Announcement: I’ll start heading Nokia Beta Labs
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.
Congratulations, celebrations!
Comment by Alexander Kanavin — August 31, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
Many congratulations - have fun!!!!!
Comment by Steve Litchfield — August 31, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
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.
Comment by Ricky Cadden — August 31, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
Many congratulations Tomi. I believe, that you will push whole BetaLabs further.
Comment by Tomas Batrla — August 31, 2007 @ 3:47 pm
Wow! Nice one Tommi! Well done and good luck!
Comment by James — August 31, 2007 @ 3:52 pm
Excellent news. I know you’re going to do a super job. Congratulations Tommi.
Comment by Rafe — August 31, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
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.
Comment by vioccc — August 31, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
Onnentoivotus Tommi!! (lol I hope thats right)
I know you will do a great job!
Comment by Darla — August 31, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
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
Comment by Alsiladka — August 31, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
Congratulations Big Boss!
Let there be beeeeers!:-)
Comment by horia stanescu — August 31, 2007 @ 5:41 pm
Big congrats Tommi!! I can’t wait to see what becomes of the Beta Labs in your hands.
Comment by Zach — August 31, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
Absolutely fantastic news, Tommi! Congratulations. A dream job indeed- enjoy it!
Comment by pseudofinn — August 31, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
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
Comment by Aron — August 31, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
That’s just super! I hope we will see soon a big changes in Betalabs.
I wish you luck!
Comment by Oliver — August 31, 2007 @ 8:08 pm
many congrats, been reading the blog for a while and this is well deserved….you wanna give me a job!!
Comment by rp — August 31, 2007 @ 11:08 pm
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.
Comment by Alexandr3 — September 1, 2007 @ 11:12 am
great news! best of luck with the new job
Comment by Momchil Karabulev — September 1, 2007 @ 4:53 pm
Great news Tommi ! Look forward to seeing more exciting stuff.
Rajan
Comment by Rajan — September 2, 2007 @ 9:55 am
Sounds really as an amazing opportunity. Keep the dialogue happening!
Comment by Raimo van der Klein — September 3, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
Thanks everybody
> Could the future participants propose some ideas for the format too?
You are most welcome.
Comment by Tommi Vilkamo — September 3, 2007 @ 3:53 pm
Congrats!
Comment by Henrikki — September 3, 2007 @ 4:34 pm
Ciao Tommi,
congratulation!!
Alessandro
Comment by Alessandro — September 4, 2007 @ 7:13 pm
Congrats! I’m sure your style of interacting with users will be a great asset to the rest of Nokia.
Comment by NickP — September 6, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
Congratulations!Tommi,you are great!
Comment by shelia — September 7, 2007 @ 9:54 am
WOOOOOOOW seriously congratulations, couldn’t be anymore excited for you
Hope you bring the best to Nokia Labs, you’re a great listener 
Comment by Rita Khoury — September 7, 2007 @ 10:19 am
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
Comment by Aron — September 10, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
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?
Comment by Tommi Vilkamo — September 11, 2007 @ 9:26 am
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
Comment by Aron — September 13, 2007 @ 10:46 pm
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
Comment by Aron — September 15, 2007 @ 11:51 am