September 12, 2025 • 33 mins
Please join me in celebrating the 44th, and final episode of Season 1, with a very, very special guest. We'll be back soon with more stories of innovation and entrepreneurship from founders, CEO's and Product Leaders of disruptive and innovative products. - Nathan C.
Leslie Shannon, Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting at Nokia, reveals how a 160-year-old company continues to lead by relentlessly adapting, trend-spotting, and cultivating innovation.
From sawmills and rubber boots to Bell Labs AI and immersive virtual meeting agents, Leslie shows why the “pipes and infrastructure” backstage of global connectivity are more innovative—and more fun—than most people imagine.
Key Takeaways
- Reinvention DNA: Nokia constantly reinvents itself by leveraging core expertise, enabling pivots from sawmills to global telecom infrastructure and beyond.
- Enterprise Innovation: Leslie’s trend scouting bridges the worlds of customers, executives, and technologists by bringing outside insights directly into product and network strategies.
- AI With Safety Nets: Nokia’s unique approach to generative AI—using models for internal efficiency while assuring staff they’ll never be replaced by AI—demonstrates a future-forward, humane corporate playbook.
- Infrastructure as Opportunity: True innovation—whether in network tech, XR, or AI—is built on the patient, modular assembly of “building blocks” and is tested through customer feedback, not just internal enthusiasm.
- Tools for Human Collaboration: Shannon spotlights Arthur, a VR meeting tool with an AI moderator that streamlines feedback, crystallizes friction points, and helps teams focus on creative solutions instead of wasting time on consensus-building.
Leslie’s journey weaves together Nokia’s multi-generational legacy with modern foresight. She surfaces blind spots, diffuses hype with real customer needs, and ensures Nokia (and its customers) make bets that prepare them for what’s next, not just what’s now.
About Leslie Shannon
Leslie Shannon is the Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting for Nokia. A Silicon Valley-based futurist, she focuses on identifying connectivity-related tech disruptions and opportunities, including developments in robotics, drones, visual analytics, cloud gaming, generative AI, and especially augmented and virtual reality, the foundations of the Metaverse.
Leslie has a BA from the University of Virginia, a Master’s Degree from Yale University, and was a five-time champion on Jeopardy!. She does all her daily fitness work in virtual reality.
Leslie is the author of Interconnected Realities, a look at the current and future development of the Metaverse, and, with Catherine D. Henry, Virtual Natives, an examination of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s use of digital technologies is revolutionizing how humans relate to both computers and each other.
A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.
At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.
In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.
If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nathan C (00:00):
Hello and welcome to The Tech Glow Up Fabulous
conversations with innovativeminds.
I'm talking today with LeslieShannon, Head of Trend and
Innovation Scouting at Nokia.
Leslie, it is a distinctpleasure to chat with you today.
Thank you for joining me on TheTech Glow Up.
Leslie Shannon (00:17):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
It's always a pleasure to have achat with you.
Nathan C (00:20):
Oh my goodness! This is going to be such a juicy
conversation.
I feel like we need to just jumpright in.
If our topic today is trends,innovation and solving network
scale problems at 160 year oldcompany, can you first, start us
off by introducing yourself andthe work that you do at Nokia?
Leslie Shannon (00:40):
Yeah! Sure.
Well, actually, since youmentioned the age of the
company, I guess I will startwith Nokia.
Nokia is 160 years old.
It started with, sawmills in theFinnish woods.
And then it went into, rubberproducts in the 1890s.
And then because they were doingrubber, they started getting
into, the insulation forelectrical wires in the 1920s.
And that's actually got thebridge to them to electronics.
(01:02):
And so they actually got into,building TVs and computers and
all kinds of things until 1990when, the wall came down.
Finland at that point was,walking a delicate balance
between the Soviet Union and theWest.
And so most of their productshad actually gone to the Soviet
Union, which is why we in theWest had not really heard of
Nokia before that.
But then the wall came down, theSoviet Union collapses.
(01:24):
People in Russia have no moneyto buy anything.
Nokia's business collapses, andthey ended up selling off all of
these different things.
They made car tires, they maderubber boots, all these
different things.
They sold them all off.
Double down on mobile phones atthat moment,'cause it was a new
industry.
The reason I mentioned this isthat Nokia is a company that has
reinvented itself every fewdecades for the last 160 years.
(01:47):
And, not everybody could dothis, but it is possible.
So Nokia today, you might nothave heard of us lately because
after we sold the mobile phonebusiness more than 10 years ago
to Microsoft, we continuedmaking, network infrastructure
equipment.
So we make the fiber opticcables, the base stations, the
routers.
(02:08):
All that kind of stuff to buildthe telecommunications networks.
Our main customers are the phonecompanies of the world.
I have been with the company for25 years and I've always been on
the network side so the questionis, how do you actually innovate
in a world like this?
Because infrastructure doesn'tsound all that sexy, and maybe
it doesn't sound like you needto innovate very much.
But as we saw with mobilephones, and like I said, I've
(02:28):
been with the company for a longtime.
And I was actually based inFinland when the mobile phone
business kind of blew up.
I could see in my, firsthandexperience that part of the
problem was that the mobilephone guys got arrogant because
they were at the top of theworld, Nokia was the leading
mobile phone.
They had all the market shareand they poo-pooed the arrival
of Apple on the scene becausethey were a computer company.
(02:52):
It was a terrible phone! If youlook at it as a phone engineer,
it's like, this is a really crapantenna.
Voice quality is not so good.
It drops calls all the time.
You know, this is not a threat.
But what we missed was that thisdevice that looked like the same
kind of thing we were doing, butwas coming from a computer
company.
It wasn't a phone, it was acomputer.
What Apple did was they changedthe device that was in our
(03:14):
pockets from being a telephoneto being a computer, and we
couldn't see it because we wereso blinded by our success and by
the paradigm that we had of"Webuild telephones, the thing in
your pocket is a telephone." AndApple reimagined that, and
everybody listening to thisprobably right now has a
computer in their pocket.
(03:36):
And right now, yeah, this is anApple that I carry! So seeing
that, and again, seeing thatprocess from upfront, it made me
realize that okay, even thoughnetwork infrastructure is big
and heavy and very capitalintensive, that doesn't exempt
it.
Because things can come fromanother industry that we are not
(03:57):
paying attention to'cause we'rebusy focused on our fiber optic
cables and the, the paradigm oftoday.
And so we need to be constantlyalert to what could be better.
And that means looking outsideour industry.
So I kind of self-appointedmyself, and this is the
brilliance of Nokia as acompany.
Once I started doing this andshowing the value, they made it
my full-time job to look outsidethe telecommunications industry
(04:20):
at things that are happening inother industries.
And it first came from adefensive place, right?
It was like, we don't want toget completely knocked out by
somebody coming in and solvingconnectivity in a different new
way.
I was working in that defensivekind of mindset for only about
six months before I realized,wait a second.
I'm coming at this with fear,but what I'm seeing is
(04:43):
opportunity by looking at otherindustries and understanding
what their developments mightmean for our industry.
They're actually telling us theroadmap that we need to be
developing our products for, andso that's what I do.
I go out and I look at otherindustries that have something
(05:03):
to do with connectivity, whichis kind of everything.
And so I look at new things thatare developing that might need
connectivity to be delivered ina different way.
And so I look right now verymuch at XR technologies, at
robots, at drones, at AI.
How are these being developed byother industries with other
products?
And what does that mean for usand our product development and
(05:25):
what does that mean for ourcustomers who are buying our
equipment to build networks tothen serve these other
industries?
Nathan C (05:30):
Oh my goodness! There's this very fun,
comparison of timelines that youdescribed.
In the 160 years of thiscompany's journey from like
sawmills you know, XR, AI androbots.
There is this interestinglong-term thread of embodying
(05:54):
that in a gold rush, sellshovels, right?
There's this connection to themoment.
What is the world doing?
