Lifeblog

Alex bopped me with a baton - lifestreams, semantics, and tapping the next person

Henriette Weber Kristiansen and Duarte Velez Grilo have a little show called Geek Army Knife. I see it as a wander through the collective mind, talking to interesting people. One interesting feature of the show is that each interviewee needs to come up with who might be the next person to interview, sort of like passing the baton.

Alex de Carvalho was the previous person interviewed, and spoke about social objects. I was absolutely flattered when he passed the baton to me.

So, yeah, I got interviewed last night and it's already up. I spoke about lifestreaming and how it led me to thinking about semantics. I mentioned a bunch of folks along the way, including Friendfeed, Socialthing, Socialbrain, Lovelysystems, and Tagcrowd.

I've also names a few potential folks to pass the baton to, but pressed for my first choice, Stephanie Rieger.

Let's hope she accepts. If she doesn't, you might want to listen to the podcast to see if you made the list of alternates (and no offense if you did, I could only pick one and I like so many of you, heh).

Image from Philo.

Plug: Design event coverage on Nokia Conversations

Just wanted to say that, even though I could not attend, Nokia Conversations is covering the Open Studio event in London today (29apr).

We have two writers there, posting things as the day progresses. We're also hoping to get some cool photos and footage to share with everyone.

So, if you're into Design, come check us out.

Just wanted to say that Nokia Conversations is live

It's been a long slog, but the site is now as tweaked as it can get, so we removed the password protection and we're off on a new journey.

As with any site, we'll be adding and removing things as folks give us feedback. And I know you all will have plenty to say.

I want to thank everyone involved and those who laid the ground work for me.

Now I need to get dinner ready.

Link: Nokia Conversations: Welcome to the conversation

ESPOO, Finland - Welcome to the Conversation. This one, though, is unlike any you'll have seen before. It's being written, presented and hosted by people in and around Nokia and pulls together all the conversations going on around the Nokia neighbourhood.

UPDATE: Oh, I meant to say that 21apr is the traditional day observed for the founding of Rome. And while Rome wasn't built in one day, it sure had to start somewhere, by Jupiter.

Craig Venter giving a Long Now seminar today (25feb08)

Dang, I was not able to finagle a trip to SFO to see this talk. But, if you live in the Bay Area, don't miss this!

Link: Long Now Seminars

Craig Venter is on a roll these days.  He has revolutionized science twice already---with the human genome project and with metagenomic analysis of whole microbial populations.  He is about to do it again by creating a new life form with a wholly synthesized genome.  His memoir, A LIFE DECODED, is a thrilling read.  He has shocking new perspectives to report every time he speaks in public.

Last month in Germany he said, "In one milliliter of sea water, there's a million bacteria and ten million viruses.  In the air in this room---we've been doing the air genome project---all of you just during the course of this hour will be breathing in at least 10,000 different bacteria, and maybe 100,000 viruses....  This is the world of biology that we live in, that we don't see, where evolution takes place on a minute-to-minute basis.... The air that we breathe comes from these organisms. The future of the planet rests with these organisms.  And the question is: If we take over the design of these organisms, does that really shift the balance in any way?  Or is it such a small portion of what's out there that we'll only affect industrial processes, not the living planet?"

"Joining 3.5 Billion Years of Microbial Invention," Craig Venter, Herbst Theater, San Francisco, 7pm, MONDAY, February 25.  The lecture starts promptly at 7:30pm.  Admission is free (a $10 donation is always welcome, not required).

The Herbst Theater is downtown at the Civic Center on Van Ness at McAllister (inside the War Memorial Veterans Building).

Putting stuff on YouTube - Nokia Conversations' Channel

For the past year or so, Nokia has been posting product and other videos (and other media) onto the Web, albeit, here and there. Now, as part of my new role, I'll be posting a lot of things to the Web, too.

Indeed, even though we are building a site to put up some of our own content, we're going to make use of tools out there to provide multiple channels for folks to find and recombine the material we produce. We will also, of course, scour the Web for cool things produced by others and link to them from our site.

