Eighteen-year-old Aaron Joensuu lives in Kirkkonummi and goes to school in Helsinki, though he has previously lived for six years in different parts of the United States. He is fluent in both English and Finnish. Although the United States is like a second home to him, it is such a vast country that there are many parts of it he’s not familiar with at all.

At around one o’clock on Wednesday, July 18, 2012, Aaron and his friend took the bus from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Chicago, Illinois. The route included a change of bus in Lansing, Michigan, with still about five or six hours ahead of them before they would reach their destination.

“The weather changed a lot along the way and a powerful storm rolled in from the east in the evening. When the bus was nearing Gary, Indiana, there was practically no visibility on the highway,” Aaron explains.

“Many cars had stopped by the roadside to wait for the storm to blow over, but the bus kept on going at about 20 miles per hour, even though you really couldn’t see anything through the windows. And Gary has a reputation of being a very dangerous place.”

At around eleven in the evening, the driver finally stopped and informed us all that the bus had strayed from its route. “Apparently, the driver had missed an exit because of the poor visibility. He told the passengers he would ask for instructions from the bus control center,” says Aaron.

“The driver also wanted to know if anyone on the bus knew the area. Most of the passengers had already fallen asleep or were dozing, and no one responded to the driver’s question.”

Suddenly, Aaron remembered that he had downloaded maps of the United States on his smartphone before leaving Finland. He realized that the driver could use his Nokia Lumia 710 to get back on track.

“I asked my friend to watch my stuff and walked to the front of the bus to ask the driver if he still needed help. The driver was talking on the phone. I noticed he had a navigator, but he wasn’t able to use it because of the storm, or he didn’t know how.”

Listening to the conversation between the driver and the control centre, Aaron learned that the centre was not able to give instructions because they were not able to locate the bus.

“I told the driver that I had Nokia Drive on my Lumia smartphone and that he could use my phone for navigation,” says Aaron.

Relieved, the driver let the control centre know that a friendly young man with a navigator on his phone had just offered to help.

Aaron launched the Nokia Drive application on his phone and was able to determine the location of the bus. The driver asked the control centre for the address of the next bus station, which Aaron entered on his phone. Clear directions to the Gary bus station appeared on the screen, the distance being about six miles.

The driver told the control centre that the bus was ready to continue on its way with the help of the navigator on Aaron’s phone. At this point, the bus was an hour behind schedule.

“I suggested that I leave my phone with the driver for the rest of the trip and return to my seat. But he insisted that I stay there beside him and confirm the instructions from the navigator, so that he could fully focus on driving,” recalls Aaron.

“On the way to Gary, the driver listened to the instructions from the navigator without looking at the map on the screen or asking for further instructions,” Aaron says with a smile, remembering how he ended up being the co-driver on a crowded intercity bus.

Everything went smoothly, although at one point the bus had to negotiate a stretch of road covered by water. After arriving safely in Gary, the driver thanked Aaron for his help and told him that he was able to manage on his own for the rest of the journey. Aaron returned to his seat happy as the bus continued toward Chicago.

If you have encountered a similar situation where phone navigation has proved invaluable, why not share your experience with our readers?

image credit (rainy window): Eric M Martin 

The Nokia Mobira Cityman is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It was the first mobile phone designed for the NMT networks. This fully portable phone attracted international media attention when Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, was photographed making a call from Helsinki to Moscow – earning the phone the nickname “Gorba.”

When launched, the Cityman represented the cutting edge in technology and was something entirely new. Earlier mobile phones had weighed up to five kilos, but the Cityman only weighed 800 grams, including the battery. It soon became a popular high-end tool and a status symbol –  and it wasn’t cheap.  In today’s money a Cityman would set you back approximately 4,500 euros.

Judging by the Nokia Mobira Cityman brochure, it is evident that mobile phones were not for everyone back in 1987. They were intended for businesspeople on the go. Today, mobile phones are multipurpose devices that can be used for browsing the Internet, listening to music, playing games and reading newspapers. In the late 1980s, their main purpose was to make businesspeople more reachable and accessible – and they were quite handy to pose with too. 

