Candid conversations about using GPS and wireless technology for work and fun.
Behind the Scenes
Friday Top 5: Our Favorite Employee Videos
Jul 16th
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It’s FRIDAY! What does that mean?
It’s almost Saturday and that means it’s time to have fun, laugh, and most importantly, figure out how you’re going to be enjoying yourself this weekend.
That’s what life should be about anyways though, right? Life should be about having a good time and finding the balance between work and play. And here at TeleNav, that’s exactly what we try to remember and that’s why sometimes we like to take a little bit of time out to just have fun.
Need proof? Then check out my Top 5 TeleNav Employee Videos!
5. Dancing at TeleNav
4. Thanksgiving Message From TeleNav
3. If TeleNav Were a Song…
2. What is Your Worst Habit?
1. TeleNav Goes Go-Karting!
Have an idea for a fun question we could ask our TeleNav employees? Have a question for us? Let us know in the comments section below!
A Look Inside Our Company: All Hands Meeting
Jun 3rd
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Life at TeleNav sure has been busy lately!
In the past few months we’ve been working hard to bring our customers what we think are some of the most innovative & useful products/services out there. Of course, this starts with our GPS navigation services but it also includes things like our involvement with Ford & some of our newer innovations like Whereboutz & OnMyWay. To say that all of this has kept us busy would be an understatement. Believe me, there have definitely been a few “chicken with their head cut-off” moments. ;)
With so much going on across all of our company, it can be easy to get caught up in it and forget to bring our heads up for air. Thankfully though, some of the TeleNav higher-ups realized that, and thought it was time to reflect on some of things we’ve accomplished in the past few months. That’s why recently at our Sunnyvale offices, we held an all-hands meeting which included over 300 (hungry) TeleNav employees!
During the meeting, we heard from members of our executive board as they reflected upon the past few months. They highlighted a variety of different things including some of our recent accomplishments and thanked those who were involved with making them possible. For me (as an employee), it was really great to see them take the time to do that because I think there are a lot of people at TeleNav who work tirelessly to ensure our customers are provided with a product they can be happy to use. To give them some recognition for it is (IMHO) very well deserved.
Anyways, this post is getting a bit longer than I originally intended so I think I’ll wrap it up here. Please take a moment to look at some photos that were snapped by our very own Graphic Designer extraordinaire, Ryan. Enjoy!
Our CEO, HP Jin, on the mic!
HP & our Chief Technical Officer, Bob Rennard!
Next up: YC Chao, VP of R&D!
Doug Miller, our Chief Financial Officer!
Sal Dhanani, our VP of Products & Marketing, up on stage!
HP takes some questions!
Cheers!
To see more photos, please check out our Flickr page.
Where the Streets Have No Names: Local Search & Navigation Are Among the Last Apps To Truly Go Global
Mar 26th
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Growing up the son of a Diplomat, I often lived in remote corners of the world, meaning that the adult ritual of visiting ones childhood home has had its own unique challenges for me and my family. On a business trip to Kinshasa, Congo 20 years removed from our posting there, my father struck out to see how our old house had fared in the intervening decades. After two hours of circling our former neighborhood he had to give up, confounded by navigation based on memory and the fact that few of the streets in the outlying areas of the capital have street names.
That he couldn’t check this item off of his nostalgia tour is a minor issue, but the reasons for it has implications on the global penetration of local mobile applications.
Last month at Mobile World Congress, an industry show that can uniquely claim to bring together mobile vendors from 180 countries in one location, it became clear to me that the pace of true global penetration of local search and turn-by-turn applications is beginning to lag behind other application categories. Social networking apps now seem to touch every market serviced by sufficient data networks and entertainment and gaming apps spanned the globe a long time ago. But there remain near continent-sized swaths of the globe where the types of turn-by-turn navigation solutions that many North American and European mobile users take for granted just don’t exist.
Since LBS is all about translating the world around us, the value of local services is directly proportional to the ‘foreign-ness’ of a user’s surroundings. Naturally the more location-agnostic a mobile application is, the more readily it works in your immediate local context. Alarm Clock Pro for iPhone does a great job for me no matter where I am. But it’s both ironic and unfortunate that more advanced location based services are so geographically challenged, particularly in the most exotic areas of the world.
The reasons people still rely on old-school navigation – a map, a spouse, or a combination of thereof – is that the data is just not there, yet. The two major map vendors do offer map packages in places like Congo, but those don’t tend to be suitable for turn by turn navigation application. And these days maps and directions aren’t nearly enough anyway. Users pretty much expect that dynamic local content like traffic conditions, speed trap data, event search and weather will augment their navigation experience. And whether they know it or not, augmented GPS APIs from their mobile carriers keep them from waiting up to 10 minutes for a GPS satellite to locate them.
State of the art mobile navigation solutions in North America, Europe and Asia rely on such a sophisticated location-specific value chain that the prospects of global penetration seem poor.
But like everything mobile, local search and navigation will eventually span the globe. While Google Nav users remain bound to North America today, TeleNav already offers a single Global Edition through AT&T on selected platforms covering Asia, US and Europe. This is among the most globally complete solution I have seen, although even this product wouldn’t have helped dad. Perhaps most interesting are the array of open source mapping efforts by organizations such as OpenStreetMap that theoretically enable a user-generated approach to mapping every corner of the world. If business case realities mean that the larger content vendors won’t service a given area, at least users themselves can blaze trails for the benefit of those that follow. And it seems only fair that if you find a street with no name as part of the process, you should be able to give it the name of your choice. So, if you’re ever scanning over a map of Kinshasa and you see ‘Adair’ street – you’ll know that at least one of our clan eventually found our house.
