Online Emotional Analytics | Armen Berjikly

 

About Armen Berjikly

Mr. Armen Berjikly founded Kanjoya Inc.(formerly Experience Project, Inc.), in 2007, and currently serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Berjikly graduated with honors from Stanford University, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, and a Master’s Degree in Management Science and Engineering. Berjikly’s honors include being one of the youngest individuals to be named a Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leader, and membership in the Mayfield Fellows, a vaunted fellowship program producing Silicon Valley’s leading technology entrepreneurs. Berjikly is a regular contributor on the topics of technology and society to national radio, television, print, and conferences, including giving a top 50 TEDx Talk called, “When Change is not a Choice.”

Berjikly’s work passion is bringing the power of human empathy to technology for both consumer and business applications. On the consumer side, Berjikly created the social media property, Experience Project (http://www.experienceproject.com). EP connects over 15 million people per month on shared, meaningful experiences from their lives. The site has been credited with thousands of lives saved, starting countless friendships and even marriages, while pursuing a mission of making the world a better place. Nearly 80% of active users say EP has improved their lives.

On the enterprise side, Kanjoya’s Perception(TM) platform is groundbreaking technology that brings emotional intelligence into how businesses interact with their customers, employees, and partners. The ability to understand the emotional aspects hidden within communication improves every aspect of a business where emotion plays a key role in success, including optimizing marketing language, prioritizing customer service interactions, and reducing churn.

Berjikly lives in San Francisco with his wife, and newborn son.

 

Interview Transcript of: Online Emotional Analytics | Armen Berjikly

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Armen Berjikly He is a founder of Ken Joya Armen Welcome to the show.

Armen
Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

Alan
So tell us how you background first.

Armen
Absolutely happy to. So I grew up in Los Angeles. So I actually came up to the Bay Area to attend Stanford University, now much longer ago than I like to admit, finished up there and Computer Science and Management Science and master’s degree there as well. ended up working kind of prototypically, at a networking company in Silicon Valley, as a product manager was just living sort of that path. And what led me down the path that I’ve gone today in the entrepreneurial world is actually some personal events, I had a very, very good friend of mine that was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which is, unfortunately, becoming more and more of a common condition, predominately affects young women. And it’s, if you’re not familiar with it to illness that affects the brain spinal cord, in relatively random fashion per patient. And depending on where these inflammation and scarring happen for these patients, their mobility might be affected, their speech might be affected, or they might be relatively unscathed, it’s a very uncertain kind of condition. And so as I witnessed this situation, and really kind of the environment around it is good luck, we don’t know what’s going to happen to you. That’s really the attitude of most neurologists, towards their patients. And here’s some medications, but we don’t know the side effect profile, or particularly the impact on the condition, I thought there must be something better that we could do at least psychologically, at least emotionally. And from my background and engineering and being very comfortable online. And really having a passion for human computer interaction in a way that technology and, and assisting people. I set off on a small adventure at the time to create a community for people with this condition, to bring them together and just bring them news of what’s going on in the research worlds, right, because I found that in my eyes, knowing about the research actually gave me hope that smart people are coming to work everyday trying to eradicate this condition. And as I built this out, kind of as a moonlighting situation, a community formed around it as a group of patients and caregivers and loved ones, like myself, we’re all interested in this particular disease state. And the moment that tipped me over to starting my own company dedicated to this was an email I received from a user of the site, it was a dear webmasters and never put my name on the property. And it was a gentleman that IMS and he said that he’d had it for 10 years confined to a wheelchair. And he said he was about to take his own life the night before. And he said something compelled me to search one more time last night. And he’s like, I found your, your site that you created. And I’ve been up all night reading. And for the first time this decade, I feel a little glimmer of hope. And I just want to say thank you. And that was a slap to the face of hey, I could use my talents and my energy and my passion to not just helping multiple sclerosis community, but any, I think group of folks that would benefit from getting other folks like themselves. And so that was what started me off on the adventure that became Kendra.

