Students, parents, anyone who has ever visited a college fair knows that the main goal is to capture information in the quest to find the perfect match. One of the main activities is filling out cards and everywhere, you’ll see kids lining up at tables, hunched over forms, scribbling down the same information over and over again.
“We visited a college fair and saw thousands of students streaming in the doors, using the walls, each other’s backs, as they filled out their forms, so we knew there was a huge need to automate this information exchange,” said Steve Cooper, who, with his partner, Greg Lazzaro, co-founded TRC, Technology Resource Corporation in Princeton, New Jersey. TRC is a leader in trade show and event technology services that has also evolved into the leading supplier of automation for college fairs.
With the explosion in the use of smartphones, students were using their iPhones and Androids to register, which meant that information had to be scanned off mobile devices quickly and in often-chaotic settings. TRC went out in search of the perfect technology to accomplish that mission and found it in the KDC300, a 2D Bluetooth barcode scanner made by KoamTac, TRC’s neighbor, just up the road in Princeton.
“These KDCs can scan anything,” declared Cooper. “They have the most robust 2D scan engine we’ve tested and we’ve tested a lot. The reason we decided to put our company’s future in the hands of these scanners is because they are the most robust and dependable we could find. Portability and size also were big factors. Similar 2D scan engines we tested came in packages two to three times the size of the KDC. It’s also nice that they were customizable, with our own logo and color.”
KOAMTAC also created custom firmware for TRC to meet the company’s specific needs. Cooper had the highest praise for the company’s president, Dr. Hanjin Lee, also the inventor of the KDC line of Bluetooth barcode scanners, an industry leader in pairing Bluetooth technology with smart devices to save businesses time and money and increase productivity.
“Dr. Lee’s responsiveness and flexibility have been driving factors in our successful partnership,” said Cooper. “He said what do you need and how can we help make it happen. He’s taken the time and care to understand our business and that’s huge.”
Cooper says the smartphone’s capabilities are only in their infancy; partnering mobile device technology with smart Bluetooth peripherals like the KDC300 opens up many doors of opportunity for TRC, not only for college fairs, but trade shows which also are the bread-and-butter of his business.
“For real-time data I can scan your information via my cell, and while I’m still having a discussion with you on the trade floor, I can send it to my marketing department and they would have your information just like that. This technology puts you ahead of the pack.”