From Los Angeles Raiders to Nokia: meet Scott Jensen from the Media team

Hopefully everyone’s Monday is moving along smoothly, since over here at the Ovi Blog, Mondays mean it’s Ovi People Interview time! This week we have Scott Jensen from the Media team (that is of course very focused on Store) telling us what he’s all about. As usual, let us know how we’re doing: if you’d [...]

Hopefully everyone’s Monday is moving along smoothly, since over here at the Ovi Blog, Mondays mean it’s Ovi People Interview time! This week we have Scott Jensen from the Media team (that is of course very focused on Store) telling us what he’s all about. As usual, let us know how we’re doing: if you’d like to ask our guys and gals something different or hear from some specific Ovi people etc., give us a holla!

P.S. We need your help! Next week I’ll be interviewing Saara Bergström, a Community Manager at the Ovi Marketing team. Saara focuses on community engagement activities on behalf of Ovi. Her interview will be published here on Monday 10th of May. Let me know what you would like to ask from her! Send your questions to us in one of the following manners: on Twitter (use hash tag #ovipeople), send me an email at niini(at)ovi(dot)com or leave your question in the comments section below. Saara & I are looking forward to hearing from you!

But now, over to you, Scott!

Scott, how long have you been working at Nokia?

I’m in my 2^nd month here so I’m brand new. I’m still in the process of meeting people and understanding how I can help them. It’s been an exciting process to engage with people in our offices all over the world.

What do you do here at Nokia?

Right now I’m probably doing my best ‘sponge’-impersonation; I’m trying to soak up as much information and understanding of the company as I can (laughing). My formal role is to oversee product marketing for Media. Of these, the Store is certainly important, but we have a variety of Media offerings to benefit consumers and partners, so our focus is essentially content discovery.  We are, of course, also seeking to integrate with the other Ovi services – Maps, Music, and Messaging.

So the next question was that what other projects have you been working on at Nokia but looks like we can skip that…

Yeah, my Nokia history is not yet quite that long…

What did you do before you joined Nokia?

I’ve been fortunate enough to have done some pretty exciting things during the past 20 years. First of all, I wanted to be a sports agent when I was younger.  Most sports agents are attorneys so I went to law school and was selected to work with the Los Angeles Raiders (when they were still in LA).  With a passion for technology and extensive research of Mosiac and the early “internet” ecosystem), I was lured into joining an internet start-up after practicing as an entertainment attorney.  I essentially oversaw legal/M&A and later biz dev to cut deals with hundreds of sports, entertainment and music companies. This “sports and entertainment” stage of my career was pretty exciting, especially with the rise and fall of various “new media” companies. I also conducted research for motion picture studios at Nielsen and founded (and later sold) a sports technology company. Then, the current “mobile media” stage of my career started when I joined (and later ran) a Mobile Games Studio.  We quickly became the top U.S.-based game developer, and Mforma (which became Hands-On Mobile) recruited me to run biz dev and later oversee global partnerships.  During my 4 years there, I faced a life-change – my daughter Heather was born – and my wife wanted to move back to the East Coast.  So when asked to run sales and marketing at Vindigo in NY, I jumped at the chance and was eventually appointed CEO in 2007.

You already mentioned you studied law, but where exactly did you go to school?

I went to undergrad at Rutgers College in New Brunswick, NJ and went to Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles (because of their sports and entertainment program).

What do you like about working at Nokia?

The thing that really strikes me is the diversity. I really love the exchange of new ideas and perspectives, whether it arises from someone’s past experiences or where they were brought up geographically. So I really enjoy the bringing together of new ideas that happens here at Nokia.

What makes you passionate about Ovi?

For years now everyone has talked about how the mobile phone is the most personal thing people carry with them. In most cases you have it with you 24-7. And to me, what Ovi is in both concept and ultimately in execution, is bringing together everything of value to consumers – ranging from location & GPS-based services to improved device interfaces to the entertainment and media capabilities so you can effectively make use of them at all times. I think Ovi will enable collaboration among the services within Nokia to reach a deeper level of community engagement for consumers and really change the way people think and interact. I think Ovi has the potential to really impact people as much as they have been impacted by other groundbreaking technologies that we’ve seen in the past 25 years.

What word is the first word that comes to your mind when you think about Ovi?

Open.

What’s your favourite thing you’ve downloaded from Store? Why?

Well, I have favorites on each device…  Angry Birds on the N900 is really fun and addictive.  On the E72 I use Shazam, because I don’t always necessarily know what music my daughter listens to, so when she says “hey dad, I like that”, I can find out who the artist is.

What was your very first Nokia device?

(Ed.note: at this point I noticed that Scott had a neat row of at least 6 Nokia devices on his desk that he had brought to work specifically for our interview. That requires some mad organizational skillz, yo) So my first Nokia was a 6160 for AT&T that I had back in 1998. Not a whole lot you could do with it but it’s a classic. And then after that I had the 3360 which was the US version of the 3310. And then this, 9210, was always fun to carry around… little large for the pocket, but definitely a lot of fun. It had a good keyboard and the operating system was pretty powerful. Then, 2002 I got the 7210.

What devices do you use right now?

Due to the nature of my work, I have to try out many different devices. My top three devices right are the N900, N97 mini and E72. The things that I use can obviously be done across various devices, but I do social networking most often with the N900; N97 mini is really good for Maps, I basically throw my old navigator out the window; and then, the E72 has been ideal in terms of email, and I use it as my main communication tool.

What were you trying to find the last time you used Maps?

I think it was when I was showing my daughter on my device where we live, so that she could see our house on the map.  Ps. She was very impressed!

What are your top three favourite blogs/websites?

These sites I check every day: for news it’s BBC, for social networking it’s Facebook without question (although I want to get more involved with Twitter), and general entertainment it’s Pandora, Hulu and ESPN. I read ESPN religiously every day. For mobile, it’s sites like MocoNews and Techcrunch.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Spare time, huh? Well, what I should do is probably exercise more but what I actually do is digital photography (ed. note: what is up with all these photographers at Ovi?) and spend time with a certain 4-foot blond, named Heather. So when I do have free time, I do my best to make it quality daddy time.

What’s your motto?

Be wary of people that have mottos?

Funny.

Nah, just kidding. I would say for me it’s “Be prepared for anything”. I think that’s a good one. You don’t want to necessarily think that what you expect will actually happen, and if something new happens, you should treat it as an opportunity.

OK, and finally, is there anything you’d like to tell our readers here at the Ovi Blog?

Thanks for reading, obviously… and expect some exciting things from the Media team this year.  We want to hear what’s on your mind, so keep sending us comments and questions here to the Ovi Blog and via Twitter and Facebook!

Source : http://blog.ovi.com/2010/05/03/from-los-angeles-ra...