Top Five Articles From 2022

By Janus Boye

Are you also finding it hard to believe that 2022 is almost over? Quite a year.

Thorsten Jonas made it twice to Aarhus this year with his inspiring message about sustainable UX.

At the beginning of February all pandemic restrictions were lifted in Denmark and shortly after other countries followed, with a sense of normalcy returning. Little did we know that other world events would suddenly overshadow the pandemic.

Just a few weeks later our past conference speaker Marianne Kay found herself on BBC News, when she made it to the Polish/Ukrainian border trying to bring her mother to the UK in early March. It’s been touching to see how our members and friends around the world has stepped forward and made a positive difference. Aarhus-based digital agency Klean built a website, that also made it to the BBC so that Danes can donate used bikes to Ukrainian refugee children fleeing Russia’s war. Many raised funds, somehow found Ukrainian flags and did so many other good things that made a difference.

Anni Albæk is pastor in the Danish Lutheran church and gave a lightning talk at the Boye Aarhus 22 conference on Hope and the future

So, what did we learn this year? Personally, I’m really happy that in a year that started in lockdown, we were still able to get-together for some great hybrid and in-person learning and networking. I think it’s important that we keep travelling, in particular in these changing times, so that as human beings we can enjoy this wonderful planet and also learn from each other. Importantly, travelling opens the mind and makes us expand our definition of normal.

Diversity and inclusion, alongside sustainability were the biggest megatrends that we covered in many group meetings. As a community, we once again grew our member base and while doing meetings in person, hybrid and many member calls, we also managed to deliver 3 conferences and publish 57 blog posts during the year. Thanks to everyone who shared their story.

Keeping with tradition, here are the five posts, which seemed to resonate the most based on readership and engagement numbers.

It’s clearly unfair to select just five out of 57 blog posts, but here you go:

#1: Creating an effective survey

Based on a member call with UK-based Caroline Jarrett. Among my highlights were:

  • What would you do for a dollar? A brush up on social exchange theory

  • It's all about the questions

  • How to avoid the usual survey mistakes 

#2: From content analytics to business metrics

This one is also based on a member call. Held in the middle of the summer with Valencia-based content strategy expert Noz Urbina. The highlights to me where:

  • Focus on effort. It's the new net promoter

  • “We have fallen into the trap of measuring what vendors can do easily - interaction data. That’s not real business metrics"

  • Journeys = Questions / Time

Thomas Dugaro from RTL on stage at the Boye Aarhus 21 conference. Photo: Ib Sørensen

#3: How to make hybrid meetings not suck

Thomas Dugaro cares about IT at RTL in Hamburg. As a part of it, he clearly also cares about avoiding bad meeting, specifically hybrid meetings. Hybrid meetings are here to stay and this post is based on a Future Workplace group meeting, where Thomas outlined 5 steps on your journey to making sure that hybrid meetings don’t suck:

  1. Level the playing field

  2. Organisation and moderation best practices

  3. Making the IT setup work

  4. The big don’ts

  5. When not to do it

Gavin Colborne also presented his work on a sustainability score for websites at the Boye Aarhus 22 conference. Photo: Ib Sørensen

#4: Introducing a sustainability score for websites

Gavin Colborne from UK-based digital governance vendor Little Forest also hosted a member call this year and with his emerging work on sustainability he set the stage with this memorable quote:

“Similar to Google Lighthouse scores for accessibility, SEO and performance, the time has come to also be serious about sustainability as a digital leader.”

Gurdeep Singh on stage doing a hybrid presentation at the Boye Aarhus 20 conference. Photo: Ib Sørensen

#5: Lean RPA, the what, why and how

Gurdeep Singh is Automation COE lead at insurance firm Tryg and in this post, he shared something that has been popular in our community since the beginning in 2005. The customer perspective.

If you are into business automation, this post is something for you. Covering adoption roadblocks, advice on when you should adopt lean RPA and even mentioning some of the vendors in the space.

12 experts of the month

We’ve done it since since way back when before the pandemic and this year we’ve kept up the tradition. Sharing the story of someone in our community. It’s about a human touch, but also a way to connect and expand your network beyond your usual circles.

Each expert is worth knowing, but again, similar to the unfair spirit of this post, here are the 3 experts who made the biggest impact in 2022:

Grace from LEGO Group moderated the Future Workplace track at the Boye Aarhus 22 conference. Here she’s seen in the packed room taking a photo with her smartphone.

Curious to get to know some more experts? Browse all experts of the month.

Learn more about what matters to our community

How about some more reading to satisfy your curiosity?

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