What is the region doing in thismoment when people are building
and growing and like, we'remaking houses and, you know,
when we're starting to roll andfly, you know, we're making
(06:14):
wheels and tubes and I love thathistorically the company has
this, kind of DNA and culture ofmeeting the moment and adapting.
Leslie Shannon (06:25):
And the next big thing, the roots were embedded
in what we had done previously.
The sawmill work gave us theexpertise to move into rubber
because we knew trees.
The rubber gave us the,expertise to move into
electronics because we had beencovering rubber cables.
So, it was never like, oh, we'regonna now make lollipops.
(06:45):
It was always rooted in what ourexpertise was.
Nathan C (06:48):
I think it's really important and this equation of
how do you, mine your moat andI'm mixing metaphors amazingly
today.
How do you really take advantageof your moat while also take
advantage of opportunities thatare coming far down the horizon
and, this kind of nexus of yourrole, this idea of contemporary
(07:11):
trend scouting and innovation,for Nokia also being a bit of a
revelation, right?
Like coming from a pain point,coming from a missed
opportunity.
You had this ability to,highlight some data, bring in
some pains, and, luckily hadleadership and others who could
see this vision, allowed you tostart innovating within the
(07:34):
company.
So it's neat how, like, on ashort term, maybe some of that
forethought and, DNA had beenforgotten or wasn't as loud.
Leslie Shannon (07:43):
The way that it happened was, that I just
started doing it.
I saw that there was a need forit.
I'm located currently in SiliconValley and I had just moved from
Finland in 2015.
I came to Silicon Valley fromFinland.
I was still working for Nokiaand I was doing another job, but
I was like, oh my God, there'sall this Silicon Valley stuff!
And also I was like, you know,oh, I don't want us to be
disrupted.
So that was really where Istarted bringing this
(08:05):
information.
But the key, if I had just beenlike, Hey guys, I see a bunch of
stuff.
Do you wanna hear about it?
Nobody at Nokia would've bit,and I never would've gotten
executive sponsorship.
Being the innovation person,being the trend scouting person,
there needs to be a little moreoomph to it before somebody says
yes, that looks really good tome.
So what I did was I leveraged mycustomer facing role because I
(08:28):
do have a customer facing roleand I was getting in front of
the customers on a very regularbasis.
And so talking to the CEOs, youknow, of our phone companies all
over the world.
And I would go and I would givethe presentation, which was my
previous job, just, you know,here's this thing.
And then at the end I would say,hey, you know what?
I recently moved to SiliconValley.
If you've got an extra 10minutes, I could show you some
(08:49):
of the things that I'm seeing,if that would be interesting?
And everyone said,"Yes,absolutely!" So then I'd show
them the high level of, at thatpoint it was like how Silicon
Valley thinks differently fromthe telecommunications industry,
'cause there really is a prettybig divide there.
And so then what would happen islike six months later, the CXO
level would get in touch withour account people and say,"Hey,
(09:11):
can you bring Leslie back?""ButI don't want her to talk about
the Nokia stuff she was talkingabout.""I want to hear more
about what she's seeing in theoutside world." And it was the
customer leverage.
It was because the customerswere asking for it.
And because in the end what I'mdoing, yes, it gets put into, or
it gets fed into these things weconsider for the Nokia roadmaps,
(09:33):
but even more so, it helps ourcustomers, the phone companies
of the world, it helps them getideas about what they're gonna
do with the network.
And so it's this really weirdplace.
I haven't actually met anybodyelse who's in like trend
scouting or foresight who's inthis kind of, interesting place
where actually I end up servingthe customers almost more than I
(09:53):
serve my own company.
But the thing is, it'sremarkable for relationship
building and it helps generatebrand awareness and brand trust
and develop the brandrelationship because we are
investing in helping ourcustomers be successful by doing
this work.
Nathan C (10:10):
You just gave me about an hour and a half worth of
questions I wanna follow up on.
I love this! I'm having a hardtime not just like taking
everything that you mentionedabout building value for
innovative ideas within like alarge enterprise and like how
you tell a story by likespeaking to the executives'
(10:34):
needs and fears and desires.
There's sort of a marketingmasterclass in, any technology
that's just out there shoutingthat it's a new technology.
"Hey, we made this newtechnology!" Right?
Like, you're like, so what?
That extra mile of explanationof contextualization is just a
perfect corollary for like howso many technologies get excited
(10:58):
to tell you that they exist, butdon't give you any entry point
into why you should care that weexist.
That you just sort ofinstinctually knew or that you
were able to build that intoyour work at Nokia.
It really sounds like and thisis just me being impressed with
the work that you do, that youkind of act like, you know, a
(11:20):
three or four letterconsultancy, within this partner
relationship, you're kind oflike an internal Deloitte or you
know, PwC for the network.
Leslie Shannon (11:32):
Well and, we do actually have an internal
consulting arm, and I work withthem all the time, but they are
definitely more focused on theins and outs of the networks.
And I'm, I'm much more bigpicture.
Because what's vital here isthat I do have an understanding
of how the network works.
And so when I do see newtechnologies I know that's
something that is interesting,but it doesn't change anything.
So it's not relevant for ourindustry.
(11:54):
But that thing over there, oh,that one might change how we
build or deliver our networks.
And so that's something that Ineed to share.
The mental image that I have forthe work that I do is when I'm
finding these things that, okay,this is a potential input for
how the network might need todevelop.
To me, that becomes a buildingblock.
And so I'm always out therelooking around and scouting
around for new building blocks,and I'm kind of mentally putting
(12:15):
them on a table.
And then it's like, okay, I'vegot all these building blocks
now.
So if I put these together, ifcompany A is doing that and
company B is doing that, andcompany C is doing that, what is
the larger message that I canget about how things are
developing and what's the bigpicture for how networks need to
develop long-term?
(12:35):
Long scale and large scale.
And that's the kind of valuethat I can bring because I'm
able to start with the physicalexamples.
These things are actuallyhappening! I'm not making stuff
up.
I'm not imagining, I'm startingwith reality and then using the
reality to be the stepping stoneinto where do we wanna go?
(12:56):
If this is happening, is thatway the way we wanna go?
Do we wanna help this?
Do we wanna not help this?
it gives us a guidance.
Nathan C (13:01):
Thank you for that.
This is the value ofunderstanding what's coming, the
value of being early in a trend,the value in like finding where
the moats might be based on theinstitutional skills and
background that the company has.
Are all very important and theyseem like almost anybody would
be like, yes! Like you'relooking sometimes very far in
(13:23):
the future.
Leslie Shannon (13:23):
Yes!
Nathan C (13:24):
At next, next standards Network development
Leslie Shannon (13:27):
cycles run decades, right?
Nathan C (13:29):
How do you balance that, like long-term strategic
with making sure that you'remeasuring what you're doing
today so that leadershipunderstands the value so that,
you know, these clients can alsobe, leveraging it and learning.
How do you measure the value ofinsights and trends and this
long-term plan?
Leslie Shannon (13:48):
Several years ago, a colleague and I worked
together and we measured, if Ipresented as part of a sales
cycle, to a customer did it makea difference?
And yes, if I was part of thesales cycle, it was
statistically significant.
We were statisticallysignificantly more likely to win
the deal.
That's a badge I always proudlywear but I think ongoing, what
(14:10):
people are seeing and why I'mcontinually in demand is that
our customers keep asking forme.
And that's really the draw.
In fact, it becomes a problem'cause sometimes the customers
contact me directly withoutgoing through our salespeople.
Yeah, it's making enough of aconnection with the customers.
Customers are requiring this.
And that's the thing that isalways going to make our
(14:30):
executives say, okay, this hasvalue.
Because what happens is,sometimes I get a call from some
of our account manager, like,okay, we wanna bring up this new
network functionality, we wannabring it to the top of this
particular customer.
Can you come in and give apresentation about what you're
seeing?
