It was 10 years ago this week that several mobile phone enthusiasts from across the US gathered at a beach house to create a video for a specific device. What was commonplace back then is perhaps unusual now. I’d like to tell the story of the making of this video and a time when the world was a little different from now.

The scene was Sunset Beach in Huntington Beach, California. The place was a rented, multi-story beach house with an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. Myself and several others converged from across the country on Friday night, and a number of others from Southern California joined us the next morning. This was all under the careful orchestration of WOMWorld/Nokia, which was the name of Nokia’s word of mouth (aka WOM) marketing program run by 1000heads, a global word of mouth agency. The trio who were our hosts and managed the weekend’s events from 1000heads were from London.

The task, if we chose to accept it, was to make a promotional video for the newly released Nokia E73 Mode mobile device, which was exclusively being offered through T-Mobile in the US. The device, as shown here, had a full keyboard and ran the Symbian operating system. It was similar to the E71 and E72, the latter I already owned. The name “Mode” came from the ability where you could switch between different modes, such as work and personal, and have a different screen setup and layout, as well as separate email accounts in each mode. Where today we may setup separate screens with like app icons, at the time it was an innovative idea. The full QWERTY keyboard was a nice feature as well, something not seen these days with the move to “black slab” devices.

Allow me to share the end result of this, the Nokia E73 Mode video that was created, and if you don’t see it embedded below you can click here to watch it.

You can also read here my preview blog post as well as my recap of the weekend, both of which needed some recent editing as many links in the original posts no longer work.

Why even do this?

Many of you reading and learning of this for the first time may be wondering, why? Why fly people out and create such a video? Aren’t there other or better ways to promote the phone? Where these are of course valid questions, I’d like to provide some context and opinion, and not simply to justify a weekend away at a beach house.

Back in 2008, at the height of its reign as the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile devices, as well as the early days of social media, Nokia engaged with 1000heads on WOMWorld/Nokia. One of its main focuses was to get devices in the hands of mobile enthusiasts to evaluate and eventually promote online in the form of blog posts, YouTube videos and social media. This was an evaluation program – people were lent a device and had to return it, and no devices were given away. By managing it this way, there was no implied quid pro quo that you got a new phone for free and had to say nice things about it. In addition to the lend program, WOMWorld/Nokia held amazing events and activities around the world to connect with mobile enthusiasts.

This is how I got engaged with the program. In 2008 I was invited to Nokia OpenLab, a weekend retreat in Helsinki, Finland, just outside of Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo, where about 3 dozen people convened from all over the world to discuss connectiveness and technology, among other things. Previously I had not had heard about WOMWorld/Nokia but had blogged quite a bit here about mobile technology. Because of this – and to this day nobody told me specifically but I suspect it’s why – I was invited. Following this amazing weekend, I remained and engaged with the program and the people. I wrote several posts of devices I evaluated here, and participated in virtual events as well. Then, almost 2 years after OpenLab, I was invited to the E73 Mode Beach House, as 1000heads was to produce a video for T-Mobile in this style rather than the mobile carrier having a typical commercial created. Where I don’t know if the commercial was ever broadcasted on TV, it did get good traffic when it was posted on T-Mobile’s YouTube channel back then – this version above is from WOMWorld/Nokia’s still-active YouTube channel.

What a difference a few months makes

Where a lot has happened in the mobile device and social media landscape since this event 10 years ago, most of what change the direction happened within mere months from that August 2010 weekend.

A few months after the beach house weekend, WOMWorld/Nokia invited me to Berlin, Germany to attend the Microsoft TechEd Europe conference. Nokia had a booth there, and the big Nokia news was the E7 device, a “black slab” device with a full slide-out keyboard and HDMI output – all unique features in the marketplace. As no surprise at the conference was the strong presence of the Windows Phone, which by this point was far behind Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android. Little did I know that within a few months, Nokia would partner with Microsoft to create devices running Windows Phone, and phase out its Symbian and MeeGo operating systems. Making a long story short from there, it was the beginning of the end of Nokia mobile devices as they were known not to mention their world dominance, and with it went the WOMWorld/Nokia program. Where its Web site is long-gone as well, you can still find it on the Wayback Machine. Today in 2020, Nokia’s business is more in connectivity hardware and it licenses its brand to a manufacturer of Android devices.

This time was also the early stages of social media. It was celebrated as something new and unique and where many were on it, many were not. The opportunity to connect and communicate with people of like interests – or not – around the world was enticing and something I advocated for. But a lot has changed since then, and new channels and volumes of new people are using them, and the feel is not the same for me. I have long been off of Facebook and other social platforms and have even reduced my Twitter usage to a minimum. I am still holding out on LinkedIn to remain a professional business platform. All is not completely gone, however, as 1000heads is still going strong, connecting brands and their customers around the globe with their unique programs and experiences.

Deconstructing the E73 Mode Beach Party 10 Years Later

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Where the excitement and energy of the WOMWorld/Nokia program and the connection with hundreds if not thousands of people around the globe has gone away, what transpired with these events and people should still be remembered.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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