My role in the creation of this work has been to steer a big team over the course of many months, to grow the phenomenon – and in creating the idea itself. Although it doesn’t really matter who comes up with an idea, this reflects my philosophy of contextual creativity very well – an original idea or little invention which falls into an existing, big context – in this case, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

The brief was to launch KONE’s 24/7 Connected Services – and we were lucky to have a very passionate and ambitious client we are lucky to share similar goals with. So it was supposed to be big from the start.

Not difficult. The idea is very relevant to the product itself – yet visionary, driving the brand forward. We presented quite a few good ideas and the client chose this one. A good choice. I am very thankful for the trust – it shows that we have a long-term relationship which is beneficial for both parties.

I have a few thoughts my creative approach is based on – contextual creativity and radical relevance. So I want to stay very close to the product, service or desired brand position, with ideas being as radical as possible. And contextual creativity means to investigate the context, the world we are living in and create ideas for that context. And it needs to be a bit inventive and surprising, of course. But the overall inspiration probably came from consuming science fiction – going as far back as watching all kind of series as a young boy on TV. And now the future is here. So it felt logical to show that.

KONE is a large cooperation, and so is IBM, which we joined forces for this project. So there was a lot of work to be done to make this work beautifully. Like really a lot – and it was complex. Also, this was challenging from a technical point of view, and we closely cooperated with R&D. Although all that was not easy everyone wanted to get this done – a big thank you to all people involved – from all companies. I am very proud of the effort everyone has made.

There are plenty, but they can’t be told here, otherwise, everyone would know. But as a Creative Director carrying full responsibility for this project, I was a lot more nervous than usual before the launch of projects. I strongly believed in the idea. But what if it was just a website no one would care about. Or what if people would just find it the wrong kind of boring?

Bigger is better. And: Everything is possible. Also, there’s been a lot of people who did an amazing job, and if only one of those would not have done that, the project would have failed. So it’s beautiful to trust people and see them doing amazing things – it was the best part.

Probably it is the same what convinced hundreds of journalists around the world to write about Machine Conversations – it’s a great experience everyone can participate "live", it blends technology and human curiosity, yet is beautifully simple – and it is very well executed. And it makes a good story.