Notes

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It seems like I am closing of parts of student life. Things might start moving quick soon. The past two weeks were filled with exams for most, for me it was only one last one on the first morning. About one more week till I expect the results, a little exciting, I have to admit.

After my exam I rushed to the train to make sure I would be in Amsterdam in time for the fourth edition of Mobile Monday. I’ve been following this event ever since the second edition already some time ago. It was the first time I could actually be there though. The line up was impressive, with speakers from Gate 5 (Nokia Maps), Tom Tom, KPN and many others. The keynote speaker was great. I never heard of Joseph Pine II before, but his story really blew me of the chair and left me dizzy for some time. I expect the keynote to be out on video soon so you can see what I mean (if I put it here, don’t mind the Star Wars jokes at the end, I didn’t get them either).

I figured that it would be a nice occasion for me to see if I could find a way to get companies to get in touch and discuss about possible graduation research. After all, I’ve been more and more focused on all the things going on in the mobile industry. All the people I would possibly like to write a letter to would be at this event (out of the over 200 attendees I was one of the very few students). I would never be able to talk to them all so thought of a way how to make them get in touch with me. I didn’t know if it would be appropriate, but decided to give it a try.

I made these posters and put two up in the toilet. It displays a big QR code which could be read with a mobile phone and next to it a short introduction with a call to action (snap the code), a short instruction on how to snap the code and links to places where those without a reader could get one. Once the QR code would be snapped, the phone would ask permission to open the SMS application on the phone and the person could send an SMS to my pre-programmed number.

It was a little experiment and I didn’t expect much of it. Although there was only one person who actually sent me an SMS via the code, I don’t know how many tried to snap the code without sending the SMS. Another positive side effect, I only hoped for but didn’t expect was that the code would get attention afterwards via bloggers who had snapped a picture and put it on their flickr account like these two guys did and later Roger (Kaywa) did because of this post (thanks Roger!).

Exams are done, so it’s only me and a couple of papers left till I can move out of Enschede. I’ll go back to Rotterdam for some time, but might move to Utrecht half way March. It’s exciting times all the way

And I love it! It took some time to get it working, but now it does so without any problems. The realy nice thing is that I can even use it to post on this blog:)

Well it has been a long day, so I’d better get some sleep now.

I’ll be leaving for Italy tomorrow to have to weeks of Italian courses. No Idea if I’ll be any good at it, but it seems like a great way to spend some time away. I finished my questionnaire yesterday and will send it out to the people within the target group (do you speak Dutch, and are you in the range of 16-30y? Than you can join too. Please use 10 minutes of your time to help me collect data by filling this out:)

I’ve probably lost most of my readers by not writing on this blog since May. For those of you still here to check this and feeling like you would deserve an update a little more often, please visit my lifestream. It will display my new flickr uploads as I shoot pictures on my mobile:) Enjoy!

In Brazil they managed to increase the cab use one night by 50% after a don’t drink and drive campaign. Not only 50% increased calls between 0h00 and 04h00 were the effect of the campaign, also national news coverage on TV, newspapers and internet. And a government backed follow up:) Innovative and effective campaign indeed, although I wonder if the second time people will be approached at a similar way will be as effective as the first time.

Via Brainstorm #9

Crawling the net for some new stuff I passed along these interactive bar surfaces. Quite a nice eye catcher I didn’t see in any Dutch bar yet (which makes me wonder about the JKT bars). I’ll share the video’s I could find on Youtube with you.

Goldfish bar

Water/plasma bar

Multi touchscreen technology by mister Han

Imagine how you could work out ways to reach a target audience in this new way, blending it in the ambiance with some nice fishes or lava lamp table. I’m looking forward to see one of these tables in a club some time soon