I am sure I am not the only one experiencing this: you bump into people all over the place (Customer meetings, workshops, seminars, conference events, TweetUps, etc. etc.) and you end up with several dozens of business cards you keep promising yourself you will look back into when heading back home. Yet, you arrive and that bunch of new business cards gets piled in a drawer with all the others. Several hundred of them! And you never look back! That drawer remains closed till the next time you will fill it up again!
Well, that’s what I have been going through myself over the years. And I think it’s time that I put a stop to it. And look for some much more revolutionary and innovative way of keeping in touch with all of those great people I get to meet every so often. So, here, here is my new business card:
What the…? That’s not a business card, Mr! I bet that’s what you are thinking about this very moment. Well, yes, folks, that’s my new business card. A poken. My poken. My new business card. When I was last time in Madrid I met up with Nacho Guijarro, who happens to be a mutual good friend from a fellow IBM colleague, César Vitero, so we got to talk for a while and he introduced me to the concept of the Poken, and I went "My goodness! I want one of those! Like right NOW!" And a few minutes afterwards I had mine. Way too cool!
Pokens are fun! And they surely fulfil a need that most of us with a heavy presence in the social software world out there were missing out big time: a way to keep in touch with our new connections online and in our mutually shared social software spaces! Traditional business cards don’t do that; they are just too much focused on the physical world alone, which is probably why I never go back to them or why I don’t plan to use them for much longer! Yet, with my Panda Bear Poken (There are several designs, by the way, to suit everyone’s needs!) things are now different. Much different; I have got my list of new contacts right there! At my fingerprints and at the same social software spaces we already share a presence at! Just wonderfully simple and effective!
Well, I do realise that not many folks may have pokens with them, but I am surely looking forward to hook up with folks who may have one while attending this week the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 event in Boston. It sounds like it’s going to be plenty of good fun and I am surely hoping to put together another blog post at a later time detailing what my experiences have been during this week.
For now, though, if you would want to find out plenty more what Pokens are good for and how they can enhance a face to face event to help continue further with your new connections into the virtual world of socials software, check out this great presentation that my good friend, and fellow IBM colleague, Thorsten Zoerner, put together just recently on how an IBM event got the most out of the Poken experience…
View more OpenOffice presentations from zoernert.
So … Do you have your poken(s) ready, folks? I’m surely looking forward to have them "shake hands" then! Bring it on!
(Oh, and if you would prefer the traditional one, you can still get it from me if you go over here)
Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Workshops, Seminars, Customer Meetings, TweetUps, Twitter, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Business Cards, Biz Cards, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Virtual Handshakes, Handshakes, Meetings, Nacho Guijarro, César Vitero, IBM, Pokens, Poken, Thorsten Zoerner, IOD2009, Slideshare, IBM Information On Demand, Berlin, 2009
Hehe…I got one of these as a result of SXSW this year. Love it
Hi Kevin! Yeah, I can imagine! I am loving it, too! I am here at Enterprise 2.0 about to get started in a few hours and I already had a chance to “shake hands” with it! Way too cool! And all social software data already processed! That’s the way to go with business cards, I am afraid! heh
Good stuff! Glad to see you have been enjoying it for a little while already hehe I am sure there will plenty more folks coming along! 😀
Keep having fun!
I got mine too…courtesy of Twestival here in London, and it’s been sitting in my drawer until you reminded me. Good to know the planet is stocking up! And love the ‘green’ paperless element.
Hi Jemima! Way cool! Glad to know you have one yourself as well! Next time we meet up we will have to hive 4 and everything! I surely agree with you the green element is wonderful and so much fun to go around in conferences with your poken and raise some interesting conversations as a result of it. Way too nice to miss out! Glad to read you are enjoying yours! We will need to poken soon! 🙂
Somehow it reminds me of my Nabaztag… cute looks and shortlived buzz. Would rather need not to hi-5 with that and have a more discreete profile transfer method. Wonder how it would fit into the meishi culture.
Hi Pedro, funny enough pokens have got the opportunity to share two different kinds of profiles: 1. a much more public one with all of the data, and 2. a private one, for the shy folks out there, where you just share a limited amount of info across when you hive-4
While I was in the US, there were not many of them to be honest, but then again I was told how various different stores run out of them very quickly. I guess they didn’t reach Boston just yet, but the thing is that all of those folks I used it with we loved the experience! Helped us get together with some interesting conversations that I am sure a traditional business card would not have imagined provoke any time soon… So we will have to wait and see how it develops, but so far it is looking good! heh
Damn! I HAVE a poken, and left it at home! I guess I should’ve read this post before heading to Boston.
Great meeting you last night, Luis. Best of luck.
Hiya Greg! It was a GREAT pleasure meeting you while in Boston and really sorry to read you have a poken, but you didn’t bring it with you. Oh, well, I guess it will be the next time!
We will need to do some hi-4 and enjoy another tremendous conversation like the one we had for dinner last week and then perhaps a drink or two! Thanks again for the inspiring conversation and look forward to shake hands again with our pokens and F2F, of course! 😀