And then that will get me in theroom and at the end, I could
give a 10 minute presentationabout this new network feature.
(14:52):
And that's win-win because, itdoes help our product guys get
better visibility with thecustomer.
Basically I come in and I talkabout the why, and then the
network person comes in andfills in the what, you know,
here's what you have to do toaccomplish what she was just
describing.
And so yeah, it's reallypowerful! But I'll be honest,
there are actually some, withinthe company, there are some
(15:13):
sales guys who are like, I don'twanna put her in front of my
customer because she's nottalking about Nokia products.
So that's useless.
So, you know, some get it andsome don't.
So I just, you know, over timeyou learn who gets it and you
work with them.
Nathan C (15:24):
That's so juicy.
This particular area of like howyou place value and how you make
bets.
Where does that input and datacome from?
The quality of your sourcesoften, relates to the quality of
your follow up products.
Leslie Shannon (15:40):
Yes!
Nathan C (15:40):
It seems like you've got smart clients who want more!
One of the things that youmentioned, that I was just
really struck with was thatNokia is always sort of a little
surprising that this old kind ofpipes and infrastructure company
is like always blowing up,always exploring and building on
these new trends andopportunities.
(16:02):
And you've noted that theinternal use of AI, which is
like the thing everybody'strying to figure out now, like,
do we?
Don't we?
How do we?
Where do we?
That you've actually got somereally, interesting things going
on in Nokia's institutional.
Leslie Shannon (16:17):
Yeah! So, in 2017 we acquired Alcatel-Lucent,
who is another network equipmentprovider.
But with that, because Lucentused to be with AT&T, we got
Bell Labs.
So Bell Labs, you know thisstory, which is celebrating its
hundredth anniversary this year,this storied place where the
transistor was invented, thefirst television stuff was
developed.
Bell Labs is now part of Nokiaand it's Nokia Bell Labs.
(16:37):
That means we have in-house, awhole bunch of really smart AI
researchers.
That was part of what gave usthe confidence to move
confidently into usinggenerative AI.
I didn't realize how differentwe are from other companies
until I was at an innovationconference, you know, cross
industry innovation conferencein Boston back in May.
(16:59):
And there are, you know, severalhundred people at this
conference.
And then they had this big roundtable, you know, everybody kind
of in the room contributing.
How is your company, usinggenerative AI or encouraging
employees to use generative AI?
And person after person stood upand said, my company blocks
generative AI.
I had no idea this is happening.
These people were saying, if Iwanna use generative AI at work,
(17:19):
I have to bring in my privatecomputer and use it on that,
because they don't want itanywhere near any of the
corporate stuff.
And I was like...
oh, this is terrible! So thethings that Nokia has done to
encourage and leverage the useof generative AI among the
employee population.
So there's two key policies thatthey set at the very beginning.
(17:42):
The first one is that nogenerative AI code should ever
be used in the creation of anactual product that we're taking
to market or any patent thatwe're filing.
Because we have partnered withOpenAI and we have developed a
RAG.
NokiaGPT, which is an open AIbase, and then we have the Nokia
(18:04):
information on top of it.
It's the open AI training, butwhen we ask it questions, it
goes to the Nokia data center.
That's how RAGs work.
It's still OpenAI's code is thebasis of this, and we don't want
OpenAI or anybody else to everbe able to come back and say,
"Hey- that's our code.""Sothat's our patent." Or"That's
our product." So we have tolike, you know, strong, strong,
(18:25):
strong guardrail there.
So we create this limitation, soeverybody, you know, understands
where to do it and where not todo it, but for internal things
like for coding and for testing,for you know, non-product
coding, for all this other kindof stuff, the second policy
that's in place is, anassurance, a promise that the
company has made to employeesthat Nokia will never fire
anybody, and replace them withAI.
(18:47):
That means that you are, as anemployee, encouraged to use AI
without the fear that you'retraining the system up to be
able to replace you.
Now, of course, it may be thatNokia hires fewer people in the
future because of efficienciesgained with AI, but the focus is
(19:08):
not on that.
It's how can you, as individualemployee 89,627.
How can you personally figureout how to use generative AI to
improve your work process sothat you can do more?
Because if you and all the other89,626 employees are using
(19:31):
generative AI and improving yourown work and improving your own
processes, the entire companybenefits.
That's the way that Nokia viewsgenerative AI.
Working carefully with trustedpartners, having guardrails,
making them very clear foremployees, and then encouraging
employees to use generative AIto make the company better and
to do more.
(19:51):
Yes! We love the work thatyou're doing.
Now- be creative! Try to figureout how generative AI can help
you do more.
That's really the message andthe vibe that's communicated out
to the employees.
Nathan C (20:02):
From the perspective of somebody who's had to ask,
like,"Hey, do we have an AIpolicy?" Do you have security
concerns about my use of it?"I've had to have these
conversations as a consultant.
Or from somebody who's been shutout, but knows that everybody on
the sales team is writing mostof their emails with it.
Leslie Shannon (20:20):
Yep!
Nathan C (20:21):
This idea of having very clear guardrails and like,
some cultural, you know, somepsychological safety and
encouragement to explore, Ithink is like a lovely model for
transformation in general.
I was actually just this week,and I'm curious if you've heard
or seen this, somewhat related,and maybe not at Nokia, but
(20:43):
other companies that you'vebeen, privy to.
Cory Huff, who's a marketing anda product, thought leader, who I
adore, had done some researchrecently and had found that a
number of marketing leaders arebeing asked to try to fill in
with AI before they addheadcount.
Leslie Shannon (21:04):
Oh! Wow!
Nathan C (21:05):
Can you fill this role with AI support?
Is a question that they're beingasked to sort of prove before,
as part of like requestingheadcount.
Have you seen, either AImandated, before headcount is
allowed, or other digital techthat's been used in a similar
preemptive way?
Leslie Shannon (21:26):
No, I haven't.
But I think what you'redescribing, it's a very similar
kind of approach to the Nokiaapproach.
Especially if the emphasis is onhave you tried using your
existing team to come up withcreative uses of generative AI?
The emphasis here needs to notbe on job shedding.
(21:47):
It's how can you reengage yourexisting team to get their
skills upskilled and to deepentheir engagement and thereby
into the whole process.
And so if the messaging is likethat, then I think that is
actually a pretty good approachor a potentially good approach,
depending on what you're lookingat.
But if the emphasis is on, nah,nah, we're not gonna hire any
(22:09):
new people.
I mean, the tone really mattershere.
Right?
You know, we're not gonna hireany more people.
Get AI to do it! That's adifferent thing! And of course,
we need to think about, the jobsof the future.
What are the jobs of the futuregoing to be?
I've got two sons in college.
What are they gonna do?
But getting internships whileyou're still in college.
Summer internships is like,what's going on there and what
(22:30):
you have to do.
And he's going to a good school,but it's not Ivy League.
And so he is having troublegetting interviews for
internships.
So he took a step back and hesaid, all right, I'm dealing
with financial services firms.
He himself is a computer majorand, and he's like, they don't
know what they don't know, sothey don't know what AI could do
for them.
So he created a proposal forwhat AI could do for these
(22:52):
private equity companies.
He segmented the market.
He thought to himself, okay,this is probably gonna be taken
up by younger people.
So I wanna find a company that'sbeen founded relatively
recently, that, you know, has abunch of cash and you know what,
whatever.
But then he created a proposaland he went out to his shortlist
of private equity companies.
(23:13):
And the first one he talked tosaid, oh my God, this is
amazing.
Yes! Come work for us for thesummer.
And now they have actually,after his example, they've said,
we've realized we need to hire asoftware person full-time and we
want you to onboard them.
So for those who are concernedabout what AI is gonna do to
jobs, you need to learn AI soyou can use AI to get your next
job.
