Eeva Raita, who holds a doctoral degree in social psychology, has forged a career at the intersection of the human perspective and technology. She encourages all specialists in the social sciences to apply the skills provided by education to their passions.
University of Helsinki alum Eeva Raita was already applying her expertise in social psychology to the field of technology during her master's thesis. Today, she works as Vice-President, Commercial & Consumer, at Futurice, where she and her team help business clients navigate the latest technological transformation. At the moment, the technology strategies the team drafts are largely focused on artificial intelligence. In addition to strategic planning, they build and maintain a range of technical solutions.
In concrete terms, projects carried out for clients include comprehensive customer service reforms. The AI solutions developed by Raita's team concentrate on the solutions serving people rather than replacing them with automation. Among other things, their aim is to establish a harmonised user interface for customer service staff for all the relevant information so that they can focus on assisting customers.
"Instead of customer service bots, we should concentrate on solutions that help employees be increasingly effective and focus on where actual value lies," Raita notes.
Technology can help people succeed
Raita believes that the tech sector needs much more specialists in the social sciences. In fact, she urges others to find an angle for their competencies to which understanding of people and social phenomena can be tied. Applying social-scientific expertise in practice to, for example, developing customer service, smart rings or defence technology, makes its value visible.
"I wish people had the courage to channel their skills to their passions with strong self-confidence, instead of belittling themselves. We social science specialists could have more confidence in our particular competencies, which others do not possess. It's not about juxtaposition, but transdisciplinarity," Raita says.
Raita herself ended up in the technology sector through research. After graduating with a master's degree in social psychology, she taught at the University and wrote her doctoral thesis. She was involved in investigating the latest technologies and how people perceive them, writing her doctoral thesis on smartphones and their adoption.
"After completing my doctoral thesis, I spent a lot of time considering how to take advantage of my passion and skills to make professional life better with technology. Many technological advances can indeed make the world a better place, when you genuinely think about how such technology will help people achieve their goals," Raita says.
She believes it is important to identify the technologies that are not mere hype, but that can bring about actual benefits. She encourages people to always view technological transformation as an opportunity and with great curiosity. Even though we may feel like a great wave of new technology is sweeping over us, we must accept that none of us are riding that wave. This is why we need not worry about it either.
A degree from the Faculty of Social Sciences ensures broad-based education
Raita believes that a degree in social psychology and other degrees from the Faculty of Social Sciences make it possible to attain an extremely broad education and the ability to examine things from various perspectives. With psychology as an extensive minor subject, Raita has seen her career revolve around people and the human perspective.
"You get more out of it when you are in a field where very few people have the same educational background. You can bring to the discussion different viewpoints, including those based on research, and this has significantly contributed to my career. My education has also provided a slew of tools for leadership, including self-awareness, understanding other people and shaping organisational structures and processes," Raita muses.
In her social psychology studies, the introductory course was of particular significance to Raita, and she recommends it to anyone involved in leadership and management. In addition, methodology studies have been very useful for her in professional life. In her doctoral thesis, she somewhat atypically combined quantitative and qualitative methods.
"These skills have been of practical use when I'm able to analyse both what the numbers reveal and the qualitative aspect of the phenomenon. It's easy to think that business indicators are just numbers, ignoring the fact that they always originate in specific subjective interpretations."
