The next big thing in digital media is going to come in many forms. It could be happening right now, for all we know. Technology surrounds us these days and its capabilities have changed the way we do things. From everyday interactions, to business, to travel to finance. With the brilliant idea coming right around the corner, I believe that the next big thing in digital media will revolutionize the job industry. The problems plaguing the current job market have been around for a while. In case you haven’t noticed, things have become much less intimate. By intimate, I mean that applying for a job is no longer something you do in person. There is little to no face-to-face interaction, which in my opinion, is a real problem. I know what you’re thinking, why should they care about me as person? Either I’m qualified for the position or I’m not. I dont think its that simple. Some believe that your resume should speak for itself, but without a face to match the name, you might as well hire a complete stranger. How does one stand out in such a field? To get a job in 2016, you’d most likely have to apply online and then fill out some long, tedious questionnaire. If you’re lucky, they’ll want a paper copy of your resume, which is very rare in certain industries. This process is in need of some fresh blood and we think we have just the thing. Our vision for the future is a state-of-the-art business card. The card will contain a microchip, much like the ones found on debit/credit cards. It won’t contain any of your financial information, but your professional information instead. Your complete resume, cover letter(if needed), references, portfolio, etc will be right on the chip and ready to be viewed upon connecting it via USB it to any laptop or computer. The card will have 16GB of space and also comes with an adaptor, allowing it to link to other devices. The PDC, or Professional Data Chip, was the original name of our product, but it has since been upgraded. The PDC now goes by the name of CARDSYNERGY, and we think it captures the new possibilities of what our technology can do. We got the basis of our idea from the new trend of holographic or image-changing business cards. We found examples all over the internet, but we took what we thought was the next step in developing something vastly different; something better. Our invention is two fold: it counts as a device as well as a service. Upon ordering, your package will arrive in less than 14 business days. You will also have the ability to customize your business card and its contents however you like. How you ask? Well, CARDSYNERGY will be the worlds’ first and only open source business card. Users will be able to go inside the chip and rewrite the code in order to vary presentation, style, font, images, and documents contained within. We chose the open source route because we truly believe that the future of technology is only as good as its ability to evolve. The self-obsolescence of todays devices has become an incredibly wasteful habit in our time. Things are being engineered to fail at some point down the line, compelling consumers to buy a brand new one. To combat that, we encourage our users to explore our device and find ways to improve it. We want your business card to grow as you do. As you can imagine, a device and service such as CARDSYNERGY can only take off if people are using it. At the moment, our target audience is those looking for work in certain fields. We know that not everyone will be willing to adapt. Not yet, anyway. We believe that one day in the near future all corporations, companies, and businesses will be using our product, making the job hunt that much easier. Our device will re-invigorate the face-to-face interaction that the job market is so desperately missing. Using digital media in the workplace is not new, but with CARDSYNERGY, we will enter a new chapter. Our other target audience is the new generation of entrepreneurs and small business owners. In today’s world, they need to be technologically savvy and able to make strong first impressions, which our product can assist in. Imagine the look on your prospective clients or partners faces when they see you pull out a sleek, microchip enabled, pocket-sized business card made for the 21st century and beyond. Not only will you stand out, you may just inspire someone else to try it too. For small business owners, they could drastically cut their costs but switching to our technology and maximize their productivity in terms of employment and profit. We plan on gaining interest and traction for our idea by beta testing it with the public. Social media, hands on demonstrations, and word of mouth have proven very useful in the past, so why stray from it? We would also like to have booths set up for display at all electronic stores. You can test the product at various locations with the assistance with a trained technician, but you would have to buy the product directly from us. We are in talks with certain big industries to incorporate and promote the product as well. Editing the code will always be free, but after a 30 day trial there will be a monthly fee to continue using our services. If CARDSYNERGY helps you to establish your own business using our skilled technicians, a one-time start up fee will also be applied, in addition to our monthly charge. We also charge for memory upgrades, in the event you need more space for storage. Our project is unlike anything you or I or the world has ever seen before. We think we stand out in many ways. Starting with our ability to compile all of your professional information in one convenient place. I can’t think of any other product right now that can do that, and do so in a digital way. Our project is also different because we are planning on taking the open source technology to new levels. As I said before, very wasteful have we become, as our old devices pile higher and higher in a landfill somewhere.If we follow this model, there number of obsolete, no longer used technology will skyrocket. One of our many aims is cut the massive waste of plastic and metal by switching to an evolving, cooperative technology, which is exactly what open source is. Open source has been around for a long time, and since its inception has been hailed as impractical and ineffective by the companies who don’t use it. Naturally, they would say such things to tarnish the competition, but open source continues to live. It is neither impractical or ineffective, in fact it is the opposite. As long as their is open source, there will always be alternative voice to what big business says is good. We wish to continue this trend, allowing open source and its participants to flourish and our product will help us do just that. What I love most about open source is the environment it creates for people to work cooperatively and without competiton. They work on the code out of their own free will, and seem to have a vision in mind that works for the greater good of those who are involved. The modern business model could learn a thing or two from this process, although I doubt they will change their tactics now. When gauging the success of CARDSYNERGY, we will be consider the following factors:
1. Our average sales per month
2. The amount of people who continue to use it after the completion of the 30 day trial
3. The number of corporations relying on our technology to hire only the best and most suitable applicants
4. The number of people who are employed after using CARDSYNERGY
5. The participation from the public when it comes to editing the internal code
6. How much time it takes before everyone is on board
7. Feedback from our users
Let me be clear, we are a business. Clearly, we at CARDSYNERGY fully intend to make a profit from our devices and services, but our success cannot be quantified simply by dollars. Of course it is an essential part of our success, but we will not rest until the job world realizes the potential of such a project. We sincerely hope that it is met with much enthusiasm. However, we do understand that like most technological advancements, these things will take some time. Some people or industries will take longer to switch over to our technology, but that isn’t a big concern. Patience and perseverance are the keys to building our user base – Helpful, dependable, professional, tech savvy people who are always hungry for more. That is the true key to our success. Provide something like CARDSYNERGY this in a rapidly changing world and it is only a matter of time before people will see the value in it.
References:
http://www.yourdictionary.com/synergy
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-22-most-creative-business-cards-weve-ever-seen-2012-2