Nathan C (23:33):
Absolutely! I think one of the differentiators that
like I cannot overstate is thisidea that if you are a company
with a gigantic data set, with agigantic workforce, with like
global-sized problems, using AIto understand and activate and
(23:58):
socialize your own data is afirst level problem.
That's like organizing andsharing data.
Leslie Shannon (24:06):
Yes!
Nathan C (24:06):
It's the same thing Google Docs was invented to do.
That's the step that everybodyshould take is start to
understand your data.
The idea, right?
That AI is taking jobs.
I've actually built AI workflowsfor my content production, like
how I produce the podcast and doall the social media that I
have, and I've actually hiredpeople to run my workflows
(24:29):
because they were so easy tohand off.
I don't need to give all thecontext to the person.
I need to give it to theworkspace that we're sharing.
I need to teach the model what Iwant, and then the tasks and the
connection and the processingthat all happens with the
people.
So I've actually used AI tooptimize my workflows and allow
(24:53):
me to better empower people tohelp me do what I want.
I hadn't considered that like AIfor training, means that like AI
just kind of understands andworks with that context, the
institutional knowledge in a waythat kind of just is input
through the act of chatting andbuilding the prompts and the
(25:13):
space.
So I've seen it how it makesjobs, rather than just replacing
them.
Leslie Shannon (25:18):
Absolutely! And this is true of all new
technologies.
The technology that we aresurrounded with now is nothing
like the technology that was inplay 50 years ago.
And every single thing that hascome in has, yes, it has
destroyed things, but yes, ithas created things.
And this is no different.
Nathan C (25:35):
From the perspective of The Tech Glow Up, right?
And the kinds of values andadvice that we try to surface
here, this idea of, that AI is afantastic way to do business
research, to build out conceptsquickly, to grow in areas that
you may not be strong in, but beable to act enough so that you
(25:57):
can learn and get that feedbackand in the hands of a curious
person, you can literally buildcompanies, build value, there's
so much you can build beyondfunny videos or, hyper-realistic
future portraits of yourself.
You can learn and test and grow,in very impressive ways.
Leslie Shannon (26:18):
Well, and I would tie that back to, the
lesson of how Nokia has evolvedover the years in that every
single, new kind of step up to anew plateau, a new level was
based in the expertise frombefore.
And taking that personally.
As you're developing your use ofAI, start with what you know.
Start with what your expertiseis, or if you're, very early in
(26:40):
your career, if you don't haveexpertise yet, at least, what's
your interest?
Start from that.
Passion matters! Passionmatters.
And, I'm passionate about newthings and about developing new
technologies in a positive,inclusive kind of way.
My son seems to be passionateabout venture capital, private
equity, but hey, you know,whatever floats your boat! When
(27:01):
you're passionate about things,AI and then using AI as the tool
to let you take it to newdirections that you have never
thought of before on a personallevel, that can be super
exciting and supercharge yourcareer and your engagement with
your career.
And then on a corporate level,if you can actually encourage
and harness all of youremployees, or most of your
employees, or even some of youremployees to be thinking and
(27:23):
acting this way within theirjobs, then that's how you take
the whole company up to the nextlevel.
Nathan C (27:28):
Amazing! Leslie, this has been a fantastic
conversation! We're coming downto some of the last questions.
And we always like to make anopportunity to give a spotlight
or give a shout out to somebodyor a group that you think is,
doing great work, whether it's anonprofit or anybody else
focused on impact.
Is there a spotlight that you'dlike to share?
Leslie Shannon (27:48):
I would love to spotlight, a virtual reality
meeting company called Arthur.
What Arthur has done is theyhave added an AI moderator into
the virtual reality meetings,which can happen either on a VR
headset or on a laptop.
The idea is that especially forkinds of meetings like
brainstorming, where you wannahear from everybody in the room,
(28:10):
and then you need to make adecision based on all those
inputs.
For that kind of meeting, whatthey do is they use their AI
moderator to interview everybodysimultaneously within this
virtual world.
It's like, you're talking toyour version of the AI moderator
and I'm talking to mine at thesame time, right?
(28:32):
So instead of taking 50 minutesfor the meeting, you get 10
minutes where everybody givestheir inputs, and then Arthur
creates a board where they say,here's what I heard from
everybody.
Here's where people agreed.
Here's where I heard differentthings from different people
that needs resolving, and here'swhat I suggest as next steps.
So for things like,"Hey, whatshould our next project be?"
(28:53):
This is brilliant! I cannot,cannot emphasize enough how
transformational this is, andit's one of the first uses of AI
that I've seen transforming anexisting process that we've had
forever and making itsignificantly better and more
efficient.
So shout out to Arthur!
Nathan C (29:11):
Heck yeah! Shout out to Arthur.
I use this example quitefrequently.
The folks at Arthur, love tocall out, you know how much time
you spend agreeing in a meeting.
Leslie Shannon (29:22):
Oh my God, yes!
Nathan C (29:24):
Right?
Listening to Leslie, listeningto Nathan and everybody says
like, I think the secret projectis a really good idea.
And you wait until the last, youknow five minutes of the
meeting.
And you know, a very smartdeveloper or marketer is like,
do we have the domain for the,you know, for the website?
(29:45):
The most important question, inthe meeting only gets five
minutes.
There are a couple things aboutthis that I love that I have to
get into.
I initially thought like, is afaceless robot asking me
questions, going to like make mefeel like I'm not heard?
Leslie Shannon (30:00):
Right.
Nathan C (30:00):
And I actually witnessed several meetings where
people took their time and youcould tell that they enjoyed the
opportunity to have one robot'sattention and the ability to say
everything they were thinkingabout.
The cool thing is I got that allsummarized in post-it notes.
(30:22):
I only spent a few moments, withall of that information and when
I got it, it was alreadycontextualized.
I felt like I could reallycontribute.
I felt like the agent washelpful,
Leslie Shannon (30:33):
It's a great agent.
And that
Nathan C (30:34):
it was so focused on one task, I think is just a
really good example to remindanybody working on cutting edge
technology, you don't need morefeatures.
You need to do one taskincredibly seamlessly, helpfully
well.
Leslie Shannon (30:50):
Great call!
Nathan C (30:51):
And that will win people over, over and over.
Leslie Shannon (30:53):
Oh, a hundred percent!
Nathan C (30:54):
And like there's very few things that I'd prefer to do
in VR.
Leslie Shannon (30:58):
Within my own team, when we did an Arthur
session, I was demoing it reallyto the rest of the team.
We realized when we saw thatsummary of here's the things we
agree on, and here's the thingswe disagreed on, we realized in
our regular meetings, we spendalmost all of our time on the,
the topics that we agree onbecause it's so pleasant.
We spend almost no time on the,here's what we disagree on,
(31:18):
'cause nobody really wants tobring that stuff up.
But Arthur, by doing that, itflips the script completely
because yet we agree on that, wedon't need to talk about it
anymore.
So then the whole meetingbecomes about how do we resolve
these sticking points?
What are our genuinely good nextsteps?
Nathan C (31:36):
There's real human stress about even labeling
something as a disagreement.
Leslie Shannon (31:43):
Right!
Nathan C (31:43):
So having a third party who's like, I think these
two ideas don't match.
You know, not saying, I thinkNathan and Leslie are fighting.
But like, hey guys,
Leslie Shannon (31:53):
I heard different things! This needs
resolving, you know?
Nathan C (31:57):
It takes you so much further down the line.
Leslie Shannon (31:59):
We humans are very fabulous, but we also very
primordial.
Emotions matter.
Yep!
Nathan C (32:04):
And, isn't it great when technology can help them
not get in the way?
We often worry that liketechnology might dehumanize, but
like in this particularalignment session, it seems like
the opportunity is fortechnology to make difficult
human things much easier toapproach.
Leslie Shannon (32:24):
Great observation! In fact, it helps
us navigate ourselves.
Nathan C (32:28):
I mean, heck yeah! Leslie Shannon, for several
years now, you have been, one ofthe people that I go to, to help
me untangle and demystify,what's going on in the worlds of
technology and innovation.
