Tamara Littleton 00:12
This is the Genuine Humans podcast brought to you by Social Element. I’m Tamara Littleton,
Wendy Christie 00:18
and I’m Wendy Christie
Tamara Littleton 00:19
In our podcast, we’ll discover the stories of the leaders behind the brands and the trailblazers who are making a real difference in our industry. We’ll delve into how they got to where they are today
Wendy Christie 00:33
and we’ll hear about the genuine humans who supported and influenced them along the way.
Tamara Littleton 00:42
Welcome back to Genuine Humans. I’m joined by my co-host, Wendy Christie. Wendy, it’s lovely to see you again. I feel like I haven’t seen you for a little while, actually; that’s the joy of Summer. How are you doing?
Wendy Christie 00:53
Yeah, great. Thank you. I’ve had my head in a spreadsheet for most of today, so I’m looking forward to some proper human interaction.
Tamara Littleton 01:02
Fabulous. Well, bringing in our next genuine human, I am so delighted that we have Catherine Jensen on our podcast today.
Catherine is the vice president of customer experience at Sony Interactive, which, of course, is the home of PlayStation. We’ve had the honour of working with Catherine and PlayStation for many years, but this is a bit of a special episode because it’s an opportunity to go behind the scenes of PlayStation. So Catherine, welcome to the podcast. We’re so delighted to have you here.
Catherine Jensen 01:33
Yes, thank you so much for having me, and certainly, this is something different for me to try. So we’ll give it a go here, but I’m really excited to be here.
Tamara Littleton 01:45
Fantastic. Well, why don’t we just start off with the question that we like to ask our guests? So, can you explain a bit more about what you do at Sony and what you’re responsible for, but then go backward? Give us a flavour of your career and how you got to where you are now.
Catherine Jensen 02:04
The best way to describe what I do at Sony Interactive Entertainment is all of our after-sales activities. So, after you’ve purchased a PlayStation or one of our subscriptions or some of our great games, then my team will offer support to you, and one of the key areas that we support is not only the physical hardware or the digital software, but the online experience that brings both of them together, and that’s where online safety comes into play.
When I started more than 12 years ago, there really was no online play. This was back in the days of MySpace and other types of basic communication that you could try, but nothing the way it is today, where it’s real-time and it’s immersive, and you’re able to just forge those adventures in your online persona.
So, within PlayStation, of course, we have a brand purpose, and that’s to make sure that everyone has a welcoming place to play, that play has no limits, and that online safety is a key part of that. And so my team and I, not only are we always looking at different technologies or services that we can provide, but we partner with our groups for extended expertise around human moderation and different types of thought leadership, which is certainly how we work with the Social Element.
Tamara Littleton 03:40
Fantastic. And what actually drew you into this space in the first place? Just tell me, was it a case of, sort of like, falling into this area, or was it a very sort of clear path that you had in your early career?
Catherine Jensen 03:55
So, definitely, a lot of twists and turns. So, I started my career at Siemens Medical Systems. My undergraduate degree was in computer science, and that seemed to be a logical thing to do. I worked in what would now be called IT, or different types of information services. But what I learned while I was at Siemens was that you weren’t defined by your individual position. You were a community based on your purpose. So it wasn’t about me being in IT; it was me working for a company that worked on treating cancer and improving people’s lives, and so that connection to service, to wanting to be part of a bigger purpose and a bigger community, had really started me on my career, and ever since then, I’ve always been in different service organisations.
I feel a real connection to representing, you know, the brand purpose. But also to ensure that whether it’s a consumer or, customer, or player, that they’re getting the most out of the experience that we’re offering. And I feel very rewarded by that. After Siemens, I went into high tech, more money, more rules, and I enjoyed it.
I started out at PeopleSoft, which was a small company when I joined it. It got bigger, big enough to be purchased by Oracle, with more rules and structure and less creativity. And so I found myself wanting to have a more direct connection with our end customers. Again, when you’re in enterprise software, you’re serving a business, not the individual consumer.
