Luzmo

Boost the growth by leveraging marketing and demand gen.

VP of Growth

ACTITO

I didn't put my update as I'm learning that job for one year with direct coaching from our founders, VPs, and country managers. (I will write about the why more in-depth)

I believe you need to show before getting the title, and let's be honest... I learn every single day, still make many mistakes, but focus on getting our clients and market always at the center.

My biggest challenge his building a team that is remote as that is part of our value proposition — technology with people. And as a defender of personalization, you can only apply it by feeling the market.

You can read about the four pieces on what I'm working in my first post for 2020 (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sunday-writing-before-heading-back-work-start-2020-jonathan-wuurman/)

One: Keep building the Actito Brand.
Two - Website upgrades 
Three: Actito on Tour
Four, indirect channel

I will update this from time to time.

VP Marketing 

The ambition of Actito is always the same since 2000 empower marketers to deliver outstanding experiences to customers by Activating data at every right moment of clients' journeys.  

Our conviction is that Europe is an alternative to other international offers. The specification of the European market that puts more importance on data privacy, the complexity of the fragmented market due to different languages, legislation is making it a no brainer.

 I have been on a journey since 2014, helping the different country managers with the first steps when opening a new market. That could go from an in-depth demonstration of what our platform could offer to more complex RFPs.

 I have learned a lot by doing this as you support the C level in building something a market presence.  

I will always remember those first days with Marc Désenfant country manager France running the subway to take up to four meetings in a day. And I'm personally very proud that I could help him in those first meetings and be a small part of the French Success.  

After France, it was time to help our friends in the Netherlands. We did strategic hiring with Jule  Pieters Country Manager Netherlands, previously country manager Adobe.   

The Dutch market is very different from what we encounter in the past. It was again learning but thanks to our offer and true agility we were able to sign some notable brands, for example, Campina, Novonoridsk, and ABB is still client 7 years later.  

In 2017, it was the Canada adventure that starts with Aleksandra Logist. They are one of the fastest-growing markets. The opportunities are tremendous oversee and that European touch is what they are looking for. I will be actively collaborating with Aleks in 2020 to support our growth.  

June 2018 United Kingdom and Spain increased our market presence. It's still a bit early, and if you want to know more about this, check our article about the acquisition of SmartFocus.

Support to company internationalization in Europe and North America 

Role:  
- Acting as a middle man between market needs, product needs and expectations and our engineering team.  
- Supporting our Business Developers for the tear 3. Mainly during the sales process by providing expertise for RFP, Demonstration, Workshops, ...  
- Developing the tear 2 from hunting to farming, to retention 
  
Some major commercial successes:
- SNCB become a client where I supported the full industrial process directly with the business unit manager and one of our founders. We compete versus the major players in our category, but our humble human approach made the difference. We started in a rough period with them, but I'm proud to say that six years later, they are still one of our major clients, feeding the roadmap map, testing new functionalities, pushing us to grow. The quote "start small think big" is our reality with them.  

- I was at the origin of one of the most significant customer signature at that time with Carrefour Belgium. We won this because of our Agility mindset and offer. The first campaigns went out four weeks after the signature. That may seem easy, but shifting big corporation to real agile process focused on delivering quick value and learnings is a challenge we did achieve.  

- ABB is a success in the sense that we were rollout Actito in the Benelux in a few weeks bringing the communication to the next level. They were so happy about it that we roll it out to seven countries with more than 25 users around the world.   

- Wallonia Brussels Tourisme was a similar story as ABB with a roll out in five countries. The major success came from the fact of the brand alignment in all the countries, that cross-sharing experience was now possible bringing five countries to one major Marketing/Marcom team  

Learnings as an evangelist 
You should be able to listen, understand and help customers' 
You are the voice of the customers you feed the roadmap
You must  help management fine-tune the offering and strategies

Actito Evangelist

As our tear 2 is snowballing, we need more people to deliver our promise, "Technology with outstanding human support."   

The first mission was to build a team of highly agile and customer focus team. With the country manager, we made a team of five that was up and running in less than six months.     

The second part of my role was to increase the velocity and learning curve of our staff. The approach was to share the experience I built during those years so they could steal it and make their own story with it.  