It's been such a lovely journey,to listen to the ways that your
(32:49):
research, your connecting withcustomers and, looking at future
possibilities has allowed you toboth embody the DNA of this 160
year old enterprise, as well as,remind some of the leading
technologists out there theimportance of, research and,
(33:09):
learning and, always keepingyour eyes at what's coming next.
If people wanna know more orconnect with you, what's the
best way they can follow up?
Leslie Shannon (33:19):
The best way is LinkedIn, Leslie Shannon and I
work for Nokia.
So, that's that! And I also havean irregular newsletter that I
send out, over email.
If you are interested, when youconnect with me on LinkedIn say,
"Hey, I'd like to sign up forthe newsletter." I send it out
kind of every other month, andit's just the latest, here's the
stuff that I've seen lately.
If you're interested, I'm alwayshappy to add more recipients!
Nathan C (33:38):
That list of insights is one of the few emails that I
look forward to.
Highly recommend there.
So many great lessons here forinnovators, both small and
globally sized.
Leslie Shannon, once again,thank you so much for joining me
on The Tech Glow Up.
Really, fantastic conversation!
Leslie Shannon (33:55):
Thank you for having me, Nathan!
Hello and welcome to The Tech Glow Up Fabulous
conversations with innovativeminds.
I'm talking today with LeslieShannon, Head of Trend and
Innovation Scouting at Nokia.
Leslie, it is a distinctpleasure to chat with you today.
Thank you for joining me on TheTech Glow Up.
Leslie Shannon (00:17):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
It's always a pleasure to have achat with you.
Nathan C (00:20):
Oh my goodness! This is going to be such a juicy
conversation.
I feel like we need to just jumpright in.
If our topic today is trends,innovation and solving network
scale problems at 160 year oldcompany, can you first, start us
off by introducing yourself andthe work that you do at Nokia?
Leslie Shannon (00:40):
Yeah! Sure.
Well, actually, since youmentioned the age of the
company, I guess I will startwith Nokia.
Nokia is 160 years old.
It started with, sawmills in theFinnish woods.
And then it went into, rubberproducts in the 1890s.
And then because they were doingrubber, they started getting
into, the insulation forelectrical wires in the 1920s.
And that's actually got thebridge to them to electronics.
(01:02):
And so they actually got into,building TVs and computers and
all kinds of things until 1990when, the wall came down.
Finland at that point was,walking a delicate balance
between the Soviet Union and theWest.
And so most of their productshad actually gone to the Soviet
Union, which is why we in theWest had not really heard of
Nokia before that.
But then the wall came down, theSoviet Union collapses.
(01:24):
People in Russia have no moneyto buy anything.
Nokia's business collapses, andthey ended up selling off all of
these different things.
They made car tires, they maderubber boots, all these
different things.
They sold them all off.
Double down on mobile phones atthat moment,'cause it was a new
industry.
The reason I mentioned this isthat Nokia is a company that has
reinvented itself every fewdecades for the last 160 years.
(01:47):
And, not everybody could dothis, but it is possible.
So Nokia today, you might nothave heard of us lately because
after we sold the mobile phonebusiness more than 10 years ago
to Microsoft, we continuedmaking, network infrastructure
equipment.
So we make the fiber opticcables, the base stations, the
routers.
(02:08):
All that kind of stuff to buildthe telecommunications networks.
Our main customers are the phonecompanies of the world.
I have been with the company for25 years and I've always been on
the network side so the questionis, how do you actually innovate
in a world like this?
Because infrastructure doesn'tsound all that sexy, and maybe
it doesn't sound like you needto innovate very much.
But as we saw with mobilephones, and like I said, I've
(02:28):
been with the company for a longtime.
And I was actually based inFinland when the mobile phone
business kind of blew up.
I could see in my, firsthandexperience that part of the
problem was that the mobilephone guys got arrogant because
they were at the top of theworld, Nokia was the leading
mobile phone.
They had all the market shareand they poo-pooed the arrival
of Apple on the scene becausethey were a computer company.
(02:52):
It was a terrible phone! If youlook at it as a phone engineer,
it's like, this is a really crapantenna.
Voice quality is not so good.
It drops calls all the time.
You know, this is not a threat.
But what we missed was that thisdevice that looked like the same
kind of thing we were doing, butwas coming from a computer
company.
It wasn't a phone, it was acomputer.
What Apple did was they changedthe device that was in our
(03:14):
pockets from being a telephoneto being a computer, and we
couldn't see it because we wereso blinded by our success and by
the paradigm that we had of"Webuild telephones, the thing in
your pocket is a telephone." AndApple reimagined that, and
everybody listening to thisprobably right now has a
computer in their pocket.
(03:36):
And right now, yeah, this is anApple that I carry! So seeing
that, and again, seeing thatprocess from upfront, it made me
realize that okay, even thoughnetwork infrastructure is big
and heavy and very capitalintensive, that doesn't exempt
it.
Because things can come fromanother industry that we are not
(03:57):
paying attention to'cause we'rebusy focused on our fiber optic
cables and the, the paradigm oftoday.
And so we need to be constantlyalert to what could be better.
And that means looking outsideour industry.
So I kind of self-appointedmyself, and this is the
brilliance of Nokia as acompany.
Once I started doing this andshowing the value, they made it
my full-time job to look outsidethe telecommunications industry
(04:20):
at things that are happening inother industries.
And it first came from adefensive place, right?
It was like, we don't want toget completely knocked out by
somebody coming in and solvingconnectivity in a different new
way.
I was working in that defensivekind of mindset for only about
six months before I realized,wait a second.
I'm coming at this with fear,but what I'm seeing is
(04:43):
opportunity by looking at otherindustries and understanding
what their developments mightmean for our industry.
They're actually telling us theroadmap that we need to be
developing our products for, andso that's what I do.
I go out and I look at otherindustries that have something
(05:03):
to do with connectivity, whichis kind of everything.
And so I look at new things thatare developing that might need
connectivity to be delivered ina different way.
And so I look right now verymuch at XR technologies, at
robots, at drones, at AI.
How are these being developed byother industries with other
products?
And what does that mean for usand our product development and
(05:25):
what does that mean for ourcustomers who are buying our
equipment to build networks tothen serve these other
industries?
Nathan C (05:30):
Oh my goodness! There's this very fun,
comparison of timelines that youdescribed.
In the 160 years of thiscompany's journey from like
sawmills you know, XR, AI androbots.
There is this interestinglong-term thread of embodying
(05:54):
that in a gold rush, sellshovels, right?
There's this connection to themoment.
What is the world doing?
What is the region doing in thismoment when people are building
and growing and like, we'remaking houses and, you know,
when we're starting to roll andfly, you know, we're making
(06:14):
wheels and tubes and I love thathistorically the company has
this, kind of DNA and culture ofmeeting the moment and adapting.
Leslie Shannon (06:25):
And the next big thing, the roots were embedded
in what we had done previously.
The sawmill work gave us theexpertise to move into rubber
because we knew trees.
The rubber gave us the,expertise to move into
electronics because we had beencovering rubber cables.
So, it was never like, oh, we'regonna now make lollipops.
(06:45):
It was always rooted in what ourexpertise was.
Nathan C (06:48):
I think it's really important and this equation of
how do you, mine your moat andI'm mixing metaphors amazingly
today.
How do you really take advantageof your moat while also take
advantage of opportunities thatare coming far down the horizon
and, this kind of nexus of yourrole, this idea of contemporary
(07:11):
trend scouting and innovation,for Nokia also being a bit of a
revelation, right?
Like coming from a pain point,coming from a missed
opportunity.
You had this ability to,highlight some data, bring in
some pains, and, luckily hadleadership and others who could
see this vision, allowed you tostart innovating within the
(07:34):
company.
