Faces of Foleon
Stijn Dijkers
Product and Engineering teams are often the unseen heroes in SaaS.
At Foleon, we believe they should be in the spotlight because ... where would our product be without them? So, we started Faces of Foleon as a way to not only showcase the amazing people behind the product but also as a way to celebrate their work and dedication.
Stijn Dijkers joined the Product #FoleonFam in 2021 as a Product Manager & Owner. He's the mastermind behind Review Mode, which allows you to collaborate with stakeholders directly in Foleon, Single Sign-On (SSO), Shared Templates, and many more exciting updates.
So, without further ado, meet Stijn. 👋
To start, tell us a bit about your role at Foleon.
One way I like to look at my role is two-folded: the Product Owner part of my role is focused on engineering and design, while the Product Manager part is focused on identifying the right customer and other stakeholder needs and meeting them.
Overall, I like to think that I help steer the decision-making process of Foleon's platform evolution: what is the right challenge to tackle next, and what's the best solution to that challenge?
What feature have you worked on that you’re most proud of and why?
I'm proud of the Review Mode feature, which enables users to collaborate via comments on their Foleon Doc content. It’s an example of how we stepped up our game regarding usability and focused on providing more collaborative experiences.
There are still many improvements to be made in our eyes, and we have plans to expand the collaborative aspect in the wider Foleon experience. We'll continue delivering enhancements that make the platform feel more effortless to use.
Foleon is all about collaborative content creation, so we’re constantly developing features that help us advance in this perspective.
Review Mode is one of these features, allowing people to quickly review Foleon Docs and leave comments as part of the content creation lifecycle. My colleague Joran shows what's the story behind it.
If you had to pick one product feature you believe is a game-changer, which one would it be?
Last year we introduced the Automated Generation of TLS/SSL certificates. It may not sound too enticing, but this feature enables customers to publish Foleon Docs on their web domain without requiring help from the IT department.
While I only was involved from the sideline, I was very excited about this update. It's a significant step towards our vision of making customers more self-sufficient and helping them speed up their content creation process.
What excites you about Foleon's future developments?
One of the ideas that are most exciting to me is incorporating more of Foleon's content creation process expertise into the platform.
We have a lot of knowledge among our colleagues on web design and information design, for example, and I wish all our customers could benefit from that. So, we're exploring options for integrating some of that Foleon pro-level wisdom into the content creation experience.
What sweet tunes do you listen to when working to get in the zone?
I love checking out stuff that's new to me. Often, I put on recommendations that I've gotten from friends, colleagues, or people online during work first.
I find that while I'm working, even if I don't give full attention to the music, it does leave me with a kind of subconscious impression regardless of whether this music is for me or not. Then, after work, I fully dive in and enjoy it more thoroughly.
Ok, this last question is from Daniel Knoppers, with whom we've spoken earlier!
What's the next concert you're going to?
Haha, I appreciate the question, Daniel! Next up for me will be Kanaan.
They're a jazzy psychedelic rock band from Norway with a bit of kraut-rock flavor that is enormously groovy and has big riffs. They are totally kick-ass on stage; everybody should check them out!
Thanks for chatting with us!
Who should we talk to next? Nominate a team member and add a question you'd want them to answer.
I nominate Claire Schouten, our QA Lead, and I’d love for her to share how we’re taking quality to the next level for the Foleon platform.
Meet more Faces of Foleon
Daniel Knoppers joined the Product #FoleonFam back in 2016, and he's the mastermind behind the OG Drag & Drop Editor, features like Undo / Redo, and many more exciting updates.
Meet Daniel here.
