www.josschuurmans.com

Why an "e2i" blog would be a good idea for Nokia

In a comment to my status update on Facebook,

"http://ping.fm/73D1E Should I wait (forever) until "Updating Nokia device view" in Ovi Suite ends, before I can sync the photos from my N97?"

...one friendly ex-colleage wrote:

"you should get an internal blog"

...immediately followed by:

"ahh you are not in Nokia anymore..."

It's funny you should mention that, my friend :-)

As it happens, I was the first person in Nokia's global corporate communications team to start an internal blog, back in January, 2005. I called my blog 'theCapture', to reflect the immediacy of blogging; that it enables us to capture our (hereto mostly tacit) thoughts and ideas, and to make them explicit in order to grow our shared knowledge together.

You know, standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.

cap-ture (...) -n. 4. the act of capturing. 5. the thing or person captured. (source: Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language)

I had fallen in love with the cluetrain and developed a strong belief that blogging (outside AND inside the company) would inevitably help 'Fortress BigCo' to actually start conversing with its customers AND itself (i.e. its employees), rather than continuing on the cul-de-sac of broadcasting sanitized packages of strategically aligned "messaging".

NRC's Bob Iannucci said it well in December of 2005, when he contemplated the main drivers for internal blogging:

1. Flattening the organization
2. Speeding up communication and decision making processes
3. Reinforcing ideas

I considered it a test bed for the way we would develop the Nokia News Service - the main news channel on the intranet at the time - into more of a social medium. We re-branded and relaunched the service as the 'News Hub' in November 2006.

Judging by the jury of the CiB Awards 2007, we did a reasonably nice job.

(The concept caught on; suddenly we had a VideoHub, a BlogHub, a Hubcast...)

But I digress; back to your suggestion, [NAME OMITTED].

You know what? It would actually make sense for Nokia to "syndicate-in" a blog produced by an external.

By the end of this month it will be a year ago since I left the company. During this year I have learned how being a "real" user - having to compare the devices, the operator plans, the software and  services, and having to fix bugs as well as features - is very different from being a Nokia employee with full technical support and money being no object (to using the best fit-for-purpose tools). Now, on a daily basis, I run into challenges relating to my Nokia brand experience that I didn't use to encounter while on the inside.

Take for example my current issue regarding the N97's synchronization to the Nokia Ovi Suite and Nokia Photos. At HQ in Keilalahti, tech support would have fixed this for me - or actually, the problem likely wouldn't have occurred in the first place.

So, why would an "external2internal" blog be a good idea for Nokia?

The benefits of an "e2i" blogger are a combination of increased diversity, balance, and reality check.

The internal culture reinforces a positive bias towards the company and the brand.

Don't get me wrong: Nokia is an admirable company and I'm a fan! I care! Otherwise I would be wasting my breath. Did you notice that I'm hanging on to - and publicly defending - the Nokia N97 in spite of all the (social) iPhone pressure? :-)

And it is exactly because I care that I also point out concerns such as the ones expressed by Robert Scoble. Tell me whose job it is inside the company to bring this kind of stuff to people's attention. And yet, I think it's relevant to everyone in Nokia. An "e2i" blogger would add value here.

The external world is tougher and more real. IMHO and FWIW, it would be of value to Nokia people - be they in comms, marketing, design or R&D - to read how people in the real world experience their brand. After all, who owns the brand, anyway?

The external view is different. The daily challenges to someone on the outside are different. With diversity you generate more, and often more creative, ideas.

(See also Hugh MacLeod's diagram explaining why corporate blogging works.)

Now, I might be inclined... But first we would really need to talk about that small dilemma of "sponsored conversations" :-)

How do I get the Nokia Ovi Suite to sync my N97? (Help!)

I've been at it for a couple of hours now, and I'm about to give up.

I installed the Nokia Ovi Suite from the DVD that came with the Nokia N97, onto my PC running Windows Vista. (I had to do that twice; first time around, some of the applications failed to install)

I connected the N97 to the PC via USB cable. I chose "Select USB mode: PC Suite" on the phone.

In the Nokia Ovi Suite, I connected the device.

It would appear to be connected indeed, since the Ovi Suite on the PC shows the N97's available memory.

[UPDATE, August 16: It is clearly connected, as I can browse the files on my N97 through the Ovi Suite on my PC.]

Then I chose to synchronize, i.e. to "copy images, sounds, videos, and messages from N97 to your PC", and clicked "OK".

After a few seconds, a small dialog box appears, saying:

Synchronization completed
0 files successfully copied to PC
0 files failed

I did this five times, and the transfer log in the Suite shows a history of five (finished) synchronizations.

The Photos application on my N97 shows 34 captured items.

What's going wrong here? Does the sync software somehow look at the wrong directory on the N97?

[UPDATE, August 16: In the lower left corner in Nokia Photos on the PC, it reads "Updating Nokia device view", which seems to go on forever. Should I wait for that to finish before I can sync? (LATER: It stopped, but that didn't help)

I've just submitted a question to Nokia Ovi sync support:

STARTS

Dear Support,

I've installed the Nokia Ovi Suite from the CD enclosed in the Nokia N97 package, onto my PC.

I've connected the N97 via USB cable, choosing the "PC Suite" connection mode.

In the Nokia Ovi Suite on the PC, and in Nokia Photos, I have repeatedly tried to synchronize the 34 photos and video clips in the camera folder on the device, to be imported in Nokia Photos on the PC. Alas, to no avail.

I have over 6000 items in Nokia Photos, but no lack of hardware memory.

For more details, please see: http://ping.fm/73D1E

Thank you!

ENDS

The response:

"Thanks for your message. We'll get back to you as soon as possible."]

New all-time-low for my Nokia N97 battery: it lasted for 13 hours yesterday

I've been keeping track of the battery performance of my new Nokia N97. I reported earlier that on some days, it has lasted only for about 16 or even 15 hours.

