Swedish Thinking

Q: Introduce us to yourself and your company.
I’m Fredrik Suter and work as a producer at Fi Stockholm.

Q: Interactive Producers come from all walks of life, they are a hybrid of talents, tell us about your background and how you got interested in digital production?
My first encounter with the digital world was playing games on my Commodore 64 (using the turbo tape) and later Amiga 500 as a kid. Later on in life, I got an interest in web technologies and programming which brought me into the field of interaction design and later down the road to the role as a producer.

Q: How do you stay on top of emerging technologies and keep your team informed and motivated?
My input comes from various places, interesting blogs on the web such as A List Apart and Boxes and Arrows but most importantly from my colleagues. Keeping my team members informed and motivated is the biggest challenge as a producer, and requires you to always remind yourself of the bigger picture of the project and maintaining a positive, constructive attitude throughout the project. There are no simple solutions to that, only trial and error and being honest to yourself. Everybody fails sometimes; it’s what you learn from the failure that matters.

Q: What does your ideal client/project look like?
A client that has a clear business strategy striving to translate this into a world leading digital product. To achieve this you need the number one digital agency.

Q: How do you educate your clients and set realistic expectations for a project?
By striking a fair balance between optimism and realism, translating technical lingo to a language that is meaningful to the client.

Q: What was the best project you have ever worked on?
Right now, I’d have to say www.ursmart.se Great concept and great result.

Q: How many projects are you comfortable producing at one given time?
Three projects, ideally two.

Q: What does your dream production team look like?
I already have them in-house J

Q: How do you ensure that your client's best interests are met?
By being a good listener and trying to understand what the client really want. Also, reminding yourself that sometimes the client might think that they know what they want but really want something else.

Q: What is your vision of what the next phase of our industry is going to look like?
Less is more, quality over quantity. Fewer features but the right ones instead, less information but more useful and relevant information. Less pure campaign sites with spinning 3D bottles and more focus on being where the audience is and finding ways of having conversations rather that pushing a message. The blog format is slowly replaced by a new format that is not based on a reverse-chronological order with focus on the latest, rather by topic or relevance to the user.

Q: Please share a snippet of wisdom that you would like to impart on our readers.
Never underestimate the complexity of a project even though it might look simple at a first glance!