Alan
You know, so how strong is the the emotional aspect of our online habits?

Armen
Yeah, it’s really hard to separate actually. And it’s not something that we’re very conscious of, but humans are emotional creatures. We make up our minds emotionally. We then infill with logic and rationality. And so everything that we do that involves choice involves emotion in some way, shape, or form. You know, we use a couple examples. One is this idea of virality. You know, when we see something go viral on YouTube, or we get clips on our Facebook feed, there’s a science behind that, where emotion is part and parcel of that Jonah Berger Professor out at UPenn makes a series of studies that show things with higher arousal, you know, on anger are much more likely to go viral than something that is either neutral or lower arousal, such as sadness. And you can actually build essentially models to say, I think this piece of content might go viral, because of the understanding of the human brain and how we react to things like that. And so that’s one small example that we probably run across every single day. And what we share, see and get involved with, but it’s repeating the decisions we make from what charities we support online. It’s not based on how many people are affected by a hurricane. It’s based on the emotional connection we feel with the town or the folks that do it. So it’s amazing when you start thinking about it, just how powerful it is.

Alan
So can join how many users do you have today?

Armen
Right, so Kenji is actually a multi headed kind of property, right? So on our consumer side, I told you a story about the multiple sclerosis community. When I generalize that concept, and I said, You know what, let’s just bring people together on experiences that they share. That’s the atomic when we get down to the brass tacks. People bond with other folks don’t understand them at the experiential level. And so that website is called the experience project.com spelled with all of its vowels and letters, correctly, almost 20 million people come through that property every month on our mobile presence on the iOS on the website. And that’s bringing folks together on now almost over 40 million life experiences. And 80% of the users say the site has changed their life. So that very sort of genesis of how I started, this has grown and blossomed. And the topics just completely range. from soup to nuts, family to health to exercise to conditions like we started

Alan
Visiting here with Armen Berjikly he is the founder of conjoin. We’ll be right back after these messages. Welcome back and visiting here today with Harmon tickly. He is the CEO and the founder of Ken Joya, a company that focuses on the emotional aspect of our online habits. And I want to I want to spend some time kind of tying this all together. Okay, we talked about Ken Joya, and then the the experience project and the crane emotional intelligence platform. What’s the relationship between these three areas.

Armen
Its both complicated and elegant at the same time. So how we started is we built a huge social property called the experience project, which is my pride and joy, bringing folks together on experiences, stories and emotions, and providing tremendous value from that group. If anyone who’s built a website, right, we’re in Silicon Valley, I feel like everyone has a website. The challenge with a web property is no matter how wonderful it is, right from Facebook, through to some blog that you read, you’re limited by the audience of folks that you can reach the traffic that you have. And so with experience project with 20 million people a month, that’s amazing. I mean, it’s a swath of society, and it continues to grow aggressively. That said, we’ve always had a vision, which is technology, and empathy needs to go hand in hand. And today, they don’t, right, we want to be the next best thing to human empathy in a digital world, because we spend more time not less with digital devices, or websites, etc. And so when we look at experience, well, we’ve done a great job with a social property. Now, can we take some of that same respect for humanity, quite frankly, how we make decisions and how important emotionality and empathy is, in treating us as people and bring that knowledge to the business world. And so we have that aspect to our company as well, which is the crane platform that you talked about, which is, you know, over this nearly a decade, and over a billion people that have come through experience project. They’ve helped teach this corpus of how language and emotion go hand in hand. So when someone gets a puppy, and is really excited, you know, how do we express that as people? What language do we use? What words do we use? If I’m in Los Angeles? How do I express it differently than if I’m in New York, and this model and aggregate from you know, 10s, and 10s, and hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of people, essentially helps us figure out when communication happens? What is the person really trying to say, right, because sometimes we don’t use the precise words, we are able to read between the lines by acknowledging the emotionality of people acknowledging the empathy that someone needs to receive. And therefore we can provide a better experience, whether it’s social and building a better property, in social media, or if it’s helping a company better understand the customer service emails that are coming in, there was a replete with emotion. And today, there is zero technologies out there outside of ours that would help one understand if that person is raging at you, because their bill was too high. What could you really do to understand and empathize, besides giving them you know, silly things like discounts on their bill, understand them acknowledge how they’re feeling. And you can do a much better job of building relationship between yourself as a business and your customers. And so that kind of completes our vision, from the consumer side all the way through to our business partners.

