What Is A Poken .... Business Networking Fad Or Next Great Thing?
by:
Michael Lemm
By now most people must have seen or heard about Poken. Those "cute" little technology gizmos with cartoon like faces and a "hand". Some may think a Poken looks a bit cartoonish .... more for the younger crowd (teenagers. college students, and 20 sometings). But .... that's not entirely correct.
You can get more information from the Poken website here:
Poken Information
We all tend to get trapped into the physical appearance of things. It something looks silly and childish, it must be silly and childish. These silly-looking funny-face gadgets serve a very real and important purpose - the gathering of contact information at the touch of two devices. Why get all twisted up in how something looks? Perhaps that is why Poken came out with the Poken Pulse. It does pretty much the same thing as the standard Poken, but has more memory and can function as a regular flash drive for the transfer of files. But, it has a distinctly professional appearance. It looks more like your standard flash drive than anything else...although perhaps a bit more attractive.
However, please keep in mind that the REAL value on the Poken is not so much found in the transfer of information from one Poken to another, but in its maintenance once the information is uploaded to your Poken cloud in cyberspace. The Poken is compatible with more than 30 Social Media sites and computer programs like Microsoft Outlook. The real value of Pokens is that it can forever alter the way in which you gather and maintain information.
Mark my words, you will soon start seing third party applications for Pokens just as you do Twitter. There are cell phones which can do similar feats of transfer with Bluetooth technology. But, I have yet to see any cell phone that can equal - let alone surpass the number of Social Media sites associated with Pokens. Also, I have yet to see a cell phone that collects such data set up to store this information in a cyber cloud.
If you find the funny face Poken a little embarrassing, get yourself instead a Poken Pulse. No one laughs when they see that level of class and distinction.
The technology behind Poken is going to one day replace the traditional business card - especially at business mixers. What is it you have to do after you exchange business cards at a mixer? A lot of folks place them into business card folders or take time to input the contact information into a computer. Well, Pokens are a better idea. You simply touch your Poken device to another Poken device - shake hands you might say - and you have automatically exchanged contact information. Now, all you have to do is insert your Poken into your computer and upload that information to your cyber Poken account.
This is the smart way to manage contact information. And, why is that? Because it is not just your name, address, phone number and email address. It's also all your social networks - including Skype. Now, you have the ability to Poken and not really share your information. There's a special way to do that. You also have the ability to have up to three Poken accounts. So, you can actually share different information with different groups of people.
However, once you get into the habit of using a Poken, you can get out of the habit of keeping track of such things as address and phone number changes of your contacts. So long as each Poken contact takes care of his own information, your information will ALWAYS be correct. Why? Because through the Poken system you're virtually connected.
As most folks will tell you who are familiar with Pokens, these little devices have not reached "critical mass." They are still a few years away from being a household name. Perhaps that is because they were created in the Swiss version of Silicon Valley. Pokens are a lot more popular in Europe than they are in the USA. However, savvy tech people - including IBM - are jumping onto the Poken bandwagon.
A Poken is not going to work any magic for your business unless you know how to work the Poken so that the benefits are indeed achieved. If you don't watch the videos and you don't own the product, you can kiss those benefits of being a Poken owner good-bye. This is really the way it is with just about any device. If you do not really understand how to use it, you are not going to reap any benefits from owning it. Of course, if you happen to be one among many folks who own the device, chances are you can tap the collective intelligence and get your questions answered.
Critical mass is what any product hopes to achieve. Granted, Pokens have not achieved critical mass status in the USA ..... yet. But, they are quickly approaching that status in Europe. Can the USA be too far behind? Do you think IBM would give Pokens even a consideration if they did not see the technology as viable?
For more on the "phenomenon called Poken .... read this news piece:
Poken In The News
Now .... armed with an education into the possibilities of Poken .... what are you going to do?
About the Author:
Michael is the owner of
FreedomFire Communications .... and also authors
Small Business Resources Cafe. The Cafe Is Open. So .... Grab A Cup Of Joe & Sit Awhile!
No. of Times this article has been viewed :
517
Date Published :
Dec 11 2009
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