Understanding how Actito works is one thing; putting it in perspective to help our clients achieve their objectives is something different. That was the key to client retention.   

At Actito, our CLTV (customer live time value) is 7 years. That allows us to be very proactive and close to our clients; we are on a marathon, not a sprint.  

With the country manager, we introduced the client journey at Actito, resulting in 5  phases our clients are running through. Setup, onboard, value, extra value, retention.  

That was the first part of the CSM playbook  

We also introduce the notion of QBR (Quarterly Business Reviews). Those are four moments during the year that our CSMs meet their clients with one single rule. Help them become superheroes in their organization by overdelivering on their objectives.  

Our conviction is that with our people and our technology, we can help any organization embraces Activation Marketing.  

Check what they say about us onG2:  
"Un outil agréable à utiliser quotidiennement, avec une équipe réactive à nos besoins" 
"Marketing automation and beyond" 
"The best marketing automation tool ever "

CSM (Customer Succes Manager)  Manager - Tear 2

The market is changing; with the rise of technology, more and more businesses understand that technology was part of the equation. The autonomy of their people was an essential element for success. Investing in his team, making them highly agile and flexible to be able to cope with the highly demanding market, was the only way to win client attention.  
  
For our Belgium and Luxemburg market, we decided to join forces of our tear 2 and tear 3 teams. That provides us more expertise under one unit.   
With our senior profiles that develop activation strategies with our clients' for more than a decade, we could start leveraging that for our tear 2 clients.  
Result in a direct ARR impact by upselling and cross-selling our existing portfolio with highly valuable tactics for our clients. Win-Win is the word.  
  
Our tear 3 could benefit from our platform experts, allowing them to find faster ways to test an assumption before building and starting expensive projects.  
   
My roles 
	•	Guaranty cross-sharing expertise within the team.  
	•	Building playbooks with the team to make our tactics repeatable  
	•	Maintain a high level of curiosity to develop every profile of the team  
	•	Focus on the business KPIs but also qualitative (retention and client satisfaction)  
  
With a team of four business developers, we managed to increase the existing ARR by 30%.   
Some of our key wins were MaxiToys, Worldline, Cameleon, Hubo, Cine Tele Revue  
 
 
Customer voice on G2: 
Hubo 
"A complete email tool for all our email communication." 
 
Cine Tele Revue 
"Actito améliore l’efficacité et la productivité des équipes marketing" 
 
Cameleon 
"Marketing Automation made easy to non-technical users."

Sales Manager BeLux +  

Actito is into the Saas industry since 2000. We served two different types of clients and many different markets; in our jargon, we call it tear 2 and tear 3.  

Tear 2 is better known under Mid-market. Our definition is market with an active operational marketing team that is seeking to leverage technology on their own with a direct impact on the business. We called this Saas/SWS (software with service) because they were hands-on on the Actito platform; our mission was to help them explore all the value of our technology.  

Tear 3 is is what we called the PaaS, consider it as enterprise deal

 Due to our highly scalable and flexible platform and our Agile DNA, we can answer both markets. 

I went from "member of a team of three (Business unit manager, Technical ninja and myself) to a group of five  with as focus to make sure we had happy customer, decent product feedbacks to develop our offer and guaranty client satisfaction,

We had to develop new business by hunting, we hired a hybrid profile that could take care of existing clients to build his knowledge close with our clients — allowing him to leverage that in sales processes.   

We were with the five of us taking care of 40% of our clients and a decent part of our ARR.  

We commit ourselves to ensure Customer success through Agile Product and Services with the necessary human touch to make our client superheroes.  

==> That resulted in new happy clients: SRWT/TEC, BeCreative, Connections, Maison Blavier, etc  

As a manager,   
- I share my expertise with my team to help them learn fast and acquire the necessary skills to provide top service.   
- I coach and challenge them to get those extra miles with our customers, train our client to become superheroes.
- I listen to them; they are the voice of our clients.   
- I try to act as a servant leader making their job more comfortable and more impactful  

"Team is everything"

G2: 
Connections: "Excellent email and automation platform with a + for the team"

SaaS Team Manager - Tear 2 

Citobi is a Belgian company that provides CRM solutions since 2010. Born SaaS, we are on a mission to offer marketers (operators and managers) and technical profiles the best technology to close the gap between brands and customers by leveraging personalization in time, offers and channels.   

