Looking Back and How to Enter 2026
When we started writing Digital Disruptor a year and a half ago, I didn’t have a clear plan of where it would take us. Honestly, I didn’t even have the ambition to build yet another “branded” newsletter. There are already plenty of those. What I did have was a need. A need to write down the things we live every day. To give them context. To make sure they don’t remain just conversations in the car, in meetings, or in the evening at home.
Digital Disruptor did not emerge as a strategy. It emerged as a reflection.
Over time, whether I liked it or not, I also became the hero of the occasional joke – most often at my own expense. About technology, about slowness, about how I constantly “overcomplicate” things and ask too many questions before we implement something. But I made peace with that. Because behind those questions there was no need to be right, but a need to understand. And understanding takes time. And mistakes. And humor.
What makes Digital Disruptor special – at least for me – is that we never wrote it “from a role.” None of us did. Many texts contain very personal stories. Sometimes openly, sometimes between the lines. About fatigue. About overload. About doubts. About nature as balance. About how technology can be loud and people quiet – and how easily that balance can be lost.
And perhaps that is exactly why Digital Disruptor eventually found its voice. We didn’t look for it – it built itself. Through 28 editions, through interviews with people from the industry, through real projects, through conversations that were not always comfortable, but were honest.
In this way, three pillars naturally took shape: people, the practice of digital transformation, and care for the inner rhythm in the digital world.
Every year, somewhere toward the end of December, I feel the need for a quiet reckoning with myself. Not with numbers. Not with KPIs. But with the question: what was truly confirmed this year? This edition of Digital Disruptor emerged precisely from that question.
One thought kept returning: Technology without understanding does not work. And I don’t mean only technical understanding. I have seen too many organizations buy solutions because they were “available,” not because they were truly needed. I have also seen too many frustrated users disappear behind dashboards and presentations.
That is why in Digital Disruptor we constantly brought the focus back to the human being:
· who the user is,
· what they actually need,
· where things get stuck,
· and where that quiet moment happens when the system finally starts working for them.
A customer is not a transaction. A customer is a human being in a process. And that is a lesson I myself had to learn more than once. Another strong theme was care for the human being in the digital age. More technology does not necessarily mean a better life. Sometimes it means exactly the opposite. That is why silence, nature, and rhythm – I admit, also with Mila’s help – have become just as important to me as projects, meetings, and plans. Not as an escape, but as a prerequisite for good decisions.
This way of thinking is deeply woven into the work of Smart Octopus Solutions as well. Digitalization makes sense only when it serves people, processes, and long-term relationships. If it does not serve them – it is just noise.
If I had to summarize what 2025 taught me additionally, I would put it this way:
· don’t rush,
· listen,
· simplify,
· and remember that technology must never be more important than people.
Looking ahead
I am not entering the new year of Digital Disruptor with big announcements. I am entering it with an even greater need to listen. To people. To processes. To myself. Digital Disruptor will continue to be a space where we don’t pretend to have all the answers. A space where we write honestly – even when that means being vulnerable. Because authenticity is key. And the only way to distinguish yourself from a text that is “just written.”
Because the real future of the digital world will not depend on how smart systems become, but on how human we remain – and how much courage we have to admit it.
Wishing you a happy, healthy, and conscious digital year 2026!
Jurij Triller
Let’s connect
This article was originally published in the Digital Disruptor newsletter #28.