So it's neat how, like, on ashort term, maybe some of that
forethought and, DNA had beenforgotten or wasn't as loud.
Leslie Shannon (07:43):
The way that it happened was, that I just
started doing it.
I saw that there was a need forit.
I'm located currently in SiliconValley and I had just moved from
Finland in 2015.
I came to Silicon Valley fromFinland.
I was still working for Nokiaand I was doing another job, but
I was like, oh my God, there'sall this Silicon Valley stuff!
And also I was like, you know,oh, I don't want us to be
disrupted.
So that was really where Istarted bringing this
(08:05):
information.
But the key, if I had just beenlike, Hey guys, I see a bunch of
stuff.
Do you wanna hear about it?
Nobody at Nokia would've bit,and I never would've gotten
executive sponsorship.
Being the innovation person,being the trend scouting person,
there needs to be a little moreoomph to it before somebody says
yes, that looks really good tome.
So what I did was I leveraged mycustomer facing role because I
(08:28):
do have a customer facing roleand I was getting in front of
the customers on a very regularbasis.
And so talking to the CEOs, youknow, of our phone companies all
over the world.
And I would go and I would givethe presentation, which was my
previous job, just, you know,here's this thing.
And then at the end I would say,hey, you know what?
I recently moved to SiliconValley.
If you've got an extra 10minutes, I could show you some
(08:49):
of the things that I'm seeing,if that would be interesting?
And everyone said,"Yes,absolutely!" So then I'd show
them the high level of, at thatpoint it was like how Silicon
Valley thinks differently fromthe telecommunications industry,
'cause there really is a prettybig divide there.
And so then what would happen islike six months later, the CXO
level would get in touch withour account people and say,"Hey,
(09:11):
can you bring Leslie back?""ButI don't want her to talk about
the Nokia stuff she was talkingabout.""I want to hear more
about what she's seeing in theoutside world." And it was the
customer leverage.
It was because the customerswere asking for it.
And because in the end what I'mdoing, yes, it gets put into, or
it gets fed into these things weconsider for the Nokia roadmaps,
(09:33):
but even more so, it helps ourcustomers, the phone companies
of the world, it helps them getideas about what they're gonna
do with the network.
And so it's this really weirdplace.
I haven't actually met anybodyelse who's in like trend
scouting or foresight who's inthis kind of, interesting place
where actually I end up servingthe customers almost more than I
(09:53):
serve my own company.
But the thing is, it'sremarkable for relationship
building and it helps generatebrand awareness and brand trust
and develop the brandrelationship because we are
investing in helping ourcustomers be successful by doing
this work.
Nathan C (10:10):
You just gave me about an hour and a half worth of
questions I wanna follow up on.
I love this! I'm having a hardtime not just like taking
everything that you mentionedabout building value for
innovative ideas within like alarge enterprise and like how
you tell a story by likespeaking to the executives'
(10:34):
needs and fears and desires.
There's sort of a marketingmasterclass in, any technology
that's just out there shoutingthat it's a new technology.
"Hey, we made this newtechnology!" Right?
Like, you're like, so what?
That extra mile of explanationof contextualization is just a
perfect corollary for like howso many technologies get excited
(10:58):
to tell you that they exist, butdon't give you any entry point
into why you should care that weexist.
That you just sort ofinstinctually knew or that you
were able to build that intoyour work at Nokia.
It really sounds like and thisis just me being impressed with
the work that you do, that youkind of act like, you know, a
(11:20):
three or four letterconsultancy, within this partner
relationship, you're kind oflike an internal Deloitte or you
know, PwC for the network.
Leslie Shannon (11:32):
Well and, we do actually have an internal
consulting arm, and I work withthem all the time, but they are
definitely more focused on theins and outs of the networks.
And I'm, I'm much more bigpicture.
Because what's vital here isthat I do have an understanding
of how the network works.
And so when I do see newtechnologies I know that's
something that is interesting,but it doesn't change anything.
So it's not relevant for ourindustry.
(11:54):
But that thing over there, oh,that one might change how we
build or deliver our networks.
And so that's something that Ineed to share.
The mental image that I have forthe work that I do is when I'm
finding these things that, okay,this is a potential input for
how the network might need todevelop.
To me, that becomes a buildingblock.
And so I'm always out therelooking around and scouting
around for new building blocks,and I'm kind of mentally putting
(12:15):
them on a table.
And then it's like, okay, I'vegot all these building blocks
now.
So if I put these together, ifcompany A is doing that and
company B is doing that, andcompany C is doing that, what is
the larger message that I canget about how things are
developing and what's the bigpicture for how networks need to
develop long-term?
(12:35):
Long scale and large scale.
And that's the kind of valuethat I can bring because I'm
able to start with the physicalexamples.
These things are actuallyhappening! I'm not making stuff
up.
I'm not imagining, I'm startingwith reality and then using the
reality to be the stepping stoneinto where do we wanna go?
(12:56):
If this is happening, is thatway the way we wanna go?
Do we wanna help this?
Do we wanna not help this?
it gives us a guidance.
Nathan C (13:01):
Thank you for that.
This is the value ofunderstanding what's coming, the
value of being early in a trend,the value in like finding where
the moats might be based on theinstitutional skills and
background that the company has.
Are all very important and theyseem like almost anybody would
be like, yes! Like you'relooking sometimes very far in
(13:23):
the future.
Leslie Shannon (13:23):
Yes!
Nathan C (13:24):
At next, next standards Network development
Leslie Shannon (13:27):
cycles run decades, right?
Nathan C (13:29):
How do you balance that, like long-term strategic
with making sure that you'remeasuring what you're doing
today so that leadershipunderstands the value so that,
you know, these clients can alsobe, leveraging it and learning.
How do you measure the value ofinsights and trends and this
long-term plan?
Leslie Shannon (13:48):
Several years ago, a colleague and I worked
together and we measured, if Ipresented as part of a sales
cycle, to a customer did it makea difference?
And yes, if I was part of thesales cycle, it was
statistically significant.
We were statisticallysignificantly more likely to win
the deal.
That's a badge I always proudlywear but I think ongoing, what
(14:10):
people are seeing and why I'mcontinually in demand is that
our customers keep asking forme.
And that's really the draw.
In fact, it becomes a problem'cause sometimes the customers
contact me directly withoutgoing through our salespeople.
Yeah, it's making enough of aconnection with the customers.
Customers are requiring this.
And that's the thing that isalways going to make our
(14:30):
executives say, okay, this hasvalue.
Because what happens is,sometimes I get a call from some
of our account manager, like,okay, we wanna bring up this new
network functionality, we wannabring it to the top of this
particular customer.
Can you come in and give apresentation about what you're
seeing?
And then that will get me in theroom and at the end, I could
give a 10 minute presentationabout this new network feature.
(14:52):
And that's win-win because, itdoes help our product guys get
better visibility with thecustomer.
Basically I come in and I talkabout the why, and then the
network person comes in andfills in the what, you know,
here's what you have to do toaccomplish what she was just
describing.
And so yeah, it's reallypowerful! But I'll be honest,
there are actually some, withinthe company, there are some
(15:13):
sales guys who are like, I don'twanna put her in front of my
customer because she's nottalking about Nokia products.
So that's useless.
So, you know, some get it andsome don't.
So I just, you know, over timeyou learn who gets it and you
work with them.
Nathan C (15:24):
That's so juicy.
This particular area of like howyou place value and how you make
bets.
Where does that input and datacome from?
The quality of your sourcesoften, relates to the quality of
your follow up products.
Leslie Shannon (15:40):
Yes!
Nathan C (15:40):
It seems like you've got smart clients who want more!
One of the things that youmentioned, that I was just
really struck with was thatNokia is always sort of a little
surprising that this old kind ofpipes and infrastructure company
is like always blowing up,always exploring and building on
these new trends andopportunities.
(16:02):
And you've noted that theinternal use of AI, which is
like the thing everybody'strying to figure out now, like,
do we?