Alan
You know, when, when you you bring emotion into it, how do you maintain objectivity?

Armen
In fact, you may not need to write it. The way I look at it is we communicate because we want to be heard right in any forum possible. If it’s Twitter, or Facebook, it’s experience project, it’s this radio show where communicate, because I hope somebody listens. I might not be a master of language, most people aren’t. But I really want to make sure that whatever message I’m trying to get across gets out there by acknowledging the emotional side of what I’m trying to say. You can give voice to people who have been muted in some ways you get lost in the noise. And so I don’t know if it’s a question of objectivity so much as it’s saying, every communication matters. And by looking at all the different nuances from the language they use, and the lexical models from your combined with all the kinds of crazy things that I’m talking about, about looking at what the person is trying to get across emotion In a way, you can get a better picture and better meet and wherever you are. And whatever you’re trying to you’re trying to do you do a better job of understanding empathizing with the individual. So it’s not necessarily question objectivity. It’s actually a subjective question that every person should get a subjective response to tailored to what they’re trying to have them read that

Alan
you mentioned before that people are drawn and viral videos do either something that is, commonly, you know, humans at somebody else’s expense or, or violent one. Why do you think that is? What is it that drives that within us to, to draw out that?

Armen
Sure, I mean, for better or for worse, it’s physiology, and it’s neurology, in many ways, right. And, you know, what you’re referencing is Jonah burgers research out of UPenn, which can tell you that very specific types of emotions create arousal in people. And so you mentioned it’s all in anger are higher arousal, emotions are much more that type of contest monster likely to go viral than something that is really sad, which is a lower route. It’s a strong emotion, but it’s low arousal. And so this is just how the human brain has evolved over time as to respond to, you know, fight or flight. And there’s all sorts of literature in that space. We really use emotions, to almost like sticky notes to shortcut the things that we’re encountering, and prioritize what’s most important. And so this is just a mapping in a lot of ways of how we process information. And a result of the fact that it’s information overload on any person at any time. This isn’t just a new thing with a digital era. And emotions is a shortcut for the human brain to say, Okay, I need to pay attention to that right now.

Alan
So in a scientific way, you can actually launch a viral video.

Armen
You know, we, we don’t particularly do that part of it. But yes, absolutely. There are marketing firms that would look at something and as part of the evaluation process to say, do I think this campaign that big company X is going to do and spend $10 million on for Superbowl campaign, they should absolutely pay attention to the emotional resonance of things to see if it if it lines up with what the research would show, because your best guess and your hunch? There’s no reason to do that. Right? There are technologies like ours and some others that can help you predict how someone might react to something. And in a very, I think, good way, create content that people enjoy paying attention to, what is the future hold for conjoin? You, for us, it’s continuing to fulfill this vision of, you know, providing the next best thing to human empathy and digital, right. So we’ll continue to expand our social property. I mean, our goal is to be were top 200 website, right now in the world, our goal is to be in the top 100 within the next two quarters. And that’s not just something that is an egotistical trip for us. We know and I mentioned this earlier, four out of five of our users say the site has changed their life, right. And that’s the power of connecting with someone emotionally. And so the more people use it, the better the world is. And that really does drive us and on our business side of things, is again, saying the companies that acknowledged their customers on an emotional level, treat them like people will be the companies that thrive, the apples of the world, the doves of the world, and the companies that start to ignore that treat people as commodities and numbers. You can think about Dell, Microsoft, Sony, these companies that used to resonate, they will be commoditized. And so emotion is incredibly important for them. That’s what we’ve tried to drive. You know,

Alan
It’s, we use the word emotion, but I also like to use a word of a spiritual connecting with another person there too, because it seems that in this day and age, the more people can get to know that person just beyond the superficial level.

