The goal of this interview series is to inspire and help people to transition their career into a new or next experimentation related role. In this edition Florien Cramwinckel shares her journey.
The thing is, when people look at websites or online data, they sometimes don’t realize that behind every click and every scroll, there is a person doing this.
Florien Cramwinckel
Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi! My name is Florien Cramwinckel. I have a strong background in social psychology (a PhD) and am really enthusiastic about using evidence-based methods to change behavior. I had quite a decent career in academia before I decided to switch to a commercial company and started as a senior behavioural expert at Online Dialogue. Recently, I switched to another (non-experimentation) role at SNS bank..
Besides my regular day job, I also have my own company and provide lectures and workshops to organizations, on all different kinds of (social psychological) topics, such as diversity&inclusion, allyship, psychological safety and communication skills. I focus on bringing scientific knowledge to practice, with fun and informal interactive sessions. My academic background was an excellent fit with CRO, because experimentation is actually science in practice (or at least, it can be, when you do it well).
What is your current experimentation role and what do you do?
My current role is strategic advisor for societal impact at a financial institution. Here, I do not do any experimentation myself, but I do sometimes advise teams who use experimentation. My focus now is on maximizing the societal impact we make by increasing healthy financial behavior, financial knowledge, and financial decision-making.
How did you enter the experimentation space? What was your first experimentation related role?
My first experiences with experimentation were during my studies. During my bachelor studies, I realized that I absolutely loved experiments because they enable you to draw causal conclusions. This is awesome if you, like me, are really interested in what drives human behavior and how people work. In this period (and also during my research master and my PhD) I did everything with regards to experiments myself. I researched the background, got all available knowledge out there, came up with testable ideas and hypotheses, programmed my experiments, cleaned and analyzed the data, wrote up the results in reports and built on those to start new experiments. It was only during my time at Online Dialogue that I worked in an interdisciplinary team where I was no longer responsible for all aspects of experimentation. I really loved working within these interdisciplinary teams, because it really brought out the best in people. I got to do what I love the most –combining theoretical knowledge with relevant data, to come up with testable ideas aimed at changing behavior in a specific context– with other people who are excellent in what they do.
How did you start to learn experimentation?
See my previous answer. For me, experimentation was not so much something that I needed to learn because I got the whole concept and background from my studies. There were, however, some new words and tools that I needed to get acquainted with. Such as Jira, Airtable, some basics about designing and web functionality, Google Optimize, etc. However, because my role was specifically about bringing theory and data together into testable ideas, the more technical skills were not as necessary.
How do you apply experimentation in your personal life?
That seems like a deeply personal question 😉
However, I think the most relevant aspect that I implement in my personal life is the power of incremental change. For example, recently, I decided that I wanted to drink more water during the day. I could set goals such as “ drink 2l of water everyday”, but that’s not really helpful in figuring out how or when to do it exactly. Rather, what I did was couple it with an already existing behavior of drinking tea regularly during the day. Now, what I do is when I go and make myself a new cup of tea. I’m already near the water faucet, so I also pour myself a cup of water and drink it first. I do this with a lot of things. I think the real power of experimentation is realizing that a small change can have a huge effect down the line, if you keep it up. And changes that don’t take a lot of effort are way easier to sustain then huge immense changes that require you to do everything differently. I try out new stuff all the time, and keep what I like and what makes me happy and healthy in the long run. So build on what you have, and make small changes from there (and obviously only keep changes that really have a positive effect on you).
What are you currently doing to keep up with the ever-changing industry?
Not so much, given that my role is no longer experimentation focused. However, I do always keep up with the psychological literature, because psychological knowledge was (and is) always a large part of my job. So I have email alerts out on scientific journals on topics that are relevant for me.
What recommendations would you give to someone who is looking to join the experimentation industry and get their first full-time position?
Make sure that you have a good background to start with. Specific skills and programs are relatively easy to learn. Really understanding the mind-set and the importance of certain things (like random allocation to conditions) is essential to make a good experimenter. If you see a company that you would really love to work at, see if you can go grab a coffee with someone who works there. Figure out what the atmosphere is like, how people work together, and whether this would fit with you. Do you see yourself being happy and thriving there?
Which developments in experimentation excite you? How do you see the field changing in the next 5 to 10 years?
I’m extremely excited about people becoming more serious about using behavioral science in all different kinds of fields, and experimentation is one of them. The thing is, when people look at websites or online data, they sometimes don’t realize that behind every click and every scroll, there is a person doing this. To understand what your visitors really want, it’s not enough to know that they spend 1.34 minutes at your site, or that only 13% click on the main CTA in the hero. You need to understand what it is that your customers want, need, and search for. In order to really understand experimentation, you need to understand human behavior. And that’s why I think psychology (or any behavioral science) is a perfect background for an experimentation job. So what I hope will happen in the field is that employers will realize that it is a good idea to invest in people with solid backgrounds in behavioural science and empirical training.
Is there anything people reading this can help you with? Or any parting words?
Always work in a place that makes you love the version of yourself that you show at work (and outside of work).
Which other experimenters would you love to read an interview by?
Anyone and everyone who also has a behavioural science background would be awesome, I haven’t seen too many of those out there (besides the majority of people working at Online Dialogue, which is just another reason to love that company).
Thank you Florien for sharing your journey and insights with the community.
