If everything is a nail to the person with a hammer, then everything is a button for the Internet to an industry obsessed with the QR code. (PaperSpecs Pro Members, check out last week’s Pro Tip on the subject for a sterling example of this QRaziness.) For sheer awkwardness, though, it’s hard to beat the QR-enabled name tag from Badgetec.
That’s right. Next time you find yourself at a trade show, event, or what the heck, family reunion, you can leave those beautifully designed business cards at home and slap a QR code on your lapel instead. That way, all people have to do is whip out their smartphones, scan your badge, and voila: Your name, face, and any other details you care to have associated with your code instantly appear. The badges themselves are easily printed on inkjet or laser printers, and attached to clothing using a small paperclip-like contraption.
Leaving our hair-trigger snarkiness behind for a moment, the Badgetec product does have some good points. Spend two or three days at a busy trade show and you can easily return with pockets crammed with business cards and no way of remembering who was who. Badgetec’s QRWizard gives you the ability to record vital data then and there, and to organize it any way you like. There are just two things that we can see keeping this from taking off:
1. QR codes can be difficult to scan correctly depending on their quality; scanning one that’s on a breathing, swaying person is an added challenge.
2. Working up the nerve to scan your fellow human being can be a problem. Certainly some people will have no problem doing this – remember those earnest early adopters who insisted on swapping details with their Palm devices via infrared? As for the rest of us, it’s all we can do to shake hands.