Armen
Yes, exactly. Right. Treating people like people should never go away and digital makes unfortunate relatively easy to do and we want to fight that.

Alan
I’m visiting here today with our main surgically He is the founder of kin Joya he is at top 200 website. We’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back. I’m visiting here today with Armen Berjikly He is founder and CEO of Ken Joya company focused on emotional analytics. So, give me some examples about how emotions will drive our online decisions. Sure. So

Armen
We can think about some communal ones like We all shop on Amazon right at this point. And so this is a very powerful one that it kind of dawns on you think about it. I just had a baby 10 weeks ago, and so I’ve honestly thank you very much Thank you survive it. And I’ve done a lot of shopping online at Amazon. And I found that as I’m going through it You can use this example where let’s say you’re buying a crib, right? And you could look at all these 1000s of five star reviews on a crib, right? Easy to assemble beautiful, cheap, etc. And if there’s one review that come in, that you come across, that’s emotionally resonant. And I’ll give you probably a relatively terrible example, if you read one review that says my child suffered from SIDS in this crib. And I’m not saying it’s the cribs fault, but it happened. And I want you to know, if that’s something you might find in Amazon, right? That one negative review, because of the emotional resonance, will absolutely dominate and potentially crush 1000s and 1000s of positive reviews that are more tactical and less emotional. And so you have to again, kind of think about how we make up our minds, that emotional aspect is a huge part, we don’t really maintain consciousness about it. But it tremendously impacts the decisions we make the products we buy the people we want to associate with the content that we share and engage with.

Alan
So if what do analytics tell you about how visitors spend their time on your site?

Armen
You know, again, so we talked about our social property is where we really invest in learn how emotions communicated, how we essentially it’s where we go to school in a lot of ways, and work with millions and millions of folks to understand how language emotion and experience come together. And so if you look at experience project, it’s just a tremendous place. I’m so proud of people spend over 30 minutes every time they log in, and in our short attention span world that really needs to ring true of just how deeply that engagement is. And it’s because so much of the content, obviously is emotional in nature, it’s storytelling is the format of the property, you get really drawn in and invest in getting to know the folks behind those stories. And so we do see this tremendous engagement, that’s level of Facebook, this level of some of these online games, and we’re proud of that we understand it completely, because of many of the things I’ve been talking about, about how emotional resonance impacts us,

Alan
You know, so people come into your site, the information is self created by them.

Armen
Yes. So it’s nearly democratic property. It’s people sharing stories about their experiences from life. And the value that they get out of that is they meet other folks that share those experiences and stories. And so it’s the idea that technology is uniting you, with people who are your peers, right in experience or an emotion. And once that connection is made, it’s tremendously valuable to our audience. And to myself, I’m a big user.

Alan
Wow. So it’s almost like the future. I guess you’ve different user groups, basically. Absolutely.

Armen
Yeah. I mean, there’s an infinite number of groups of folks, you know, that could be young moms with husbands that are deployed in Afghanistan that have survived cancer, I mean, that’s a group of people, right, and just keep going. Any experience. It’s a very honest place. We keep it anonymous. So we don’t take people’s names and phone number isn’t track them down in any way, shape, or form, we want to keep it as comfortable as it can be. So it’s just a user name. And we find that people then can share what they really want to share and not worry about who’s watching their back and judging them. And therefore they can really comfortable to connect with folks on an honest use of social media, which I think is a pretty novel. Application. When you look at Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn, we’re we’re the perfect employee, perfect friend, perfect comedian. This is a place where you know, our users often say they can let their hair down. And just be open and honest.