We don't have a name for the site, but you can guess what we're thinking. We also don't have a site, though we are in the process of getting it up and running.

In the mean time, we are still making and finding and pointing to stuff already out there.

Today we put up our first videos from the team (one of them embedded below), showcasing two phones that were launched today. As we produce more, I expect things to look better, feel better, sound better, and smell better.

Enjoy.

Link: YouTube - NokiaConversations's Channel:

This is the YouTube channel for the Social Media Communications team at Nokia. We'll be posting as many videos on Nokia stories, products, services, and people as we can get our hands on or produce ourselves.

Fjord designing sweet things for Barcelona World Mobile Congress

I was over at Fjord's Helsinki office, visiting Christian, who was in town. He pointed out that Fjord is going to have a booth at MWC and that they will be having a chef, David Royer, from Chef à Domicile in Helsinki, on hand making some cool sweet things specifically designed by Royer and Fjord for this event.

Ha! This is _so_ something Christian and gang would think up. Food and design and mobile and user experience in one place.

Someone please get a picture or video and send me the link.

(image from email invitation from Fjord)

Ah, a new conference schedule

It's a new year and I am looking at my Spring 2008 conference schedule.

This year I had no interest in CES or Macworld. I did want to go to Digital Lifestyle Day. But, again, I could not make it due to conflict and running out of travel days (watching myself).

I did find out today that I am more likely to hit other conferences, though now my _wife's_ schedule is conflicting. Bugger.

I do think I can make LIFT and will bug Laurent as soon as I know. And I thought I could make World Mobile Congress, but may have to pass. Ugh.

Not the same shutout as last year, but not so different yet. Hm.

Link [from last year's whining]: Lifeblog: There goes the conference schedule:

I wanted to go to CES.

I wanted to go to Macworld.

I wanted to go to DLD.

I wanted to go to LIFT.

But I can't.

Long story.

A few changes from my side

I'm leaving the Ovi team and shifting to the new Social Media relations group in Markets, Communications. The official start date has not been set since I have a few things I need to wrap up here on Oviland, but, barring any wild lightning strikes out of the blue, it will happen in January or February.

Just to be clear, I am not leaving because of any disappointment with the way Ovi.com has been developing. Indeed, the Ovi team is amazing, and I have done and learned quite a bit with them and have no problem working with them. Also, the direction of Ovi, and Ovi.com in particular (which I strongly influenced), is on the right track.

But, Ovi.com is a demanding mistress and she's worn me down. I just need a little life-work balance and this next gig, hopefully, is of a different scale and scope that should give me some more control over what and where and how I do things.

This is a good time to shift, too. Ovi.com has hit its first iteration (we're in internal beta). We've been well received by analysts and press and are looking to go before the real critics - the users. Also, the Ovi team is going through some new arrangements and some fresh blood is joining.

As for this new gig, this is very much in line with things I did before starting Ovi. I will be leading external social media activities, engaging with social media leaders and commentators. I will also be building and driving (as Editor-in-Chief, as it were) Nokia's social media 'hub' (for want of a better term).

Social media outreach was what I did in my Lifeblog days (the first team to do such in Nokia) and this is a great evolution from those days, this time with more resources, more support from the company, and from a higher perch. And the field has evolved in those years and I think there is potential for some innovation in this space, something my mix of publishing, social media, and service design might help me bring forth.

I am sure we will have some great discussions around this.

I'll be in SFO next week

Folks, I haven't been to the US since June. Feels like a dog's age.

Unfortunately, my schedule is packed and spread out all over the place.

In any case, let me know if you're around and I'll see if we can met up.

Maybe I should just do a bar meet-up, what.*

See ya!

*When I told my wife about the idea of just setting a place and time and notifying all your friends to meet up there, she's sort of now made it her main way to meet up with all our friends, heh.

Nokia Lifeblog on Wikipedia!

Heh, Hugo vK tipped me off that Lifeblog has a wiki page. And on that page you can find setting to your heart's content.

I think these settings can also be used in the web uploader on some Nseries devices, as well.

Way to go, Hugo!