Pause for station identification

ESPOO, Finland – One thing about a dynamic website is that sometimes it’s easy to forget who’s actually behind the whole thing. Well, in the interest of clarity and transparency, we’d like to tell you a bit about what who we are and what we’re doing here.

One way we want to notify everyone of who we are and what we are doing is through a ‘pause for station identification’. It’ll be a periodic pause, usually after some change in the normal ways of things, say a site update, a new permanent writer, or a change in how we do things.

It’s a conversation

We wrote earlier a more extensive introduction to our site goals and philosophy. Basically, we’re here to cover stories from all around the Nokia neighbourhood – it‚Äôs about the people, products and services, thoughts, interests, business and beyond. It is about the stories you tell or comment on, or simply want to read.

Also, this is about conversation: We need to respect those who speak to us and about us. We need to listen carefully, without being defensive. We need to speak openly and honestly. We are a participant in the conversation, not the drivers.

The challenge of being open and honest

We are employees or writers paid by Nokia. Yet, we “don’t want to preach, toe the company line, or spit out some corporate monologue”. We need to strike the balance between being as open and honest as possible, while still understanding the business risks of such openness.

We’ll try our best to give you great stories from the Nokia neighborhood, without getting ourselves fired in the process. We hope that you’ll let us know what you think of these stories, and take the time to add to them through comments and, let us know your suggestions to make it better.

Who are we?

We are four full-time members, banging away to get this thing going.

Mike Cooper and James Beechinor-Collins are our two principal editors. They are the pulse of the site, extracting the interesting stories out of the news, insight, interviews, and what-not, from around the neighbourhood. Mike and James also manage all the editorial flow and guest writers. Mike and James run Republic Publishing, an online publisher of a range of properties including NokNok.tv. They have years of experience in publishing magazines and websites, including as editor of T3.co.uk and as editor-in-chief of T3 .

Carita Koskinen keeps the site humming, taking care of the operational flow. Like an octopus, she chases down interesting stories within the company, makes sure the various online services we use are fed regularly with media and information, and connects us to the right folks within the company. Little escapes her long grasp. She also has time to pen the occasional article. Carita has a long history in setting up and running various online social media outreach activities.

Charlie Schick is the one most likely to get fired for what we do here. He keeps the team focused on the goals, spends a lot of time selling the mission inside and outside the company, and accidentally ended up building a lot of the site. But his primary goal is keeping the team happy – without them he’d be sunk. Charlie makes sure he shares at least one story a week.

As the site picks up steam, we hope to give you a deeper insight into what makes the team members tick. Until then, this short description should keep you fed.

We’re not the only ones

There is no way our team could do this alone. What we do here is part of a collection of closely tied teams that reach out and participate in the conversation around Nokia, in a whole assortment of ways. Indeed, the best introduction to the different Nokia outreach teams was written recently by dotsisx, from Symbian-Guru. We strongly urge you to read the article and learn more about the other groups, if you don’t know them already.

Related links:

- An introduction – Nokia Conversations

- Untying my tongue without losing my job – Nokia Conversations

- Snappy answers to stupid questions – Nokia Conversations

- Proud to talk about what we do – Nokia Conversations

- Quick note: Need help? Here are some links. – Nokia Conversations

- Nokia, Connecting More People – Symbian Guru

- Is Nokia the only mobile manufacturer with a blog relations strategy? – SMS Text News

- Nokia Debuts Conversations with the Blogosphere – mobilejones

image from robstephaustralia

Related posts:

• Backstage at Nokia World 2008 – a Nokia Conversations summary
• Change in leadership at Nokia Conversations
• Next week is Nokia World 2008, and we’ll be there

Tags | Carita Koskinen, Charlie Schick, James Beechinor-Collins, Mike Cooper, Nokia Conversations, who are we