I’ve had a few days now since the first-ever MeeGo Conference ended to jettison the jet lag and sort my thoughts, so it’s time to run through experiences there.  This will come from a purely personal viewpoint; later I’ll do a more objective analysis of the event.  Apologies in advance for the epic length.

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.

The current analytical buzz about Nokia’s mind and market share issues tends to be pessimistic, presupposing that the company has no chance of reclaiming its former glory days due to the unwitting tag-team onslaught of Apple and Android.  But this negative assumption arises from ignorance and forgetfulness.

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.

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.

It hasn’t been that long since many pundits, self included, read the technology tea leaves and predicted the pressure on Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo would end in a change at the top.  Sure enough, I was just pointed to a MarketWatch article stating that OPK had resigned and was being replaced by Stephen Elop, a business executive coming from Microsoft.

Own a Nokia N900?  Peter Schneider of Nokia Maemo marketing has a challenge for you: he wants to know how important multitasking is for N900 owners, and exactly how they take advantage of it.

 A new poll at talk.maemo.org breaks it down by number of concurrent windowed applications on the desktop.  The poll has a slight design quirk (it has categories for 0, 1 to 3, 4 to 6,  6 to 9 and > 9 apps, whereas 7 to 9 might be better for the 6 to 9) but it’s not enough to undermine the purpose.

So if you have not already, take a moment to respond to the poll and then post your typical use cases that either require multitasking or explain why it is unnecessary for you.  Your input could be valuable for future product considerations!

This effort has the endorsement of the maemo.org community council.

UPDATE: It was brought to my attention the poll has already closed.  I am very sorry that I didn’t notice.  I’m quite frankly surprised it was not allowed to run longer.  However, posting comments may still be helpful.

Filed under: Econometrics and Analytics, Mentioning Maemo, Mentioning MeeGo, The Write Stuff, Ways of Rocking Tagged: feedback, input, Maemo, multitasking, N900, Nokia, Peter Schneider, poll, survey

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.

I’m going to start echoing job listings for projects and companies I am tracking, and that of course includes Ovi, MeeGo and mobile computing in general.  The category, for those wishing to follow via RSS, will be Employing Opportunity.

In that spirit, here’s an attractive one: “Senior Product Manager, MeeGo Operation-PRO00000031“.  The description is as follows:

MeeGo Devices is where Nokia builds mobile computers on Linux. We build leading-edge devices by combining the most powerful hardware and the best open source software technologies. Our ambition is to deliver a superior user experience dedicated for mobile computers with large touch-screens that fit into your pocket. Using agile development methods and engaging with open source communities define our new way of working. Our latest product is the Nokia N900 – a high-performance mobile computer with powerful multitasking capabilities, fantastic web browser, and a rich media experience. Get to know everything about MeeGo at http://www.meego.com

Besides strong personal charisma and ability to influence, success in this role requires excellent leadership skills, strong strategic thinking skills and excellent negotiation and communication skills. With more than 6 years of experience in similar R&D or product management functions already under your belt, you have a proven your ability to execute in a turbulent environment. We also expect you to have experience from Linux-based open source projects. Take your career to a totally new level by applying today!

As a Senior Product Manager in Nokia’s MeeGo.com operation you will be responsible for driving Nokia’s product and software platform agenda in the MeeGo SW platform creation with Nokia, Intel and the community. You will ensure competitiveness of the MeeGo SW platform in a setup where decision-making is essentially based on your ability to sell your ideas and capability to convince others of the benefits for the whole community, rather than on a formal organizational position. You will need to form a consolidated view of MeeGo building blocks and roadmap with the Nokia MeeGo Product Planning team and to agree on that with Intel representatives or other community members. Also, you will execute a set of front-end product processes (e.g. roadmap process) for steering and managing the development of the MeeGo software platform from Nokia’s perspective. You will report to Head of MeeGo Product Planning Operations.

If I were able to relocate and had just a bit more directly-relevant experience this is the sort of position I would target myself.  I’m sure that Nokia will have no trouble finding candidates.

The position is intended for Helsinki, Finland.  For those interested, the listing can be found here: http://nokia.taleo.net/careersection/10120/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=623606

Filed under: Employing Opportunity, Mentioning Maemo, Mentioning MeeGo, The Cat Corral, The Process and Product Frontier Tagged: Finland, Helsinki, manager, MeeGo, Nokia, product

Does this look familiar?

After my post-mortem on the Nokia N900 microUSB failure fiasco I received an interesting offer from Nokia: collect the Care experiences in a clear, objective format, and the situation(s) would be investigated.

An offer I can’t refuse.

To start this off, I am reintroducing the survey that galvanized the maemo.org community.  That survey has closed but had collected a significant amount of data beforehand.  The challenge here is to bring respondents back to the table.  Even more critical, to obtain a reasonably accurate picture of the problem’s scope we really need response from as many people as possible, especially those not having any problems.  More on that later in the article. 

The survey:

View This Poll
Market Research

For those who either encountered unreasonable difficulty getting proper service, or had no success at all, please provide the following in comments here:

• Mode of failure
• Country of purchase
• Months of use
• Did you file off and/or compress male connector prongs?
• Care center(s) involved
• Details of Care experience (number of service attempts, escalation, if satisfaction survey was sent to you, etc)

Please limit responses to objective descriptions to make reporting and analysis easier.  I will also be collecting what I can from previous postings.

Now, I can’t promise a positive outcome for everyone currently frustrated by service difficulties or outright refusal, but I can guarantee nothing will improve without trying.  Hopefully Nokia is serious about addressing the inconsistent and often poor N900 customer support experience so far.

You can of course help: spread a link to this post far and wide.  Tweet and retweet the message.  The more people respond, the more accurate and useful the data can be.

On a broader note: I wasn’t surprised to learn this issue is affecting other companies such as HTC.  Any manufacturer who elects to use a surface-mount connector for charging and/or data transfer is asking for trouble in my educated opinion.  Interestingly, leaked photos of the Nokia “N9″ indicate through-hole mounting for its microUSB port (far right side of linked picture).  This may well turn out to be an instance of one company learning from its mistake, and setting itself apart from competitors in an unglamorous but highly useful way.  This will be critical as Nokia seeks to retain current customers and gain new ones.  There’s been a lot to forgive.

Additional resources and references:

Nokia discussion thread where issue is formally acknowledged

Filed under: Addressing Retention, Delivering Quality, Mentioning Maemo, Mentioning MeeGo, The Write Stuff, Unusability, Ways of Rocking Tagged: CARE, customer, customers, failure, N900, Nokia, poll, service, survey, usb