Interview with our Co-Founder Richard Sokolov

Richard outside our US office in the Greater Philadelphia area, Pennsylvania, in June.

We spoke to our Co-Founder and Executive Director, Richard Sokolov, about his first overseas trips to the US and Europe since the pandemic and what it means for him to be able to travel again.

IDE: You and George recently went on a trip to visit IDE's offices in Philadelphia, US, and Rotterdam, the Netherlands. How does it feel to be able to travel again? 

Richard: It felt great to see our overseas colleagues and clients again after a long time of closed borders in Australia. We hadn't seen our overseas clients and colleagues in over two years. It is fantastic to be able to connect with them again in person.

IDE: What stops did you make on your trip?

Richard: It was actually two trips. One was in March to the US with George and the other just recently to Rotterdam. George and I visited clients in Irvine, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia in the US, including a visit to our offices there. George also attended the BIO Conference in San Diego in June, while I visited our Rotterdam offices and met clients in Europe.

IDE: What did you miss the most while we weren't allowed to travel in Australia?

Richard: I really missed connecting with our clients and colleagues and seeing the tremendous progress of our projects firsthand. Online meetings and work has been great, and given that we are in Australia with clients all around the world, it has been a staple for us even pre-pandemic. However, regular meetings and touch points are critical in building relationships and deeper understandings. These are crucial elements when developing disruptive products and businesses, where there is a lot of uncertainty to navigate.

Then you have conferences, which are a whole different story if attended in person instead of doing it online. I know online conferences have also made fantastic progress over the last few years, but nothing beats being in novel environments, experiencing the energy of live events and making new connections in person.

IDE: 2020 and 2021 had some unique challenges. Did these affect IDE's collaboration across its offices in Europe, the US and Australia?

Richard: Challenging is the right word. However, we managed to continue delivering on all our project commitments, despite the hurdles of the pandemic. As I mentioned earlier, being a small company in Australia, with the privilege of working with groups worldwide, we have always had to work remotely from clients to some degree, but it was a new challenge to work remotely from everyone. So we were reasonably prepared and had the infrastructure in place. We just needed a bit of time to get used to it.

Our focus on communication and our deep commitment to it was the key to making it work. This has always been a key tenant of how we work and is something that no technology can resolve.

Richard with the IDE Netherlands team at dinner in Rotterdam in June.

IDE: What kind of challenges did IDE face in particular, and how did you manage to overcome these?

Richard: What we do is highly collaborative, and some of the nuances of face-to-face collaboration are lost when working together online. The energy in the room, to body language when presenting, discussing or challenging ideas. These are all important to getting a good outcome. It was hard to overcome this, but we did so by reworking how we conducted these sessions online and structured the tasks between individual and group work. We also did make use of technology as much as we could. Making sure we followed up and reflected on what was working and what was not was also important. Other activities that could done remotely but require some degree of face-to-face contact for maximum effectiveness, such as business development, were difficult. We love building supportive and mutually beneficial relationships with our clients. These rely on good personal relationships between people. Not being able to spend time with each other made this difficult during the pandemic.

IDE: Are personal connections expendable in the digital post-pandemic age?

Richard: We pride ourselves on delivering service and quality that exceeds our client's expectations. We care about our client's businesses, and their commercial success is our success. Care and connection for our employees and clients stand at the core of IDE's values. And while all this can be done without in-person interactions, I think that personal connections are critical, and their impact builds positive relationships that are bound to last long. Our most fruitful client relationships are long-lasting.

IDE: Did you finally learn Dutch when visiting the Rotterdam office?

Richard: (Laughs) Not yet, but I did learn some new customs. There are many benefits of having the Netherlands as our European base. One is that everyone speaks English. We are a bit spoiled in this regard. One of the best things about this trip was that I got to meet with everyone one-on-one, and get to know them all a bit more. Some also for the first time. It was great to spend time with them. Our colleagues in Rotterdam are just a fantastic group of people. Willem, our Director in Europe, is leaving soon, which is unfortunate, but luckily everyone is really dedicated to making the Netherlands office a success despite the change in leadership, which is fantastic. I came away feeling energised.

I also met with all the clients who are very supportive and complimentary of IDE. They believe in our purpose and our way of developing meaningful products and creating disruptive businesses. They are looking forward to continued collaborations with us, and I am very much looking forward to continuing to support them in their exciting projects and enterprises.

IDE: That sounds wonderful. Thank you for the interview, Richard.