Now, yesterday I got up at 05:00 hrs. with the N97's battery fully charged. At precisely 18:00 hrs. it died on me in the middle of a phone call. That's a new low of 13 hours.

Again, I should grant that it was performing heavy duty during some parts of the day.

While driving for 2.5 hours from Mikkeli to Helsinki in the morning, and then on to Tampere for 2 hours, I was using bluetooth to listen to podcasts, checking email over 3.5G, making a few phone calls over GSM, sending a couple of SMSs.

I also used Nokia Maps with a GPS connection to find my way to Tampere and while walking in the city.

It was quite unfortunate that it stopped working just when I started my way back to Mikkeli. Not only did it quit in the middle of a phone call; I also had to find my way by looking at the road signs (what a drag!), couldn't call home to indicate what time I'd arrive, and had only the car radio to listen to (which, let me tell you, is no invigorating experience).

As you see, I'm still not used to having a device which doesn't stay with me the whole day.

It was raining cats and dogs when I walked into three different stores to try and find a recharger for the N97 that I could plug into my car. No luck; apparently the USB/power socket has a rather unique shape...

I felt quite isolated and disconnected. Have I become a connectivity junkie?

The art of selling, part 2/2

Did you read the first part? Okay then, now I'll tell you what happened to me yesterday.

(In the spirit of the Live Web, I'm publishing this while I write. Please check back for a more complete take of this post in a while - I'll be having a little tea break next)

I've had a Nokia N97 for a bit over two weeks now. When I started using it throughout the day, I was somewhat disappointed to notice that on some days, the battery only lasts for about 16 or 15 hours.

Yesterday, I had a bluetooth connection to my headset, and a "3.5G" connection to the Internet, while scanning for WLAN access. Made me wonder if that multitude of connections was the reason why the battery, for the first time, turned rather warm, or if something was wrong with the battery itself - a concern fuelled by the disappointing battery power.

Hence this micro-blog post:

@Nokia, @Saunalahti: Right now, the battery of my new Nokia N97 is getting really warm. Should I be worried?

After I sent that message from my ASUS Eee PC netbook, I wanted to access my Facebook account with my N97, curious to see how fast Facebook would update my status and what it would look like.

Now, it is not a priority to me to access Facebook from the front screen, which is why I had removed the Facebook app from the display when I customized the N97. After all, the Facebook application is still available under the applicatons menu, right? So it's only three clicks away. (apps menu button -> applications icon -> Facebook app). Right?

Well, in theory, yes. When I tried to fire up Facebook that way, the app kept booting forever until I gave up and decided to quit the app. But there's no Esc key, not Crtl-Alt-Del, or any other way I know of to stop the app. Hence my next micro-post:

@Nokia, @Facebook: I just rebooted my Nokia N97 using the on/off button, because the FB app took forever to start. Is there a better way?

Someone replied to me:

use the browser. The client doesn't work properly, yet.

I realize there is a good chance that some people at Nokia are not going to be pleased with this story. I worked with the company for six years, was proud to be a Nokian and actually caring about its business. I am also a strong subscriber to the Cluetrain Manifesto - which explains the first part of the name of my present company.

What I fear is that even some of the colleagues at Nokia who have read the Cluetrain will not appreciate that with feedback like this, bloggers and customers such as myself are actually doing the company a favor.

Of course it's easier to frame this as a "cheap shot" since Nokia happens to be down in the polls. Some marketing communciations folk tend to take the "wounded game" perspective rather seriously, thinking that the journos and the bloggers are smelling blood and are looking for the first opportunity to take the company down. Well, if that makes it easier for people to sleep at night, they hardly deserve the favor. It's really how you choose to look at this stuff.

Umh... did I get a little defensive there for a moment? :-)

With some 250 million users, Facebook is about the largest social networking service out there. The company is proud to say in a YouTube video that Robert Scoble has called the N97 the ultimate Facebook device.

Then how can you ship this product that costs 650 euros unsubsidized, with a Facebook app which is not ready?

I am still a Nokia believer, because I feel that mobile participation requires not only a QWERTY keyboard, but also real buttons with tactile feedback.

But Robert is right about there just not being the same buzz around Nokia's N97 now as there was around the N95. He even goes as far as to say that 'Europe no longer matters to lead position in mobile':

"(...) in the back of my head I remember how cocky the same entrepreneurs used to be when showing me their cell phones and noting how far ahead of the world they were. That cockiness is done and that has deep implications for entrepreneurs across Europe. They must now visit Cupertino and Mountain View to get access to customer bases. (...)"

It scares me.

Anyways. Since the Facebook app didn't work, I went to look for an S60 social networking client. Found an interview with my friendly ex-colleague Mark Squires, titled: 'Nokia and Social Media: We Learn It All'. Mark tells us that his favorite new Web 2.0 app is "No question, Gravity (...)".

Now, note that this is an interview article on a Nokia-sponsored site, the Traveling Geeks - an initiative in which, incidentially, Scoble has also participated.

No link to Gravity, so I Google " Gravity S60". The first source I dare consider is half-way down the first results page. It points to the S60 Blog, which I happen to know is also Nokia-sponsored and I consider fairly authoritative on S60 matters. It sports a link which says:

"Download Gravity here".

So I click through and get to 'MOSH by Nokia', which says:

"MOSH by Nokia is no longer available - You are being redirected to Ovi Store, the global market place for mobile apps, games, videos, ringtones, widgets and more. If you are not automatically redirected, please click here http://store.ovi.mobi/."

It redirects to a page that says: "

"We're sorry.

Your device is not compatible with the Ovi Store.

Please check back as new Nokia devices are being added frequently.

You can also visit http://store.ovi.com on your PC for help and information about compatible devices."

I can see that my device is not compatible because I am browsing on a netbook. But couldn't your system recognize that and at least give me some information about your wonderful mobile app? Perhaps redirect me? :-)

I still went back to the review of Gravity on the S60 Blog and noticed that it mentions a "free 10-day trial". Right! So they're even asking money for it. Then I noticed the first comment on the page, by John Mark:

"i prefer snaptu which is free and has many other applications on it like facebook and sports
you can download it from http://www.snaptu.com they also have a help forum at http://forum.snaptu.com"

Downloading Snaptu was, well, a snap :-)  Thanks, John!