Don't we?
How do we?
Where do we?
That you've actually got somereally, interesting things going
on in Nokia's institutional.
Leslie Shannon (16:17):
Yeah! So, in 2017 we acquired Alcatel-Lucent,
who is another network equipmentprovider.
But with that, because Lucentused to be with AT&T, we got
Bell Labs.
So Bell Labs, you know thisstory, which is celebrating its
hundredth anniversary this year,this storied place where the
transistor was invented, thefirst television stuff was
developed.
Bell Labs is now part of Nokiaand it's Nokia Bell Labs.
(16:37):
That means we have in-house, awhole bunch of really smart AI
researchers.
That was part of what gave usthe confidence to move
confidently into usinggenerative AI.
I didn't realize how differentwe are from other companies
until I was at an innovationconference, you know, cross
industry innovation conferencein Boston back in May.
(16:59):
And there are, you know, severalhundred people at this
conference.
And then they had this big roundtable, you know, everybody kind
of in the room contributing.
How is your company, usinggenerative AI or encouraging
employees to use generative AI?
And person after person stood upand said, my company blocks
generative AI.
I had no idea this is happening.
These people were saying, if Iwanna use generative AI at work,
(17:19):
I have to bring in my privatecomputer and use it on that,
because they don't want itanywhere near any of the
corporate stuff.
And I was like...
oh, this is terrible! So thethings that Nokia has done to
encourage and leverage the useof generative AI among the
employee population.
So there's two key policies thatthey set at the very beginning.
(17:42):
The first one is that nogenerative AI code should ever
be used in the creation of anactual product that we're taking
to market or any patent thatwe're filing.
Because we have partnered withOpenAI and we have developed a
RAG.
NokiaGPT, which is an open AIbase, and then we have the Nokia
(18:04):
information on top of it.
It's the open AI training, butwhen we ask it questions, it
goes to the Nokia data center.
That's how RAGs work.
It's still OpenAI's code is thebasis of this, and we don't want
OpenAI or anybody else to everbe able to come back and say,
"Hey- that's our code.""Sothat's our patent." Or"That's
our product." So we have tolike, you know, strong, strong,
(18:25):
strong guardrail there.
So we create this limitation, soeverybody, you know, understands
where to do it and where not todo it, but for internal things
like for coding and for testing,for you know, non-product
coding, for all this other kindof stuff, the second policy
that's in place is, anassurance, a promise that the
company has made to employeesthat Nokia will never fire
anybody, and replace them withAI.
(18:47):
That means that you are, as anemployee, encouraged to use AI
without the fear that you'retraining the system up to be
able to replace you.
Now, of course, it may be thatNokia hires fewer people in the
future because of efficienciesgained with AI, but the focus is
(19:08):
not on that.
It's how can you, as individualemployee 89,627.
How can you personally figureout how to use generative AI to
improve your work process sothat you can do more?
Because if you and all the other89,626 employees are using
(19:31):
generative AI and improving yourown work and improving your own
processes, the entire companybenefits.
That's the way that Nokia viewsgenerative AI.
Working carefully with trustedpartners, having guardrails,
making them very clear foremployees, and then encouraging
employees to use generative AIto make the company better and
to do more.
(19:51):
Yes! We love the work thatyou're doing.
Now- be creative! Try to figureout how generative AI can help
you do more.
That's really the message andthe vibe that's communicated out
to the employees.
Nathan C (20:02):
From the perspective of somebody who's had to ask,
like,"Hey, do we have an AIpolicy?" Do you have security
concerns about my use of it?"I've had to have these
conversations as a consultant.
Or from somebody who's been shutout, but knows that everybody on
the sales team is writing mostof their emails with it.
Leslie Shannon (20:20):
Yep!
Nathan C (20:21):
This idea of having very clear guardrails and like,
some cultural, you know, somepsychological safety and
encouragement to explore, Ithink is like a lovely model for
transformation in general.
I was actually just this week,and I'm curious if you've heard
or seen this, somewhat related,and maybe not at Nokia, but
(20:43):
other companies that you'vebeen, privy to.
Cory Huff, who's a marketing anda product, thought leader, who I
adore, had done some researchrecently and had found that a
number of marketing leaders arebeing asked to try to fill in
with AI before they addheadcount.
Leslie Shannon (21:04):
Oh! Wow!
Nathan C (21:05):
Can you fill this role with AI support?
Is a question that they're beingasked to sort of prove before,
as part of like requestingheadcount.
Have you seen, either AImandated, before headcount is
allowed, or other digital techthat's been used in a similar
preemptive way?
Leslie Shannon (21:26):
No, I haven't.
But I think what you'redescribing, it's a very similar
kind of approach to the Nokiaapproach.
Especially if the emphasis is onhave you tried using your
existing team to come up withcreative uses of generative AI?
The emphasis here needs to notbe on job shedding.
(21:47):
It's how can you reengage yourexisting team to get their
skills upskilled and to deepentheir engagement and thereby
into the whole process.
And so if the messaging is likethat, then I think that is
actually a pretty good approachor a potentially good approach,
depending on what you're lookingat.
But if the emphasis is on, nah,nah, we're not gonna hire any
(22:09):
new people.
I mean, the tone really mattershere.
Right?
You know, we're not gonna hireany more people.
Get AI to do it! That's adifferent thing! And of course,
we need to think about, the jobsof the future.
What are the jobs of the futuregoing to be?
I've got two sons in college.
What are they gonna do?
But getting internships whileyou're still in college.
Summer internships is like,what's going on there and what
(22:30):
you have to do.
And he's going to a good school,but it's not Ivy League.
And so he is having troublegetting interviews for
internships.
So he took a step back and hesaid, all right, I'm dealing
with financial services firms.
He himself is a computer majorand, and he's like, they don't
know what they don't know, sothey don't know what AI could do
for them.
So he created a proposal forwhat AI could do for these
(22:52):
private equity companies.
He segmented the market.
He thought to himself, okay,this is probably gonna be taken
up by younger people.
So I wanna find a company that'sbeen founded relatively
recently, that, you know, has abunch of cash and you know what,
whatever.
But then he created a proposaland he went out to his shortlist
of private equity companies.
(23:13):
And the first one he talked tosaid, oh my God, this is
amazing.
Yes! Come work for us for thesummer.
And now they have actually,after his example, they've said,
we've realized we need to hire asoftware person full-time and we
want you to onboard them.
So for those who are concernedabout what AI is gonna do to
jobs, you need to learn AI soyou can use AI to get your next
job.
Nathan C (23:33):
Absolutely! I think one of the differentiators that
like I cannot overstate is thisidea that if you are a company
with a gigantic data set, with agigantic workforce, with like
global-sized problems, using AIto understand and activate and
(23:58):
socialize your own data is afirst level problem.
That's like organizing andsharing data.
Leslie Shannon (24:06):
Yes!
Nathan C (24:06):
It's the same thing Google Docs was invented to do.
That's the step that everybodyshould take is start to
understand your data.
The idea, right?
That AI is taking jobs.
I've actually built AI workflowsfor my content production, like
how I produce the podcast and doall the social media that I
have, and I've actually hiredpeople to run my workflows
(24:29):
because they were so easy tohand off.
I don't need to give all thecontext to the person.
I need to give it to theworkspace that we're sharing.
I need to teach the model what Iwant, and then the tasks and the
connection and the processingthat all happens with the
people.
So I've actually used AI tooptimize my workflows and allow
(24:53):
me to better empower people tohelp me do what I want.
I hadn't considered that like AIfor training, means that like AI
just kind of understands andworks with that context, the
institutional knowledge in a waythat kind of just is input
through the act of chatting andbuilding the prompts and the
(25:13):
space.
So I've seen it how it makesjobs, rather than just replacing
them.
Leslie Shannon (25:18):
Absolutely! And this is true of all new
technologies.