I had a lot of learning and a lot of success at Oracle and PeopleSoft over 14 years, and I decided to join it. And it just blew my mind because, certainly, at Siemens, Oracle, and PeopleSoft, people are paying millions of dollars for your products or services, and it’s a profession for them to use your software or your services. And so there’s a deep knowledge and understanding and moving to intuit. It really was a do-it-yourself, very informal. If people didn’t like it, they could go to Costco and get a different solution for $50, and I was like, I’ve been fired for $50.
I was used to having, you know, again, these long relationships with big companies, and it was quite humbling to not only see that again, there was more choice for the consumer, but that you had to work more at personalisation and reaching out to consumers. And again, we all have power as consumers, and we all have choice. It just doesn’t work that way, and business to business so often. So from Intuit, I went into Symantec, and Symantec is a security company changed over time, certainly recently, but I was in the enterprise security or endpoint security group, and we offered security services to different companies, both in a forensic aspect, but also in terms of different types of software and other ways that we could ensure that businesses were secure.
At that time, in 2011, Sony was a customer, and Sony experienced a network breach, and so Symantec was brought in to do some support for forensic analysis, what happened. How could we prevent it? And I was so impressed with the people, and it just felt like people who really cared about not only what they were doing but who they were doing it for; their purpose was about joy and ways to bring different entertainment to people, and I felt that connection again to a purpose. It wasn’t just about the technology or the software or the applications of the software, but it was about the people again, and it got me excited to join, and so I joined in 2012 and back then again, the Internet was still forming. We would not really have online purchases, and if you did, probably your modem would have disconnected three times over the three days to try and download something so very different times back then. So primarily, I supported all of our hardware and devices, and that grew when we launched PlayStation 4, into accounts, and we had an online store, and then this whole area of online interactions, and not only multiplayer but also player-to-player engagement.
We’ve grown to our current state, where we have 150 million online players, and that takes a lot of coordination. We have a global code of conduct, but that’s nothing without the ability to enforce but also the ability for players to choose what’s right for them. So, from starting out supporting strictly the console to now, this whole ecosystem that defines the PlayStation as an experience has been just a wild and incredible journey, but I don’t think I could have been a visionary to see this is how online entertainment would be back when I started at all.
Tamara Littleton 09:45
We’re going to go into a little bit more of that behind-the-scenes stuff, but just hearing you say that, you can see how everything has brought you to exactly where you are now, which I always love to hear because that’s purpose-driven. But also working with the end users.
Catherine Jensen 10:03
Yeah, for sure; I think that’s something that really excites me every day. There’s always something that I can serve, always something that I could do better, that I could make people gain more enjoyment from our products. One of the things that I like to look back on is that gaming and entertainment are somewhat of a luxury or discretionary type of product.
It’s so diametrically different from cancer therapy devices to gaming, but at the same time, when we look back on the pandemic and not being able to be face-to-face, being able to engage in adventures, to connect with your friends, but still be at home, became really a way of people keeping their sanity and their connections, and it really did provide just an outlet, outlet and an avenue for people to, you know, maintain some of their normalcy, of their lives and I’m very proud of being a part of that.
Tamara Littleton 11:13
I couldn’t agree more. And I think also, I haven’t got the time to be as much of a gamer now, but growing up and being a gamer. I think it does bring more girls and women into tech as well. I think that’s, it’s, it’s such a sort of important part, but that that whole time during the pandemic, I couldn’t agree more about how it was it enabled people to to connect.
Catherine Jensen 11:36
Yeah, I think we’ve talked about the fact that I’m not a gamer myself. I do play a little, but I’m not a gamer. I’m the mother of gamers.
Tamara Littleton 11:46
Mother of Dragons, mother of gamers.
Catherine Jensen 11:48
Two of my daughters missed their graduation during the pandemic, yet they were able to connect and have different types of tournaments and different ways that they engaged with their college friends with their high school friends. And I think if they didn’t have that connection when we finally came out of the pandemic, I don’t know that they would have had kind of that continuity, starting all over with new friends and re-entering kind of external society and other groups and things like that could have been far more overwhelming than it was if they hadn’t have had that kind of online engagement through gaming, something light and fun, but yet, providing such a needed service.