Notice the contrast? Well, ya'll draw your own conclusions. I'll stop right here, before this gets out of hand :-)

(PS.: I tend to post my micro-blog posts and status updates via Ping.fm onto a number of social media / social networks, including Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. As I'm trying to link to some of those posts here, it brings home Doc Searls' urging for searchable micro-blog archives; e.g. for Twitter.

First of all, there is no single reference to the "origin" of these posts. My "recent posts" on Ping.fm are not public and they are in fact published onto various services in parallel, all of which are silos in this sense.

Secondly, there is no way of knowing if and when the URLs to the various instances of these post will expire. So what am I supposed to link to? Perhaps I should start using Bit.ly?)

Nokia N97 battery lasts 16 hours

I got up this morning at 7, fully charged, and so did my N97. Now, around 11 pm, both of us need to be recharged again.

I have a feeling that the Nokia Communicator 9500 used to last longer than a day, on average.

BTW, one other thing where the old work horse outperformed the new N97 was the usability of it's keyboard.

What to pick for the N97 home screen?

The front display of the Nokia N97 has some six slots for content.

Slot 1 contains the current time, date and active profile.

Slot 2 features four shortcuts. By default they are: 'New message', 'Web', 'Maps' and 'Music player'.

Slot 3 features a Facebook application.

Slot 4 features the AcuWeather application.

Slot 5 shows four selected contacts from the contacts list.

Slot 6 features the subject lines of the latest two emails and links to the messaging application.

For starters, I'll keep slots 1, 2 and 6 as they are. The weather thingy is the first to go. I don't think I will miss the Facebook app either. The contacts in slot 5 will get the benefit of the doubt.

In stead of slots 2 and 3 I want to install more useful ones.

One could be a time management tool. I currently use Remember The Milk and a text document on Google Apps.

Another could be a life streaming tool, or content aggregator such as FriendFeed.

Yet another set of tools would be those that enable sharing of the different types of content which I described in my previous post today...

[LATER: The podcast client should definitely have a presence on the front display as well.]

[LATER: In my comment below, I explain how I've now customized the N97's front display to fit my needs.]

Testing blog post straight to Typepad by email

Just to see the difference between posting by email via Posterous vs. by email straight to Typepad.

(Using Gmail through the email client (IMAP) on my Nokia N97)

First post to Posterous from my new Nokia N97

Testing the usability of posting blog entries by email, using Posterous and my Gmail account, from the Nokia N97 which arrived in the mail the other day.
 
When I posted with Posterous and Gmail last time, a week or so ago, I wasn't happy because of the line breaks that Gmail made and which disrupt the text alignment on the blogs.

Posted via email from Jos Schuurmans on Posterous

Reading and sharing; the mobile saga continues

[NEXT DAY:  I need to improve the shared reading feed!]

In my continued struggle to set up a system which would allow me to bookmark, save, tag, annotate, aggregate, integrate and/or share anything I read online (on machines with various degrees of mobility), I am now using Google Reader as my main reading tool.

(I have been complaining before about the lack of social awareness of the mobile environment)

What I read and what I can do with it next is important to me. I like Google Reader's "Note in Reader" browser plug-in, for it allows me to "keep" content on the web which I browse but haven't (yet) subscribed to.

Problem is, when browsing Google Reader on my S60 mobile phone I can only "star" or "share" the items in the feeds I have already subscribed to. Even the outbound links in those Google Reader feeds I cannot mark.

The best workaround I know for this is to bookmark links outside of Google Reader within the Opera Mini browser, then synchronize those bookmarks with Opera Link, view them in a browser on a PC or Mac sometime later at home or at the office, and add them to Google Reader manually, using the "Note in Reader" plug-in.

That's not a very smooth workaround! Please, tell me you know a better way!

While most of the above concerns the capturing of my reading, I would also very much like to share my reading (and annotations), e.g. on my blog, in the most integrated fashion. That means, I would like that reading to be published on my blog, just like any other blog posts.

I am already using a few services which call Typepad's API to post stuff, notably Delicious' daily links and Ping.fm. I wish I could have Google Reader automagically post my shared reading straight onto my blog (not as a sidebar).

Now I just looked at notify.me's relatively new Ping.fm feature. So I added my Google Reader's shared reading feed as a source to notify.me, then selected Ping.fm as a destination for this feed.

I set up Ping.fm to post stuff to my various accounts on social media and social networking sites, including my blog at www.josschuurmans.com.

Curious to see what will happen with this scenario:

Opera Mini -> bookmark -> synchronize -> Opera Link -> "Note in Reader" -> Google Reader shared reading -> notify.me -> Ping.fm -> www.josschuurmans.com / Twitter / Facebook / etc.

Never mind the 140 chars limitations. Or actually: mind!

[In the meantime:] WOW! I just had a look and something did happen while I was writing this post. Interesting; to be continued..

P.S.: In an attempt to edit RSS feeds before subscribing to them in Google Reader, I was using Yahoo! Pipes earlier today. My goal was to follow (only) Marshall Kirkpatrick's produce on ReadWriteWeb, so I fetched the RSS feed from RWW into Yahoo! Pipes, then filtered its contents by author, to output a modified RSS feed.

Here is the pipe:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/josschuurmans/rww_marshall_kirkpatrick

and this is the feed: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=3MwoDOBS3hGSVPSx8cv2rw&_render=rss

I was able to add this new feed to my "myYahoo!" page but, to my surprise, I couldn't get Google Reader to subscribe to it. So, what's that about?

P.P.S: Do I hear you saying that all this can be fixed with an iPhone or a Nokia N97? How?

Is hiding your slogan the ultimate expression of brand power?

