Innovation – from good to great.  The last 100 years have shown increasing innovation aided by communications – and innovation in communication itself. I believe the leaders of the future are those that are smart, transparent, brave and innovative with a high level of integrity. I hope that this blog will inspire, taking innovation from being a buzzword to a positive everyday action. I’m looking forward to engaging in a fruitful dialogue in this area via these blog posts, and driving innovati...7016444f-9c13-48ae-b720-9c74b76d07d2http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=191priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI watched an interesting video the other day, where the Head of Online Services for the UK Parliament spoke as the keynote on a Digital Knowledge day in Sweden. You can watch her full speech here http://www.search-integration.se/digital-knowledge-day/  and I think she is spot on with her comment about “..the Internet’s going to be embedded in every part of our world”.  We live in an increasingly digital world. Time spent reading paper books is now spent on Facebook. Pictures can be found on...Thu, 16 May 2013 14:46:48 +02002013-05-16T14:46:48+02:0019bb35d3-0e17-4bcc-8134-1975850c0429http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=190priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comSomewhere over a period spanning nearly four billion years, a single cell became over 8.8 million species   of which one species is Tweeting, Facebooking and Instragramming like never before.   The amount of divergence across all the species on our planet is extreme, and I find myself fascinated by the innovations in nature and all we can learn from them to create innovations in our own world. Take, for example - how did the hummingbird evolve? Or, to generalise, how do new species emerge? Ma...Wed, 08 May 2013 23:00:14 +02002013-05-08T23:00:14+02:00a46eb079-8518-4365-86f7-4430ebd42f45http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=188priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comA country’s wealth is created through its natural resources, its manufacturing capabilities and its knowledge base including skills and services that can be exported. In an era of increasing consumption and increasingly qualified entrants into the job market in developing countries, already developed nations find themselves struggling to maintain competitiveness. Goods that were once exported are now imported (yesterday I ordered a personalised coffee cup as a gift for  a friend to my home in...Wed, 01 May 2013 19:58:29 +02002013-05-01T19:58:29+02:003e858af5-e900-4140-92ce-bc9c07f6c752http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=186priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comOne of the things I like best about my work is the variety of the content and the different people I interface with. Breakthroughs in TMT (Telecom, Media and Technology)  have changed the way we live and work - and I find it to be for the better! This week: On Monday  morning I participated in our weekly meeting that is run by video between our offices in the center and south part of Stockholm. The ability to participate by video saves me nearly an hour of commuting time up  and down from our...Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:19:39 +02002013-04-24T22:19:39+02:00a753afc3-c489-4894-b362-967e902920a5http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=185priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comEvery marketer and MBA has read Kotler on marketing – and how marketing became important once the economy moved from being a seller’s to a buyer’s market. Telecoms has become an increasingly converged and competitive playing field, with systems integrators and OTT (Over the Top) players entering the market space. In advanced TMT (Telecoms, Media and Technology) markets with highly knowledgeable and networked customers this is indeed now a buyer’s market and sets demands for premium price...Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:41:59 +02002013-04-17T22:41:59+02:0000ee7d67-9b38-4c01-80b4-8053e004c0adhttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=183priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comMy colleague Niklas Henricson put together a picture recently that I feel expresses the last 48 months in our society's communications space quite well:   And after sharing this picture with me Niklas talked about watching some sport (football?hockey? something…I tuned out a bit on the sports enthusiast part) on his mobile phone with live play, due to 3G speeds. I don’t remember what sport it was that had Niklas so enthused, but being a communications nerd I myself got enthused thinking about...Wed, 10 Apr 2013 21:41:43 +02002013-04-10T21:41:43+02:005887e28a-2b1d-4446-ab37-e80868e87ce5http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=181priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI was on a phone call today related to a project where I am both part of the project steering team and also part of the project execution team. During the call I took on both roles – a couple of times setting requirements from the steering group and once giving a status update on my own sub-project. It got me thinking about how our increasingly networked organisations and changing ways of working demand new capabilities: The capability to work flexibly across borders and to assume different...Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:24:24 +02002013-04-03T21:24:24+02:0069b89384-c8f9-4837-9d72-5d668de04e85http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=179priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comLast Saturday was Earth Hour. If you observed it, did you manage to leave all your gadgets alone for that hour? I was forced to, because I had managed to drop my iPhone in the kitchen sink under running water and, as a dear friend observed, unfortunately iPhones  cannot swim....Working in the telecoms industry as I do, I have both personal and business connected devices around me wherever I am – so I still had my laptop, iPad, and 3 old phones lying at home I could fall back on. Yet the...Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:56:35 +01002013-03-26T21:56:35+01:00ce89851a-ae32-45be-a6b6-d98430c90454http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=178priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comWe recently received the results of our annual Smart Company survey, that is part of our Thought Leadership partnership with Cisco Systems AB in Sweden. This year in addition to seeing the phenomenal growth of social media and continued penetration of virtual meeting services (Webex, video/Telepresence et al) into the business segment, we also saw the increasing awareness of growing global competition and the need to be more innovative. We took several questions related to Innovation, below a...Wed, 20 Mar 2013 22:36:01 +01002013-03-20T22:36:01+01:00e667a281-0e11-4a8e-92e1-b857569ada00http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=176priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI recently misplaced the password to my Apple Appstore account. After several wrong attempts on my iPhone a little popup came up that said “it looks like you need help with your password” with instructions on what to do. That in itself is no big deal. What I found fun was that the popup came with a little heading called iForgot… Those little touches in the iPhone come together to make what I consider the “wow factor”. The Urban Dictionary defines wow as “A set of properties belonging to an...Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:23:12 +01002013-03-15T14:23:12+01:0054de8350-4ac2-4cf9-b0b1-313758c3635dhttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=171priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThe entertainment content industry has fought the concept of “free” content for about 100 years now. In the early 1900s  artistes were against the gramophone industry, claiming that the need for their services would disappear with the introduction of records. Then the gramophone industry was threatened by radio; the book industry by the photocopier; the movie and television industry by the VCR...  In April 2008, Apple surpassed WalMart as the largest retailer of music in the US; in 2010, Avat...Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:25:18 +01002013-02-27T21:25:18+01:000ad27a27-98e2-4337-93bc-a46687343cc6http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=165priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comIn my daily job I meet many customers who are CIOs or responsible for Strategy or driving change and excellence in Customer Experience in their company and who are very interested in finding ways to create better results together. During the week I listened to an interesting presentation where Conny at Evry talked about it being time for every company to have a CMO – a Chief Mobility Officer. And then my colleague Niklas sent me a very interesting article yesterday – about the people trying t...Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:33:07 +01002013-02-20T23:33:07+01:008246a4ce-5fbb-4133-b848-1ec8bfa2e0a2http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=162priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comRumour has it that a number of sites recently experienced  difficulties due to problems in Facebook Connect that made their way to their affiliated partner websites. (Facebook Connect is the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to "connect" their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site, enabling third party websites to implement features of Facebook Platform). So problems in the application resulted in some problems for their partner websites. As I understand it th...Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:15:40 +01002013-02-13T22:15:40+01:00272d73a1-9d2f-4e63-a4ec-33dfecc7b5dbhttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=160priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThis week we launched our annual Smart Company  survey in Sweden (a study run together with Cisco Systems AB) and more than 1300 responses from companies across the country have flooded in and more are on the way. Last year’s survey showed that the Public sector lagged behind the Private sector in areas related to more productive and effective ways of working using TMT (Technology, Media and Telecoms). Public sector employment represents more than 15% employment in Europe and given the genera...Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:55:41 +01002013-02-06T20:55:41+01:00c7a32583-ce62-4cdb-9391-58bcc4d08f71http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=158priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI talked about learnings from virtual meetings in my earlier blog post. And for inspiration for this post, along the lines of virtual video meetings – I had a chat with my own Mr. Video a.k.a  Mr. Business Collaboration - Per Åkerstrand in my own company.  Here is what Per said – “Business Collaboration using high quality video  holds large potential, in order to inspire here are a few examples on best practice: Healthcare : video meetings are used here in order to drive patient centric...Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:32:07 +01002013-01-30T19:32:07+01:00f7709e80-ecf3-410e-8f7d-f57cb54956b2http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=156priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comInnovation in communications enables people to see each other and share documents through virtual meetings using tools which are typically enterprise in origin like Webex or Telepresence   (when we run a Telepresence meeting its almost the same as being in the same room). However now with video over social media eg with Facebook or Google Hangouts I expect that the uptake of virtual meetings will grow even more rapidly due to consumerisation. In my company we focus on “walking the talk” and...Sun, 27 Jan 2013 19:15:34 +01002013-01-27T19:15:34+01:00dc5af2d1-3d15-4998-9672-61161f743a11http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=154priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comA colleague asked me recently if I had any indication on general trends in "traditional telecoms" that I could share with her. My short answer to her was “yes”. And so here are some trends for the old-timer telco-geeks amongst us (that would include myself, actually, given that almost my entire career has been in this industry).. 1. Operating Systems (OS) – device use case convergence and OS diversity PCs are slowly giving way to Macs though Windows still leads with about 85% market share on...Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:04:45 +01002013-01-16T21:04:45+01:00e055894e-2986-45dc-aa5f-54f609108db3http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=152priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comDeployment of LTE is going on worldwide. It is probably the emergence of LTE that will finally remove the user experience barrier between fixed and mobile data access services. Given the growth of devices like the iPad, more and more people are moving to wireless ways of working and connecting. According to Informa ( as quoted on 4G Americas  ) there are more than 6 billion GSM, HSPA and LTE connections on our planet. Add to that the number of people accessing voice and data applications...Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:21:46 +01002013-01-09T20:21:46+01:00c5200285-cd72-4fea-b6ec-49ebd1b8f0c5http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=147priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comCasting an eye over the year to come, and learning from the year behind, here are my predicts for 2013. Assuming of course that NASA are correct in their analysis …. :- In keeping with the increasing trend of visual and short attention span, this blog post became an infographic, showing six predicts- Here is my seventh: the year of 2013 will be the year of Doing. The year of speed in execution, of walking the talk - the year of transparence and showing what you are all about . My keywords for...Tue, 18 Dec 2012 21:22:04 +01002012-12-18T21:22:04+01:00ee98eb82-2df2-4fb5-a182-0d1e84b02870http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=145priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThe 19 th and 20 th century saw a high degree of innovation in technological areas, starting with the Industrial Revolution and continuing with various inventions especially during World War 1 and 2 and culminating with the digital highway of the Internet. The first 12 years of this century have already shown us a plethora of technical innovations from the iPhone to Google glasses to so much more.. so much that technological innovation seems to have become mainstream and constant. I believe...Wed, 05 Dec 2012 22:50:16 +01002012-12-05T22:50:16+01:007e81e0cd-21c0-435c-9c9f-ae03aa0687e9http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=143priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comHeadsup that this blog post is going to be somewhat esoteric. And I find myself in good company regarding esotericism  in the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecoms) industry with a professor from  the Royal School of Technology in Stockholm, who connected the timing of  innovations in 2G-3G-4G networks  with sunspot cycles every decade. Last Sunday my colleague and friend LG Wallmark sent me a link that I highly recommend – 6 Social media digital trends . http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/08/02/6-...Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:10:50 +01002012-11-28T22:10:50+01:005c164944-f164-4d00-8e79-96d82a80144ehttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=141priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThis quarter is the one of several market reports – the Ericsson global mobility report , our own annual large customer survey in Sweden for enterprise customers – and several regulators reports addressing state of the nation regarding communications services. The growth of mobile data usage is phenomenal-  here are a few examples just from the Swedish market: Enterprise customers’ usage of mobile data is up 75% in 12 months ( www.pts.se ) Mobile data traffic generated through international...Wed, 21 Nov 2012 20:56:01 +01002012-11-21T20:56:01+01:003c780c81-c3ef-4485-9f08-394c1a2761e8http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=138priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comOn the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Steve Jobs what type of market research he had done.  Jobs responded by scoffing, “Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?” (from the Isaacson biography). As an ardent Jobs fan, this is one of the very few things I disagree with him on. Market research done by a few badly constructed focus groups – save your money. But research carried out diligently, with competence and...Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:13:51 +01002012-11-14T21:13:51+01:002c7fa127-39d9-404c-b93c-829d729781f3http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=135priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comEarlier this year I talked about the trends we can expect 2012 in TMT (Telecoms, Media and Technology) What does it look like, in the last quarter of this year? The digisphere : our virtual world is becoming as integral a part of our lives as our physical world. Mobile applications, Spotify, streaming films and of course the ever present virtual friends and twitterati thanks to ubiquitous social media. Device boom : Tablets, laptops, smartphones, Kindles and others. All complement rather than...Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:09:43 +01002012-11-07T23:09:43+01:002384aac9-b2e0-4504-8c94-12f2dd2d9a44http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=131priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI was thinking about the high speed internet access that is so very important to all of us. But it isn’t the access that we as end-consumers perceive the actual value in – it’s the services that we use over that access. Some of the reasons we pay for high speed access: MMORPG (Massive multiplayer Online Role playing game): a.k.a World of Warcraft, Star Wars.... The force is strongest in the one with the highest speed. Video chatting:  Social video-chat company ooVoo has added 7 million...Sun, 28 Oct 2012 19:10:30 +01002012-10-28T19:10:30+01:003bd66423-b45f-44e1-a5ab-b760010f8f12http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=128priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI was thinking about how our industry has changed, and how our ways of living and working have changed because of communications tools and technology including access-anywhere and social networks. Its not only the communications industry that’s affected by the speed of change and uptake of new digital communication technologies  – it is so many other industries as well – press/paper/magazine, security, entertainment, even transport with the growing adoption of virtual meetings instead of...Wed, 17 Oct 2012 21:25:47 +02002012-10-17T21:25:47+02:006d5791dd-99e6-4609-bfc1-5896296d502ahttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=125priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comA couple of weeks ago I talked about QoE i.e. Quality of Experience metrics. The focus for many companies that serve enterprise customers is on delivering best-in-class Quality of Experience which is a result of high quality throughout the entire service experience as well as usage experience. Thanks to social media and a large online population living in the digisphere – there are now additional ways to improve customer quality of experience. One example is through Crowdsourcing. Crowdsourci...Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:49:11 +02002012-10-10T20:49:11+02:00f6ebe7dd-d6ed-487b-af0e-58bccb4ea0d4http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=123priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI often speak with customers and colleagues regarding the increasing consumerisation in our business. Or in other words, the tendency of TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) tools to enter first in the residential “private” market and then enter the business and government market.  So far I have always referred to “consumerisation” in the workplace as something related to the usage of personal devices or the convergence of private-professional tools (using Facebook at work, addressi...Wed, 03 Oct 2012 22:46:42 +02002012-10-03T22:46:42+02:00f6f433ec-6445-44d8-a43a-37e27274d0e5http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=121priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThe above quote is from Walt Disney. I read earlier this week that while Apple is the leader in Product Experience, Disney is the lea der in Customer Experience .  