South By Southwest Slog

I’m headed to my first SXSW, and I’m excited. Judging from the starry-eyed tales of wonder spun by my SXSW veteran colleagues, it promises to be a veritable Willy Wonka factory of technological marvels, where visions of digital utopia are beamed directly into my brain via the RFID chip that will be surgically implanted at the registration booth. I plan to get there early.

I have a book on social media coming out in June (note the smooth segue here), and I struggled with how I could drum up some interest for it among the SXSWers that I meet while still maintaining a small shred of personal dignity. Then it occurred to me – since attendees will be meeting up and even hooking up with each other exclusively via QR code, rushing around thrusting their iPhones at each other, I could create a QR code that links to a sample chapter of my book, then slap the QR code, via sticker, on the back of my business cards.

I encourage everyone to QR all the content  in their lives immediately. It takes like 30 seconds to create one, it’s free, and it’s just so friggin cool. (Try this app: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/) Now I know what you’re thinking: why bother with a QR code when you could just put the download URL on your business card? Hell, I don’t know. Why do people climb mountains when they could easily jet-pack to the top? Why do people read Dan Brown novels when they could instead bludgeon themselves repeatedly with a pipe wrench? These are big questions, whereas a QR code is very tiny.

I’m looking forward to hanging with my fellow tech optimists at SXSW. And if you see me there, QR me!