Alan
I mean, we’re running up against a break. Take a break and I’m visiting here today with Armen Berjikly he is the founder of can Joya, it’s a website that focuses on the emotional aspect of analytics and also helping to bring, you know, people with special needs. Together, we’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Armen Berjikly He is the founder and the CEO of conjoint. It’s a top 200 website in the world and individuals that are looking at starting their own companies today. What advice would you give them?

Armen
No segment is long enough for this. But what I’d like to really point out is, when you’re starting a company, you’re you’re getting married, right? And this is something that in Silicon Valley and beyond when I run into entrepreneurs, it’s the theme that keep hitting upon is whether you’re going to start a restaurant or work at a 711 or start a company or become you know, an engineer at Cisco. Entrepreneurial folks have this thread running within them, which is we’re going to work the hardest possible with the best attitude. Irrespective of what we do. We’re maximum engagement. And so you only have so much time on this earth and therefore you need to pick very carefully what you throw yourself into starting any company. Is that type of maximum engagement for much longer than you ever anticipate. And it better be something that you are passionately in love with that you feel like you will do and through thick and thin. And the opposite of what you should do is find a small business opportunity that you can exploit or a niche market that is fantastic that you think makes sense. But you’re not passionate involved when because you will start to lose your momentum. Because it takes its toll. It is 100% engagement, no downtime. For as I said, much, much longer than anyone anticipates. Love, love, love what you do before you get started on it.

Alan
You know, it’s, it’s great advice. Talking about having that passion in your business. How does a person discover their passion?

Armen
I think some people aren’t drawn to it. And they know it’s right. I know lots of people who say I’m not passionate about any particular thing. And in that case, good. Don’t start a company, you know, do what makes you happy and follow those. There are people who they should be able to answer that question right off the bat, right? For me, I could wax forever and ever about the idea of emotion technology and treating people like people through technology, right. And so there’s no doubt what I’m passionate about. I think you can see it, I don’t think it’s a journey of discovery for the most part. And I do think life takes you down these roads that you get little examples. I gave that story earlier about someone who wrote me an email and changed my life, things will happen that you will react to and you’ll know right away, wow, I’m feeling some really strong intense emotions here that I didn’t anticipate. I’m drawn to this.

Alan
So knowing what you know, today, what would you do differently if you had to build your company? Again,

Armen
I think tactically, when you’re building a company, you underestimate the time, it’s gonna take you underestimate the amount of money and economics right. And so one of the things that we do here is we try and raise as little bit of money as possible. But what ends up happening is you you make half decisions, right? I think if you’re gonna go and for example, take venture capital, you should go take a lot of venture capital, the best that you can, so that you’re well capitalized, and you can pursue the vision in its purest form and not constantly be in a fundraising cycle. I think that’s a very specific piece of advice that I have for pupils take more than you need. The other part is, there’s a strong culture here, again, in Silicon Valley that, you know, straight out of Stanford is number one way to go. It doesn’t matter if you have experienced or not, I was one of those kids straight out of the school that thought I could take on the world. As I’ve gotten further in my career, the value of experience, having people that have done things before, and can move much more aggressively and with less sort of cycling is incredibly valuable and highly underrated. And so as our company has grown, I’ve really spent more time investing in bringing on folks that have that experience and fact pattern recognition. And you tend to tend to really underestimate that when you’re taking on the world by yourself.

Alan
Where do people go to learn more about conjola.

Armen
So you can learn about Ken joia as a company, it can join.com K and joya.com. If you’d love to check out our social property, the experience project is experienced project.com spelled correctly. And you know those two things can give you some insights into how we really build solutions for people to people connections, and also to take that I think expertise and bring it to the business world on the Kanjo asset.

Alan
I’ve been visiting here today with our men basically he is the founder and the CEO African Joya Arman. Thank you for joining today’s show.

Armen
It’s been my honor, I’m humbled to be here.

Alan
Thank you. Thanks for joining us on America dreams.

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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