The Cityman was primarily sold to successful urban professionals – ‘yuppies’. It wasn’t so long ago, but today we can raise an amused eyebrow at that world: The brochure has pictures of people with phones on ski slopes, tennis courts and in night clubs. The text informs readers that they can now make a call from anywhere – in town, at a department store, bus or cafe. They can even call a cab if they get tired of waiting for one on a chilly evening. Imagine that! 

Now it all look a bit obvious, but in those days people actually needed to be told what a mobile phone was for. 

“At the time, people needed to be informed about the entire mobile phone business, which was in its infancy. The total market in Finland, for example, had fewer than 100,000 users, as opposed to the 2.3 million today. The volume of the business has grown remarkably,” says Mauri Pietikäinen, General Manager of Sales in Finland for Nokia.

Mauri was with Nokia when the Mobira Cityman was launched. He remembers that people had their doubts this new fangled invention would ever catch on: 

“Generally, people were enthusiastic, but some were convinced that mobile phones would never become popular and would be forgotten in a few years.”

Even though the Nokia Mobira Cityman was seen as a status symbol, it was not a common accessory among big stars and celebrities. In fact, Mauri can only remember one:

“I think Gorbachev was by far the biggest name,” he says with a laugh.

We’d like to know if any of our readers have used this classic phone and whether any of you still have a Nokia Mobira Cityman lying around at home?

The designation is all about promoting and encouraging the use of design in the development of cities. Cities are given the honour based on their “accomplishments and commitment to design as an effective tool for social, cultural and economic development” according to the awarding body. The appellation is granted by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid). Helsinki is the third city to receive the title, after Turin in Italy (2008) and Seoul in South Korea (2010).

The theme for the Helsinki World Design Capital 2012 is ”Open Helsinki – Embedding Design in Life”. The theme reflects the new role of design: how to incorporate people´s needs in design processes, and the possibilities offered by design for the development of services and systems.

Finnish design is mostly known for the Aalto vase and Marimekko fabrics, but in reality it is much more. The design capital project highlights the capacity of design to improve people’s everyday lives and Nokia is happy to be a part of this goal as one of the WDC Helsinki 2012 partners.

Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia SVP Design, said: “WDC Helsinki 2012 is a natural way for us to talk about our latest design innovations such as the Nokia N9, in which the physical form, materials, user interface and services – such as Nokia Maps – are combined into one seamless whole.”

One of the many activities Nokia will organize during WDC Helsinki 2012 is a design exhibition. The exhibition provides people with a unique chance to learn the stories behind some of the Nokia devices that changed the world. In addition to looking at the past 20 years, the exhibit will also give insights into the future design of mobile products.

There’s also a mobile app, of course, to help Helsinki residents and visitors to find all the events that are happening over the course of the year. It’s already available for the Nokia N9, and it also works with Symbian such as Nokia 701, Nokia 700, Nokia 603, Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia C7, Nokia C6, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia 500 and Nokia Oro. A version of the app for Nokia Lumia will be available soon. There are also iOS and Android versions of the app.

We’re going to be following the events of WDC Helsinki 2012 and asking how design can improve people’s everyday lives. Let us know your own ideas on this in the comments below.

image credit: http://wdchelsinki2012.fi/

ESPOO, Finland – Nokia’s research project on phone charging using harvested solar energy has now been completed. So can the sun be relied on to charge your phone?

Nokia is continuously searching for improved energy efficiency and more sustainable alternatives for mobile phone users. The solar energy project was designed to assess the viability and ease of solar charging for mobile phones. The idea was also to look at the possibilities for phone charging in conditions where it’s not possible to plug in to recharge the phone, or where the electricity supply is uncertain.

So what did we exactly do? We started with developing a prototype phone for the project featuring a solar charging panel integrated in the back cover for harvesting solar energy. The phone was tested last summer by a team of five people in a range of different environments. Two of the phones were tested up north at the Arctic Circle, one in southern Sweden and one in Kenya, and the fifth member of the test team was sailing in the Baltic Sea.

We wanted to do this project as openly as possible and in real time, and so we set up a blog (Nokia Solar Charging) for it. It enabled readers to follow what the testers were doing and to see the project’s progress and results, as well post comment on the progress. Along with the test reports, around ten technical articles on solar energy and its use were published on the blog. The idea was to boost people’s interest and expand their knowledge of the subject.