Get To Know Us: Mary Beth Lowell, Sr. PR Manager
Mar 15th
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Happy Monday, ladies & gents!
So when someone says, “TeleNav” to you, what do you think? Most likely your first thoughts have something to do with GPS, Sprint Navigation, AT&T Navigator, or something along those lines. Am I right? But one word that may not come to mind is the word “people.”
You see, here at TeleNav, we’re really proud of the team we’ve put together because without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today, building you the best GPS applications anywhere. From our people in our engineering and product teams all the way to our marketing and customer care teams, we truly feel we’ve put together an all star cast. And it’s because of this, we wanted to try something new.
Today, for the first time, we’re going to be sharing with you a little bit about the employees who work for us by profiling one of them. Who’s up first? Please get to know Mary Beth Lowell, our Senior Public Relations Manager.
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Name: Mary Beth Lowell
What do you do at TeleNav? Senior Public Relations Manager
How long have you been at TeleNav? 3.5 years
What is a normal day at TeleNav for you like?
It usually starts with a big cup of coffee because I work the early shift – in the office by 6:30am. We’re running a variety of different projects now so it’s hard to say any day is typical but each day usually includes several conversations with reporters/bloggers, strategy/planning meetings with other team members and our executives, a lot of monitoring news, industry and customer conversations online via blogs and Twitter, and of course trying to keep up with the daily deluge of email.
What’s the best thing about your job?
There are a three things that come to mind immediately. I love the people I work with – both the team at TeleNav and the bloggers/reporters/analysts who work in the industry. I have developed many friendships that I’m sure will last for years to come. There are just some really cool people working in this industry. The second is the creativity and independence that is fostered at the company. I have always felt empowered to try new things as long as I can provide a rationale and am willing to work hard to succeed. Many companies aren’t so entrepreneurial and I am very appreciative that I have this flexibility. The third is the challenge. Although I hate it at the time, the most challenging and frustrating moments have always led to the best learning experiences. I have really learned a lot here and I am extremely grateful for that.
What were you doing before you were at TeleNav?
Most recently, I worked for Sprint, managing regional PR for some of the West Coast states. In my past, I’ve also worked for Nextel and AT&T. Once I started working in the wireless industry, I never really wanted to leave.
What kind of advice would you give to someone who wants to do what you do?
1) Start with internships if you can. I tried four internships while I was in college and only one of them was in tech. It’s a really great way to find out what you enjoy doing without having to make a long-term commitment. It also helps to build out your resume.
2) Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are and are running successful programs. A good mentor can be invaluable throughout your career. Several good mentors are even better.
3) Always keep learning. The PR industry has changed quite a bit in the past few years and will probably continue to change annually. On the job training is critical but don’t forget about other sources of learning – industry events, books, courses, online training, etc. You can never know too much.
4) Work hard, push yourself and be flexible – as our CEO says, you learn more from what doesn’t work than what does. It’s ok if something doesn’t succeed the first time – don’t lose your enthusiasm.
5) Stand out – be different by being better and working harder. Anyone can get a job in PR – this is evident by how much bashing we take from media. You should always be pushing yourself to be the gold medal level (I’ve been watching the Olympics too much). How can you be the best at it? I recommend Chris Brogran’s book, Trust Agents, for some good inspiration.
6) Make sure you enjoy what you do. You’ll be better at what you love than what you hate. Besides, life is just way too short.
What’s your favorite gadget?
You expect me to say the iPhone or my BlackBerry right? True, I couldn’t live without my phone, but I also couldn’t live without my video baby monitor which allows me to keep an eye on my toddler without waking her up. Best gadget out there for new parents.
What app do you use the most (besides TeleNav)?
Other than accessing Outlook, the other apps I use the most are TweetGenius, Facebook for BlackBerry and Yahoo IM for BlackBerry.
If you could have one super power, what would it be?
I wish I didn’t have to sleep. There are so many things I want to do that I don’t ever seem to have time for. It would be nice if I could have that extra 6 or 7 hours back in my day.
What’s your guilty pleasure road trip song?
Probably Neil Diamond. Reminds me of my honeymoon in New Zealand. Our rental car only had a tape deck and that was the only tape we could find in the local store. We drove around for miles listening to his Greatest Hits. Still brings back good memories.
What is one thing you want to learn to do in the next year?
As a compulsive overachiever, I actually have a few: become fluent in Spanish, finish all the books I’ve got lining my shelves, completely rid my house of clutter, clean out my office at work and eat more whole foods (more natural). Most importantly, give birth to a healthy and happy baby (due in Sept).
What’s your favorite dish to make?
I am a horrible cook – my husband does all the cooking and is amazing at it so I’m totally spoiled. I do enjoy baking though and he claims my banana bread is the best he’s ever eaten. But I think he just wants me to make it more.
What phrase do you say too much?
I have no idea – I have to think about this one!
TeleNav Goes Karting!
Mar 3rd
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Last month, after a day jam-packed full of meetings, TeleNav decided it was time to have a little fun (and by “a little,” what I mean is “A LOT”). So we loaded everyone into a bus and headed for the tracks – the go-kart tracks that is!
For the next few hours, TeleNav-ers were living our Indy 500 dreams as we raced head-to-head with one another for the title of “Fastest Karter at TeleNav” and all of the eternal glory that comes with it. The competition was stiff and the track was fast, but not one of us back downed. *Start humming “Eye of the Tiger HERE”*
In the end, it turned out to be a night full of fun and laughter and after the checkered flag was waved, there were definitely some interesting stories to be told, including about some incidents that will live on at TeleNav for the rest of eternity! (Okay, maybe not…)
Here’s a short video recapping our trip to the race tracks. Enjoy!
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