The romance between advocates and critics of Near Field Communication (NFC) has reached a pivotal stage. On paper, NFC reads like the most important change in human communication since Wi-Fi, but is still questioned by media journalists as another QR fad in disguise, or are they just averse to change?
The way humans communicate is in a continuous flux of improvement - working towards quicker, more universal, wider reaching, cut-through communication to meet the objectives of the communicator. Since cave paintings, our evolution of language has seen evolvement along these unifying pillars of advancement. We have more specialist terminology than ever before, less words used in everyday chitchat and an evolving door of acronyms to help get the point across because we CBF and TGIF.
We all speak two languages, the language of our everyday native tongue and the language of our profession. There is a third, universal language, the language we never hear but we cannot live without. This language is spoken faster, is always understood and almost never delivers the wrong message. It is the language of our phones, our computers and our internet protocol. Without it, today’s society would cease to exist as we know it, and we can think of it as the true unifying language that humans, ally or foe, have unanimously voted to communicate by. The only direction all three types of languages can advance towards is unification, and a tiny step towards bridging this gap between computer driven language and our physical world is NFC.
Marketers, advertisers, brands, creatives, developers and consumers be aware, NFC can and most likely will impact every facet of our lives at some stage. We won’t be shouting NFC in the boardroom like it’s the best thing since sliced bread, and we won’t be writing about NFC in the same way that we don’t write about A4 paper. It is a communication advancement so natural and so simple that it isn’t even thought about, and that is the way great advancements turn out.
As a professional in digital media, it is my job to think about these technologies and how they impact communication. But its best not to get caught up the technology at all, and just ask yourself, what do you want to accomplish? Do you want diners to easily get digital menu’s to order from? Do you want to encourage more people to check in? Do you want networking to be easier with a smart business card? Do you want ‘insert demographic’ to ‘insert communication action here’. The possibilities are endless, and the technology allows this. In the case of NFC, it’s as simple as touching your device to the communication. Most high end Samsung, HTC and Nokia phones have NFC already, and rumours are that the iPhone 6 will at some capacity.
The adoption of this technology isn’t a case of the people driving the adoption vs the tech driving the people. It is a reflection of our continuous communications advancement, and fast or slow, it could eventually be synonymous. It is useless to worry about whether to implement NFC into a communications strategy for fear of its newness/adoption rate/social consciousness, because YOLO.
Keaton Hulme-Jones
Digital Account Coordinator
PHD Melbourne
THE ADNEWS NGEN BLOG: NFC or not to be?
22 July 2013