Don’t tell me that you’re missing out on the move to electronic business cards. OK, it’s true that this development is taking off far faster in Europe than in the US. But electronic contact management is here now. It’s just a matter of time before you become a pokenite or are left behind with the crowd that still uses typewriters and those mechanical pop-up address books.
Poken S.A., the Swiss company, has created a new technology with a complete support system that changes the process of exchanging business and personal contact information. It’s often described as an electronic business card because it is a direct replacement for the 3.5 x 2 inch cardboard slips that we’re accustomed to offer at any business encounter. You set up a Poken card to mirror what you put on a business card. But being electronic, the links you publish are active. You also have real, working buttons for your social networks. Here’s a screenshot of my poken card. Online, all the links are active.
The electronic card replacement is only one aspect of the Poken innovation. The real magic is in how you exchange cards. You exchange paper business cards by handing over a physical product. You poken, or exchange electronic business cards, by wirelessly transferring a number code. That code uniquely identifies you and your card, which is stored in an online database. The code you receive is stored, with up to 64 others, in the memory of your Poken device. When you plug the poken into your computer, those contacts are uploaded to your account where you can see them in a list and a timeline display with pictures. That timeline is an excellent memory jogger to help you associate names and faces by when you met them.
Have you been missing out on an important productivity enhancing development? It’s not too late. You still have a chance to get in on the leading edge of electronic business cards for your company, interest group, convention, political organization, or other opportunity to connect people with a common interest.
