[Warning. It's book length.] On 10/7/2013 6:28 AM, Adam Moskowitz wrote:
With LISA '13 [1] right around the corner, I got to thinking about how "the cool kids" prefer to exchange contact information in a face-to-face setting.
Long ago, and far away, before I became the recluse that I am (and yes, I mean recluse), I used the Palm Pilot. Not so much to exchange info, but rather to show the enormous personal information you could gain from someone else who was doing this.
I'd appreciate it if you'd please take a minute or two to answer a few questions. Again, this is specifically about face-to-face interactions, typically with someone you're meeting for the first time.
Interesting question, Adam. I've read nearly all the responses, which includes the group of "me too" concerning Linked In, which I consider to be a vast wasteland, populated here and there with interesting people. It's an incredibly useful repository of a generic sort of resume, and while I wish that they'd quit trying to be facebook/twitter/whatever, I still like it.
1) Do you prefer exchanging contact information by trading business cards or some electronic-based mechanism?
It depends. It really does (this is my sneaky way of answering all 4).
If you said "business cards," you can stop here.
I used to use them. I had two for work, and countless others I printed up at home, depending on what I was using them for. I almost never take business cards that people offer me, now, unless it's a handyman, or repair service. Other than happily taking the cards of sales folk (and handing them off to the next sales person), I'd rather just enter the info on my phone, or politely decline.
2) Is your preferred electronic mechanism based on QR codes?
Almost never. Okay, never ever. If I still worked, I'd get a second phone just to read them, but as it is, I feel strongly that it's rather like saying "What's behind door number 3?!?!" even though we all know that it has a 1 in 3 chance of being the tiger.
3) If you answered "no" to #2, please tell me the name of the program (system, etc.) that you use (then you can stop).
Nearly all of the time, I use my phone, or a small table that I carry with me. I have been known to send an email, on the spot, to someone I was chatting with, so that I can a) test the email, and b) make sure that they have mine.
4) If you use a system based on QR codes, is your contact information: a) encoded in the QR code itself (typically as a v-card)? b) stored somewhere on the web and the QR code contains the URL of this web page?
I'm with those who are astonished that anyone would trust this. Then I am reminded that our up and coming millennials often think of technology as magic, and are far more trusting than those of a generation or two ago. I'm awaiting the first really bad event to happen as a result of scanning QR codes, and looking for companies that are developing new software to guarantee the safety of them (for investment purposes). If I were going to do this, I would encode minimal contact information, and the link to my Linked In profile. This almost makes me miss working. Almost. -- Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
