I caught this on Gizmodo last week, where Sony apparently invited several bloggers and other news outlets to a round table discussion/session, focused on the Playstation 3. The console hasn’t been selling well (it never did, I remember this past holiday season seeing stacks of them on Best Buy’s floor), and Sony knows why. More importantly, they called together some various key people outside the company to let them know that Sony knows why, and knows how to fix it. Great. What wasn’t told is whether or not Sony asked these key media folks what should happen with future consoles (or pending PS3 updates, even software).
Meanwhile, over at the Nokia Conversations blog, they’ve announced that Nokia Pilots will soon be taking off (hehe), and if you’re not familiar, that promises to be a spectacular project. Essentially, Nokia Pilots will allow anyone who signs up (obviously there will be some screening process) to actually work with Nokia on future handsets and services. There’s an FAQ, but basically, Pilots aren’t paid, they’re just interested volunteers who want to help make Nokia products better.
This is one reason that Nokia does so well – they’re constantly exploring new ways to listen to and interact directly with its customers. Nokia also has its Beta Labs, which offers folks an early glimpse at different software solutions that Nokia is working on. Some have been graduated as public-ready offerings, while others have been ‘archived’, or shelved, with some of the feedback going into something similar down the road.
Time will tell how well Nokia Pilots actually does, but it’s nice to see both Sony and Nokia working to at least get more quality face time with consumers, rather than just throwing products at them, hoping something sticks.
Ricky Cadden 