Wendy Christie 12:34
Such a good point. Coming back to what, what Tamara said a few minutes ago about sort of all paths seeming to lead to where you are now. I think it’s fair to say for so many of us now, and certainly all of us on this call, none of us would have been able to see our careers coming. I don’t think they just didn’t exist.
So it would be great to explore, you know, even further back, you know, what took you on this journey? What did you see yourself doing when you were a child? What did you think you might want to be when you grew up?
Catherine Jensen 13:03
I am the oldest child in my family, so very bossy, and I thought I would like to be in law enforcement, mostly so that I could tell my mother what to do. And so less altruistic, more power-driven, but at the same time, I liked the ability to kind of bring people together, to organise different types of activities. And again, I always thought that our community centre, which was just down the street from where I lived, there was a police station and a fire station, and so they were very active in our schools and in our community, and I just felt quite connected and safe. And that was something that I wanted as well.
Wendy Christie 13:50
I can identify with that. And before I did this career, I spent a few years as a road safety officer working with with our local police force. So I can, I can identify with that. And were there any people who you particularly looked up to as a child?
Catherine Jensen 14:07
So, definitely, my father, he is, was a first-generation American. Both of his parents immigrated from Russia. Very hard worker, very disciplined and very driven. And I think that’s probably cultural as well. When you’re immigrating to a new country, you’ve got to start things off and really pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just incredibly hard working. That’s also a lot of pressure, right? A lot of pressure to continue to, you know, meet expectations that are so high all the time. And so I definitely looked up to him from a resilience and work ethic perspective, I never was successful when I took shortcuts. And he was the first to remind me about that it’s hard work that helps with progress. And so I really admired him. I had a number of teachers throughout both my formative years, as well as graduate and postgraduate, who were very encouraging. And I was just always impressed on how they could teach at scale; they would have so many different personalities and so many different stages, either in knowledge or in life, and yet they’re teaching the same class, the same material, but everybody is learning differently. And that was always incredibly impressive to me, and I’ve had leaders who’ve done that as well.
Certainly, while I was at PeopleSoft, Oracle, and Symantec, I had a leader, Dave Hare, who was very invested in my growth and success. That meant different things at different times, and so I was very lucky to have the freedom there.
I’ve been working for Eric Lempel here at Sony Interactive for the last 12 years, and it’s very similar. They’re supportive, offer different types of ideas and mentoring, and lead by example, which is great because I’m able to absorb, adopt, and adapt. What works for me? What will work with my team?
Wendy Christie 16:23
Thank you. Yeah, it’s nice to have an opportunity to call out those people who have really supported or influenced you, and I’m sure that your name would come up if we were talking to other people on this podcast as well.
Tamara Littleton 16:36
And I’m going to bring us back into the present day and online safety because I know that this is a very much a shared passion for us, Catherine, and a huge passion point for you. Can you just describe the overarching strategy for moderation and communities for PlayStation? You know, how does it actually all work? Logistically?
Catherine Jensen 16:36
Sure, sure. So, as I mentioned, it’s grown tremendously over time, but we take a three-point approach to content moderation and online safety.
The first one is about control. What type of personalisations or settings can we offer so that you can create the experience that you want to have, whether it is muting or blocking, playing with friends, playing with people with similar interests, parental controls. We want to make sure that, again, you have the capability and the control to set that experience that’s right for you. So that’s the first thing: put the hands of the online experience in the hands of the players as much as possible.
The second approach is shielding. And how do we make sure that the PlayStation Experience is about PlayStation? So, we will shield different types of external content. For example, URLs that might not be appropriate for PlayStation, we have a service that measuring and blocking those, profanity filters, text filtering, different types of image filtering and blocking. So we want to shield anything that isn’t enriching your gaming experience from you. So first, control your experience. Then we’re going to work on the technology side, shield those external content from coming in.
Finally, we have a global code of conduct. As you can imagine, with 100 million plus players online, we have some conduct violations, and then that’s where the enforcement comes in. We do use technology to identify different types of code of conduct violations, but largely, we depend on player support. Players are telling us what’s not right for them in terms of the experience and how they felt in that experience. And then we use not only technology but certainly human moderators to make sure that they’re taking contextual information, not just the report, into consideration. And then we’ll take action from that. So it’s about control, shield, and then enforcement. In that order, first put that power in the hands of the player.
