Ideas

Professional Networking Application for Mobile Devices.

Background

Recently, I got this wonderful opportunity to attend Sun’s Software Development conference at Toronto. It was a great opportunity to network with other programmers, Technical Consultants, Business Development Managers and other professionals. However, I found one thing missing in that conference. I wondered if there is a single source which can provide background/profile of the people around me e.g. photo or name based search. The answer was resounding ‘No’. The only information available with organizers was that of the speakers and beyond that they had no data available about other attendees.

 

Ideas towards a solution

This got me thinking about a location based service (LBS) installed as an application on a cell phone. The application will be using GPS or blue tooth to find people in close proximity and then retrieve their profiles from LBS. This idea is targeted towards professionals who are interested in an opportunity to expand their professional network and increase business prospects.

 

How it works?

 

Step 1: User registers with LBS to get a username. This username can be associated with multiple profiles. These profiles can be in the form of URL from popular professional sites (e.g. LinkedIn), job sites (e.g. Monster), blogs URL, documents, PowerPoint presentations, audio clips, video clips etc.

 

Step 2: Before the user goes for a meeting he will choose and activate one of the profiles suitable for this particular meeting and mentions

1. Time duration for which that profile should be activated e.g. activate linkedin profile for next 2 hrs.
2. Distance range for which that profile should be active e.g. 1 km range for large fair or may be 10 m for small hotel conference room.

 

Step 3: As the user enters meeting room and starts the application he will be shown following options to search people in his close proximity based on

1. Photo of participants. This search criterion will be best for meetings with small number of participants (< 20).
2. Search box – This will search people based on tags given by user for exposed profile (that includes name based search also).

Step 4: After browsing through the profiles a user can initiate communication with a suitable counterpart through LBS and the other party can accept the invitation immediately or schedule a meeting in the future.

 

Other Utilities

1. User will have an option to categorize and group his profiles and make one or more available at any time.
2. The user can also track other people who looked at his profile (e.g. a participant planning to buy IBM product will search for IBM representatives in the meeting and look at their profiles. An IBM rep can also track the prospective client and contact him). The profile shown will be the profile exposed during that particular time.
3. Tags -
   1. Profile based tagging – User will be able to tag their profiles to make it easier for other people to search.
   2. Time based tagging – User can set tags to be used for particular time range e.g. On Dec 26, 2007 from 10 am to 12 am use a particular tag.

Prospective Application users

1. Meeting attendees: Obvious from above description.
2. Speakers: This application can also be used by a speaker at an event. Instead of distributing handouts to each participant, the speaker can expose his presentation (password protected).

Integration with other cell phone applications

1. Event scheduler: This application can be integrated with event scheduler application wherein user sets profile, document or ppt for particular event beforehand.