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Juha Hemánus
Expert of User Engagement in Communications, AI, and Design
Juha Hemánus is a senior-level creative executive and communications expert based in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area of Finland. He is currently the Creative Director and Communications Strategist at Hemanus Consulting, a position he has held since August 2015.1
Professional Background
Juha has an extensive and diverse career spanning several decades:
- He started as a journalist and co-founded Finland's first independent radio station, Radio City.
- He worked as a theater, opera, and musical stage director in Europe and the U.S.
- He served as a Principal Researcher of Entertainment UX at Nokia Research Hollywood from 2009-2011.
- He led the City of Tampere's European Capital of Culture 2026 Bid from 2018-2020.
Expertise and Approach
Juha's career is built on a human-centered approach, focusing on human understanding, knowledge, behavior, needs, and purpose.1 His areas of expertise include:
- Strategic communications
- Scenario development
- Narrative presentations
- User experience (UX) research and design
- Digital storytelling
- Experience design for mobile technologies
Notable Achievements
- Holds five social-emotional smartphone patents in the EU, US, and Korea (1999-2009)
- Directed Nokia's Global "Connect to Art" Mobile Arts Project (2005-2008)
- Received the New York Foundation of the Arts' (NYFA) Award for "Connect to Art" in 2005
Current Work
At Hemanus Consulting, Juha provides services in interactive excellence for strategic communications, scenario development, and narrative presentations. He emphasizes the importance of proactive preparation for urgencies.1
Juha is a dual EU-US citizen, which allows him to work on both continents. His multidisciplinary background in journalism, theater, technology, and design gives him a unique perspective in his current role as a creative director and communications strategist.
Highlights
Ever heard of EPIC PEOPLE? This is your lucky day – now you will!
EPIC is a nonprofit, a global community prioritizing applied ethnography in contextualizing business value props and enhancing organizations’ efficiency and purpose with more understanding on human behaviors, needs and desires. Very crucial in times of AI!
EPIC People are innovators, creators, leaders, researchers on people, user and client understanding – ethnography practitioners for business impact and nonprofit goal clarification.
This year’s EPIC Conference will take place in Los Angeles, CA on August 18-21.
We at HUMANS are happy to stream some of the best samples of it for all our members and anyone interested in Finland.
An EPIC live stream from LA will be given on August 21, 2024 at 6:30pm – 8:45 pm, hosted by Liubava Shatokhina, a long-standing HUMANS and EPIC member, and sponsored by Noren Oy.
Program: 6:30 pm - Liubava Shatokhina – introduction of the EPIC community and conference 7:00 pm - A live stream of ‘Building Tools that Empower Researchers’ - organized by Dscout 7:30 pm – A live stream of the keynote by Maria Bezalitis – from Intel
Location: Noren Oy – Kaisaniemenkatu 1BA, 4th floor, Helsinki
More info on EPIC2024 and the speakers - https://lnkd.in/dPqHabvk
Sign up: https://lnkd.in/dCdpPfZG
For HUMANS – Human Sciences in Strategy, see https://lnkd.in/dKjPt3cx
As times are rolling in these intense 2020’s, unfortunately not similar to the delirious 1920’s, when everything was new and trust in the future stable, I've learned huge lessons and am now embarking on a new adventure. A few months ago, I began collaborating with GEOSTREAMS, an ESG advisory firm exploring the global economic transition, and all the friction that entails. Together we've done interviews with people heading up a new, but increasingly common function: the sustainability manager. Here's the lesson: Despite the fact that the world is warming, the oceans are rising, and there are mounds of plastic just about everywhere, sustainability managers face massive internal resistance from their own colleagues. Why? Their role requires others to change their patterns. From delivering actionable operational data to reducing a company's impact on the planet, change is difficult, especially when the impact of sustainability/ESG are intangible or only felt in the long-term.
Also, the world in which sustainability managers exist is so new. There is little standardization. Standards and expectations around sustainability move at different levels and with different expectations within different companies.
This is greatly alarming to me. If we do not pull together in the same direction, what good is all the pulling?
What's the adventure in all this? I am pulling together the lessons and skills I've learned over my career and going to apply them to breaking through these barriers. If there's one thing that I believe is that with the right type of communication, anything is achievable. The future depends on us pulling together. I will be posting more about this journey as it evolves. I would love your thoughts and feedback. Juha
#sustainability #communication #change #future
