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.