Driving to the office, I was just wondering what happened to Apple's slogan. They seem to use it much less prominently than in the past - in fact I had forgotten it so I looked it up (http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/appletmlist.html). On Apple's website I found two protected slogans: "Think Different" and "Shop Different". Well, yes, the former rings a bell.

There may be several good reasons for Apple to relax on using "Think Different". First, Apple is becoming less of a cult brand, especially with their iPods, iTunes, and iPhone products. So, the maverick brand image which worked for Apple Computer Inc., probably doesn't work so well for Apple Inc.

Second, and perhaps more interestingly: should it be considered a sign of strength if a brand can afford to loose its tag line? If the bare Apple logo is enough to sufficiently express and communicate its brand, then why add any frills? It's a bit like the big Mercedes not having a type number on the trunk. Plus: getting rid of the slogan is an act of minimalism, i.e. simplicity. And simplicity is one attribute which belongs very much to the Apple brand.

I used to work with a company that's very proud of its tagline: "Connecting People". Indeed, it captures the brand and the brand promise brilliantly. It tells what the company does, but is also expresses its aspiration of offering "human" technology. With the iPhone, Apple has become a real challenger to Nokia's game. And I think it will take a while before Nokia can afford to relax on its slogan.

What do you think? Does every firm, every brand need a slogan? Is it weakness if you don't have one? Is it strength if you can afford to hide it?

Mobile Internet sucks (= conclusion of 3 wks without ADSL)

I've been without broadband Internet at home for about three weeks - I was "between providers", so to speak.

Must say that, while I was still able to consume some of my daily Internet fix - browsing RSS feeds on my mobile phone -, it was at the same time a sobering experience of how embarrassingly ill adapted the applications on my Nokia N95 are to mobile Web 2.0 participation.

I'll probably remember this period best as the time when Doc Searls went in and out of hospital and blogged  it all. Good health and happiness to you, Doc!

Data speed is not the bottle neck. It's the lack of mobile client-side participatory software.

With my Nseries device and 3G coverage I could browse and email, but that was about it. No tagging, no digging, no blogging with any level of convenience.

So what I ended up doing was to bookmark the URLs I would have liked to tag, digg or blog and thus collect them in my mobile phone's browser for future reference.

I hope to catch up blogging some of those bookmarks over the coming days.

Dugg: The Internet Organizes Itself: Here Comes Everybody | Glenn Fleishman

"(...) Clay Shirky's (...) book "Here Comes Everybody" (The Penguin Press, 2008) explains his views on the power of individuals to organize into groups without companies, hierarchies, or outside efforts. (...)"

Glenn Fleishman writes:

"(...) I sat down with Clay on 14-Mar-08 to talk about the book for a short article that appeared in the Seattle Times, focused on the business side of his book. However, the Seattle Times allowed me to publish a podcast of our roughly 40-minute conversation. (...)"

The 40-minute podcast is indeed worth the listen. Clay talks about a lot of stuff, including the notion that we don't yet understand where the Internet will be taking us. And another thing I found quite interesting was his reference to "more is different", i.e. scale changes the nature of things (such as the Internet).

(via Charlie Schick, who adds on a personal note:

"(...) My tongue is bleeding, I am biting it so hard. Though a beer can loosen it, in case you are interesting in a tale of enlightenment, abandonment, discovery, creativity, stealing, cluelessness, and dissapointment. (...)"

Charlie, what's your favorite beer? Come visit and I'll put it cold for you.

read more | digg story

Blood from stone: Don't focus on ad revenue from social networking services | Charlie Schick

Charlie writes: "(...) Your core service drives the interaction with the customer, but the money can come from some other area.

But, be careful where you _think_ you can get the money. (...) Online social networking services thrive because they are a form of social lubrication. (...) Yes, social network is the concentrator, but what the folks end up doing is where the money's at. (...)"

Interesting comment from Stefan Constantinescu: "(...) recommendation engine may sound unsexy now, but they will LEAD the next generation of corporate buy outs and be the foundation for the services we use in the upcoming decade. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Poets of the Fall - unplugged at the Nokia HQ canteen | josschuurmans on Ovi

"Poets of the Fall" were playing live over lunch today in one of the canteens at Nokia House, the company's headquarters in Espoo, Finland. Recorded with a Nokia N95 and shared on Ovi.com.

read more | digg story

Dugg: Reuters' "mojo" experiments with Nokia | Jemima Kiss

"(...) Reuters' journalists are experimenting with the potential of mobile journalism through a project with Nokia's research centre. (...)"

read more | digg story

Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty? | New York Times

"(...) “Just in time” is a manufacturing concept that was popularized by the Japanese carmaker Toyota (...) Toyota became, in essence, lighter on its feet (...) There are a growing number of economists who maintain that cellphones can restructure developing countries in a similar way. Cellphones, after all, have an economizing effect. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Lifeblog: Scobleized! | Charlie Schick

"(...) He then whipped up his phone and started recording live, with questions coming from his audience.* I basically told him what we were up to in Social Media Communications and such.

(...) *Heck, this was real interactive TV and no one is calling it that. Interactive TV dies and then was reborn and no one noticed. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Review: Nokia DT-22 Universal Tripod | The Nokia Blog

"(...) I will review the Nokia Universal Tripod DT-22. Now that our phones can handle exceptional pictures and video, it is almost a necessity to have something that will keep our phone steady to capture precious or random moments. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nseries PC Suite Graduates, I Agree It’s Ready | Symbian-Guru.com

"(...) The best new feature is the inclusion of Nokia Photos, which replaces the old ‘Image Store’ application, as well as Lifeblog, so it seems. The best part of this is that now, when you sync pictures and videos from your phone to your desktop, they’re no longer both stored lumped together in a folder in your My Photos folder! Videos are appropriately placed in their own folder within your My Videos folder in Windows XP, and pictures in their own folders within My Photos. I really love that, as it makes it so much easier to keep track of where things are at when it comes time to edit. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nokia Nseries PC Suite graduates from Beta Labs | IntoMobile

"(...) The 300+ MB heavy suite is actually a collection of applications (Nokia Lifeblog, Content Copier, Nokia Application Installer, Nokia Multimedia Player, Nokia Music Manager, One Touch Access, PC Sync, Nokia Photos, Nokia Map Loader) that "seamlessly link your Nokia Nseries multimedia device and your PC."

read more | digg story

My first 100 days with EverNote (day 1)

I signed up for EverNote online yesterday and installed the beta for Windows today.

