Nokia Whirled 2010

Is it bad that I was so apathetic about early Nokia World talk this year?  After all, I blog a great deal about the company… mostly around business practices, community and technology.  I should cover an event this important.  But I’m not a device reviewer per se, which probably explains why I never get invitations to these shindigs.  Which probably explains the apathy.

Even without all that, though, just from an end user standpoint I have had difficulty getting fired up over the London event.  Just as Nokia can’t seem to get fired up about its end users.  Seems the sentiment is returned according to the screen snag shown.

Oops, cheap shot.  I don’t want to turn this into yet another bashing-cum-analysis piece.  After witnessing the Nokia World twitterflood from excited folks like Jay Montano and Matt Miller and remembering my recent vow to look for the positive, I figured what the heck– do a remote write-up on the affair, Day 1 at least.  Google would provide my virtual ticket.

Developing the MeeGo community

A great deal of useful conversation during Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2010 (LFCS2010) earlier this year revolved around what a MeeGo community should look like.  There are of course numerous aspects to this but for now I want to focus on three only: what sort of constituency would best benefit MeeGo, how could the website structure reflect, support and encourage that constituency, and what might this mean for maemo.org.

It might be helpful for the reader to browse through threads under Community Matters at the MeeGo discussion forum, as I will be referring to points raised there.  However, that won’t be necessary for a high-level perspective.  Regardless, a community is actually taking shape so I think it’s time to discuss a few subjects. 

Akademy 2010: Wrap-up (with travelogue!)

As promised, I’m finally getting around to my final post on the Akademy 2010 experience in Tampere, Finland.  For those interested, I’ll cover most of the journey start to end.

My participation began with a request from Claudia Rauch to the community council for submissions from the maemo.org community.  The chair at the time, Valerio, posted a plea at the discussion forum… which went unanswered.  So, volunteering idiot that I am, I decided to give it a shot.  My proposed talk on user engagement was accepted, and I began an open presentation development process at both maemo.org and Meego.com forums. 

Rehashing Apple’s ‘Antennagate’: The Emperor’s New Bumper

You know, I was planning to completely avoid a post mortem on the Apple iPhone 4 antenna issues circus.  I really was.  Until I stumbled onto this hyperspinning blog article and its incredible follow-up comments.

The little journalist in me lost his lunch on the ride.

It may come as a surprise to some that I’m allergic to marketing bull.  Yeah, I do occasionally dip into it here but it has to be worth the inevitable rash.

I’m also a devoted fan of hardcore journalism.  The kind that defrocks pedophiliac priests and dethrones corrupt kings.  Which makes me an antifan of Apple’s approach to communications.  The iPhone 4 debacle is a textbook example.

Of course if I’m going to explain further, it’s helpful to detail the chronology.  That means going back to April, 2010.  I’ll even spread the source love around:

Skewing Positive

Other than Akademy 2010 postings, the content here has admittedly been largely negative lately.

When I re-read that statement it sounds so passive, as if the blog writes itself without my input.

I can lay the blame for the trending tone here on the subjects, especially Nokia, for inspiring such downward feelings… but ultimately a writer has to decide how to approach a topic.  Cynical sorts will label perspective-finding as “spin” but perish the thought– I can speak Marketinian with the best of them but it’s not my primary language.  That would be Geekese.

Anyway it’s time to analyze the landscape, shift gears again and get back to contributing more toward solutions than problems.  Stay tuned.

Akademy 2010: Day 5

I didn’t have much to report for days 3 and 4, sorry.  I had planned to attend the Qt workshops on day 3 but got engaged in a really fascinating offline discussion with Nokia’s Knut Yrvin instead.  Day 4 I spent in my gracious host’s apartment suffering from some bug of the human variety.

Today I felt a little better which was good, because I was highly interested in attending the NEPOMUK workshops.

Akademy 2010: Day 2

I just sat through a talk by Aaron Seigo where he outlined the challenges for KDE.  Very stimulating discussion.

As a newcomer to KDE I was struck by the singular fact that nothing he said was new per se.  When he kidded the community for falling short with documentation and global teaming I was put in mind of our similar struggles in Maemo.  So in one sense it was refreshing that that we weren’t the only ones to battle managerial sort of demons and in another frustrating in that his points appear to reinforce the idea that open source communities can’t establish the same degree of discipline as corporate efforts.

Akademy 2010: Day 1

I’m typing this up toward the end of Akademy 2010‘s day 1 in beautiful Tampere, Finland, so please forgive any signs of weariness.

The day began with Valtteri Halla promoting Meego and demonstrating how the project has already benefitted KDE, Akademy’s coordinating organization, with upstream development for KOffice and other applications.  From there came talks along the tracks of community and mobility, including mine on user engagement (presentation on slideshare; project site here).  Even Maemo was mentioned!

I was nervous about my talk but while it didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked, it wasn’t the disaster I feared either.  I’ll take that.  😉

An Open Letter to Nokia for 2010

Dear Nokia,

I’ve retreated a bit from cheerleading for you lately and in case there was any concern, I want to make something clear:

I still love you.

After all, we go back a long way.  In the 1990s when things looked rough at The Stanley Works (now Stanley Black and Decker) I looked around to identify other employment prospects just in case.  My research had been directing me to logistics and your US manufacturing/distribution facility in Fort Worth, Texas (now gone, sadly) quickly became a top candidate.  And when Stanley decided to cut our US operations to the bone in 2002, you were the first to which I eagerly applied.  I was encouraged that it was easy to talk to a human being in hiring departments, but discouraged that you cancelled opportunities almost as fast as you opened them… that’s how fast your business needs changed I found out.

Will 2011 be make-or-break for Nokia?

As many know I was recently privileged to attend the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2010 in San Francisco, California.  After running out of juice trying to maintain community enthusiasm at maemo.org while simultaneously whipping it up for MeeGo, I was reinvigorated by the fresh energy permeating the conference.  Seeing old acquaintances again, finally greeting others in person for the first time and making new friends always helps… as did the endless talks at various pubs and eateries about MeeGo’s future.

One aspect that renewed my faith was that even though 2009 did not turn out to be the breakthrough for open source that I had hoped, it looks like 2010 is setting the stage for this to be the case in 2011.  For one, Nokia and Intel’s MeeGo venture strengthens the possibilities in my opinion.  True, proprietary solution drivers are hardening their positions more now than ever, setting the stage for an eventual showdown that’s long overdue– but I expect open source to ultimately prevail and allow us to move past that exhausting argument and into the next awaiting world.

But even with its 5-year Maemo (along with Moblin) legacy, MeeGo still represents a beginning of sorts, and it will indeed be 2011 at least before it truly bears fruit– especially if recent product launches are any example.  Meanwhile, what else will Nokia be doing to ensure its continued relevance?