American Poken

Stéphane Doutriaux of Poken on FoxBusiness.com

// March 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // Poken

Stéphane Doutriaux of Poken on FoxBusiness.com

Testimonial – American Poken Live in RTP

// March 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Poken

American Poken Live in RTP 1/27/2010

// January 13th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Events

Title: American Poken Live in RTP
Location: WineStyles at Brier Creek
Description: Have a Poken? Want a Poken?
Come and networking with local Pokenites, speak with Poken evangelists Greg Hyer and Martin Brossman and discover ways to get the most out of your Poken.
Pokens will be available for purchase.
Admission is $10
Wine tasting is included with admission
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2010-01-27
End Time: 20:00

Stéphane Doutriaux – Poken: The word of 2009 at StartUpCamp Switzerland

// January 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Poken

Originally Posted at Tiburon-TV

Poken.com, founded in 2007 by Canadian Stéphane Doutriaux, is a social business card that allows you to instantly connect with new friends across social networks when and where you meet them: „Based on the idea that people are on several social networks, we were coming to the conclusion that there is really a need for a tool that would enable us to be connected at all the networks at once“, says Stéphane, who’s also Poken’s CEO, and adds „the real strength behind this excessive poken is the fact that we developed it as a fashion accessory“. According to Stéphane, Poken has been really taking off in several countries across Europe and is spreading towards the US and Asia: „There are geographical pockets with lots of people having a Poken. Switzerland and the Netherlands are ‚hot beds’ – the main new TV news in Holland even declared Poken the word of 2009.“

There are currently seven Poken models available, but Stéphane says new ones are coming out almost on a weekly basis: „We have a lot of fun when we see people selecting their poken – it reflects a little bit of their personality.“ Pokens are sold both through retail and a viral distribution network. They are also sold in packs of 12 with a 40% discount on Poken’s website so they can be spread amongst friends: „You make points every time you sell a poken and also every time you poken your friends“ explains Stéphane, „the more points you have, the bigger discounts you get.“

Stéphane points out „that we are never done with the challenges and create challenges for ourselves: We are working on new products and pushing into new markets – there’s a new product line coming out in a few months.“ Poken aims to break even „far sooner than most web startups. If we find the right environment it becomes really easy to sell. At SCS09 almost 90% of the participants bought a Poken. We didn’t see lots of business card exchanges, but a lot of people were pokening“, says Stéphane.

He finds that „innovation is a must and typical of any company that wants to survive. Also, it’s about getting the right balance between the business model and the product. In our case, what has been really key is finding the right distribution structure and developing a viral marketing scheme.“

More interviews from StartUpCamp Switzerland can be found @ www.tiburon-tv.com

Buying a Home? Make sure your Real Estate Agent has a Poken!

// December 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Poken

Chances are you found or learned more about a real estate agent online. Today more and more agents are using social media tools like Facebook and LinkedIn to build their online presence and capture that young crowd of first time home buyers. These agents are the ones that understand where the next generation of consumers are going to come from.

The days of walking into a real estate agent’s office to find an agent are over.

Over the past 18 months we have experienced a significant drop in home sales. We all know that it is due to the banks not lending and consumers lacking confidence in the market. During the past few weeks we are hearing a few positive bits of news that we may be on the way back up. This may or not be true. It depends on your perspective of the current situation.

In America, it is typical to see innovators stand out among the rest during the recovery from a recession. When I say innovators I mean that small business owner in their own market that shines like a star among their competition.

Poken, the social media business card, can be a highly valuable tool for real estate agents. It has several uses that can benefit them from the buyer and the seller’s side of the business.

The Seller’s Perspective
It is common practice for an agent to leave a business card on the counter of a home that they have shown. The problem with this is as the selling agent you need to some back to the home in order to collect these cards then run back to the office and enter them into your database. It is time consuming and inefficient.

A solution is to use a Poken. This would reduce the amount of time a selling agent would need to enter information from a business card into their CRM and electronically track home many times that agent has shown the house. In addition the selling agent can see which buyer-agents are showing the home and how many times they are bringing clients by. Oh to have that kind of intelligence to show the sellers.

The Buyer’s Perspective
Have you ever been shown a home and wished you could have easily had the MLS listing information web page address so you would show your family and friends what homes you have looked at? Sure you have. You want to include them in the experience of making the largest financial decision of your life. Here is what an selling agent can do to make the experience of buying a home even cooler. The selling agent (that uses Poken) can create a business card in their profile just for that home they are selling and assign a Poken device to that card. The selling agent would place the Poken in the home for home buyers to Hi4. Once synchronized, the home buyers would have access to the information the the business card on Poken, including the URL of the MLS listing, maybe a Facebook Fan Page, Agent information or any other information that the agent would feel is valuable to share and help close the sale.

Real estate agents have an opportunity to gain intelligence they have only had limited access to. They question is now, can agents come together to adopt this life and business changing technology? If it means selling a home, they just might.

Using Poken at a Trade show with PokenEVENT

// December 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Poken

If you are in charge of organizing a trade show you know that one of the most important things to keep in mind is your attendee’s experience. You want nothing more than to have happy people buzzing around about how great an experience they had at a trade show you organized. Every year you need to up the ante because you want them to come back and meet the vendors again.

Ease their pain
It is such a pain collecting business cards. Well, not the act of collecting business cards. It is kind of like collecting baseball cards. You get a bunch, protect the valuable ones and file the common cards. What you may dread the most is having to enter in or scan all the cards you collected. It is time consuming and really had a poor ROI. 10% of those cards could become valuable. So using your time efficiently becomes a problem

Take a look a Poken. Poken? Yep. Poken is an electronic business card. The name comes from the combination of the words “poke” and “token.” A Poken is a small device that when paired with another exchanges an ID number. That ID number is associated with an account on Poken.com that contains your business card. Big deal. right? Yes. Here’s why.

Along with your business card information you can also share your social media network profiles. Poken currently support about 50 different networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo and FriendFeed. Ask yourself how many times you have asked if someone was on LinkedIn or Twitter and tried to remember how to find them. Did you have a pen on you? Did you deface that person’s business card?

Tradeshow Implementation
You solve many problems by using Poken at your trade shows. One would be minimizing the need for business cards. Another is the fact that Poken is simply too cool to not talk about. It is an icebreaker!

For your event we can create a totally branded experience from the PokenHUB to the PokenSPARK. The PokenHUB can be branded for your trade show, keeping your message consistent. The PokenSPARK can be ordered with your logo or you can have a body designed just for your trade show.

The Happiness Continues Long After
Poken is currently being used around the world in places like Switzerland, Demark, Germany, Japan, Singapore and even here in the good old US of A. Your attendees and vendors will take their Poken (branded for your event) and use it back at the office and at other events they attend. The ROI is unbelievable.

Available Services

• Custom Card Background
• Custom Event Banner for PokenHUB
• URL for event PokenHUB
• Custom Poken Bodies
• Minimum Quantity Required
• Minimum five (5) week lead time

For more information please use the contact form here.

Poll – What PokenSpark Cap Should Poken Make Next?

// December 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Poken

Poken as a Business Tool – The Social Media Business Card

// December 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Poken

Welcome to American Poken!

// December 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Poken

Welcome to AmericanPoken.com. This blog is a resource for American Poken users. What kind of resources? Well, how about best practices on applying Poken to your social and professional networks and Poken networking events like American Poken Live.

The intent is to show you that this innovative tool will change our lives by finding new ways to use it in our lives.

Join the Poken Revolution!