Tamara Littleton 18:44
And it still blows my mind. One hundred million players, did you say? And just huge amounts of volume as well. What I love about this is that no one will really have any idea of the scale of the operation behind the scenes, and you know, the teams involved in this, and obviously, it’s all in multiple languages as well.
Catherine Jensen 19:48
Yes.
Tamara Littleton 19:49
It’s a completely global approach. So, I’m just curious to know what you are most proud of, whether it’s work or personal. Would you be happy to share something that makes you proud?
Catherine Jensen 20:03
I’ll do one work and one personal. So, from a work aspect, I’m incredibly proud of the way that we’re talking about online safety, not just within Sony but within the industry. I think that, having a conversation about digital civility, about the fact that keyboard warriors can hurt, you know, it’s the same sticks and stones. It’s just their virtual now, and I’m really proud to be able to talk about those things and to make sure that we’re bringing people’s focus to humanity. The things that people say online are things that I hope they would never say to anybody to their face, but it hurts the same. And so, by not talking about it and hiding all of the operations behind the scenes, I think that we would do a disservice to allowing that behaviour to continue.
So I’m really proud of again, whether it’s industry associations, podcasts, or other types of meetings, the more we talk about online safety. I think the more we take ownership of our behaviour as a community and as a society, the more we’ll be free to speak up and say, “Hey, that’s not okay, for me.”
Tamara Littleton 21:29
I couldn’t agree more. And I think, you know, having, because we’ve been in this industry for so long, we know that there was a lot of collaboration at the beginning. And then I think it’s fair to say that sometimes people sort of went off in their own direction. And sort of, you know, it was about working out what they did in each individual company, but I know that actually, you’ve been a real fan of the work that we’re doing behind the Make Social Better campaign, and it is about sharing knowledge and working directly with platforms as well, and with other companies.
And, yeah, I think things are changing, and you’ve been such a pioneer in this space. And, of course, your team and will, as well as so many people in the space, so I’m pleased to see that changing. And absolutely, you should be very proud,
Catherine Jensen 22:21
Yeah, and then, personally, I’m just really proud of certainly, my family. I’m impressed with what each of my children has been able to accomplish, and I’m excited for the adventures that they’ll have. And again, I think that you know, whatever they continue to do, it’s going to have some sort of online component. So, I see the work that I’ve done and the ways that I’m driven to improve online experiences, enhancing their ability to succeed and grow as well.
Tamara Littleton 22:58
Fantastic.
Wendy Christie 22:59
Wonderful. So we’re going to move on to the part of the podcast now where we get a bit more quickfire and personal and lighthearted. So, let’s start with, hopefully, an easy one. What’s your idea of a perfect weekend?
Catherine Jensen 23:13
Definitely being outdoors and either hiking or sitting on a beach. If I’m hiking, no wine involved. If I’m sitting on a beach, probably with a glass of wine.
Wendy Christie 23:24
Oh, that sounds fantastic. And do you have a secret talent?
Catherine Jensen 23:27
I am actually making wine. Oh, growing the wine, so it’s from vine to glass. And so I have a vineyard of 50 vines, Chardonnay and a few Riesling. And it’s something that my husband had originally started, but during covid, it was something to do, and I got very interested in the whole viticulture and the science of it.
So, as I progress in terms of quality of taste, I’ll definitely be sharing some. But right now, it’s more about the process and less about the taste. I guess it probably takes time, doesn’t it? To sort of really learn, especially if you’re start, you know you’re doing that whole process there. So that’s fantastic. I love that.
Tamara Littleton 24:17
I love that I have follow-up questions as well. Yes, you actually got as far as doing sort of like special, personalised labels for it yet. Or is it…
Catherine Jensen 24:24
Yes! Yes, I have. So, for my first label, I took a picture of my dog in the vineyard, and then for my second, this year will be my third harvest. But for my second, I took a picture of my dog and my daughter’s dog, and I had to change the ingredients from instead of 50 Chardonnay five Riesling, I had to put the hair of three dogs as well because they’re in the vineyard running around. I’ve had quite a lot of fun with the labels.
