Is it time to subscribe to a printer service from HP?

Ever since my dad brought home an...

What’s the best way of buying a phone today?

How did you buy your latest phone?...

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that...

Meeting Simon Ainslie of Nokia UK

After a busy day at the Symbian Smartphone Show we dashed across London to the Nokia Comes With Music launch party.

(In fact I almost bought one of their handsets today when I was passing a Carphone Warehouse on the way to Earls Court).

There was a predictable riot of good looking young things queuing round the building when we poured out our cab and made our way to the crowded door.

Dizzy Rascal was, reportedly, inside already.

“Who?” asked Dan.

Ben wasn’t quite clear either.

Despite being in our collective early 30s, we, er… we’re old already. I had to look the chap up on Wikipedia. And then I found his name is spelt ‘Dizzee Rascal’. And his real name is Dylan. Think rapper, think DJ, think actor.

Lots of other ‘celebs’ were in attendance although, again, we — er — failed dismally in our attempts to identify them (“Is he from Holby City?” Is that the one off X-Factor?”).

Either way, Nokia pulled out the stops and presented a brilliant evening.

We did the sensible thing and filmed in the event reception. Initially we were hoping to chat to some PR and marketing chaps from Nokia about their Comes With Music strategy, but they did us one better.

Simon Ainslie was briefly available and popped up to have a chat on camera.

Dan and James couldn’t quite believe it. Ben was agog.

Why?

Because he knew his stuff.

We started off with some innocuous ‘what’s this all about then’ questions and Simon knocked out the answers without blinking.

As I held the camera I could see Dan and James thinking, “This isn’t one of those normal know-nothing executives that we normally chat to.”

Indeed we often spend a lot of our time trying to lead-the-witness on camera (‘this looks like a GOOD phone?’) because a lot of executives in this industry are 100% hopeless.

Not Simon.

We did two interviews. Once we established he could take the heat of a full Dan Lane examination, we got stuck in for a good few minutes, with Dan finally asking, ‘So, do you come with music?’

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they choose to handle that question. I think that’s why Dan posed the question. We wanted to see if he was real. Suffice to say he’s a top chap. You can see Simon’s interview most probably in the upcoming MIR Show on Monday. (I say most probably as we’ve got a heck of a lot of footage so we might need to stretch across two weeks for everything from today).

Thanks for taking the time Simon and every success with the Comes With Music launch.

You can, by the way, read about Simon in a recent Times of London profile piece. We’ll obviously need to get him on to the Mobile Industry Review Who’s Who in short order.

14 COMMENTS

  1. To add to this, seriously – Simon was a swell guy who really genuinely cares and believes in this service.
    Great interviewee who, as Ewan quite rightly points out, REALLY knows his stuff.

    Fingers crossed we get to see more of him on the show on Monday.

  2. Boy in the corner was insta-classic. the cross-over stuff since is, well, mainstream and all gold watches and fur coats. lame. Now he's head-lining a nokia PR party . WTF? — gotta take the money I suppose.

  3. OK. fair play.

    I did't really get into Maths and English, thou. Too much bling, bling, bam, bam, for me. MTV loved it.

  4. Boy in the corner was insta-classic. the cross-over stuff since is, well, mainstream. All gold watches and fur coats. lame. Now he's head-lining a nokia PR party !

  5. OK. fair play.

    I did't really get into Maths and English, thou. Too much bling, bling, bam, bam, for me. MTV loved it.

  6. Boy in the corner was insta-classic. the cross-over stuff since is, well, mainstream. All gold watches and fur coats. lame. Now he's head-lining a nokia PR party !

  7. OK. fair play.

    I did't really get into Maths and English, thou. Too much bling, bling, bam, bam, for me. MTV loved it.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recently Published

Is it time to subscribe to a printer service from HP?

Ever since my dad brought home an HP LaserJet printer (version 3, if memory serves), I have been printing with an HP. Over the...

What’s the best way of buying a phone today?

How did you buy your latest phone? I'm asking because I'm thinking about what I should be doing. When I was living in Oman, I...

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that next to nothing from Mobile World Congress would break through into the mainstream media. I was right,...

How Wireless Will Pave the Path to Neobank Profitability

I'm delighted to bring you an opinion piece from Rafa Plantier at Gigs.com. I think it's particularly relevant given the recent eSIM news from...

An end of an era: Vodafone UK turns off 3G services

I thought it was worthwhile highlighting this one from the Vodafone UK team. For so long - for what feels like years, seeing the...

Mobile World Congress: Did the mainstream media notice?

I resolved this year to make sure I wrote something - anything - about Mobile World Congress, the huge mobile industry trade show taking...