Announcement: I'll start heading Nokia Beta Labs

Fri, 2007-08-31 10:24

Yup. Got appointed to a dream job, as the manager of Nokia Beta Labs, effective tomorrow i.e. 1 September.

This is, by far, the most exciting opportunity I've had during my 5-year career at Nokia. I really want to use this opportunity well, and take the Beta Labs to the next level.

During the next six months or so, I hope to:

1. Get all relevant Nokia apps&services into the Beta Labs loop
2. Foster an active user community around Beta Labs, and encourage them into co-creation with Nokia (via redesign of the website, top-level blog, transparent feedback system, active two-way dialogue, etc.)
3. Foster "beta culture" inside Nokia
- removing barriers to releasing pre-commercial stuff to the Beta Labs
- getting lead-users (= top contributors of Beta Labs) more closely involved in Nokia's innovation process

Let's make this thing rock.

More later. Stay tuned.

Ps. here's a powerpoint slide to explain what Nokia Beta Labs is all about

Pps. this blog will be dedicated to Nokia Beta Labs for the next two months.

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Comments

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 13:46.

Onnentoivotus Tommi!! (lol I hope thats right)

I know you will do a great job!

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 14:14.

Excellant news Tommi!! Nokia Beta Labs was a cool concept but not properly implemented.

I hope you shall make the beta labs the way it ought to be ;)

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 13:19.

Congratulation Tommi. I'm glad that your career at Nokia is progressing quickly. I'm been following your blog pretty much since you started it and I'm sure that you'll do a great job at getting Nokia's developers closer to their custumers. Good luck and I'm looking foward to seeing what's going to happen to the beta labs.

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 12:16.

Congrats, Tommi! The beta labs is great already, and I'm really glad to see even MORE of Nokia wanting to engage (no pun intended) their users even more. I love it.

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 12:47.

Many congratulations Tomi. I believe, that you will push whole BetaLabs further.

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 12:52.

Wow! Nice one Tommi! Well done and good luck!

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 13:03.

Excellent news. I know you're going to do a super job. Congratulations Tommi.

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 12:05.

Congratulations, celebrations!

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 12:16.

Many congratulations - have fun!!!!!

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 14:41.

Congratulations Big Boss!
Let there be beeeeers!:-)

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 16:21.

Big congrats Tommi!! I can't wait to see what becomes of the Beta Labs in your hands.

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 16:26.

Absolutely fantastic news, Tommi! Congratulations. A dream job indeed- enjoy it!

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 16:59.

Congratulations Tommi!
I am happy for you and for all advanced users too.
Let there be a great constructive community!

About the way how it should be done I wish you wisdom. Could the future participants propose some ideas for the format too? I think it should be some clever mixcture of a ticketing system and a discussion forum. But as you said more about that later.

Best regards! Aron

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 17:08.

That's just super! I hope we will see soon a big changes in Betalabs.
I wish you luck!

Submitted by on 31-08-2007 20:08.

many congrats, been reading the blog for a while and this is well deserved....you wanna give me a job!!

Submitted by on 01-09-2007 08:12.

Congratulations Tommi.

well it's nice to see that nokia promotes whoi deserves it.
I hope you do well in your new functions and that this turns out to be a great and enjoyable experience.

I wish you best of luck.

Submitted by on 01-09-2007 13:53.

great news! best of luck with the new job

Submitted by on 02-09-2007 06:55.

Great news Tommi ! Look forward to seeing more exciting stuff.

Rajan

Submitted by on 03-09-2007 11:51.

Sounds really as an amazing opportunity. Keep the dialogue happening!

Submitted by on 03-09-2007 12:53.

Thanks everybody :)

> Could the future participants propose some ideas for the format too?

You are most welcome.

Submitted by on 03-09-2007 13:34.

Congrats!

Submitted by on 04-09-2007 16:13.

Ciao Tommi,

congratulation!!
Alessandro

Submitted by on 06-09-2007 13:09.

Congrats! I'm sure your style of interacting with users will be a great asset to the rest of Nokia.

Submitted by on 07-09-2007 06:54.

Congratulations!Tommi,you are great!

Submitted by on 07-09-2007 07:19.

WOOOOOOOW seriously congratulations, couldn't be anymore excited for you :D
Hope you bring the best to Nokia Labs, you're a great listener :)

Submitted by on 10-09-2007 19:16.

Hello Tommi,
so about the proposal for the structure I would suggest a combination of a "Ticketing system" - to handle proposals and bug reports - and a "Discussion forum" to acctually get the "messages" flowing.

I do grasp the complexity of your task, so I am not saying that one could just pull it out of a hat, but this combined system would be my proposal for the direction.

With best regards:
Aron

Submitted by on 11-09-2007 06:26.

Aron: actually, I was going to ditch the discussion forum. I have never liked them (too much moderation required, too much duplicate questions/threads, too much effort required to follow the discussion, etc). Instead, I thought it would be enough - and less confusing - to have just the blog comments and email as feedback channel for Nokia. If you disagree, please comment!

About the "ticketing system", could you elaborate in more detail? And how you could implement that kind of system with *very* limited resources?

Submitted by on 13-09-2007 19:46.

Hello Tommi,

I though of the mixture of the discussion forum and the ticketing system as a tool to handle technical reports and for managing incoming comments.

The ticketing system would put labels on the reports and comments, could be used for tracking the progress, reporting the status, document a conclusion, etc.
If you prefer the blogging style over a forum format, I suppose that is just fine, but I think we can agree that the corresponding werbal comments - arrising from the discusions about the beta comments - might be as important (or more?) than the documentation of the technical process.

There is the sensitive issue of the comment filtering, what gets out in the wild and what should be kept inhouse. I noticed for example that my propsals for the fresh feature wish list did not make it through and neither I received a rejection note. That should probably be handeled wiser in Beta labs. One of my comments was SDHC by firmware upgrade to utilize 4 - 32 GB memory cards.... Is it really that sensitive? I dont know... My suggestion would be to treat the bug reports and comments "private" at first, than use your blog to raise the best comments for discussions... Comments which are ignored or rejected - or kept confidential should receive some feedback, even if automated.to registered users. (whos e-mails are authenticated...)...

Regarding the ticketing tools, there are sophisticated free open source tools for ticketing systems. I could tell more about these but maybe first I will ask a friend - who is an authority in my eyes regarding ticketing systems (another Tommi by the way) - to put a few lines here with links to the best available tools. If I wont be able to convince him to do this, I will try to bridge the gap as well as I can based on his advice...

Best regards!
Aron

Submitted by on 15-09-2007 08:51.

Hello Tommi,

My friend proposed Bugzilla at www.bugzilla.org, which is already used also by the Maemo community. It is a free tool for handling bugs and technical reports. As Nokia is listed on the Bugzilla user's page and the Maemo development is managed by it, I suppose this should be the most practical choice for you too.

The discussion forum side is not that strong as I saw, but it might be possible to configure it fancier. However you prefer the "Blogging style" so maybe it is not important for the ticketing system to handle...

Best Regards!
Aron

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