Tamara Littleton 24:58
I love that.
Wendy Christie 24:59
I don’t know what it says about us that we’re so excited about this, but…
Tamara Littleton 25:02
It’s marketers! Sticking to the sort of food and drink. What’s a food that always reminds you of childhood?
Catherine Jensen 25:13
Gosh, a negative food is lamb. I always called it the smell of Catholic guilt because we’d have it when we’d come home from church on Sunday, and a positive is stroganoff. I just remember the long days of cooking it, and my grandmother would make it for me, and it just felt really comforting.
Wendy Christie 25:31
I’m with you on the lamb, with you, not for me. How would your friends describe you?
Catherine Jensen 25:39
I think loyal predictable. I’m pretty stubborn. I think all three of those together would probably be not only how my friends would describe me but probably my children as well.
Tamara Littleton 25:54
I think that that’s sound. It’s very self-aware as well. Also, I’m going to pick you up on you saying that you were bossy because we have to reframe that. That’s assertive, not bossy.
Catherine Jensen 26:09
I’m okay being bossy; I’m on board with that, but yeah, assertive, spirited, confident, yeah, for sure.
Tamara Littleton 26:17
Maybe we can reclaim bossy as well. And what’s one of your bucket list travel destinations?
Catherine Jensen 26:24
You know, I have been to China many times for work, but I feel that I just haven’t explored enough about China, and in particular, all of the Panda reserves out in the Szechuan province or the soldiers up in Xian those I think I would really like to take more time on a personal kind of trip and really enjoy it and learn more, as opposed to a business trip where you’re in, you’re working, you’re in the same old conference room. You could be anywhere in the world, and then you head home. So I have some parts of China. I’m still very interested in experiencing it.
Wendy Christie 27:07
Those business trips can be just fantastic for giving you that little taster of knowing whether you want to go back and explore more as well.
Tamara Littleton 27:14
And so would that involve actually being with the Pandas, kind of like helping them on the reserves? Is that the sort of thing you have in mind? Yes.
Catherine Jensen 27:21
Yes. So there’s a program called the Panda Keeper, and you can be responsible for taking care of a panda for, I think it’s three days, and you get training, and you shadow one of the keepers and the conservationists. And I just think that would be so interesting.
Tamara Littleton 27:40
I might have to add that to my bucket list as well. If that’s okay, that sounds amazing. Okay, a different one for you. Do you like karaoke? Do you have a karaoke go-to song?
Catherine Jensen 27:53
So, of course, working for Sony, everybody does karaoke when we’re in Tokyo. I think liking karaoke is a stretch for me, but my go-to karaoke song is Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun.
Tamara Littleton 28:11
Oh, excellent choice. I think I’ve also got such good memories of PlayStation Singstar as well. That’s when I honed my karaoke skills. Wendy, you’re nodding at that point as well.
Wendy Christie 28:23
Yeah, yeah. A real old favourite for us. I just remember the hope. Is it hopeful horse was that one of the ones that you could get to, one of the levels you could get to? could get to?
Tamara Littleton 28:33
Yeah, expert our Sing Star approach.
Catherine Jensen 28:38
Exactly.
Tamara Littleton 28:38
Catherine, it has been amazing to have you. Wendy and I have wanted you to come to the podcast for ages. I’m so pleased that we’re able to make this happen. Thank you for being so open and sort of lifting the lid on what goes on behind the scenes and your journey. Is there anything that we haven’t covered, anything that you wished that we had asked you? Or do you want to close with any thoughts?
Catherine Jensen 29:03
I think the only thing I would say is, is that too often, we don’t take time to reflect on whether it’s our accomplishments or our learnings, and we don’t give each other enough grace that, just like you said, what everything has brought us here, and here’s a wonderful place to be. And I think if I could tell my younger self to be less self-critical, more open to change, and maybe not so driven, I would know that things would work the way they should work and that I’d have such an enjoyable experience and be so rewarded. I wish we talked more about things like that. And so thank you so much for giving me the opportunity not only to share but also to look back and reflect. And it’s been, it’s been wonderful. Thank you.
Wendy Christie 30:02
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