The unique value proposition is a combination of human support and providing our powerful marketing platform Actito.   

  
My role in a nutshell :  
Acting as the middle man on business, account as technical topics. Make it happen by connecting the different client departments and our teams to make it a success.  

My main tasks:
- Making sure the client perceives the value of the investment within the first weeks by coordinating the implementation process but also the training and future expansion plans.   
- Brainstorming session to identify new opportunities to develop the existing business and guaranty continuous investment.  
- Demonstrate the ROI on the technological investment but also the continuous support  
- Guaranty customers stratification by being the first line support.  
- Being the customer's voice internally   
- Confirming and executing the sales proposal. 

Reported directly to the business unit manager and the Co-Founders  

Some Brands and Projects I supported:    
- Walter Kluwer, operational support to the marketing team to deploy an online training program. Introduction of different newsletters to support promotion to the member, but also focusing on prospects.   
- Renmans, actively working on campaign management. Provide right sourcing support in peak moments to guaranty the business impact and continuity.   
- Launch of the BBQ project. It resulted in a direct increase in the value of bbq consumers drastically by leveraging the right level of promotion.    
- LyondellBasell helps them reduce paper campaign by transforming a catalog in an interactive newsletter.

Account Manager at Actito Belgium (formerly know as Citobi)

SaaStock

About
Throughout the year, SaaStock Local Brussels will be sharing resources with the community through quarterly, highly-focused events in Belgium. Our mission: to help SaaS founders, execs, investors, and startups get traction, growth, and scale. 

City Leader: Jenny Bjorklof

Already two events launched in 2019 and more to come in 2020

1. SaaStock Local: Growth Strategies - LAUNCH event
Speakers: Guillaume Moubeche | Lemlist, Lien De Leenheer | Frankly Speaking, Jorim Rademaker | Manuel.to, Nataliia Deineha and Haroen Vermylen | Cumul.io, Sebastien Darte | T&C, Thierry Vermeiren | Workero
Sponsors: Blendr.io, Actito, Workero

https://local.saastock.com/events/details/saastock-brussels-presents-saastock-local-brussels-growth-strategies-launch-event/

2. SaaStock Local: Best Practices for Talent Acquisition
Speakers: Eva Maertens | Teamleader, Jan Devos | LinkedIn
Sponsors: Blendr.io, Actito, Teamleader, Djar, Zoho

https://local.saastock.com/events/details/saastock-brussels-presents-best-practices-for-talent-acquisition/

Maybe?
- Interested in speaking at one of our Belgian events? 
- Want to join us as a partner to showcase your company to 50+ Belgian founders and execs?

Co-Organizer SaaS Local Brussels

IHECS Academy

I have a passion for marketing and one of the most accessible channels is email marketing.

I have been asked by IHECS to share my expertise with small groups of highly motivated people looking to boost their career possibilities by adding new skills to their profile.

The course was about Emailing and Newsletter. I split it into different sessions allowing the students to acquire a global vision about the engagement marketing jargon and possibilities.
But also a more hands-on part, allowing them to experiment through real cases.

I had the chance to share this with four groups of great students with whom I still have contacts today. I believe that we should all do some teaching/sharing as this helps structure our knowledge but keep us also down to earth with the reality of the market. 

Average NPS 8.6

More info: https://www.ihecs-academy.be/ihecs-academy/

Marketing Automation Expert - Visiting Professor - Training: Emailing and Newsletter

I have a passion for marketing for nearly e decade, IHECS asked me to share my expertise with students applying for certification in communication.

Compare to the other training; we go more into the tactics and strategies that make the difference.

The students were very keen to learn more about:
- How to win customer engagement
- How to craft a customer experience that has a true impact on the business.
- Which data to focus on
- What is the legislation around data privacy - GDPR
- Which tools are available, and how to choose what is right for my organization, my challenges.

Of course, we put this in action with hands-on exercise to make sure they could leverage that directly in their careers.

I had the chance to share this with two groups, up to know it stays one of my favorite experiences and would highly recommend to everybody to spend time sharing his knowledge with motivated students.

