Month: September 2014

What’s next for Seattle’s tech community?

The agenda for GeekWire Summit (2014) includes panels and presentations with Chris Anderson (no relation) the former editor of WIRED magazine and now CEO of 3D Robotics; Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of Re/code; Elissa Fink, CMO of Tableau; John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile; and the U.S. governments top technology official, Steven VanRoekel.

WebIt’s been a few years since I’ve attended the GeekWire Summit in Seattle. I’m going this year as a journalist covering the event. I’m attending in part because I’m sensing some changes in Seattle’s technology community and I want to know more. It seems as though more of the tech folks I know are working for large, established companies. There’s also a renewed focus on hardware (wearable gadgets and drones). And you can’t help but notice increased competition from technology hubs in cities where the cost of housing is significantly lower.

So, I’m going to GeekWire to see which of my assumptions get validated — and which get altered by new information.

The full-day, single-track agenda includes panels and presentations with Chris Anderson (no relation) the former editor of WIRED magazine and now CEO of 3D Robotics; Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of Re/code; Elissa Fink, CMO of Tableau; John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile; and the U.S. governments top technology official, Steven VanRoekel.

GeekWire Summit, 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. Oct. 2, at the Westin Seattle. Tickets: $399.; group pricing available.

 

Before you fall in love with your business card

Before you fall in love with your business card — is it readable by an OCR scanner? High-drama design can often result in low impact.

business cardsBefore you commit to a mad, passionate affair with your business card’s design, ask yourself: Is this readable by an OCR scanner?

OCR (optical character recognition) software now comes bundled with most home-office scanners. It’s no longer something for the sales person who goes to trade shows and comes back with 500 business cards. It’s for just about anyone who’s tired of the piles of business cards cluttering their desks.

I just popped a dozen business cards into my ScanSnap S1500M and was astonished at the results. They scanned in seconds, and in Cardiris software half of the cards transferred most of their data into the correct fields for a vCard that could be exported with one click into my Contacts application.

The other half of the cards yielded up no data at all. Zip. Nada. They might as well have been blank.

Why?

Because they had white type on a dark (or highly patterned) “artsy” background. (Note: It’s not just the Cardiris software; people report this with other common business-card scanning applications.)

The Dark Side of Design

So, do you want to be the graphic designer, building contractor, or editor whose email address and phone number are now in my database? Or do you want to be the one whose unreadable card I just dropped into my recycle bin?

In the world of business communications, high drama can easily result in low impact.

 

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