TechFest coolness

I went over to TechFest week with an old-fashioned notebook expecting to take notes about the things that I saw over there. When I got there, I discovered that I wouldn’t need my notebook at all. Instead, each booth contained a little card scanner that would scan my Microsoft smart card. The TechFest web site then created a page called “Things I saw”, which contained links to internal web sites for each project.

This ‘opt-in’ style of transmitting information to attendees is really useful. I only got one email message (aka spam) from the 20 or so booths that I swiped my card at; everyone else respected the opt-in nature of the experience. It would be really cool if more conferences started adopting technology like this – it doesn’t need to be a smart card – any scannable token would do.