Amount of charge depends on many factors

The tests showed that charging a mobile phone by simply using a solar charging panel on the back cover is possible but challenging.

When carefully positioned, the prototype phones were able, at best, to harvest enough energy to keep the phone on standby mode but with a very restricted amount of talk time. This means there’s still some way to go before a workable and care-free solution is achieved. The most substantial challenge is the limited size of a phone’s back cover, which restricts the extent to which the battery can be charged. What’s more, to ensure mobility, it is essential that the phone’s weather protection doesn’t cover the solar charging panel.

The amount of charge generated for use by the phone is not solely dependent on the weather conditions and the amount of sunlight. Factors such as lifestyles and the angle of light also have a significant impact on the amount of charge generated.

The greatest amount of charge was generated in Kenya, as there was no shortage of sunlight and the phone tester, Amos, who works as a security guard, was often stationary. From the energy profile of his phone, we could see that he’s an active phone user, listening to the radio and making a lot of calls.

On the Arctic Circle, by contrast, the amount of sunlight depends very much on the time of year. But even during the light summer months, the sun’s angle is relatively low, which means a lot of shadows. If the user is frequently on the move, the phone will receive a fairly low charge. Nevertheless, a test record was achieved at the Arctic Circle, as the tester, Ilkka, was able to move his phone from one side of the house to another to track the summer sun as he got on with his house-building work.

Reasonably good results were also obtained when the tester was able to carry the phone while moving around outdoors, for instance in a holder around his neck. However, this isn’t necessarily the most stylish or convenient arrangement, and another solution is needed.

In fact, this is what most people do, according to a study we’ve conducted on recycling habits across the globe. Overall, just nine per cent of respondents to the survey said they had recycled their last mobile phone. This means an increase of six per cent from 2007. Of the 11 countries covered in the study, the most active recyclers are found in Germany, Spain and Finland. However, strong growth has been seen in emerging economies, especially India and China.

At Nokia, we believe it’s our responsibility to make it as easy as possible to recycle mobile devices that are no longer in use. So although we are very happy about the increase, we acknowledge that the nine per cent means that 91% of phone owners are still either hoarding old devices, or in the worst case, simply binning them.

With our survey, we wanted to understand the barriers to recycling. Besides the world-wide trend of keeping the old phones as a back-up, lack of awareness of both recyclable materials and recycling channels came as a top reason why most people don’t currently recycle their mobile phones. This is particularly the case in developing countries.

Logically, the more convenient it is, the more likely people are to recycle their old mobile phone. But besides convenience and a higher awareness, what more is needed? Although the response to the idea of recycling campaigns is generally positive, the underlying questions in people’s minds are ‘how much effort do I have to make?’ and ‘what’s in it for me?’. So what we need is incentives. The rewards can be financial (for instance a voucher or free music track to download), or psychological, such as making a donation to an environmental charity.

All the details: Nokia Lumia 800

All about our stunning new smartphone.

The specs; the price; the facts

With the results of the study, we will continue our work at Nokia to find ways to encourage you to recycle.

But why should you empty your drawer of old phones even if no rewards are handed out? Quite simply, because all the materials in Nokia phones can be used again to make new products or generate energy, so nothing is wasted.

Will you be recycling your old phones?

So, what are the features that make our phones the market leaders?
• All our phones are made from materials that can be 100 per cent recovered at the end of their lives to make new products or to generate energy.
• We’ve continually reduced the environmental impact of our products. To give an example, the Nokia X2, the current equivalent of the old Nokia 3310 from 2000, has just a third of the environmental impact, despite its larger color screen and other technological improvements. These calculations cover the entire mobile device life cycle, from raw material acquisition to the end of the product life.
• Our chargers have steadily improved over the years to deliver the most efficient performance possible. Over the last decade, we have reduced the average no-load power consumption of our chargers by over 80%, and our best-in-class chargers by over 95%
• All our new devices are free of brominated and chlorinated compounds, antimony trioxide and PVC. Free of mercury, lead and many other substances of concern since various years.
• We have used biopaints, bioplastics and recycled metals in our eco lead devices.
• The possibility to download software updates allows you to always have the best performance and the latest features in your device─ thus also increasing its life span.
• We offer a series of eco-themed games and apps to help you learn more about the environment.

