Co-creation and conversations

ESPOO, Finland – Finns are renowned for their silence and modesty, so it’s understandable that a Finnish company like Nokia is not a loud and flashy company. Nonetheless, when we see something that benefits our customers, we go for it.

I know it’s obvious that engaging our customers in a conversation is amazingly powerful for a business. And indeed, we have been listening and talking with customers for a long time. But, in the past few years Nokia has been turning down the activity of its ‘mass’ communications and is turning up the activities of its ‘conversational’ communications. Ranging for product co-creation to sites like Nokia Conversations, Nokia is participating in the conversation.

With that in mind, two items below are worth mentioning. Read on.

Please help us help you

One trend that is growing rapidly here in Nokia is ‘co-creation’, working with users to create and improve products. While on one side it seems cheap to release unfinished goods and ask for help. But at the same time, it’s amazing to involve eager customers who not only make the product even better than if we did it alone, but are all lined up to take the product they helped make (Geez, why didn’t Hasbro think of co-creation?). Also, people always have some insight into how to improve a product or service.

Nokia Beta Labs is my favorite channel to watch co-creation at Nokia in action. Lots of apps have come through and either graduated or been politely shelved for one reason or another. And it has been fun to see increasingly more active outreach to co-create great applications, such as Nokia Maps looking to redefine the mobile use of maps.

There are a ton of other co-creation activities going on or in the works. We hope to meet the folks behind these programs, as they are as passionate as the users they work with. Watch this space!

Reaching out

The goal of this site is to get Nokia participating in the conversation going on out there. But, as you know, we are not the only ones. The newest one is ‘The Leadership Edge’, from the Office of the CTO. This shall prove interesting as our CTO, Bob Iannucci, is an interesting fellow, is very smart, and leads some of the smartest folks in the industry. He is the person who’s job is to keep Nokia on the cutting edge of research. He and his geniuses are channeling ideas from years into the future, and building a plan to make them so. I’ve spoken with him on many occasions on many topics and think you will find his insights (from years of experience) to be interesting too.

And, in the spirit of Open Innovation, which I first heard of from Bob, he’s going to be front and center, inviting everyone in to participate in the discussion innovation, technology, the industry, and other topics that he’s passionate about.

Image from busymommy

Related posts:

• Best of 2008 in Design – Co-creation at Beta Labs and Nokia Pilots
• Co-creation, communities and researching the benefits
• Introducing The Almanac (and a few other small changes to Nokia Conversations)

Tags | Beta Labs, co-creation, conversation, conversations, Nokia, product development