Good Evening all,
I had an interesting conversation with a marketing person several weeks ago about marketing my company more. Kind of a sit down lunch to get some pointers from a professional I know. She had mention the us of QR Codes, and made a suggestion that I add to my plats. She explained that just about anything can be used in a QR Code. So to all of you, do you use QR Codes? If so, do you use them on your plats or anywhere else? What all do you include?
First inclination is to just use a up-loadable business card with information on you and the firm. I believe Lad Nelson has one as his avatar. But doing some research, some are using for filing purposes, document retrieval , etc.
Just trying to get a feel for what other surveyors are using them for.
Thanks in advance
I have a QR code reader on my phone but have only used it once or twice in the last three years. It would be really easy to add QR codes to any printed material (plats, brochures, back of BCs, etc.) but personally I don't know of anyone that takes the time to scan them. The QR code would take up more space than our www.xxxxxxxx.com url. And our url isn't particularly difficult to type in... probably easier than firing up a QR code reader.
Seems like there may be good uses beyond marketing - linking your client to digital data, providing access to more detailed info (that would be cumbersome to put on a plat or a topo drawing), ??
How many of you have scanned a QR code in the last couple of months?
What was it for?
I use them 4 to 8 times a week when I register Carlson SurvCE on a new data collector. PITA.
There is a scam associated with some online QR code generators. When you scan the 'free' generated code, it takes you to the scammer's website and then forwards the request to the intended destination. Then later, like 90 days later, it forwards you to a website asking the owner to pay a nominal amount to keep the forwarding going. So I would try to make sure that my code actually was what I think it was and not a pointer to what is think it should be via a redirection. (Wendell, did I say that right?)
But I noticed that Ladd has his contact information embedded into his QR code avatar. I think that is cool, and it is actually how I entered his information into my phone.
A few years go, I had a QR on my business cards. It would upload my contact info to the user's contact list. I'm not sure if anyone ever scanned them...
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you...
The two places for QR codes on my get-to-it list are
1) to put QR stickers on documents as they are scanned, and use the QR for a document indexing system, a way to quickly open the job file and contacts on ones phone, and a way to find related jobs and files from a QR in the scanned copy. Everything gets a QR sticker, old records, new jobs. Could be an URL for a job or a particular document or a way to find related notes, maps, drawings, etc.
2) for equipment inventory and tracking usage, such as: every instrument and accessory box, tripod, detector, shovel, etc. has a QR code. Scan it taking gear off the truck and scan it putting each piece back on. What hasn't been checked back in? Also a way to track hours of usage, weight, condition, last calibration, etc.
Haven't really thought about QR codes for marketing. Maybe one of these on each door of the survey chariot? http://fffff.at/qr-stenciler-and-qr-hobo-codes/
QR codes could be extremely useful for directing clients to client or project specific web sites, or to large data sets like scan data and aerial photogrammetry. Simple bar codes work fine for equipment tracking, we've been doing that for years, although with QR codes you could probably add a lot more info that is instantly available.