Nokia Conversations - Our Business Category

Making the best out of a difficult situation

charlie — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:56:00 +0300

BOCHUM, Germany - Earlier this year, Nokia announced it would be closing its factory in Bochum. Understandably, employees and townsfolk were upset, emotional videos were made, there was a lot of discussion and much was written. It was an awkward time for the company.

As I understand it, the decision to close the factory was based on a business model that took into account the value of the factory within the whole Nokia product creation and distribution network. I have seen similar situation here in Finland and know that these decisions are not made lightly. Nokia has since been working with the local government and labor representatives to make the best out of a difficult situation (a brief history can be found on the Nokia Press Bulletin Board).

I suppose I am trying to find the positive news as this whole thing plays out. And what set me off today was a recent announcement regarding an investor in the 'Growth for Bochum' program.

The Growth for Bochum program was set up by Nokia and the regional government as a campaign to create new jobs and investments in the Bochum area. It is funded in part by Nokia, but will include other investors as well.

Scanbull Vertical Images AG is the first investor in the program. Scanbull produces 3D scanning systems, 360° scanning systems and software solutions. Through the program it will tap into the highly-skilled technical workers in the area and open a production site in Bochum for its new 3D scanning product range. It will occupy some of the former Nokia factory and also prioritize employment of suitable ex-Nokia employees.

I find this to be good news. Now that the ice is broken, hopefully other hi-tech companies will recognize the right mixture of technical facilities and highly-skilled technical workers in Bochum. Also, I hope that, as with Scanbull, the companies bring in new, cutting-edge technologies rather than older more established industries (might we count consumer electronics in that?). This will not only revitalize the region, but carry it into the highly competitive future.

Image of the Kemnader See near Bochum, from threedots

Modesty that can't be beat - you'd never know we hit a milestone

charlie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:14:00 +0300

ESPOO, Finland - I remember hearing how when Nokia was this small little phone manufacturer, the next milestone was to pass the one in front of us, in the market share rankings. But that was long ago, as we have had the largest market share of shipping mobile phones for some time.

Yet, while being the biggest is nice, everyone else is out to get you. The other hard part of not having a runner in front of you as a measure is that you need to come up with your own measures of how well you're doing. One such measure was a milestone the company has been chasing for a long time, namely a 40% global market share.

In the last quarterly report, we hit a 40% global market share and you would never know. OK, so I do not recall if that was our first time over 40%. But the story still holds - we have passed the 40% global market share milestone we'd set so long ago and we didn't even celebrate big-time.

Well, Finns are modest (I'm neither), so I am sure they think they celebrated. Also, the 2Q report always come out in the middle of Finnish summer holidays, so I am sure the Finnish management was celebrating in their own way. But you would expect some sort of blow-out party, or some sort of day off for everyone, or at least something more than the regular quarterly letter from the top management.

Or are we tired from trying to reach this goal and, with a weak, but satisfied smile, pat each other on the back and keep on going? Or is it that, with a modesty that can't be beat, we look around the table, say "good job", and then move on to the next big challenge?

There are enough big challenges to conquer and important milestones to pass. And each of us celebrate them in our own ways. In good Finnish fashion, we smile and move on to the next task.

Image from Jeff the Trojan

Vacation reports and other things people are doing (or not doing)

charlie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:35:00 +0300

ESPOO, Finland - Humans are insane. We are driven to create nifty tools and driven to use them like mad. Of course, many of our stories here at Nokia Conversations is about incredibly obsessive creative folks grabbing the tools Nokia has created and pushing the tools to their limits, doing things we never expected.

Today is about pushing those limits (but doing the expected). And the theme is adventure and fun. Though, I do end with a disturbing note about something that isn't being done.

Vacation reports - Just name the darn streets
I've been seeing lots of reports from people who used their GPS-enabled phones to navigate during their holidays. Being clever individuals, some of them used that lesson to think of similarly interesting things.

Recently, I mentioned that some digital maps do not show any street names in some towns in India. Being the naive socially-minded software guy, I suggested that we 'empower' individuals to help companies map and name these streets, a co-creation love-in for maps, so to speak.

Nah. Janne Jalkanen, who is straight to the subject, wonders if the digital mapping companies should just go ahead and name the streets themselves, establishing a de facto name for these streets.

Heh. That would be funny. Scary. But, funny.

Vacation reports - Trials and tribulations
As for how it was to use these wonder-gizmos to navigate the world, I think the jury is still out on this. My take is that each and every mapping solution has a strength another one doesn't have, and users are carrying all the apps they can use.

For example, Phoneboy mentions Google Maps being good at finding businesses in North America, but misses the Nokia Maps side-loading (to save on data costs) and turn-by-turn navigation assistance (the comments to his post echo his sentiment).

Dirk Snoyt, a guest author at Darla Mack, is a heavy user of Nokia Maps and was able to find many business and sightseeing places (he was in Europe), but was also able to find some idiosyncrasies between the offline and online use. Go read the article, since he pushed his N95 to the limit until it took an unplanned break on him for a week or so.

Pumped-up super-user with toys
And speaking of folks really giving their phones a work out, Alfie posted a wee diary entry of all the things he did with his phone on a busy day. You almost get winded just thinking of what a busy day it must have been for that poor N82.