 

At least when sitting behind a PC, this beats writing notes in Notepad, which has been my practice until now. One thing I like is that all my notes are available in one chronological view within the same application. It is much easier to switch between notes than this way than between Notepad files in a Windows file directory.

 

The synchronization between the PC client and the online tool seems to work nicely. While staying logged in through Firefox, I've been switching between the browser and the PC client without problems so far.

 

In terms of features, as mentioned in the Web Tick (Wired?) article, an RSS feed could be really neat. That way, my public online persona, by way of my blog entries, could be captured by EverNote automatically.

 

Reversely, I'd very much like to blog straight from EverNote. Let's say that EverNote would publish /synchronize all notes tagged "www.josschuurmans.com" as blog entries through the TypePad API. Have to find out if something like this is possible.

 

Perhaps equally urgently, I'd really like a Symbian client, which would then compete rather heads-on with Nokia Lifeblog.

 

I wonder about compatibility. Can today's exports be read by next releases of EverNote? By other applications? Will there be an open source, more future-proof alternative?

 

I wonder about privacy. Is the CIA going to read my notes? Or rather Supo, who according to Sitemeter dropped in on my blog after I posted about the Jokela drama. Or my neighbor? Can it be hacked? Leaked?

 

I wonder about data security. Can EverNote guarantee sufficient physical backup? Should I do as Crhistian, and keep physical backups in several countries. (the answer is yes, of course)

 

I also wonder if the competition will be more reliable. Nokia is part of this value chain through the device input, Lifeblog and Ovi. Google can be. My email provider is.

 

Further, Flock comes to mind. Haven't heard much about the "social browser" lately. Sounded so nice, in particular - and most relevant to EverNote - the capturing functionalities.

 

Okay, so far so good: this works quite nicely as a blog post drafter/editor. So I think I won't spend too much time on Qumana.

Dugg: Fragility of Digital Life | Christian Lindholm

Christian Lindholm points out a problem that is becoming more and more pertinent as more and more people engage in digital lifelogging:

"(...) led me to export all my 30.000 items out of Lifeblog (...) a digital archive is vulnerable, I have made decent back-up's of my Lifeblog, have some in London, some in Finland on several HD's etc. still I feel extremely fragile. (...) I am sure most people are worse prepared than I am, the funny thing is I do not think people think about it until the hard disk crashes. (...)"

Which combination of reliable, future-proof software and physically distributed storage can put our minds at rest?

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nokia Morph Concept Phone Revealed Today | Concept Phones

"(...) Morph, a joint nanotechnology concept, developed by Nokia Research Center (NRC) and the University of Cambridge (UK) - was launched [on February 25] alongside the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition, on view from February 24 to May 12, 2008, at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: The Morph concept | Nokia.com / YouTube

"(...) Featured in The Museum of Modern Art “Design and The Elastic Mind” exhibition, the Morph concept device is a bridge between highly advanced technologies and their potential benefits to end-users. (...)"

"(...) Morph is a concept demonstrating some of the possibilities nanotechnologies might enable in future communication devices. Morph can sense its environment, is energy harvesting and self cleaning .

Morph is a flexible two-piece device that can adapt its shape to different use modes. Nanotechnology enables to have adaptive materials yet rigid forms on demand.

It is also featured in the MoMA online exhibition "Design and the Elastic Mind". It has been a collaboration project of Nokia Research Center and Cambridge Nanoscience Center. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nokia and University of Cambridge launch the Morph | Nokia press release

"(...) Morph, a joint nanotechnology concept, developed by Nokia Research Center (NRC) and the University of Cambridge (UK) - was launched [on February 25] alongside the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition, on view from February 24 to May 12, 2008, at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

(...) Morph is a concept that demonstrates how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the user to transform their mobile device into radically different shapes.  It demonstrates the ultimate functionality that nanotechnology might be capable of delivering: flexible materials, transparent electronics and self-cleaning surfaces. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nokia remade | Raphael Grignani

"(...) With Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo presenting a short video of the REMADE mobile phone during the Mobile World Congress 2008, I am able to share one of the case-studies addressing sustainability our team* has been working on passionately. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nokia 'Remade' concept | YouTube

"(...) Nokia has released a short video showing a new concept from our design team exploring how recycled materials could be used to make mobiles in the future.

The idea behind the "remade" concept was to see if it was possible to create a device made from nothing new. It has been designed using recycled materials that avoid the need for natural resources, reduce landfill, and allow for more energy efficient production.

It is made out of metals from upcycled aluminum cans, plastics from drink bottles form the chassis, and its rubber key mats are provided by old car tyres. Inside the phone are new more environmentally friendly technologies such as printed electronics, and the graphics used on the display save energy without compromising on style.

Remade is a concept that explores potential new ideas for the future, and is part of Nokia's ongoing work looking at how it can help people make more sustainable choices. It is designed to help inspire and stimulate discussion on how mobile devices might be made in the future.(...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: How to set up Podzinger's personalized podcast search feed

Steven explains on the S60 blog how you can set up a permanent text search for podcast content on Podzinger, and have it fed via RSS to the Nokia Podcasting application on your S60 mobile phone.

read more | digg story

Dugg: Andrew Keen is the Anti-Chris

In this podcast Moira Gunn speaks with author Andrew Keen, who claims that today's Internet is killing our culture. With descriptions like "dystopia", "Orwellian nightmare", and "tyranny of the amateurs", Keen explicitly disagrees with Chris Anderson on the virtues of the Long Tail and the abundance of free content.