This is what you said
While we’re on the topic of sustainability, some of you may remember that last week we asked you to participate in a poll to find out how you would like to find out about eco-features. Thanks to all of those who took the time to cast their vote, let’s take this opportunity to go through the results.

All the details: Nokia Lumia 800

All about our stunning new smartphone.

The specs; the price; the facts

Most of you, with a 43% vote, would prefer to know a product was “green” by a green choice logo printed on the package. Almost 30% of you would like to see Nokia promoting green products with specific advertising campaigns, while 15 % would prefer to find out about eco-friendly products using information on the Nokia product website. Taking the fifth and final place is people wanting to hear about the greenness of a product through a salesperson. It seems some still prefer a personal touch, and who can blame them.

Don’t forget to leave your suggestions for the sustainability team and any other comments you may have regarding this story in the comments below.

GLOBAL

We’re trying various different approaches to spreading the good word about our green credentials. But which works best for you?

We’ll report back on the results next week, of course. And, as ever, we’re keen to hear your ideas on greener phones in the comments.

ESPOO, Finland

Nokia has made donations this month to UNICEF Somalia and Kenya Red Cross Society to support their relief efforts in offering immediate help.

Nokia’s approach to supporting disaster recovery is to focus first on immediate disaster relief, and then collaborate with local and state governments, civil societies and NGOs to offer mobile technology for development, assistance and to help rebuilding efforts. We have operated this way in a number of tragic natural disasters over the last few years.

All the details: Nokia Lumia 800

All about our stunning new smartphone.

The specs; the price; the facts

UNICEF’s priority is to provide life-saving assistance to children and women. It delivers integrated emergency aid: therapeutic and supplementary emergency nutrition, clean water and sanitary equipment, vaccination campaigns to prevent the spread of deadly diseases such as measles, and the scaling up of protection measures to safeguard refugee children.

The Red Cross provides relief aid to the areas in most critical condition. Kenya Red Cross Society is currently completing emergency food contributions in areas of the country affected by the drought, as well as providing healthcare outreach and rehabilitating water sources. Besides immediate help, the organization also wishes to deliver long-term interventions in order to empower communities to build resilience and coping mechanisms.

You can give a donation to East Africa through for instance UNICEF, Red Cross, Oxfam or International Rescue Committee.

Image credit: Unicef

ESPOO, Finland – People increasingly consider environmental issues when thinking about replacing a product with a new one. How do manufacturers differ in production methods? What standards and other requirements do they consider in planning? What type of raw materials do they use? How can the product be recycled at the end of its life? In addition to environmental concerns, users have needs and wants related to product functionality, properties and durability. How does this all add up?

Nokia has always taken environmental issues seriously. We have introduced many eco-innovations, as well as other improvements, to promote change. Learn more about how Nokia recycles materials for energy production and other purposes, reduces carbon dioxide emissions, decreases the size of its product packages and reduces the energy consumption of chargers, to name just a few examples. All of Nokia’s production plants have environmental certification, and all phones have a product-specific Eco Declaration.

What is your take on environmental issues? How much do they mean to you? In your opinion, how well do manufacturers consider the environment in their planning and production? Would you like to discuss these issues more when selecting a new product? Let us know in the comments!

AS: The difference is enormous. You have to remember that 25 years ago, portable phones were very niche products: we’d only just launched the first model. It would be another two years until the Mobira Cityman, the first handheld mobile phone would launch.

So at that point, our main businesses were wood pulp, paper, rubber and cables. Toilet paper was one of our major earners. We supplied the UK with 30 per cent of its toilet paper needs! More in some other countries.

We hardly had any people working in electronics. The people who were the beginnings of our phone business occupied a corner of one of the long, thin cable warehouses. Telecoms accounted for less than ten per cent of our revenue.

NC: So when did the change come?

