Luc Michalski

Luc Michalski, Global Head of Servers, Blippar

"emlyon business school allowed me to develop a true picture of the real economy”

At just 34, Luc Michalski has already lived three different professional lives. Fascinated by the internet and social networks, this web visionary launched his career in e-commerce in 2006. Later on, whilst still training with emlyon business school executive development, he took off to London to be a part of We are social, one of the best-known companies in conversational marketing on the social networks. Today, he is doing something different again, this time in San Francisco, where he is working as Global Head of Servers for Blippar. The company recently won praise from the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, for its innovative ‘augmented reality' technology.

• Today, we're tweeting, googling, shazaming...and soon, without a doubt, we'll be Blipparing too. Neologisms aside, Blippar is an innovative company whose augmented reality technology is starting to interest various brands. So what's the principle behind it? Scan the label on your favourite ketchup bottle with your smartphone and enter a whole universe constructed around the brand: recipes and 3D animations representing the brand image which bring the product to life in an interactive way.
• “It's going to make the current QR Codes look old-fashioned”, predicts Luc Michalski, who was one of the first recruits to this new group. It's hard not to believe him, given his track record on the web and social networks. In 2006, at the age of 27, he launched his e-commerce business on his own. An outsider up against the giant Ebay, he taught himself how to reference almost 70 million sales advertisements and how to use different programming languages (PHP, Mysql). That was his first victory before becoming Director of Operations for an interactive design agency where he developed the websites of a number of big brands, including Oxbow, Lafuma and Smoby, amongst others.

“At emlyon business school , I developed an overview of management”

• To gain a more in-depth understanding of management, Luc Michalski joined the General Management Programme offered by emlyon business school executive development. “There I really learnt what value creation is all about. If you want to create your internet site, go out into the street and say to potential customers: I want to sell this product, should I continue? That's the Blippar principle: if 20% of marketing is online and 80% takes place in the real world, how can the two be connected? emlyon business school allowed me to develop a true picture of the real economy. I also developed an overview of management as well as of the psychology of the top managers in start-ups. That's one of the school's strengths that will allow it to shine in the new technology field, as Epitech does in the field of pure information technology”.

• emlyon business school also helped Luc get his foot in the door. Although he hadn't yet finished his Master's degree, he went to London to join We are social, an agency with one of the best online reputations in the world. There he honed his understanding of the web a little more. “Today we're still talking a lot about community management to communicate brand image. Nonetheless, we can see that Vine, Snapchat or even Facebook are losing ground with consumers and it's difficult to see how the Snapchat business model can continue to innovate in order to be profitable. Above all, for big brands, social networks have become too popular. For me, the next trend will really be augmented reality, which will make it possible to converse through instant messages whilst including 3D elements that evolve in real time according to the mood of the consumer. That will allow us to reach a higher level of story-telling on the social networks. The result will be ultra-targeted advertising on an ultra-local level.”

“After digital, why not energy?”

• After just over a year in London, Luc embarked on the Blippar adventure. He has now been with the company for a year and his career is already taking a new turn. “I'm going to San Francisco for four years in order to develop the company”. Such fast career progression would be highly unlikely in France, he believes. “In England, there is a real culture of the personal project, there's no problem with allowing individuals to express themselves and achieve their goals. In France we need to give talent the freedom to grow as well by allowing start-ups to develop, especially through lowering taxes on them”. In the meantime, Luc is already looking towards a new career direction “perhaps in the energy sector, like Elon Musk” (founder of Tesla and PayPal), a visionary who intends to colonise the planet Mars within ten years. We hope his future will be just as bright.

Contact : @lucmichalski, luc.michalski@blippar.com