Anderson's more optimistic views on emerging economies of abundance and the business of "free" are well captured in another podcast on IT Conversations from June 2007, as well as in his keynote at the Nokia World event in Amsterdam, in December 2007 (which I blogged about earlier today).

Keen describes Web 2.0 as a stage in the development of the Internet in which businesses attempt to build revenue models around user-generated content, whereas during Web 1.0 businesses explored the Internet as a new distribution channel for their existing, professionally produced content.

read more | digg story

Dugg: Chris Anderson: 'Free' | Nokia World 2007

(streaming video and downloadable .mp3)

At the Nokia World event in Amsterdam in December 2007, Chris Anderson discussed themes from his upcoming book, 'Free', in which he argues that when the price of production and distribution of (digital) content (and services) approaches zero, you might as well treat it as if it were free, and sell something else.

Open your mind to create new business models around "free", in an economy of abundance.

We are entering a world in which every way that content (and even physical products) can be created, WILL be tried, because it costs next to nothing to do so.

The old scarcities are: time + money. The new scarcities are: time + money + attention + reputation.

When working with Intel, Chris tells, they did a thought experiment. What about, instead of selling hardware and software as 1+1, selling it perhaps as 0+2?

Is Chris suggesting that Nokia should give its devices away for free in order to sell MORE services?
Could and should we move from selling hardware+software as 1+1, towards 0+morethan2?

To put it more urgently: is this the ONLY way to go?

read more | digg story

Listen to my blog!

I signed up to test Odiogo's text-to-speech solution for blog content and was happy to receive an email with the following:

[STARTS]

Hi there,

We’re happy to inform you that the audio version of your RSS feed is now available at the following urls:

Audio Enriched RSS Feed:

http://podcasts.odiogo.com/www-josschuurmans-com/podcasts-xml.php     

This is your Odiogo RSS Feed.

Odiogo Control Page:
http://podcasts.odiogo.com/www-josschuurmans-com/podcasts-html.php

This page allows to:

- Perform a 1-click subscription of your Odiogo feed to major podcast clients (iTunes, Juice) Please note that the text content is embedded into the audio file and can be viewed through the lyrics option of your iPod and on some other mp3 players. More information on http://blog.odiogo.com/index.php/2007/08/31/new-feature-listen-and-read-blog-posts-on-your-ipod/

- Subscribe to Web RSS readers such as MyYahoo!, netvibes, google, etc.

- Share the control page with Facebook, Del.ico.us, Digg, etc.

- Stream the audio articles of your blog

- Listen to the individual audio posts

As a TypePad user, you can leverage our new Listen Button feature which displays a listen button above each post.

To install the plugin, just browse to http://www.odiogo.com/listen_button_typepad.php?feed_id=64247 and follow the instructions.

Your Odiogo Feed ID is 64247.

The Subscribe button gives access to all the options provided by the Odiogo system. You can add it to your blog by ticking the Subscribe tick box.

We advise you to review our FAQ and our blog; they both provide with tips for enhancing and promoting the service on your blog.

Please note that by using the Odiogo service you signify your acceptance of our attached Terms of Service (TOS).

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions at support@odiogo.com.

We hope you’ll enjoy using our service.

Odiogo Customer Support

http://www.odiogo.com

support@odiogo.com

[ENDS]

To listen to blog content while on the move, type an Odogio feed's URL into the podcast application on your Nokia Series60 mobile phone, e.g. like this:

Menu -> Applications -> Podcasting -> Podcasts -> Options -> New podcast -> Podcast URL: (type: http://podcasts.odiogo.com/www-josschuurmans-com/podcasts-xml.php) -> OK -> (click, click, listen!)

Where I am in Nokia

Indoor Positioning is a Symbian application, which indicates a mobile device's current location within a building (where GPS normally does not work).

With the phone application you can decide if you want to share your indoor position with others. If you decide to share your position it is sent to a server and your colleagues can see where you have been seen last.

Developed in Nokia Alpha Labs (restricted access), Nokia's Internet services and applications developer community, the application is based on WLAN technology. It runs on Nokia S60 3rd edition phones that have WLAN support, for example: E51, E60, E61, E65, E70, E90, N80, N91, N92, N93, N95.

The following Nokia sites and public buildings are currently integrated:

    * Helsinki-Vantaa airport
    * Hervanta
    * Karaportti
    * Nokia House
    * Palo Alto
    * Peltola
    * Pitäjänmäki
    * Ruoholahti

Alpha Labs is a place where ideas and prototypes mature to market trials in Nokia Beta Labs.

Nordic Nokia executives...

Quote from the International Herald Tribune:

"(...) Nokia's executives describe their own impressions in flat, unemotional terms that would seem scripted, if they were not Nordic.(...)"

Dugg: Nokia's innovation story part 2 - Internet innovation | Stephen Johnston - ThreeDimensionalPeople

"(...) Internet innovation is an unwieldy beast, and I'll divide it up by stakeholder group - customers, employees and partners / developers. I leave out shareholders here, since they are the outcome, not the input to these efforts. So, what does Internet innovation mean to each of these groups for Nokia? (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nokia's innovation story, Part 1 - key trends | Stephen Johnston - ThreeDimensionalPeople

This is a gem. Wonderful integrated trend analysis by Stephen Johnston, based in large part on his work for the annual Nokia WorldMap, a strategy project within the company's Insight & Foresight team.

"(...) If Amazon can use its smarts to get me to a buy a book based on my behaviour, why not allow someone to recommend what car I should be driving based on an analysis of my actual life, not just the slice of me inferred by my purchasing habits on one book-orientated website. (...)"

read more | digg story

What's the top life recorder for the season?

Christian,

How are things at Fjord? And yourself?

JIT for Xmas, perhaps a good moment to give us an update on your favorite life recorder?

With the Nokia N73, you picked your 2006 cameraphone already in August of that year.

Later in 2006 you seemed charmed by the Nokia N95.

