Quick Draw McGraw!

Have you come across something called QR Codes yet?  Wikipedia states that the QR “stands for Quick Recognition, (and they are used for) storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards, or on just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR Code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the phone's browser. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks.”


The proliferation of mobile phone sophistication (Android, Apple, Blackberry) suggests to me that the tipping point on this one is close and therefore could be an opportunity to be ahead of the curve in targeting Gen Y (and younger) as well as Gen X tech-savvy people in a variety of different ways. See this link for how Google is using this in an interesting way in the US.


If you use an iPhone, go to the App Store and search for Bakodo. It is a free download and scans QR code. You will need it (or similar) to view the examples below.

Obviously there are thousands of ways in which this new code can be used; ranging from advertising products, increasing the information available regarding products as they pass through process checkpoints, even quick and easy data links on business cards.  On the left is a QR code linking to my LinkedIn profile.

So how else could it be used other than just linking in to a basic URL.  Well, how about HR using it to advertise a new service or new website to employees via posters or message boards?  What about using it when running guerilla recruitment campaigns and targeting Gen Y candidates?   

Take a look at the examples below to see how others have used it out and about.

Have fun thinking up new ways to use QR codes!
 
All the best
 
Jim

How to use a Weak Tie

You'll be relieved to know that I'm not going to be talking about forms of work dress.  If you are like me, the chances are that you need to invest more time and energy into improving your network of personal and professional contacts.  That special personalized collection of connections which can have a major impact both on you and your career.  So how well do you manage yours?

For a number of reasons, recently I have been giving a great deal of thought to my own network.  It was prompted initially because this year marks the 25th anniversary for a group of friends and myself starting military training.  As inevitably happens, over the intervening years, I had fallen out of touch with most of those friends and, so as the anniversary crept closer and nostalgia kicked in, resolved to get back in touch.  Google and LnkedIn are great tools and pretty soon I had found some of them and, within the space of two e-mails, the connection had been re-established as if the intervening years had all been washed away.  That, of course, is the power of great friendships forged under challenging conditions.

There are many rewards we gain when we put sufficient time and energy into managing our networks.  People in your network can help you find a job.  Take me, for example.  I am in my current role because a friend in the same company recommended me to the CEO for a programme of change that they are currently running.  Not only can people in your network help you find a job, a network can also help you fill a vacancy, find a mentor, get some informal career coaching and find emotional support through difficult times. If you want to find best practice for a project you are working on, you can use your network.  You can find vendors and service providers, or get referrals to them.  You can find business partners and customers. You can find the best restaurant in the city you are visting on business. The possibilities are endless.  However the power of your network does not actually rest in the "strong" ties you maintain with your close friends, it really rests with the "weak"links; casual acquaintances, colleagues and new people we meet every day.

I am currently reading what I consider to be one of the best books on networks that I have read; Superconnect by Richard Koch and Greg Lockwood.  It is a book rich in information on the power of networks and how to improve yours and the benefits arising.  This is what they have to say about weak links;

Weak links are the lightest, most ethereal, least structured form of network connection.  They traverse enormous social, mental and physical distances in a single bound. They enable you to enlarge your effective network and bring into your world a huge array of potentially beneficial contacts and insights that would otherwise not be available to you. Typicall, we are unware of, or forget, how important weak links are to us: (yet) they could be the person who introduced us to our spouse, job or fantastic new hobby; or, more often, the person who introduced us to someone who introduced us to someone else who led us to our piece of good fortune.

The key lies in being open to possibilities, accepting that invite to a lunch may just create a link to someone else who in turn...well you get the picture.  It is easy, in today's on-line world, to create weak links.  Just look at the power of LinkedIn.  Yet, you do still need to incorporate the personal element; the social interaction that cements the weak link into memory.  So, if you haven't been in touch with a group of friends for 25 years, re-establish the links.  Who knows where they might take you!

In case you are wondering, I took a break from the blog following Gem's passing and the day to day issues of life intruding, but realised, as I was reading this book, that I like writing and sharing information.  So I'm back.  Hope you like it.

All the best

Jim