Curious about their courses have a look at their offer: https://www.ihecs-academy.be/ihecs-acade

Marketing Automation Expert - Visiting Professor - Certification Communication

Lycamobile Group

Lycamobile an MVNO  part of the Lycatel Group. They provide high-quality international calls through to the Mobistar network. Fasted growing telecom company since its inception in June 2007, they have an install base of more than 800 000 clients in Belgium and a presence in more than ten countries. 

I am acting as a Key Account Manager reporting directly to the Country Manager.  

My primary commercial responsibilities: 
• Maintaining and enhancing high levels of customer service. 
• Recurrent contacts and sales actions with Professional Distributors such as Conway, Trendy Foods, Alvadis, Lyfra, Sitagro, and some ethnic distributors 

My primary accounting responsibilities: 
• Meeting and exceeding preset targets for identifying, pursuing, and converting new business opportunities to create a profitable and sustainable business.
• Developing new opportunities to extend our market reach via relevant retailers or shop/brand owners

My primary marketing responsibilities: 
• Understanding key segmentation, delivering new customer insight, and developing sales strategies. 
• Developing Marketing Strategies “ethnic marketing” to increase visibility and notoriety.
• Negotiation of marketing Budget with partners. 

My main commercial and accounting achievements:
• Creation, negotiation with Telecom Manager from major retail players such as Media Markt and Fnac: 
• Develop local partnerships with networks such as White Night, Night and Day, ... increasing our sales but also our market presence.

Marketing  achievements:
• The rollout of a full rebranding within our main partners and night shops.  
Successfully implement brand activation actions within our partners and resellers 
• Launch of a partnership with Image/Selection, which increased the presence of Lycamobile in more than 1200 shops.

Key Account Manager - Indirect Channels

Clearwire

Clearwire is a company that provides Internet connexion through a highly innovative technology called Wimax (radio waves), allowing end-users to enjoy a super fast internet in one appointment. No need waiting weeks to connect your home to the supplier network; a simple electrical plug is all you need.

They started with Brussels as the main city but quickly extended to other cities and are now available in Gent, Leuven, Vilvoorde, Aalst. The actual customer database is about 14.000 clients.

I started as a sales representative and quickly evolved into a Teamleader role, reporting directly to the sales manager.

My main responsibilities:
Coaching and managing the sales representatives on a daily base.
• Leading and managing a team of 15 direct sales by helping them reaching targets in the B2C market. 
• Coaching them on the full sales cycle, from identifying and finding new leads (mainly calling and referral programs) to active negotiation and closing.
• Close active field management to improve the quality of each of us. 
• Daily reporting and establishment of weekly meetings. 

Building the premise of the indirect channel.
• Responsible for Fnac and the launch of our shops (Rue Neuve and Gent), operational sales chief department. 
• In charge of the several independents' shops acting as a Key account by giving them the right supports to boost and increase sales. 
• Reporting directly to the Sales Manager.

Main achievements:
• Become a Teamleader within six weeks by crushing personal targets and bringing knowledge to my colleagues
• The best-performing country in February by excelling the target.

Learned lessons:
• You are nothing without a team.
• KPIs are the key to great business.
• Technology needs to be understood and taught to bring value to your customers.

Team Leader of 15 B2C Direct Sales 

A.S. MOBILITY

A.S Mobility (formerly ARWAC) provides a wide range of car equipment: handsfree, alarm, audio, ... Active in the B2B, our mission is to provide the best solution to increase productivity, security, and driver satisfaction.
 
Acting as a Business Developer with the responsibility of identifying new potential lease partners but also direct clients. Farming the existing portfolio by finding new products and solutions to their needs.

Reporting directly to the founder and leading a team of 10 technicians to guarantee our high-quality standards.

Main leasing clients: LeasePlan, KBC Autolease, ING Lease, Arval, Athlon Car Lease, Alphabet.
Some direct clients: Bristol-Myers, Quintiles, VW Bruynseels, ING.

Learned lessons:
- Applying the different courses was the key to success: AIDA, spin selling, building powerpoint decks.
- Being a trilingual profile is a significant advantage to handle business in Belgium.
- Always look for someone that you can learn from.

