Nokia Trends Lab day falls a little flat

Last week we were visited by Nokia Trends Lab.

When guest lecturers come in and talk to us, some students seem to derive a real thrill from asking aggressive questions in a vaguely superior manner – whether this is because they have a point to prove, a chip on their shoulder or they’re compensating for something rather closer to home, we onlookers can only imagine as we shuffle in our seats embarrassedly, staring at the dust bunnies on the floor.

However, Thurday’s presenters provoked a negative reaction in a much larger proportion of the audience and here, in a nutshell, is why:

• We didn’t have a clue who the people wandering around the front of the room were – one chap said he wasn’t employed by Nokia but he was involved with some music festivals – in what capacity, we were unsure. None of the other members of the team elaborated on who they worked for or what their exact roles were. Call me old-fashioned, but it’s nice to know the background of the people talking to you – it enables you to engage more fully with where they’re coming from and what they’re saying.
• We hadn’t really been told why they were coming or what a trend lab is. However, we did know that they had given Cardiff University some free Nokia N95s. Was this workshop simply part of the deal – we’ll give you free phones if you let us come and spin some spiel at the students?
• At no point did they explain what the N95 could do that another phone couldn’t, particularly in relation to mobile journalism, which I had thought was the central point of the day. But under the afore-mentioned questioning technique they did concede that the memory wasn’t great and that it would cost a hell of a lot to use the phones in their intended broadcasting capacity.
• The whole presentation seemed pretty ad hoc – I guess this was the vibe they were going for but it lost a lot of us somewhere along the way. Admittedly this was partially due to the sound not working (is the Stanley Parrish lecture theatre cursed?) but their intentions for the outcomes of the day were about as clear as mud. One would assume they were seeing us in the capacity of customers who can choose what technology to work with for our mobile journalism, however they treated us more like Nokia employees, showing us corporate video clips (with a whole load of corporate bullshit thrown in – hoorah for resultant questioning!) and basically admitting that any work that we produced would be owned by them to do with what they wished.

However, this is not to say that the day was entirely unsuccessful. Once we were broken down into our groups and let loose with the phones it was pretty fun, although a fair amount of previous knowledge was assumed. And of course it’s fantastic that Nokia has donated these phones, which will undoubtedly prove extremely useful to many of us. It was simply a sad irony that a day dedicated to mobile phones being used for journalism was so lacking in good communication.