Do you Poken?

It sounds like a silly card game you played in middle school, but it’s actually the slogan for a new tiny networking tool.

A Poken is a small USB device with an animal shaped cover that stores your personal contact information and allows you to swap your information with another Poken owner.  The Poken make their connections and swap data through when you touch their small four fingered hands together.

Essentially, it’s a paperless business card exchange that allows you to network effectively, while also saving the trees.

After you’ve gathered a bunch of new contacts, you can log on to Poken’s website and upload all the names and addresses. You can then organize, save and export the file to wherever you’d like.

The Suiss- based Poken started in Europe and Japan and is now trying to make it’s United States debut.  The little gadgets cost about $20, which is a pretty fair deal considering the money you’d save on business card printing prices, and come in all different shapes and characters.

This device would be excellent for large conferences and business expos where there is tons of networking and business card swapping. But when I think of all the business men who could benefit from this, I just can’t picture them whipping out a small Poken panda and high-fiving their new friend’s bumble bee. The company might do well to give the gadgets a slightly more business feel. Colored squares or letters would work just fine.

Of course, the tough part will be getting enough people to buy a Poken even though they can’t use it until the device goes mainstream; Which is why the Poken site encourages people to pool together and buy Poken in packs of 12.

Despite the obvious bumps in the road for Poken, the idea is quite fantastic and could really change the way we connect with new people.  Now, instead of limiting a connection to just in-person or just online, people can merge the two instantly.

It’s a great digital Rolodex that makes meeting new people easy and efficient, not to mention environmentally friendly.

For more information, check out this video from MarketWatch