Rebuilding a Nokia North America Presence

The surprising selection of Canadian and former Microsoftie Stephen Elop for new Nokia CEO has triggered mass speculation that the company has finally decided to walk the walk on this continent.  The invitation to numerous bloggers from North America to attend Nokia World 2010 in London pretty much seals the deal.

What isn’t clear however lies in the dust of details. 

Mobile CEO of the Year– or how to REALLY love your customers

When Corporate Executive Officers speak, everyone listens.  The only question is, what sort of reception do they enjoy?  Depends on the CEO of course.

Mobile CEOs tend to be a unique breed.  Brash, media-savvy and antenna-focused.  Like relative newcomer to the fold, Steve Jobs.  His Silicon Valley DNA made him perfect for Lord of the iStuff, so it should have come as no surprise to industry pundits when his zealous microguidance pushed the iPhone through any and all walls of resistance to success.  He didn’t have to rise up through the mobile ranks to achieve greatness there; he already possessed the necessary components, and so success in a new area was simply a matter of applying them appropriately.

But even as I objectively admire Jobs’ achievements, I still don’t care for his manipulative methods. 

Shopping on the go

I’ve complained before about the eyeball-assaulting mess of Amazon.com’s entry page, and now it’s time to go a little deeper into that rant.

A noisy site like Amazon.com can work well enough on desktop displays, but not so much on mobile devices.  Given that the mobile internet is rapidly becoming the default mode, fixing this soon is an urgent must.

Stripped-down touchscreen apps aren’t the solution, either.  They’re great for simple use but for people who require the full experience on-the-go, replicating that complete desktop functionality is a requirement.  The trick is how to do so effectively on a 3.5 inch screen.

Somewhere in the middle between dumbed-down apps and a wasteful web page lies web shopper nirvana. 

Play-by-Air Gaming

A long time ago in a DOS-based world far, far away, there were Play-by-Mail games.

I was involved in one called Galactic Anarchy, run by a friend and  business colleague, as a tester and (of all things) cartoonist.  The concept was simple: a turn-based space conquest game played over snail mail (and later also email) populated by several character types (“races”), filled with interesting artifacts and of course founded on certain rules.  Players examined the status of their fleets and owned worlds, and then issued commands to move, attack, defend and anything else the command set supported.

MID use case: mobile auditing and inspection

click for full-size image

As promised, I’m starting the series on use cases for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), beginning with one that may seem unusual to many: mobile auditing and inspection.

This particular usage hits close to home for me, or at least it did when I worked for Quality Assurance in Nokia’s old Alliance factory in the United States.  My interest derives from the two roles I held there, first as a data analyst and later as a quality engineer.