AS: Like any ambitious company, Nokia was looking for growth and was investing heavily in electronics, which was seen as a business for the future. At the same time Nokia was giving up divisions which weren’t core. Not all the changes were smooth. For example, the consumer electronic division making TVs was making losses. Nokia was actually making losses in the early nineties, when Jorma Ollila – in 1992- became CEO. He decided that telecommunications should become Nokia’s main focus. Many people found that a very unsettling decision, certainly very brave – but that helps me to put the current changes in perspective.

When we wanted to divest ourselves of the other sections of the business, we didn’t just shut them down. Instead, we were very careful to try to find them a new home. We sold our vehicle tires business to the Helsinki Stock Exchange, for example. Nokia Footwear decided to spin itself off and was Finland’s biggest management buy-out at the time. The same will happen today: some people will need to move on, but we’ll help them find something new.

NC: And what were you doing at that point?

AS: I already worked in Communications at that time. Initially, it was my job to produce the internal company newsletter. Of course, we didn’t even have email at that point, so this was a paper production. I recall many hours of photocopying and stapling to get the thing together. If I recall correctly, in 1994, Nokia started its first internet site. The next year I became responsible for the communications for Finland. At that stage, Finland represented nearly half the company, but Nokia was already on its way to becoming an international company.

NC: What do you recall of the early mobile phones and which ones stand out?

AS: I remember looking at the first mobile phone, Mobira Cityman which hardly fitted to my handbag. It was a real brick – really hard to imagine that these things would become part of everyone’s daily life. And at that point, we didn’t even call them Nokia devices, because the company was better known for rubber and paper. You wouldn’t buy a phone from Andrex, would you?

But the device became really famous. Especially when President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union visited Finland. He used the phone to talk to one of his deputies back in the USSR and was really amazed.

By the nineties we were releasing phones under our own name. The first one that really spoke to me personally was the Nokia 2110 released in 1994, perhaps because it was the first one that came in different colours. I chose red – my favourite colour. It was also the first one with the famous Nokia ringtone.

After that, it would be the Nokia 8810. That was one of the first to use brushed aluminium which made it feel high quality. It’s interesting that this is still the way with our latest models. I’m now using a Nokia E7 which has a very similar feel, though its light years ahead in other ways, of course.

There have been many different phones that have been truly remarkable, though their model numbers escape me now. Mainly, for me, because of their design: so many of these things have been true things of beauty.

NC: Working in the Comms office, you must have heard some strange stories about Nokia. Which ones stand out?

AS: I always like the survival stories. It really shows that we’re obviously doing something right. Stories about people finding a working Nokia phone in the belly of a freshly-caught fish. Construction workers who’ve dropped their Nokia 20 metres onto concrete and it still works. I also like the ones that reflect how strong the brand is: in Indonesia, for example, it wasn’t uncommon for children to be christened with the name ‘Nokia’.

We also sometimes get mixed up with the town of Nokia. So we get weird stories about how we’re to blame for certain road ordinances and so forth.

NC: What would you like to tell colleagues you’re leaving behind?

AS: Though I was entitled to have my own office, I always chose to sit with my department members in the open office. There’s an important principle in that which we should not forget about – always listening to other people and being a part of the work.

I remember how very many big changes there have been at Nokia. Very dramatic changes. But we have always survived.

Survival is in our DNA. The fighting spirit is in our DNA. Transformation is in our DNA.

When we started in mobile phones, it was a really big risk. These were luxury gadgets that cost $4000 in today’s money. But we believed in them. We thought that we could bring these devices to the masses. And we did. Nokia is responsible for bringing mobile phones to ordinary people. What an amazing thing to have done. With belief and determination we can change the world.

NC: Any advice to us people running Nokia Conversations?

AS: Conversations always brings me great pleasure. It’s been an enormous success – it’s now the fourth most popular corporate blog. I’d love you to continue to increase the reach and readership figures. The increasing number of languages will certainly drive that.

But there’s something more important than that. It must always remain a place where people can discuss, argue and raise new questions. You started a true dialogue and that’s something very precious.

Arja Suominen now joins another great Finnish company, Finnair, as the senior vice president of corporate communications and social responsibility. Everyone at Conversations wishes her all the best!