An Open Letter to Stephen Elop

Mr. Elop, I’m sure by now you’ve read your fill of these opinion pieces.  Since your hiring by Nokia was announced, analyst after analyst has offered their view on how you can save the company from impending doom.  So I’m not going to regurgitate what’s already been tossed your way.

Instead, I’ll point out where they’re wrong. 

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. 

How Nokia can retake the US Market… and more

I’ve recently chastised Nokia for various failures, some broad and some specific, and I also promised to get out of the negativity rut and start proposing solutions.  So brace yourselves; the ride begins and (inspired by Tomi Ahonen) it’s a long one.

First though for the sake of those who don’t know me: I was a product developer, technician and change management guy who Nokia hired in 2005 to support process improvement activities under the auspices of Quality Assurance in the former US Alliance factory. When the factory closed I moved to a brief stint trying to bring the lessons learned into all American factories, and from there to a global role as logistics business analyst and application specialist.  Even though my last position was eliminated and I fell out of Nokia in 2009, the time spent in various roles helped me get a big picture understanding of Nokia’s challenges, particularly in respect to struggles in the US.  I think it helped that I brought in an outsider’s view– prior to Nokia, I had never even used cell phones!  (for you Nokia employees, I had an internal blog called The Long Tail.) 

With that out of the way, I want to share my perspective on how Nokia could improve its prospects here, for whatever it’s worth.  Few of these ideas are new or original, but they all represent thoughts with which I am in agreement and consolidate some of my scattered-but-related thoughts. 

What MeeGo can learn from Microsoft

I realize I’m courting controversy with the title, but for good reason.  I’m going to set aside any unsavory or otherwise questionable aspects of Microsoft business practices to focus on one that has worked very well for them and I believe can for MeeGo as well:

Developer outreach.

I’ve made it clear with this blog that the bulk of my information management and software development experience evolved in Microsoft business environments.  That naturally led to heavy involvement in Microsoft’s developer community, which included local and regional product launch and outreach events.

It’s no secret that Microsoft loves developers.  MSDN, Technet and the Microsoft Partner Network are successful examples of the company’s long romance with coders.

And one thing Microsoft does know how to do is throw a party.  I remember vividly the roaring 90s, when thousands of people packed the streets of downtown Dallas, Texas for the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 launch, each clutching free disks loaded not just with that cool new operating system but with fullblown Office as well.  And even when things slowed down after the 2000 tech bubble bust the parties continued, just a little smaller.  Great food, cool prize drawings, handouts of expensive software.  Oh, and key presentations too.

Geography Lesson for US Tech Bloggers

Since the dawn of civilization, defining the center of the world has been a Very Important Activity.  Great wars were fought to stick a flag in this spot, where ever that turned out to be at any given time.  Ghengis Khan, Alexander the Great and former US president George Bush all had different opinions on the L10N.  Various indigenous peoples have paid for its ever-changing identification by loss of land and gain of child-labored textile mills.

So given the constant confusion around this nebulous spot it’s no wonder many technically-oriented blog sites get lost… especially those in the United States suffering from a gross misconception of world view.

Never fear: this blog is here to help.

From piracy to policy

Yesterday I vented on the distressing Somalia piracy issue, and complained about the passive-aggressive policy employed up to this point as a response.

Lo and behold, today I run across this CNN article which indicates a significant change in the US stance.  We are now proposing a multinational approach that includes land incursions.

I’d like to think my little bit influenced the decision but I have to live in reality.  Anyway, the reconsideration at least looks promising; here’s hoping that whatever actions are carried out target the proper parties and don’t get into any collateral damage.  The last thing the US needs is another ostensibly humanitarian effort turning into a global public relations fiasco…