TechnologiesIt’s Monday, which means it’s Ovi People Interview time, y’all! July is already moving along nicely; is everyone already on summer holiday mode (or still working)? =) We here at Ovi Blog HQ don’t stop working, even if it’s wonderfully sunny outside, the sea is glistening all blue and inviting right outside your window and you can almost – just almost – smell the freshly cut grass outside Nokia House…
Um, anyway.
This week we had a chat with Elana Sofko who works within Media & Games. We share our love for the Smell Scanner app (what?) and she’s also had the most intriguing career in the broadcasting industry before joining Nokia. Read on to find out more!
What do you do here at Nokia?
I look after content strategy within Media/Games; from what is preloaded on device through to how we stock Store shelves.
How long have you been working here and what other projects have you been working on at Nokia?
I joined Nokia in November 2007 in a partnering role, and eventually found myself looking after the content for what is now Store starting October 2008.
What did you do before you joined Nokia (work + education)?
My career over the last 20 years has been in broadcasting & entertainment; most recently I worked with A&E Television Networks, the company that owns Biography, History Channel and other cable television networks, where I created domestic businesses in Digital Media. Prior to that I was one of the first employees of the company now known as Sirius XM Radio where I created the non-music platform and ad sales businesses. I was there from early-stage concepting in 1998 through to well after launch. Quite literally on my first day I was handed a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and was told “we told the investors we’d have 50 channels of news & sports & talk radio content—see what you can do”. The rest made broadcasting history and I am so proud that the majority of the work I did to create that platform is unchanged to this day. News Corporation came before that; I worked on a multichannel audio in-store marketing service for 18,000 US based supermarkets. And though I started my career in the workforce with some random jobs in Publishing and in sales, most of my after-school & summer job, college jobs & night jobs until News Corp as an audio engineer, primarily focusing on audio reinforcement for live events… I was a “roadie”; some of the performers I worked with are fairly well known, like folk artist Richie Havens, among others.
Education-wise, I have a bachelors degree in English Literature (mostly because I love to read… novels, not textbooks! 
that also resulted in a license to teach English Lit in secondary schools in New York State (from State University of New York at Albany), a certificate in Audio Engineering from The New School (NY), and an MBA with a double concentration in Marketing and Innovation Technology from the University of Connecticut (where I completed a master’s thesis on marketing microbrew beer in China).
What makes you passionate about what you do?
I get a charge out of the possibilities that result from disruptive technological innovations—they often trigger interesting changes in consumer behavior that are not always predictable but are always fascinating.
Is there anything specific you like about working at Nokia?
The challenges associated with being at the pivot point of the transformation of this company and knowing that what I’m doing now is a big part of this chapter in Nokia’s history—are both very attractive and exciting!
What word is the first word that comes to your mind when you think about Ovi?
OPEN
What’s your favorite thing you’ve downloaded from Store? Why?
Smell Scanner. I think of it as a “fart app for girls”. It ‘s a great party trick app that always gets laughs and my children think it is hilarious. Though K-Snap & Translate helped me last summer like no other app has when I went on holiday to southern Poland to learn how to cook local & traditional foods. It was much faster to translate signs and other materials quickly than using a phrasebook or any other translator method I had access to.
What was your very first Nokia device?
My first device was the 6820.
What device(s) do you use right now and what do you mainly do with it/them?
At the moment I am using an E71, which is my go-to device; probably because I’ve invested a lot of time setting it up the way I like it. I frequently switch to other devices to get a sense of the consumer experience on the Store & its content however, so I have an N97 Mini, E72, N900 and a few protos I swap in and out of all the time.
What were you looking for the last time you used Maps?
Ha, that’s funny. Not sure it’s suitable for the blog, but I was looking for the cemetery where my grandmother is buried, which is in the city she’d lived most of her life which I don’t know my way around in very well. My great-aunt had passed away and the funeral was there. I was too embarrassed to call my cousins to get directions so I used Maps to find it.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
In this order: 1) Enjoying time with my family; amazing husband and 2 young daughters, 2) live music, 3) cooking, 4) gardening—primarily vegetables—every year I get a little bit closer to providing my family’s entire produce needs on a year-round basis using organic and sustainable agricultural practices. Pretty remarkable I think considering I am originally from NYC and never grew anything at all until more recently.
What’s your motto?
Try everything once… the good things twice
Is there anything you’d like to tell our readers here at the Ovi Blog?
Yes! We need everyone’s help in sharing with us what they believe the coolest apps are!
Source : http://blog.ovi.com/2010/07/19/ovi-people-intervie...
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