Great Geekzone event, wish we could do more of these with other tech companies

Last week of April I got a phone call from Snapper. They were getting ready to deliver a New Zealand first technology in partnership with 2degrees, a NFC-based mobile payment solution with practical use: Snapper on your smartphone, branded 2degrees Touch2Pay, and wanted to reach the Geekzone community to show this new way of paying for things.

Wellingtonians in general have embraced Snapper with impressive numbers (although Snapper is not limited to Wellington only). Over 370,000 Snapper cards have been issued, generating more than 100 million transactions across over 1000 buses, 3000 taxis, and over 500 retailers in New Zealand.

In just under a week we contacted Geekzone users in Wellington inviting them to a mystery Q&A event. We had a great response and the 80 seats available were filled very fast. On the day we had 90% presence and people enjoyed drinks and nibbles while listening to Snapper explaining why they decided to do it and what steps were taken to design the Android app, LG told the audience the dirty tech bits behind the NFC technology and 2degrees showed how all this integrated into the mobile network (including SIM authentication/authorisation).

We also had a couple of LG Android smartphones ready to go with some preloaded credit to giveaway.

In the few days leading to the event we started a discussion where I asked people what they thought would be announced. That discussion ended up having 200 replies with 15,000 views . While some correctly guessed a NFC-based mobile payment solution, others provided great feedback with their wishful thinking on new products/services. I was told by 2degrees, LG and Snapper they were following the discussion closely. We now closed that discussion and opened a new one to discuss the Touch2Pay service.

I wish other tech companies in New Zealand reached out to our community like Snapper, 2degrees and LG did. It was fun and we had high attendance of interested people... You know how to contact me!