WOMWorldNokia Meetup – January 07 2010

Last night I went to the WOMWorld/Nokia meet! Thanks so much for having us  – was great to meet up again, get to know more of the people behind 1000heads and WOM as well as the other bloggers.

Here are the photos of last nights WOM meet. I was enjoying everyone’s company so much, catching up with old friends and meeting new people, I didn’t get my usual barrage of photos that I wanted.

I got to London early, taking a nice (though unintended) scenic walk to the offices (cake in one hand, phone with maps on the other, hair blowing in the wind attracting confused looks).[Nelson’s Arch above, this was mine and Glenn Letham’s Landmark for the OviGoodThings event last September]

I’ve never been to the 1000heads HQ, but I knew it was situated at the heart of Picadilly circus, left of MaccyD (as said in email). I had the address in the N97 but that died and refuse to turn on. But I knew exactly where McDonald’s was as it was annoyingly closed the night before the onedotzero event (I always forget to eat when travelling and got to the hotel late…and hungry). Calling Lydia to check where the WOMHQ was, it turns out I was actually standing in front of it.

The office was pretty swanky, and not really the office setting I imagined. I got to the office floor and was first greeted by the warm friendly faces of Lydia, Katie, Adam, Robbie, Tom, Frank and Donna amongst many other people I hadn’t met before. Everyone was really friendly and welcoming and looked really happy, and introduced themselves to me.

Tom (front man of WOMWorld/Nokia, he’ll be passing reigns over to Chris when he moves to Canada ) gave me a tour of the offices, showing me how the 1000heads tables are divided for different operations. The biggest portion is dedicated to Nokia.

Since it wasn’t even 5 yet, there were still plently of people working and I felt bad intruding them by taking photos haha. I didn’t get the chance to take pics of the glassy meeting rooms or the other half of the office with the “big cheese” peeps and sofa/relaxing area.

The other part of the office is where Katie was standing. (That’s where the meet would take place, silly me I have no photos of that).

I was very pleased and surprised to see FrankG at the office (absolute legend of a man, I hadn’t seen him for quite a while – also MikeD)

Whilst waiting for the others to arrive, Tom, Katie and Shira (sorry if I got your name wrong!) kindly took me to the bar downstairs for a drink. Everyone upstairs continued to do some work (met James Whatley who was dashing off to a meeting)

Donna and Katie brought over a E72 and N97 mini to play with (and some other Nokia gadgets filtered through along the night). Below is E72 and N900. I’m an Eseries newbie, but the users swear by it. Gram for gram it’s one of the best mobile devices out there for productivity. Messaging/mails and that battery life. As usual, now being used to touch screens I started prodding the screen annoyed with its unresponsiveness. Hahaha.

James Whatley brought over (I think) the Nokia BH-214, a bluetooth stereo headset which you can attach your own 3.5mm headphones (but they do come with their own). Perfect for the audiophile who wants a bluetooth device, but their own set of high end buds for best comfort and quality of sound. There’s music/call controls there which is pretty cool. I think I’m gonna get one of these right after finishing this post as this is the kind of headset I’m after

It was quite odd meeting James Whatley and Chris Stobbs because I knew what they looked like but they didn't know me. Kinda like i was a stalker! lol. It was also very strange when other people knew my name whom I hadn't met in person before - either from twitter, from my nokia blog or having profiled me through WOMWorld 😀

Bear in mind that through out the day, I went to bed at 3AM, got up 5am, (to make the N900 cake), took a coach from Cardiff to London, and forgot to eat (I had half a plasticky omlette at 7am). Low on blood sugar, I didn’t have my thinking cap on so I just did not consider taking as much photos as I usually do. Worse, as I kept seeing 1000heads-friends and exciting new faces, I wasn’t even aware that I was hungry and was probably rambling and ranting too much [Hey, these WOM event things are the only times I can talk tech to actual people. I suppress my geek tendencies outside of this Nokia world :P] .

Even though there was food and drink there, I was too preoccupied chatting, and by the time I realised I was feeling “off ” because I was hungry the food was gone! The legend that is Frank, along with Op Manager Gemma and Donna organized Pizza! (felt really bad – it was my fault for not eating, I was gonna get something from McD, but they were really nice and got food!) All eyes were on the pizza when it arrived.

I was waiting for Mr Hell, Michael Hell, all night. Miscommunication with Dan meant that he thought Dan would come up to the Hotel first! When I found out he'd arrived, (and very excited to see him as he's one of the old WOM recruits, as is Dan) apparently he'd been there for at least 40 minutes! Even worse is that when I briefly went to take my scarf off and put it away, I saw Mike Davidson with Frank and ended up not talking to Michael H instead reminiscing with MikeD and Frank on the early WOM events.

Mario Kart

By the time Peperoni and BBQ chicken did their magic and I was feeling more normal (and everyone was getting more merry), it was sadly time for me to go and catch the coach :(.  And I hadn’t even managed to get Donna, Frank or Mike in any photos (though there are pics by the other guys – will link up their album below)

• Find Donna [Flickr] – Mike’s there too
• Frank (oh and me)

Tags: 1000heads, Nokia, WOMWorld

Category: Event, Nokia, Nseries