So Mike Maddaloni tells me that it’s been six whole months since Nokia brough a rag-tag bunch of geeks (including me) in Helsinki by Nokia for Nokia Open Lab 2008. Toward the end, I remember someone saying that if only we had had another couple days, we could’ve mapped-out Nokia’s entire strategy for the next year. Well, I think that if we had had any idea of what to expect, we wouldn’t have needed another few days to do that.

For one, I wish I’d known what to expect so that I could’ve scheduled a few video interviews in advance. It’s not every day that you get access to a pool of both Nokia execs and some really forward thinking bloggers from around the world. Then again, with everything that went down, I imagine that scheduling more than a couple interviews would’ve been hell.

All in all, the experienced really changed the way I think about social media and the web. For starters, it taught me that the web and desktops/laptops are not inextricably linked. More importantly, though, it made me realized that, insofar as social media is about people connecting and sharing with other people, the mobile web is going to be a hell of a lot more important than I think most of us realize. In a word, the mobile web will merge the internet and physical world, making for a much more tribal web:

The social web [...] made it possible for people to transcend a physical divide and come together to form a community. What it didn’t do, was afford them the physical experience of community participation.

The mobile web is going to close much of that gap. It will enable to transcend the physical divide when forming and joining communities, but still have some physical experience by including our physical environment in our community interactions.

Other things I learned included (1) don’t trust baggage handlers at Charles de Gaul with your luggage, (2) no matter how Irish you think you are, never try to out-drink a Finn, and (3) keep a close eye on your drink when Estonian hookers are lurking in the club (Nick Bouton can back me on this one).

In any case, here’s the official video diary of the event produced by Nokia. And if you have troube getting it to load, you can always check it out here.

Update: The Akoha cards go to Meg from Finland because (1) she told a bad joke, and (2) bad jokes are the dirtiest jokes.

So I held this contest, and now I’m ready to discuss the winner. Merry Christmas…

iPhone Version