By James on 26 August 2008
GLOBAL – There’re plenty of opinions flying around about the Internet and what’s going to happen beyond today. One that seems increasingly prevalent though is that the Internet is fast becoming a utility, almost as necessary as electricity. Whilst that’s true, surely it has to be more than that. The Internet as a concept on its own is fine, but what makes it special is the stuff people share using the Internet. An Internet without any traffic is like an electricity cable without power – useless.
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By Charlie on 22 August 2008
ESPOO, Finland – We are trusting people. But, in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, “doveryai, no proveryai” [trust, but verify]. Therefore, organizations always seek to provide more transparency, either through helpful standardized labels, blatant Chinese notes, or stripping naked.
Huh?
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By Mike on 20 August 2008
LONDON, UK – Having soaked up what Charlie had to say about One Web Day and the impact the Internet has had on him personally, Nokia, and you, I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring. Plus, James my other Conversations cohort had some interesting thoughts on how the Internet has and is affecting our lives, so I thought I’d better gatecrash the opinion party.
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By Mike on 19 August 2008
ESPOO, Finland – Over the past year I’ve become hooked on the notion that we’re bang in the middle of a full-blown mobile behavior revolution. Tangible elements such as high speed data connections, GPS and on-the-move social networking are heralding the change, with services such as those highlighted by the 2008 Forum Nokia Innovation Series program affecting the shift in how we interact with our devices. So this morning, on witnessing the birth of the new Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte, my first reaction (after rolling my tongue back up off the floor), was that this isn’t just a performance piece of luxury mobile hardware. More interesting, to me at least, are how the elements that make up this device – the materials, it’s interface (and in some cases lack of it), and hidden talents – echo the mobile behavioral changes I allude to, but in terms of the physical.
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By James on 15 August 2008
GLOBAL – When I read Charlie’s piece for OneWebDay, I pulled him up on his
crazy claim of being online for 25 years. Not possible, I reckoned, as
the web as we know it has only been around since the 90s. 25 years is a
ridiculous claim. What I failed to acknowledge (and here’s where
Charlie reveals his age) was that Charlie was in college in the US
during the 80s. And in 80s US colleges, they had things like BitNet.
Hell, they even had email addresses. No, not the web as we know it
today, but a web of sorts nonetheless. His claim now has a qualifier.
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By Charlie on 07 August 2008
ESPOO, Finland – What really gets us going here is when folks push the limits, do things that we never expected, challenge the prevailing wisdom and practice by going out there and doing it themselves. We like the feeling we get when we think ‘they did what with WHAT?’. I guess it is because we marvel at people’s creativity and ingenuity.
I found some interesting stories that I think illustrate how people think and do when you throw a mobile device in the mix.
Read on.
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By Mike on 05 August 2008
INTERNATIONAL – We’re big fans of the work done by Jan Chipchase, Nokia’s globetrotting human behavioral guru. Studying the mobile habits and cultures in emerging markets and beyond, his keen insights make for interesting reading. And his latest short essay Small Objects Travel Further, Faster is no different, raising an intriguing point:
“As objects become smaller, pocketable is about right – the speed at which they move around the planet significantly increases. The lead time between what is cutting edge in London and Lagos (or vice versa) is closing. Rapidly.” Jan Chipchase
Read on…
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By Mike on 04 August 2008
Recently I’ve been on a bit of a mobile behavior binge, writing at any opportunity about context aware services and how their rapid evolution could unwittingly yet positively affect the way we use our handsets. The reason? Simply that I believe that we’re in one of the most fascinating periods of transition when it comes to our mobile lifestyles, as location-based services are now a reality with the growth of GPS and faster connections, making it tremendously exciting as a phone user looking at the horizon.
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By Mike on 01 August 2008
INTERNATIONAL – Following my little Ovi pronunciation experiment earlier in the week, I got tipped off to an interesting new website that Nokia is sponsoring dubbed lovetheaccent.com.
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By Mike on 29 July 2008
INTERNATIONAL – It’s one of those peculiar words. The Finnish word for door, “Ovi“, can sound soft, strong or strange depending on where you come from, where you’re living, your cultural influences, and a multitude of other factors. I thought everyone I knew would say it pretty much the same way, so I asked a bunch of them. Turned out I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Of course its subtle and subconscious, but surely how we say something and how we hear it in our head can influence how we feel towards anything, even product or a service. Anyway, here’s my short video of people in my life, living in London, saying “Ovi“…
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GLOBAL – There’re plenty of opinions flying around about the Internet and what’s going to happen beyond today. One that seems increasingly prevalent though is that the Internet is fast becoming a utility, almost as necessary as electricity. Whilst that’s true, surely it has to be more than that. The Internet as a concept on its own is fine, but what makes it special is the stuff people share using the Internet. An Internet without any traffic is like an electricity cable without power – useless.
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