Fleet Manager B2B

Making marketing an essential part of company growth I Public speaker I Activation lover

TL,DR ==> Book 30 minutes, and let's enjoy a virtual coffee https://insights.luzmo.com/meetings/jonathan-wuurman

"Always be curious, never stop learning” is my motto and actually applies to marketing strategies too. 

Over the years and after a decade in marketing, but also sales and product management, I built up a passion for helping marketers leverage digital technology to provide outstanding customer experiences. 

With my marketing team, I aim at educating and making sure that every marketer becomes a superhero of activation marketing.

Jonathan 🦖 Wuurman 👋🦾

Benoît De Nayer

Actito

Since end 2024, I've left the operational management of Actito. I continue to focus on the growth of Actito trough its board of directors.

Director

With Pierre De Nayer and Kenya Rose, we launched Citobi in May 2000. We launched, ACTITO, the first European SaaS Marketing Automation suite,  in 2001. While bootsrapping the company, we acquired Mediquality in 2007 and sold it to Medscape in 2017. We acquired Smartfocus in 2018 and Qualify in 2022 becoming one of the major Martech Players in Europe, reaching nearly 30 millions annual revenue.

co-Founder and co-CEO

Growth Financial (Razwar, Man and Shaving).

Apideck

Investor

OKIPIO

Chief Executive Officer

Mediquality

Led the Board of Directors at Mediquality, driving successful acquisition by Medscape.

• Spearheaded strategic decisions for specialized media aimed at MD in Belgium and Luxemburg.
• Collaborated with key stakeholders to ensure smooth transition and continued growth.

Chairman of the Board of Directors

Researcher

BDD, waterloo

Lawyer

Co-Founder and Co-CEO

Lawyer turned geek, i co-founded Actito in 2000 alongside Pierre De Nayer and Kenya Rose. For over two decades, our mission has been to support businesses across Europe with tailored CRM and personalized marketing strategies.

I am investing in deep-saas and ecommerce startups and mentoring Young entrepreneurs.

I write and publicly speak about technology, agile management and entrepreneurship.

 Specializations
✔️ Comprehensive legal expertise: tax law, intellectual property, and data protection (GDPR).
✔️ CRM & Marketing Automation: designing and implementing bespoke digital strategies to build lasting engagement.
✔️ Entrepreneurial leadership: driving innovative business growth in a competitive landscape.

Passionate about innovation and digital transformation, I strive to create value for companies by combining technology, strategy, and vision

As one of the founding partners of Actito, I drive the development of our Customer Activation Platform

L’IA et le rasoir d’Occam …

Travaillant dix heures par jour avec l’IA (ChatGPT, Cursor, Lovable, Codex, Claude, Gemini…), je suis frappé par sa tendance à en faire trop. L’IA a peur du vide : elle le comble avec des circonvolutions inutiles. Elle remplit, souvent pour rien, probablement parce que ça lui permet de brûler des “tokens”.

Dans mes travaux de codage, je me retrouve dix fois par jour face à des solutions totalement alambiquées, parfois fascinantes, mais impossibles à maintenir, accompagnées de diagnostics proprement capillotractés.

J’ai trouvé la parade ultime : une règle vieille de plusieurs siècles, le fameux Rasoir d’Occam, édicté par le philosophe et théologien anglais, franciscain de son état (merci à Pierre De Nayer de me l'avoir fait découvrir).

Il disait, en latin, évidemment, c’est toujours mieux :

« Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate. »
Autrement dit, pour faire bref : « Au plus simple, au mieux. »

On parle de “rasoir” parce qu’il permet de raser les hypothèses inutiles. Occam n’a d’ailleurs rien “inventé” : Aristote avait déjà posé les bases, et beaucoup l’ont adapté ensuite. On peut même y voir une filiation directe avec le “Less is more” de Mies van der Rohe.

Si j’en parle ici, c’est que j’ai imposé à mes IA une règle simple : confronter systématiquement toutes leurs hypothèses et solutions au “rasoir d’Occam”.

Par exemple, dans Lovable, j'ai mis comme paramètres "Applique toujours le rasoir d'OCCAm". A chaque fois il y fait donc référence. Et pour que les choses soient absolument claires je lui repose la question; ta solutions est-elle vraiment la plus simple?

