Meet Antti, our Ovi tone-of-voice & brand expert

OK, two things. First off, we here at the Ovi Blog would like to thank ALL of our readers (yes, you!) for the positive feedback you’ve given in regard to the Ovi People Interview series! It’s been truly wonderful to read your comments and emails, and we promise to ...

OK, two things. First off, we here at the Ovi Blog would like to thank ALL of our readers (yes, you!) for the positive feedback you’ve given in regard to the Ovi People Interview series! It’s been truly wonderful to read your comments and emails, and we promise to make the interviews even better of a read in the future Also, keep sending those questions in for our future interviewees!

Secondly: this week I talked to Antti Miettinen, who works with the Ovi by Nokia’s brand & tone-of-voice (and is one hilarious guy!). We share our love for correct grammar (he used to teach in a university and I’m just compulsive) and he has one of the most unique jobs here at Nokia. Read on to find out more!

P.S. Jade: you sent us a question last week and Antti answered it, please scroll down further to read it

What do you do here at Nokia, Antti?

My job at Nokia is about developing the tonality and expression of Ovi by Nokia’s brand. We make sure that the voice Ovi is correct in all our products and throughout our marketing efforts.

How long have you been working here and what other projects have you been working on at Nokia?

I started working for Nokia in August 2000, so “I’ve done” almost 10 years now. I’ve worked a lot with communications: I used to work with, for example, PR and internal communications. One highlight of my career so far has been when I designed and implemented with a colleague of mine the complete re-work of Nokia’s Values. That was a really interesting – and very visible! – project. In very short amount of time we sent tickets to employees for a trip to planet Mars and got over 10.000 Nokians to take part in the discussion of what Nokia’s values in their mind should represent and how we collectively should live them in practice.

There have also been some smaller projects; we, for example, made this web game around 8 or 9 years ago about diversity – a topic we’re surely very passionate and ready to spend hours to study. Back then e-learning was hot, so the assignment was to create an e-learning lesson. But we made it into a game and it turned out to be really popular. The name of the game? Captain Diversity! He had a cape. And a helmet. A big helmet.

Captain Diversity.

Yes.

That’s easily the coolest thing I’ve heard in a long time.

Well, there you go.

I don’t really know how to continue from that, but what did you do before you joined Nokia (work + education)?

I was a teacher in the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. I ran and worked in EU funded program EU where I taught communications. And surprisingly enough, that’s also the place where I got my own degree. I started my studies in the University of Helsinki, but I finished my degree in University of Jyväskylä where I studied communications and some economics, sociology and psychology.

This would be a good place to ask you our reader question that came from Jade: “Wow. Rare position inside Nokia. I never thought that Nokia would have such a position like this. This is really great! My question for Antti: Did you ever dream of working for Nokia and of your current work as an Ovi tone-of-voice guru?”

Back when I was working in the University of Jyväskylä and wanted to get a job in a real business, Nokia was clearly my dream place to work. The brand attracted me and many others like honey. I believe you cannot decide what jobs you want to do next; all career moves are more or less coincidences. So while I never had wet dreams about developing the voice of the Ovi by Nokia brand, this is definitely in the direction I wanted to take my professional life to. (Ed.note: Tee hee! He said “wet dreams”!)

What makes you passionate about what you do?

Being able to be a part of Ovi and seeing how it grows has been amazing. I think it’s an honor to be a part of this experience. I also love the potential Ovi by Nokia holds: we truly have an opportunity to make something great, something relevant and something exciting with Ovi.

Is there anything specific you like about working at Nokia?

I love the fact that this group of people that we call “Nokians” is so diverse. Whenever you walk down the hall, you can see people from all corners of the globe. I think that’s extraordinary. Another thing that I love is that there are so many possibilities inside Nokia. I mean, I’ve basically crammed 3 different careers into 10 years and 1 company! You can do all sorts of things here and you never get bored!

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

Work. LOL! Ovi by Nokia is something that I think about pretty much all the time, mainly how to make the brand of Ovi more unified. I think I speak for many other people here as well when I say that Ovi is what I do and what I breathe

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

I download stuff all the time, but I get bored quite easily, there are some apps that “stick”…  Shazam is so much fun! Earth by Pizero theme is also really cool, it’s so sleek. I downloaded it some days ago to my E72 and I love it.

What was your very first Nokia device?

It was one of the ‘lighter’ (HA!) models of the Mobira Talkman series. Maybe just 3 kg. After that I actually switched to a Motorola, but very quickly I noticed that you can’t send text messages with that phone (you could only receive them!) so I was back with Nokia – model 1610 actually – even quicker.

What devices do you use right now and what do you mainly do with them?

I have the E72 and N97 mini. I actually use E72 a bit more right now, but I use both of them for email, calling, SMS’s, Facebook and navigation. I use the N97 mini a bit more for applications since it has the touch screen.

What were you looking for the last time you used Maps?

Well, yesterday I had to get home! I was in downtown Tampere (Ed.note: Tampere being big enough to have a ‘downtown’… how cute ) and had to get back home to Helsinki. I actually use Maps quite a bit, for example just some weeks ago I was in New York and I had to find this vintage store in SoHo, and Ovi got me there. I’ve also used Maps to locate myself successfully in the Finnish tundra (!)

What are your top five favorite blogs/websites?

I’m a total news junkie; I have to know what’s happening all the time. I follow BBC, Helsingin Sanomat… I’m also really interested in ‘techie’ blogs such as Engadget and TechCrunch. On behalf of my job, I’ve also started to look a bit more into different brands’ presences in the web and social media sites. … it’s been interesting to see how much their strategies vary from brand to brand.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I spend a lot of time with my family. I also try to exercise every now and then, and travel with my family whenever given the chance. For example just last week we were in Greece.

What’s your motto?

Hmm. This is not really a motto, but in my mind, you should always test the limits of the status quo and the “normal” order of things. You have to venture outside your and others’ comfort zone. In other words, you haven’t done your job unless people either love or hate the work you’ve done. Being in the middle, well, it’s not my territory.

Is there anything you’d like to tell our readers here at the Ovi Blog?

Thank you for taking this time to read this interview and please let us know what you would like to read from the Ovi Blog in the future! We want to make this blog an even better reading experience for you.

Source : http://blog.ovi.com/2010/05/24/meet-antti-our-ovi-...