The technology that we aresurrounded with now is nothing
like the technology that was inplay 50 years ago.
And every single thing that hascome in has, yes, it has
destroyed things, but yes, ithas created things.
And this is no different.
Nathan C (25:35):
From the perspective of The Tech Glow Up, right?
And the kinds of values andadvice that we try to surface
here, this idea of, that AI is afantastic way to do business
research, to build out conceptsquickly, to grow in areas that
you may not be strong in, but beable to act enough so that you
(25:57):
can learn and get that feedbackand in the hands of a curious
person, you can literally buildcompanies, build value, there's
so much you can build beyondfunny videos or, hyper-realistic
future portraits of yourself.
You can learn and test and grow,in very impressive ways.
Leslie Shannon (26:18):
Well, and I would tie that back to, the
lesson of how Nokia has evolvedover the years in that every
single, new kind of step up to anew plateau, a new level was
based in the expertise frombefore.
And taking that personally.
As you're developing your use ofAI, start with what you know.
Start with what your expertiseis, or if you're, very early in
(26:40):
your career, if you don't haveexpertise yet, at least, what's
your interest?
Start from that.
Passion matters! Passionmatters.
And, I'm passionate about newthings and about developing new
technologies in a positive,inclusive kind of way.
My son seems to be passionateabout venture capital, private
equity, but hey, you know,whatever floats your boat! When
(27:01):
you're passionate about things,AI and then using AI as the tool
to let you take it to newdirections that you have never
thought of before on a personallevel, that can be super
exciting and supercharge yourcareer and your engagement with
your career.
And then on a corporate level,if you can actually encourage
and harness all of youremployees, or most of your
employees, or even some of youremployees to be thinking and
(27:23):
acting this way within theirjobs, then that's how you take
the whole company up to the nextlevel.
Nathan C (27:28):
Amazing! Leslie, this has been a fantastic
conversation! We're coming downto some of the last questions.
And we always like to make anopportunity to give a spotlight
or give a shout out to somebodyor a group that you think is,
doing great work, whether it's anonprofit or anybody else
focused on impact.
Is there a spotlight that you'dlike to share?
Leslie Shannon (27:48):
I would love to spotlight, a virtual reality
meeting company called Arthur.
What Arthur has done is theyhave added an AI moderator into
the virtual reality meetings,which can happen either on a VR
headset or on a laptop.
The idea is that especially forkinds of meetings like
brainstorming, where you wannahear from everybody in the room,
(28:10):
and then you need to make adecision based on all those
inputs.
For that kind of meeting, whatthey do is they use their AI
moderator to interview everybodysimultaneously within this
virtual world.
It's like, you're talking toyour version of the AI moderator
and I'm talking to mine at thesame time, right?
(28:32):
So instead of taking 50 minutesfor the meeting, you get 10
minutes where everybody givestheir inputs, and then Arthur
creates a board where they say,here's what I heard from
everybody.
Here's where people agreed.
Here's where I heard differentthings from different people
that needs resolving, and here'swhat I suggest as next steps.
So for things like,"Hey, whatshould our next project be?"
(28:53):
This is brilliant! I cannot,cannot emphasize enough how
transformational this is, andit's one of the first uses of AI
that I've seen transforming anexisting process that we've had
forever and making itsignificantly better and more
efficient.
So shout out to Arthur!
Nathan C (29:11):
Heck yeah! Shout out to Arthur.
I use this example quitefrequently.
The folks at Arthur, love tocall out, you know how much time
you spend agreeing in a meeting.
Leslie Shannon (29:22):
Oh my God, yes!
Nathan C (29:24):
Right?
Listening to Leslie, listeningto Nathan and everybody says
like, I think the secret projectis a really good idea.
And you wait until the last, youknow five minutes of the
meeting.
And you know, a very smartdeveloper or marketer is like,
do we have the domain for the,you know, for the website?
(29:45):
The most important question, inthe meeting only gets five
minutes.
There are a couple things aboutthis that I love that I have to
get into.
I initially thought like, is afaceless robot asking me
questions, going to like make mefeel like I'm not heard?
Leslie Shannon (30:00):
Right.
Nathan C (30:00):
And I actually witnessed several meetings where
people took their time and youcould tell that they enjoyed the
opportunity to have one robot'sattention and the ability to say
everything they were thinkingabout.
The cool thing is I got that allsummarized in post-it notes.
(30:22):
I only spent a few moments, withall of that information and when
I got it, it was alreadycontextualized.
I felt like I could reallycontribute.
I felt like the agent washelpful,
Leslie Shannon (30:33):
It's a great agent.
And that
Nathan C (30:34):
it was so focused on one task, I think is just a
really good example to remindanybody working on cutting edge
technology, you don't need morefeatures.
You need to do one taskincredibly seamlessly, helpfully
well.
Leslie Shannon (30:50):
Great call!
Nathan C (30:51):
And that will win people over, over and over.
Leslie Shannon (30:53):
Oh, a hundred percent!
Nathan C (30:54):
And like there's very few things that I'd prefer to do
in VR.
Leslie Shannon (30:58):
Within my own team, when we did an Arthur
session, I was demoing it reallyto the rest of the team.
We realized when we saw thatsummary of here's the things we
agree on, and here's the thingswe disagreed on, we realized in
our regular meetings, we spendalmost all of our time on the,
the topics that we agree onbecause it's so pleasant.
We spend almost no time on the,here's what we disagree on,
(31:18):
'cause nobody really wants tobring that stuff up.
But Arthur, by doing that, itflips the script completely
because yet we agree on that, wedon't need to talk about it
anymore.
So then the whole meetingbecomes about how do we resolve
these sticking points?
What are our genuinely good nextsteps?
Nathan C (31:36):
There's real human stress about even labeling
something as a disagreement.
Leslie Shannon (31:43):
Right!
Nathan C (31:43):
So having a third party who's like, I think these
two ideas don't match.
You know, not saying, I thinkNathan and Leslie are fighting.
But like, hey guys,
Leslie Shannon (31:53):
I heard different things! This needs
resolving, you know?
Nathan C (31:57):
It takes you so much further down the line.
Leslie Shannon (31:59):
We humans are very fabulous, but we also very
primordial.
Emotions matter.
Yep!
Nathan C (32:04):
And, isn't it great when technology can help them
not get in the way?
We often worry that liketechnology might dehumanize, but
like in this particularalignment session, it seems like
the opportunity is fortechnology to make difficult
human things much easier toapproach.
Leslie Shannon (32:24):
Great observation! In fact, it helps
us navigate ourselves.
Nathan C (32:28):
I mean, heck yeah! Leslie Shannon, for several
years now, you have been, one ofthe people that I go to, to help
me untangle and demystify,what's going on in the worlds of
technology and innovation.
It's been such a lovely journey,to listen to the ways that your
(32:49):
research, your connecting withcustomers and, looking at future
possibilities has allowed you toboth embody the DNA of this 160
year old enterprise, as well as,remind some of the leading
technologists out there theimportance of, research and,
(33:09):
learning and, always keepingyour eyes at what's coming next.
If people wanna know more orconnect with you, what's the
best way they can follow up?
Leslie Shannon (33:19):
The best way is LinkedIn, Leslie Shannon and I
work for Nokia.
So, that's that! And I also havean irregular newsletter that I
send out, over email.
If you are interested, when youconnect with me on LinkedIn say,
"Hey, I'd like to sign up forthe newsletter." I send it out
kind of every other month, andit's just the latest, here's the
stuff that I've seen lately.
If you're interested, I'm alwayshappy to add more recipients!
Nathan C (33:38):
That list of insights is one of the few emails that I
look forward to.
Highly recommend there.
So many great lessons here forinnovators, both small and
globally sized.
Leslie Shannon, once again,thank you so much for joining me
on The Tech Glow Up.
Really, fantastic conversation!
Leslie Shannon (33:55):
Thank you for having me, Nathan!
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