Post Nokia and Feedback

[matthew yeomans]

Hey all,

So Nokia Trend Labs came to us yesterday and some of you probably thought it was worthwhile and a number of you have already blogged and commented that it was a not a good day.

Let me throw my thoughts out there so they can act as a lightning rod seeing as I arranged this Nokia collaboration.

First up, Stanley Paris theatre sucks and if you can't get sound to work properly in multimedia presentations then you lose your audience.

That said, the first part of the day yesterday didn't make the right connections between Nokia's trend labs projects and mobile journalism.

That is my fault. I'm the one making this leap by saying mobile journalism could be an important thing and so that's why I wanted to get Nokia to help us explore how by giving us phones, showing us the simplicity of capturing video, audio e.t.c. and making use of a new arena - the trend labs site - to showcase some of what we achieve.

The part of of Nokia we are collaborating with is a marketing agency devoted to experimental media. It is not a journalistic venture and those guys don't know anything about journalism. So I apologise if you were all expecting more from them, and if it was too much marketing-speak but they were only really in a position to speak about their own Nokia Trend Labs project.

What I would like you to keep in mind is that this mobile journalism stuff is an experiment. Don't feel like you are being forced to do something that you think isn't real journalism or of no use to you. Anyone who doesn't want to use phones or get involved with any Nokia Trend Labs stuff doesn't have to - it's certainly not part of your evaluated work (there is other photo and audio equipment available for that).

Personally I think we've been given a great opportunity to experiment, play around and see what type of quality story-telling/reportage we can achieve with this new technology.

But hey, that's just me.

Let the comments roll!

[Charlie Duff]

I haven't blogged about this session: and although I think we could have easily done the day without Nokia being there, I also realise that getting the phones is a good thing, and that the trade off was that they come in, and film us messing with the phones in the afternoon. And - we did have fun with them.
Now, news journalism. Reuters are using these things. Reuters is a news agency. I think personally, one of the good things about the camera phones is that they're portable and can be taken places more discreetly than a larger camera. I also think they are considerably less intimidating than a massive camera/dougal combo, and so in that way you could get some great footage from sensitive subjects, which would be awesome. Think about foreign correspondance here for a start.

Anyway, as Tim will be aware, these are my more positive comments, and Iadmit to being disappointed. I would have liked, for a start, an in-depth demo of how to use the thing. Even the equivalent of this ad:

It was, in a word, a bit vauge. And yes, we were a tough crowd. However, I didn't feel like it was a selling exercise either. I'd want the phone if it did the stuff I really wanted...but it doesn't. I envisage it being something we might be handed at work and told to go do something with, rather than a personal phone. And I'd be happy to do that, like I'm happy to use the phones now.

[Harry Kretchmer]

Well, it got us talking!

[matthew yeomans]

Hey Tim,

Don't worry - I didn't think you were being difficult and I understand what you are saying.

My gut feeling however is that you will all be using devices such as these in the next few years to for newspaper/mag and even broadcast journalism.

I see it already with the pressures being put on newspaper reporters in the UK/US to get video footages to augment their online writing. Same with audio back stories.

So my desire isn't to have you guys be sold on one phone from one company - I couldn't care less about the actual phone per se - but to have fun now and experiment with a new form of digital journalism.

[Tim Sculthorpe]

Matt, I genuinely don't want to come across as difficult! I can see the potential in the devices and, of course, it's the job of Nokia to sell me their equipment. As a consumer I expect all sides to try the sell, that's their job, and I'll choose between Nokia or Sony Ericsson or Motorola or whatever when I'm in the market.

The thing I fear is style over substance. It would be all too easy to set out to make a cool little feature on a phone using the latest gadget to make it. It's perfectly possible, I'm sure, to make something great - but it risks being about how you made it and what you made it on.

The format of work should always be secondary to what the story is, to what the work is trying to say and do.

I would hope - and I'll freely accept I could be wrong here - that if I have a great story the medium becomes almost irrelevant. I'll tell the story and if it's good people will listen, read or view it in whatever form they're looking for.

[Elizabeth-Anne]

I do actually feel quite sorry for the Nokia people, because they clearly organised things at the last minute, and obviously were going to be very angled towards the corporate. However, I do think that their talk was very vague, even as it related simply to the phones, never mind journalism. And if you are going to talk to a certain group of people, you should at least make a little bit of an effort to have something relevent to say to them, even if it's not your profession. They're not musicians either, but I know they manage to sell their vision to bands.

[matthew yeomans]

Tim, you're not all news journalists - magazine work can be very different and much more feature based.

Anyway I don't want to get caught up on the merits/demerits of the lecture (as I've already said I also thought it was too marketing heavy).

However, they were here for one day and had to talk to 90 students. What they've given us is the opportunity to address exactly what you are complaining about.

So perhaps, rather than looking at this as a failure you might actually say, hey, Nokia Trend Labs doesn't get journalism and telling the story but I do. How can I use mobile journalism to tell better stories?

Or not if you don't think it's a medium that lends itself to your form of journalism....and that would be fine as well.

[Tom Knight]

The sticking point for me is not so much that the lecture was irrelevant (be it down to a lack of preparation on their part, or malfeasance as some folk are implying, or whatever)... hang on...

[Howard Mustoe]

I agree with Tim on the audience targeting point. With their obvious knowledge, I think with a little prep their lecture would have been very invigorating.

I must admit, I am glad they came, and playing with the phones was fun. For interviewing and ad-hoc reporting, those phones will be invaluable. I want one.

However, in all honesty we are journalists. We are almost bred to savage anyone we feel is trying to pull the wool. I feel marketing speak is pulling the wool.

[Tim Sculthorpe]

I'll reply here to save doing so twice.

I don't believe you did suggest that the Nokia's can do better than well trained specialist but that was the impression I got from a large portion of yesterday's presentation.

I accept that these people aren't news journalists but they were to talk to that group. We are news journalists and I don't think it's unreasonable for a presentation to be tailored at least in part to it's audience.

A large part of the Trend Labs project is to create art. That's fine, I can see the value in that, but I don't think that's what we do. They think presentation is crucial, that you can make cool, artistic things with your mobile. You can and that's great.

For them, I think, that is more important than telling the story. It won't always be that way but it as at the moment. There are fantastic opportunities here but I think we missed a trick yesterday. Beyond quick-fire video vox-popping for the web, there's not a lot more news value I can see right now - though maybe I'm missing the point.

It's useful kit, but I want to think about the story and how to get it. The phone is just a means to an end.