Business Networking: One-to-One with Kimmo Hakonen from Responsified

Kimmo Hakonen

I recently had a One-to-One meeting with Kimmo Hakonen from Responsified. Responsified is a web site design company in Gothenburg specializing in responsive design.

Responsive design is the method recommended by Google for building smartphone optimized web sites. The idea is to serve the same content, regardless of the device used for viewing, but use CSS3 style sheets to layout them differently depending on the size of the viewing device. With responsive design text is always viewed at a readable size, and pictures are resized to fit the viewing window.

One of the reasons why responsive design is big, is that Google boosts the rank of web sites that use responsive design. The main reason though, is that more and more people surf the web using smartphones and tablets. According to a TechCrunch blog post, more than 1.3 million Android devices are activated each day. Add to that the iPhones and the iPads.

With browsing habits changing, there is a need for responsive design, and that is where Kimmo and Responsified are focusing their efforts.

Kimmo and I met at Business Network International (BNI) (BNI International, BNI Sweden). Web designers and photographers can help each other out:

Some of my clients need help with web page design, so I can refer clients to a web design company that I trust.

In his work, Kimmo's company sometimes has clients that need photos for their new website. If you start looking at business websites, it is amazing how often the photos on them could do with a bit of extra pizazz. If Kimmo and his partners like my work, and trust me, they can refer clients to me.

You may have noted, it all boils down to mutual trust. This is why Kimmo and I met, not to do business, but to get to know each other, to see if we can be of value to each other, and to each other's clients.

Getting to know each other means more than just understanding each other's business. Kimmo is a painter. He also works with Photoshop, starting with a photo which he turns into an abstract work of art. His work is different from mine, but I appreciate and enjoy it a lot.

Over time, we will continue to meet to explore how we can build a trust based, mutual benefit relationship. At the same time, we will both explore in other directions, with clients, fellow BNI members, and others.

Because we will meet at BNI meetings once a week, building a working business relationship will be much easier than it would otherwise be.