That caught my attention.  2013 will be the year where Innovation, Productivity and Customer Experience will be the key phrases on everybody’s lips. And yet Customer Experience is almost an oxymoron when you connect it to some industries.  The customer experience experts tend to be in more “marketing” kind of companies and...Thu, 27 Sep 2012 00:38:38 +02002012-09-27T00:38:38+02:00229f1aaf-fc27-42c0-8bc8-fac098b73c7ehttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=118priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comToday I left my mobile phone at home.   And experienced what all has changed in the last 5 years all because of my smartphone - combined with applications and ubiquitous connectivity... I make my to-do lists in the “notes” section of my iPhone – no more little paper notebook I check my hair using the front facing camera as a little mirror - thank you Apple for that innovation – no more little hand mirror in my purse I no longer wear a watch – guess what I use to check the time... I fill...Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:18:40 +02002012-09-20T21:18:40+02:00b3abb33c-b446-4f91-9e00-a60a7b8b8836http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=116priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comSeveral studies show that companies that take a strong approach to innovation including target-setting and metric followup are more likely to succeed at being innovative. So - how do you measure innovation? Traditional metrics have included the following: Number of patents filed in the past year Total R&D headcount or budget as a percentage of sales Number of ideas submitted by employees Percentage of sales from products introduced in the past X year(s) However traditional metrics become...Sat, 15 Sep 2012 23:57:28 +02002012-09-15T23:57:28+02:00912b82f1-cc60-4cbe-abf1-c64e07fb8860http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=113priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comSomething occupying my thoughts a lot of the time is how to make innovation happen. To move it from being a highly popular buzzword to a daily way of living, that actually does create a competitive advantage for nations and makes for a better planet. For some reason Hans Snook popped into mind. Not so strange though, since I work in the TMT (telecom, media and tech) industry and Snook is known for what he accomplished in his years at Orange. I heard a story once many years ago about how Hans...Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:15:09 +02002012-09-05T17:15:09+02:0077563bb6-b5ae-4804-907a-da6a9a42561fhttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=110priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comMonday this week started off on a hectic note with a panel discussion here in Stockholm about Innovation. Entrepreneurship. The role of Government. Of Industry. Of Education. All these as critical factors going forwards that will secure the competitive advantage of nations in our changing global landscape. I had the privilege of being part of a panel that was  made up of talented, driven and smart people – who all happened to be women – Gunilla Von Platen (entrepreneur), Maria Wetterstrand...Wed, 29 Aug 2012 14:23:39 +02002012-08-29T14:23:39+02:00f2b0910a-eee4-40f7-bc35-56d49c914420http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=107priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comLast week I was interviewed by a company doing an article on the employment atmosphere in the Nordics. The girl doing the interview was floored when I described India's heavy competition for top talent in the private education sector and gave an example of the rigid selection process for my business school – the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research - in Mumbai. There were thousands of candidates but finally only about 60 were selected after written tests, interviews and group...Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:18:37 +02002012-08-22T13:18:37+02:003fd65c49-d587-4362-af6a-a10ba09b40cahttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=103priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comIn two weeks we will be holding a seminar on innovation and emphasising the need for current leaders in innovation to continue to constantly grow and develop to keep their lead. Countries with a highly technology mature population and with supporting infrastructure – for example the Nordics – have all the prerequisites to grow and drive innovation using TMT tools like video, social media and smartphones and mobile applications. However it is easy to be complacent and let somebody else pass yo...Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:18:22 +02002012-08-16T16:18:22+02:001f615b77-4c14-4fd0-998a-9fdb6cc103eahttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=97priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI read an article last week about the controversy surrounding a parent who put his 8 year old child onto Facebook with the reasoning that it was the easiest way for the child to call his grandmother. It got me thinking about the many more ways there are to communicate in our lives now compared to just a few years ago. Communication tools have  expanded from the mouth to the eyes to touch and communications technology embraces every aspect of our lives. One example is the uptake of the iPad in...Wed, 08 Aug 2012 20:24:24 +02002012-08-08T20:24:24+02:00f5466b7d-0ba1-4289-b474-506080c9963chttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=92priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThe Nordic and Baltic sea regions have a comparatively small population (about 32 million people) and yet have been the home of many innovations that went global – Ericsson, Volvo, Saab, Nokia, Spotify, Skype, AstraZeneca , TetraPak and many more.  Now, in an increasingly global and competitive market where not just manufacturing but also knowledge-based industries are being outsourced to other countries, it is imperative for these countries to utilise their strong technology maturity in orde...Wed, 01 Aug 2012 21:30:06 +02002012-08-01T21:30:06+02:00fcbd7414-b33b-4d10-904f-9af13e647259http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=86priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThis last week of July is traditionally the slowest week of the entire summer season in Sweden.  Most people are on vacation – as am I – enjoying nature either here or outside the country (given that this summer has been one of rain-sunshine-clouds-rain).  And so- this week’s blog post is dedicated to innovation in nature. Ever wondered about the forces that took our species from being a single-celled organism 3.5 billion years ago to a tweeting, facebooking, rocket-ship flying primate today....Wed, 25 Jul 2012 21:21:15 +02002012-07-25T21:21:15+02:00b75e9e2f-ce84-46e4-9328-089d96b03105http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=82priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThis century is one of choices. Especially for those of us who have had the fortune to live in economies and lifestyles where every day’s waking thought is not about the next meal.  One survey said that the typical American makes about 70 choices a day.  These choices have become more complex because of the growing number of suppliers in the market. This sets demands on increased competitiveness for suppliers. How do you make your product/service stand out in the customers’ eyes? More and mor...Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:00:10 +02002012-07-18T15:00:10+02:00bb63518a-2d7b-4316-ab9b-0a4b469a0571http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=76priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comOur business landscape has recently changed with several disruptors that were nowhere on the telco landscape as early as 5 years ago – Apple’s iPhone that raised the bar for several traditional market players, the stickiness of Facebook encouraging people to live and connect with each other in a much more digital world and the consumerisation in the workspace that made its presence known through an avalanche of iPads smack in the CIO’s traditional “ICT” world. ICT meant Information and...Wed, 04 Jul 2012 21:47:41 +02002012-07-04T21:47:41+02:00cc83b011-6d77-46b9-b1bb-93e4e657777dhttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=73priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI met some journalists from Latvia last week and a formal Q&A session turned into a delighted discussion as we realized that we were all Tweeple.  Tweeps. Tweets. Or- as  I sometimes think when I see a monumentally stupid tweet – twits.  Twitter has created a parallel universe for those who are ready to be immersed. One in which you either make your point in 140 characters or pray that people will take the 30 extra seconds needed to open the link attached which tells more than your 140...Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:58:08 +02002012-06-27T12:58:08+02:00230a1e9a-0050-4797-9ab3-a0207856d6b9http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=67priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThis morning I was with the people who matter the most to our business – our customers – and our discussion went into an area very important for all of us in the room: Innovation.  And how to create it. I thought of who I find the most innovative in the TMT (Telecoms, Media and Technology) space. The two that were top of mind immediately were Apple and Google. Apple for what they have done and Google for how they do it. I think its so obvious what Apple have done under the leadership of Steve...Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:27:12 +02002012-06-13T18:27:12+02:00a26e6aef-3d3f-46d1-a6de-57c7c040c40chttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=64priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comLast week we launched our white paper related to “Bring Your Own Behaviour” and I was delighted with the many responses it received. The general sentiment was the acknowledgement that the trend of consumerisation in the enterprise is much more than just allowing employees to  show up with their own handset, and that many who do not use social media are just not aware of the dramatic changes it is making to human behavior. The thing is that incremental innovations and changes in human behavior...Wed, 06 Jun 2012 19:13:21 +02002012-06-06T19:13:21+02:00daa6bfb6-2e45-48f3-b344-9c32b0f72abahttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=61priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comLast week I was addressing some students at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden. Picture this: a classroom, benches filled with eager and bright eyed 20-somethings soon to complete their course and seek employment in the business world.  And a sea of Macs. With my one lonely PC in the middle of the room.  While I was speaking, these new young employees-to-be had Googled me, tweeted to me and chatted on Facebook to their other friends about the session. If anything more was needed to...Wed, 30 May 2012 16:12:56 +02002012-05-30T16:12:56+02:00ab16847f-9d07-4416-ba53-1d22a89ea1aahttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=57priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comLast week I wrote about how our species has spread over the earth in just about 70,000 years.  The picture alongside illustrates it. We are all living with the result of this expansion. Being social animals has its plus and minuses – a plus being the interest and desire to cooperate and contribute, a minus being… Since I prefer to focus on the positives I’ll leave it for others to decide the biggest minus – global warming, starvation and wars or something else. The biggest plus I see is the...Wed, 23 May 2012 18:10:23 +02002012-05-23T18:10:23+02:00ef13a681-40bf-49d7-85b0-0fcbacf8e0d6http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=54priya.sawhney@teliasonera.com1903 was the year of the first flight. Logically one would think rocket technology came after the first flight. I found out however today t hat rocket technology has existed from at least the 13 th century, when there are records of gunpowder and associated weaponry  used by the Chinese. The real rocketry advances happened in the 20 th century partly due to the World Wars. It has frequently been periods of war and grave danger that have driven some speedy technological advances for example in...Wed, 16 May 2012 14:53:00 +02002012-05-16T14:53:00+02:005ff5fb7e-59a9-424c-a541-617b865fe6c2http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=51priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThere is a story about when Alexander the Great visited the renowned philosopher Diogenes. Alexander in his liberality asked Diogenes what he could do to help him and Diogenes reply (paraphrased) was “Don’t stand in my light” as Alexander’s shadow was stopping the sun from reaching him. It got me thinking about organisations who use the word innovation and who really want to drive it but who unwittingly are actually the shadows themselves stopping the growth of innovation. That’s why the topi...Wed, 09 May 2012 13:26:49 +02002012-05-09T13:26:49+02:002d190222-882a-4fad-9a26-04d90d26c2e7http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=48priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comI had just started at TeliaSonera in our Mobile International headquarters in early 2000 when someone grabbed my shoulders and literally turned me around to gaze at a fluffy haired elder gentleman. And told me “Meet Mr. Mobile. He invented mobile telephony.”  My initially cynical reaction changed as I started chatting with “Mr. Mobile”  a.k.a  Östen Mäkitalo. I had just been  the project manager of a full cellular network  in India including having spent intensive  time on the technology and ...Wed, 02 May 2012 20:46:17 +02002012-05-02T20:46:17+02:00a468ce9f-402e-4608-8267-80049fea206dhttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=45priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comThis week my thoughts have often been on Communication and its value. Starting from when it lies in our DNA as social animals to live in packs together to today when we can tweet and friend total strangers in a heartbeat -  I think communications is essential to the survival of our species.  From body language while hunting in packs to sparing our environment through virtual meetings – communications has played a vital role in improving our quality of life.  I started my career in telecoms in...Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:13:41 +02002012-04-25T17:13:41+02:00083eb354-4ac4-40b4-9818-f8d29ae4231ahttp://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/blogs/my-blog/?blogId=5&entryId=42priya.sawhney@teliasonera.comEducation comes from the Latin educere/educe – to rear, to lead forth. Normally to go towards something. In this case - to prepare a child for the future.  Now, in an age where technology innovations have enabled a more speedy and dynamic changing environment and access to information at a child’s fingertips, the content of education and also the processes surrounding it demand a radical change. Time spent on learning facts by rote can be reduced since these facts  can be Googled, Wikipediaed...Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:33:30 +02002012-04-18T17:33:30+02:00