On some days, even I scare myself with all the things I make my phone do.

Rapping users with toys
Mark Guim, from TheNokiaBlog, makes a great observation, mentioning that big-name rappers are using Kyte to broadcast videos online from their mobile devices. And since Kyte works on an N95, Mark wonders how long will it be before one of these rappers pens a tune crooning for a Nokia device? They already do it for other brands.

The prospect of a rap song written about a Nokia device makes me nauseous. But, what the story really highlights for me is that Kyte and Qik are tapping into a video broadcasting boom and inadvertently the N95 has fallen in the middle of it, the star device of this boom. I hope that Nokia is paying attention and come up with a device to replace the N95 as a video broadcasting tool. And I think they are paying attention - we use Kyte a lot at work and Qik is part of the 2008 Forum Nokia Innovations Series program, which we wrote about last week.

No one to play with our toys
Ok, so there were some things folks were not doing. Mike Guim points to some photos by John Dodds showing a busy crowd on Regents St, London, ignoring Nokia's flagship store. Mind you, this is the same crowd that swamps the Apple Store and the Nike World store within spitting distance (ok, only if you are a good spitter, but close nonetheless).

Rather than me going on and on about this, it would be great if John did as one of his commentors suggested and dig deeper into this from the customer's perspective. I know I'd point to it (or, hint, accept a trackback to this article).

Indeed, it would be great if folks who have visited the various other flagship stores, left a comment of what they thought. I will start of by expressing sadness at how empty the London and NYC stores were when other shops were bustling. I'll stop there and let you guys do the speaking.

Image is an old finnish map I saw at the museum in KÃ¤lviÃ¤. The eastern border changed drastically after WWII.

OneWebDay and what it means to me, us, you

charlie — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:56:22 +0300

GLOBAL and LOCAL - OneWebDay is a sort of Earth Day for the Web. It's a celebration of the internet, a time to reflect on how the internet has transformed our lives, and to encourage people to be responsible for the internet. This year will be the third OneWebDay and I've been asked to be an ambassador, getting the word out and introducing people to the celebration. As part of this, I have been asked to contribute a story to show up on the main OneWebDay pages.

Read on for our take on what the internet means to us.

Me and the Living Web
When I look back at my 25 years online (starting with the pre-Internet Bitnet and CompuServe), I'm not surprised by the extent with which I interact with the world of people and information via Internet services today. From the start, when getting my first email address and connecting to chat services, it was all about communication. Tools and services have come and gone, and still today my main activities are about communications, connecting with people in many ways through social Internet services.

It has indeed always been a living web, a World Live Web of people and activities and sharable social tokens that serve as an extension to my immediate surrounding physical world. I keep up with people, learn new things, know what's going on in the world, and become part of an extended network of all sorts of interesting people.

Could I survive without it? Sure. But my online life enriches my offline life.

Nokia and the fusion of Internet and mobile
For Nokia, it is interesting to note that not only has the company been for many years trying to find the best ways to bring mobile and internet services together, but in that same time has been completely transformed by internet services.

The company is large, spread across the world, and full of people from different cultures, age groups, backgrounds, and interests. Communications and data sharing tools have been essential to keep the company cohesive. Today, we use a rich mixture of videos, shared publishing tools, email, and teleconferencing tools not only to meet and work together, but to share values, ideas, and hopes.

Once again, we could operate without any online connection, but interactions between employees and with partners and customers are made richer through online services. These days, one would be just as likely to ditch the online world as ditch electric power.

Struggling to bring things together

There is no doubt about the usefulness of finding and communicating with people and information through Internet services from a mobile hand-held device. The last ten plus years have been an interesting, sometimes frustrating, wending effort to fuse the mobile and Internet. The path behind us is littered with bold, foolish, misguided, and sometimes a bit too early internet services that are in some way or form mobile-savvy.

While some may say we've not made it far, I claim that we've done well. We, who are deep into thinking and building things, do not see or use the world in the same way as most people. There are over 3 billion mobile phone owners. Their main goal with that phone is to call or SMS a person. But, with a bit of Internet pixie dust the way the phone becomes part of their mobile lifestyle can be enriched. Indeed, even a simple SMS can transform how we communicate when complemented with an Internet service.

I try not to let it bother me when analysts report their views of how mobile and Internet are getting along. All too often the analysts' world-view is simple and forgets the multitude of ways Internet services poke through or complement our hand-held devices, or, even, the many different ways our own hand-held devices project themselves onto, or complement, Internet services.

To me, the most exciting thing is how we don't realize we are using something that courses through Internet plumbing. We use SMS or make a call or press a button and don't realize that our actions ripple through networks and servers before reaching their final destination. That we take so much for granted (kinda like electricity) is a silent acknowledgment of how much the Internet has infiltrated our lives.

Then there's you

Of course, my mind revolves around mobile use of Internet services. And I'd like to keep the discussion around that, since I expect much of the OneWebDay stories will revolve around things people do from large-screen, two-handed, desktop, broadband-connected devices.

I'm going to see if I can find more OneWebDay stories from folks around here, maybe kick up an activity or two. And, as usual, when we find interesting stories of what folks have done with mobiles, there is usually some Internet component. So, we'll keep those coming, OneWebDay or not.

What about you? Come up with a story or two of yours or an activity and let us know about it.

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