Pim a message on LinkedIn. 

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