Le résultat dépasse toutes les attentes. Dans plus de 80 % des cas, l’IA, après avoir proposé une solution abracadabrantesque, revient, une fois rasée, avec quelque chose de simple et efficace.

Ce qui signifie que l’IA nous prend très souvent pour des imbéciles et pense nous impressionner en échafaudant des solutions inutilement compliquées.

Je suis désolé de vous avoir infligé cet article un peu “rasoir”. J’aurais sans doute pu dire tout cela en une ligne ou deux. Il va falloir que je m’applique le principe d’Occam à moi-même.

#IA #AI #Lessismore #Occam #Lovable #Cursor #vibecoding

Founder and CEO @ ATMOS | Launching Start-ups, Strategic consulting, Mentoring

2026 sera l’année du spec-driven development,

Nouvelle conversation passionnante hier The POD avec Denis Muquardt et Michal qui me présentent leur nouvel outil de codage par ontologie…
S’ensuit une discussion sur les limites du vibe coding et les mérites du « spec-driven coding ».

Mais késaco que ce nouveau bidule dans le monde du codage AI ?

Loin d’être une révolution, ça consiste à remettre un peu l’église (ou la Maison du Peuple par chez nous) au milieu du village.

Au lieu de s’éparpiller dans toutes les directions pour se retrouver assez vite avec un bol de ramens en lieu et place d’un programme fonctionnel, on fixe les bases de ce qu’on veut coder.

Un peu l’inverse du vibe coding, où l’on développe une doc censée expliquer ce que le code fait.

On décrit par exemple :

-le concept général de l’application
-les exigences du code
-le style de codage
- les exigences de documentation dans le code
- les prérequis en matière de sécurité (OWASP, …)
- les principes de test

Ce qui fait que, chaque fois que l’IA se met à coder, elle peut se référer à ce cadre et éviter d’aller dans tous les sens.

Le souci est qu’il est difficile, voire impossible, de livrer toutes ces specs à l’IA, qui ne possède généralement qu’une vue limitée à quelques centaines de milliers de tokens.

Une application typique en compte souvent plusieurs millions.
Dès lors, il faut pouvoir se référer à un contexte extérieur.

Et c’est là que des outils tels que celui de Denis peuvent aider. Cela offre tout un tas d’autres avantages, comme faciliter le portage vers d’autres IA, d’autres langages, d’autres équipes de développement.

C’est vraiment un autre monde qui s’ouvre au codage agentique. Je suis impatient de tester la solution de Denis derrière mon armée d'agents Lovable Anthropic et OpenAI en espérant que cela mettra un peu de discipline dans leur rangs.


#IA #AI #VIBECODING #SPECDRIVENCODING

Le triomphe du même

Je limite ma consommation de réseaux sociaux à deux enseignes, LinkedIn et Bluesky (qui remplace très bien Twitter).

Et je suis frappé par l’impression d'y voir et d'y lire toujours la même chose, que ce soit sur la forme ou sur le fond.

Tout est devenu propre, lisse, impeccablement mis en page et orthographié. Même le tiret cadratin, autrefois rarissime, constelle une grande partie des articles que je lis.

Qu’il s’agisse d’images ou de texte, il semble que toute créativité ait été laminée par la vague de fond de l’intelligence artificielle générative.

Et pour cause : l’essentiel de la production IA, que ce soit par les modèles eux-mêmes ou au travers des innombrables « wrappers » qui les mettent en musique, est le fruit de trois grandes entreprises (Google, ChatGPT, Anthropic), ce qui a pour effet de réduire considérablement la variété des contenus.
Passe encore pour le code informatique où l’originalité n’a jamais été la qualité première requise d’un développeur.

Mais quand tout l’internet, voire toute la culture, se mue en quelques mois en un brouillard informatif familier où reviennent sans cesse les mêmes concepts, les mêmes tournures, les mêmes styles, on ne peut pas s’empêcher de ressentir une sensation d’appauvrissement.

Nous sommes entrés dans une civilisation du Même, où l’on trouve normal de voir se répéter à l’infini des formes identiques, comme si l’univers était coincé dans le jour de la « marmotte ».

