The familiar custom of introducing yourself, shaking hands and exchanging business cards is becoming an antiquated practice. As people ramp up their tech game and attempt to diminish their eco footprint, many are relying on digital exchange, like QR codes, SMS, and barcodes.
QR codes were ubiquitous at SXSW. Patrons had a QR code on their badge that others could scan to get a quick download of their details. The best part? No stack of paper business cards to keep track of. Once people get home from the festival, they can export all that data from their phone and have a running list of everyone they met. Some of you may be thinking that QR codes are cool, but it still requires you to have a hard copy of a QR code available. You are correct. However, the beauty of the QR code as opposed to a business card is the one-to-many factor. For every person, you need a business card. But with your one QR code, an infinite number of people can scan your code and walk away with your digits. Robert Scobel actually wore a QR code on his t-shirt at SXSW that linked to his twitter account.
Standard barcodes are still holding their own among the 2-D QR codes of the world. Since barcode technology has been around forever, people are just learning to use it in new ways. I recently came across a great company that is using barcodes as ways of collecting and cataloging virtual information. Stickybits is a company that introduces, “a fun and social way to attach digital content to real world objects.” The difference between the Stickybits barcode and the QR code is that the information attached to the QR code is finite. You can push to one URL. The Stickybits barcode can have all kinds of digital information tagged to it. Think of it as a digital time capsule. You could leave a Stickybit on a park bench and attach your Twitter profile. Someone else could sit down, scan it, see your profile, and add their Facebook link. The trail could continue until you have a whole group of people who are sharing information from one barcode on a park bench. I like to see it as a tangible means of reaching into another person’s digital world. You are no longer someone that I randomly discovered on Twitter, but you are someone that jogs in the same park that I do. It’s a real world connection with a digital extension.
For those of you who are of the 100% paper-free lifestyle, you might like using a SMS service to beam your credentials. One of the companies focusing on this service is Contxts. I agree with their philosophy that, “Business cards are so 2007.” How it works is simple. You create a profile with all of your info, and you choose a username. So you would simply text “kristeng” to 50500, and you would receive my credentials back in a text message. Super simple way to exchange info instantly and without wasting paper.
Whether you want to scan it, beam it, tag it, or stick it – you have many options for swapping digital digits. So, let the data dance begin.
@kristengreen
Forrester Research just released their third annual Social Technographics Profile. It is an on-going piece of the initial book entitled, “