I know, "life recorder" does not equal "cameraphone"... but still. With a two-year-old running around and his brother or sister on the way, I want to use Lifeblog to its fullest potential - that means, among other things: with the best hardware.

Funny really, when we spoke about Nokia Lifeblog beta in 2004, and you confided that first-time parents would be a major target group for the application, I didn't quite buy that.

I thought the memory prosthesis was just as compelling a proposition to any Internet-savvy DINKer like myself.

But now I know better. With kids, you just don't want to compromise on the quality and ease of use of recording their young lives.

So, how about it? Give us your take! :-)

Best wishes from Espoo and Mäntyharju,
Jos

Dugg: New Kyte User Guides | Kyte blog

The Kyte team created new user guides to help people get started using Kyte on the web or with their mobile phones: Kyte Quick Start Guide; Kyte Mobile Guide; Kyte Nokia Web Upload Guide.

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nokia N95 Tips | Kyte blog

Instruction video showing how to increase the Nokia N95's battery life by change the WLAN power consumption settings and by draining the battery a couple of times.

read more | digg story

Kyte video from N95 via Lifeblog

I just posted the second show on my Kyte channel, "josschuurmans", titled 'Kyte video from N95 via Lifeblog'. It's a little video clip that I recorded after changing trains in Kouvola on my way home last evening.

But before I did that, I first recorded a clip on the platform, while changing trains, with a Nokia N95.

In this show, I'm trying to share how I uploaded the first (platform) clip to the Nokia Lifeblog application on my PC, after which I would upload to Kyte to post-produce and broadcast it.

Next, I will produce and broadcast that first clip from the train platform, and then I'll try to describe my experience of producing the clip on Kyte.

Linking up with Kyte.tv's Daniel Graf

Daniel Graf was at Nokia HQ here in Espoo today to demo his Kyte.tv. The San Francisco-based mobile video sharing company announced on June 12 that it had received funding from Nokia's investment arm, Nokia Growth Partners.

Pretty interesting stuff. I'm going to set up an account and try it out here on my blog. At the same time, I'll try and get a feel for Kyte's suitability for intranet video sharing purposes.

Daniel calls it "mobile socialcasting". Kyte's concept of distributed video channels, rather than stand-alone video clips, seems quite powerful. A video channel is immediately updated with the latest video that its creator posts to it. This can be done as least as easily from an S60 mobile phone as from a PC.

The content can be made more conversational and response-provoking by dragging-and-dropping interactivity modules

Feedback is also very immediate: viewers can reply instantly by text chat, video, still images, or audio clips.

Lifeblog is a blogging application!

Yes it is, Ivan! :-)

Granted, Nokia Lifeblog is foremost an attempt at a memory prosthesis, as Christian Lindholm explained in that interview before the launch of the beta version in 2004.

Gordon Bell is making a more thorough attempt, albeit one that would be unpractical for the Nokia Multimedia Business Group's target customers at this stage. But don't worry, we'll get there. (See also Wikipedia: "lifelog")

The content you consciously capture (photos, video, sound, text) is part of that extended memory, as is the context information which mobile devices will be able to capture for you in the background. Both consciously created or selected content and less consciously captured context are part of our human memory, so the metaphor still applies.

As you mention, Ivan, content and contextual information is not all that valuable unless it can be searched. True, or, to put it in somewhat broader terms: real value is derived from all that information only when you start using it.

Now, this is where the onions come in.

Huh?

Trust your life to a piece of Nokia

The following text is a condensed version of an article published on Nokia's intranet (restricted access) on March 11, 2004. I've omitted part of the original text for reasons of company confidentiality and the confidentiality of interviewees.

[STARTS]

Trust your life to a piece of Nokia

By Jos Schuurmans March 11, 2004, 16:00

HELSINKI, Finland. -- A dozen brains at NVO Multimedia Applications in Ruoholahti have combined their visions of mobility, their entrepreneurial spirit, technological expertise and marketing skill to work on... the "memory prosthesis".

Well, sure, there you have an exaggerated metaphor. No external device is likely to replace the human brain any time soon. But the larger idea certainly holds water and the first tangible result of their efforts will be version 1.0 of Lifeblog, a preview of which will be shown at the CeBIT fair in Hanover, Germany, next week.

NVO Multimedia Applications team's Director Christian Lindholm has been pushing the case for usability within Nokia for a long time. He invented the Navi-key and has, more recently, been standing at the crib of the Series 60 platform, which he is now actively promoting and developing.

Dugg: Media event: 'The Way We Live Next' | Nokia.com

"(...) In the “The Way We Live Next” technology media event a team of technology experts and visionaries from Nokia presented their visions of what the future might bring in areas such as nanotechnology, mobile banking, new energy sources and web technologies. (...)"

read more | digg story

Posting this from the Lifeblog app on my PC

A Nokia N95 arrived to my pigeon hole today (September 4, that is). Fun toy! Checking out the over-the-air podcast download. A link to Adam Curry's Daily Source Code comes pre-set, so that's as good a place to start as any. Decent sound quality!

It's not just a fun toy, though. This is the first time since I started working for Nokia five years ago, that I decided not to upgrade to the next QWERTY-equipped Communicator (from the Enterprise Solutions business group), but to a one-hand operated device from the Multimedia business group.

Rather than being evidence in support of The Register's thought provoking Andrew Orlowski, I guess my choice reflects that the whole multimedia Internet experience is becoming more relevant in my line of work.

I must have been one of the first people to write about Nokia Lifeblog, an interview story with Christian Lindholm in March 2004, published on Nokia's intranet (restricted access).

[UPDATE, October 24, 2007: I posted a condensed version of the article: 'Trust your life to a piece of Nokia'.]

It has bugged me ever since that ES-devices never got around to support Lifeblog. And, frankly, now I have run out of patience - even though I know that the new Communicator runs on Series60.

To me, (a) QWERTY and (b) the nice big screen were the main selling points of the Communicator. So, it's been a trade-off: what I now gain instead is (1) more compact hardware and (2) a richer multimedia / Web2.0 / life recording experience.