Le mot anglais « meme », qui désigne une image ou un style qui se répète par imitation d’une personne à l’autre, illustre cette réalité : la norme est au recopiage, plus à l’originalité.

J’ai parfois le sentiment d’être plongé dans un épisode de la série Pluribus, où l’humanité entière, à treize exceptions près, pense et dit la même chose.

Or, le cerveau a besoin de nouveauté. Nos esprits scrutent en permanence, dans les motifs répétitifs, l’étrangeté, le rare, le jamais vu... C’est ce qui a sauvé nos ancêtres dans la jungle ou les hautes herbes des savanes : être capable de discerner ce qui est différent nous assurait de découvrir de nouvelles sources de nourriture ou d’éviter les dangers. Cette fonction est véritablement « câblée » en nous.

C’est ce qui provoque à la fois l’ennui et l’effroi face aux monceaux d’information « énervée » (c’est-à-dire sans aucun nerf) qui s’offrent à nous.

Il y a urgence à reprendre la main, à se remettre à véritablement créer des formes nouvelles pour se libérer de la dictature du "slop" de l'IA.

Joignant le geste à la parole, et pour illustrer mon propos, j'ai renoncé à lancer chat GPT et ai emprunté les marqueurs de ma fille pour vous pondre une sentence d' Art Bitr qui accompagnait autrefois mes articles dans "Le Bègue", fameux journal de la fac de droit de l'#Université catholique de Louvain.

#IA #SLOP #AI #MEME #CREATIVITE

BYOAI : l’auberge espagnole de  l’IA

Un investisseur me disait l'autre jour que la majorité des applications dites “intelligentes” qui lui sont présentées ne sont, en vérité, que de fines couches de peinture posées sur les modèles d’OpenAI, Google ou Anthropic. C'est ce qu'en jargon on appelle un "wrapper"

En somme, il s'agit d'un simple boulot de plomberie. L'essentiel du travail est fait par l'IA et est mis en forme par une UI assez basique.

Une App comme Lovable utilise même plusieurs IA en fonction du coût ou de la complexité de la tâche. Vous n'avez aucune prise sur le choix de l'IA. Vous ne savez pas ce qui est fait avec vos données, vous perdez le pouvoir. 

La conséquence est que si vous quittez l'univers de l'app-wrapper , vous perdez tout ce que vous avez communiqué à l'IA sous-jacente et qui a servi à l'affiner : vos données, votre style d'écriture, même les questions posées au chat de l'app. Impossible de les retrouver dans une autre app.

C'est là qu'intervient le BYOAI pour Bring your own AI, l'auberge espagnole de l'IA.

Plutôt que de laisser au fournisseur de l'application le choix du modèle sous-jacent, vous apportez votre propre modèle. Quand vous quittez l'app, vous profitez des apprentissages réalisés par l'IA au sein de l'application.

L’application, elle, devient l’hôte : elle accueille votre modèle, l’utilise pendant que vous êtes là, le respecte… puis vous le rend, intact, lorsque vous partez.
Pas de copie.

Je viens ainsi d'achever le "no-codage" d'une App dont je vous dirai bientôt plus qui vous permet ainsi d'ajouter vos modèles et de repartir avec eux à tout moment.

Il s’agit, en réalité, d’un prolongement naturel du droit à la portabilité prévu par le GDPR. Jusqu'ici je considérais cette disposition comme un droit-gadget, mais je pense que, légèrement adaptée, elle offre des possibilités intéressantes en matière d'IA.

A terme, on devrait pouvoir garantir par ce biais la possibilité de quitter un LLM pour une autre, en conservant le contenu qui nous est propre.

Il est certain que l'idée sera accueillie fraîchement par les fournisseurs d'applications qui voient dans la maîtrise de l'IA une barrière à la sortie, mais je crois que l'évolution est inévitable.

Nous aurons ainsi bientôt tous tous notre IA-compagnon que nous pourrons associer à telle ou telle application, ou migrer d'un moteur de LLM à l'autre.

Peut-être la "prêterons-nous" à notre employeur le temps de notre contrat.

