Although its conservative designs had mass appeal, Nokia has also missed many big design trends in recent years -- clamshells, thin phones, touch screens, for instance.

The Morph concept, which Nokia is exploring with researchers in nanoscience at Cambridge University, is one example of a more consultative approach: combining know-how about tiny particles and electronics to see, for example, if a stretchy circuit could be made. Another was the way Nokia in February floated the notion of a phone made almost entirely from recycled materials.

"The ability to include large numbers of users into the development cycle means you can have a much more collaborative approach to development and you can try ideas out, refine them and move forward -- or fail fast and get out," said Nokia's Iannucci.

The shift to services also means that Nokia must get nimble. As Niklas Savander, head of Nokia's Internet services unit, said, "In services it is hugely important to be on the market as early as possible." Added Savander, "You will see a lot of beta launches, or limited-function launches, or limited-geography launches from us."

The company is looking to copy Google's approach to new business: try as many as you can, quickly.

Its Beta Labs website http://www.nokia.com/betalabs, where it puts up software for testing to public, has more than a million visitors a month. The internal mantra is "Fail fast, learn fast, scale fast."

The company's online music stores are in test mode and it is about to launch a global gaming service. Millions of people have downloaded programmes or media from Nokia's new mobile activities site Mosh, also still in beta.

However, there are limits to all this openness. Writing before he attended the Nokia development workshop, Thylman said: "Sadly I will not be able to blog about the contents."

The world's largest non-US technology firm by market capitalisation, controlling 40 per cent of the world market for mobile devices, Nokia is still chasing growth.

At stake is a share of the next phase of Internet growth, to offset the commoditisation of Nokia's signature product. Forrester Research expects the number of mobile Internet users to triple over next five years to 125 million in Western Europe alone, while Nokia knows its double-digit margins on handsets will shrink.

To make its move in Internet services, Nokia plans to use its base of one billion customers -- one-sixth of humanity -- to consult on what works, what wows, and what doesn't. Compared with Apple's much-hyped iPhone, which has sales of just 5 million so far, its customers put Nokia in a strong position.

The market for Internet services is approaching 100 billion euros, and Nokia is the first big cellphone manufacturer to embrace the Internet media business.