22:45 04 September, 2007 Text note

P.S. 1: This is the "text note" I wrote on my PC after synchronizing the contents of the Lifeblog apps on both the PC and the N95. It was too big to be sync'ed to my phone, so I couldn't blog it from the phone. Short-story-long: this text was intended to go with the photo I posted just before :)

P.S. 2: Rich-text formatting, links, categories, excerpt, keywords, Technorati tags added later via Typepad's interface.

We need to learn to let go!

The five-member team I work with (we develop and content-manage internal news and participatory media channels) have decided to (re-)read the Cluetrain book over the summer and discuss it when we're all back at the office.

A colleague from another team the other day requested ideas as to whom we could invite to speak at our yearly global corporate communications days. (The name Andrew Keen came up.)

Even though things have moved on since 1999, to me the Cluetrain is still the most visionary book, indeed a feast of recognition, of how the Internet is accelerating the shift from broadcast to search, from push to pull, from controlled messaging to open conversation.

Many corporate communicators, I feel, are still struggling with the concept, clinging on to an illusion of "controlled conversation" or some such compromise. Well, it won't last, will it? And the sooner we all grok this, the better for all involved: WE NEED TO LEARN TO LET GO!

If I had to suggest a speaker to our communications teams, I'd be humbled should any of the four Cluetrain authors be willing. Perhaps the chapters that spoke to me most were those written by Christopher Locke and David Weinberger.

Dugg: Nokia invests in Web video start-up kyte.tv | Reuters

Kyte.tv, a start-up Web site for sharing pictures and video, said on Tuesday it received funding from the investment arm of Nokia. Kyte.tv, which aims to extend video sharing to cell phones (...) "With Kyte being on Nokia phones, can you imagine the distribution?" said Daniel Graf, chief executive of Kyte.tv.

read more | digg story

"Involve me and I understand"

Surinder Hundal, my former Director for Internal Corporate Communications, is leaving Nokia. The whole concept and purpose of employee engagement really sank in with me when she presented this ancient Chinese wisdom:

“Tell me and I forget,
Show me and I remember
Involve me and I understand”

(Lao Tze, Chinese Philosopher, C.604 – 521 BC)

We're in the finals!

(Photo by Andrew Mason shared via Flickr.com under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license)

Nokia's intranet news service, the News Hub, has made it to the finals of the CiB Awards 2007, by the British Association of Communicators in Business.

We are looking at an award of excellence for 'Best navigation/usability for intranet' (Class 14B).

Thank you RedHouse Lane! Thank you team mates at Nokia Corporate Communications!

As I wrote on April 24:

In the March issue (.pdf) of their Red Current newsletter, communications consultancy Redhouse Lane tell how they worked with my team at Nokia to rebrand and redesign the News Hub, Nokia's global news and conversation intranet site.

"(...) The result is  a striking exhibition of the power of Web 2.0 giving staff the tools to access the information they need, in the way they want - and then encouraging them to comment, contribute and collaborate. (...)"

---

"(...)The introduction of affiliate program has assisted the small business to run their business profitably as affiliates. The webhosting strategies of famous companies like godaddy cater all necessary attributes with respect to customer’s demand. They can even make a website design according to their customer products and update it with the passage of time. The search engine manager utilizes all strategic techniques of search engine marketing to increase their profits. The rates of internet phone service are very economical along with high speed and quality internet voip. There are different kinds of online website design software or templates to develop website easily. (...)"

Digg.com serves "Story of the Century" on my first day

(Image: Our Solar System, from Wikipedia's entry on "Planets", public domain, by NASA.)

As luck will have it... the day I started using Digg.com, it offered me what a journalist on the BBC World Service this morning called "(...) potentially the news story of the century in terms of the future of human kind":

First Habitable Planet Oustide Of The Solar System

(The BBC, of course, have their own version: 'New 'super-Earth' found in space')

Why I started "digging" yesterday was that a colleague of mine - after hearing about some of the stuff I do in corporate communications - had asked me if I'd like to help introduce some new collaborative news selection functionalities to Nokia's intranet.

So I decided to get some first-hand experience with Digg. The concept seemed interesting and so I wanted to get a "feel" for how it works, what works and what doesn't.

Being a novice to Digg, when I came across the "habitable planet" story I wasn't quite sure how serious to take it. After all, I was just being taught by way of Neil Patel's Beginner's Guide to Digg that, in order to get read, submissions to Digg should:

1. Make a statement and do not be dull;
2. Be controversial and make false promises; and/or
3. Use keywords in the title that diggers love and that are also relevant to the story.

But, whoa, am I convinced now! Every news junkie has to hook on to Digg!

By the way, the planet story reminds me of a presentation to Pop!Tech, podcast on IT Conversations, in which Carolyn Porco, Imaging Team Leader of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) makes a passionate appeal to human kind to make space exploration a top priority.

From the podcast description:

"(...) [One of Saturn's moons], Titan, is where the Huygens probe landed in January 2005. From the panoramic images taken during the decent and the all the data that has been collected since, the CICLOPS team is excited to see signs that fluids once flowed over the surface, that the atmosphere has precipitation and that the probe itself may have landed on a shoreline. All-in-all, the Titan moon may give us a significant glimpse of what the Earth was like before living organisms. (...)"

PS: To support the point of yesterday's piece on Wikipedia As A News Medium, the site's entry on Gliese 581 c seems nicely up-to-date.

Nokia's News Hub: Web 2.0 in action

(Photo by Andrew Mason shared via Flickr.com under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license)

In the March issue (.pdf) of their Red Current newsletter, communications consultancy Redhouse Lane tell how they worked with my team at Nokia to rebrand and redesign the News Hub, Nokia's global news and conversation intranet site.

"(...) The result is  a striking exhibition of the power of Web 2.0 giving staff the tools to access the information they need, in the way they want - and then encouraging them to comment, contribute and collaborate. (...)"