Sur ce, je m'en vais tenter d'exporter vingt années d'élucubrations sur linkedin sur ma propre IA, hébergée sur un Mac mini, dans le fond d'un placard. En espérant que le courant ne saute pas au milieu du processus.

#BYOAI #IA #Innovation #Portabilité #GDPR #DataSouveraineté #FutureOfAI #ArchitectureOuverte

Some reflections after my visit to the ML6 Convention yesterday hosting OpenAI

I’ll start with the positive: the crowd.

More than 700 people in the room. For an AI event in Belgium, that’s massive. It confirms one thing — AI is no longer a niche topic for the curious. It has become a mainstream concern for companies across the Benelux.

Now… the content.

Let’s say it politely: I left a bit underwhelmed. The talks were perfectly sub-boring, sprinkled with a few technical hiccups, and you could feel that some speakers weren’t fully convinced by their own narrative. 

But here’s the twist: none of this is actually the point.

What matters is the signal behind the noise:

Everyone knows they need to deal with AI, and almost nobody knows how.
And when you look at the local landscape, the contrast is striking.
Aside from the usual AI snake-oil vendors (never a shortage), there are surprisingly few serious, scalable AI tech players in the Benelux. ML6 is the exception : a 150-person team built over more than a decade, led by someone who genuinely deserves the “little genius” label : Nicolas Deruytter.

Which brings me to the real conclusion:

If Europe wants to stay relevant in AI, we need consolidation. We need bigger, stronger players. We need to stop pretending that a scattering of boutique agencies is enough to compete with what’s coming.

The demand is there.
The talent is here.
What’s missing is the scale.

#AI #ENTREPRISEAI #SCALE #Europe

How to NOT communicate about an outage,

I am a regular user of Lovable. This is a great platform but it has had quite a lot of downtimes lately.

They usually put a banner on top of their page to communicate the issue.

Today, again a problem affects the platform.

The banner states: "we are currently having issues with an upstream vendor" in a tentative to deflect responsibility.

This is a real bad way to communicate.

If there is a problem on your platform this is YOUR problem. You chose your providers. As this is not the first problem with Cloudflare, you had to mitigate it.

But clearly pointing to a third party does not help clients.

The first reflex in case of problem should be top apologize and show some  empathy. 

Sure Lovable, is a young company and has still lots of things to learn to be .... more Lovable.

Ne dites pas à ma mère que je dessine des interfaces, elle croit que je fais du code...

Encore une discussion passionnante avec Denis Muquardt au POD cet après-midi.

On a commencé par disséquer les joies et les drames du vibe coding façon Lovable et compagnie.

Et puis, au fil de la discussion, on est arrivés à une conclusion assez simple :
Le métier le plus demandé dans les prochaines années ne sera pas développeur backend, mais… concepteur d’UI.

Attention : il ne s'agit pas de coder une interface.

Ça, l’IA le fait très bien.

Parler aux machines, c’est déjà plié.

Non, ce qui va manquer (et manque déjà cruellement) ce sont des gens capables de parler aux humains.

Parce qu’on a beau nous promettre des “wrappers” magiques pour interagir avec des IA hypersophistiquées, la plupart sont :

– au mieux pauvres,
– au pire inutilisables,
– et très souvent les deux en même temps.

Et comme je le disais dans mon dernier post (BYOAI) : le modèle d’IA est devenu une commodité.

On peut échanger un GPT contre un Claude contre un Gemini, ou même remplacer un LLM par un SLM si ça nous chante.

Mais la grammaire de la relation avec le consommateur, elle, vit dans l’interface.
Et là, désolé, mais l’IA fait encore dans le standardisé, le tiède, le “joli mais pas pensé”. Ca rejoint la réflexion de Muriel Vandermeulen.

Les interfaces générées par IA ?

Visuellement propres, oui.

Mais souvent interchangeables, et clairement sous-optimales dès qu’il s’agit de guider un humain réel dans un contexte réel.

J’ai toujours eu une grande admiration  pour le travail d'un autre Denis, Denis Auquier qui a réussi chez Actito à simplifier des concepts incroyablement complexes en interfaces limpides, logiques, presque évidentes.

Il n’est pas près d’être remplacé par une IA.

#IA #AI #UX #UI

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