QR Codes and Microsoft Tags

Standard Barcode

Are you aware that barcodes on groceries and other products didn’t appear until the mid to late 1970’s?  In 1974, the first barcode scanner was installed in a grocery store in Ohio and scanned the first barcoded item, a pack of Wrigley’s gum.  Now barcodes are ubiquitous and indispensible for retail, manufacturing, transportation, package tracking, and a host of other industry uses.

QR Code

Barcodes are not going away, in fact, new barcode technologies are being developed and deployed in this new century.  “Two dimensional” barcodes are rapidly being adopted. These new codes can contain much more information than the original barcode.  The leading contender in this category is the QR Code which, after a decade of use in Japan and Korea, is rapidly being adopted in Europe and North America. The QR code shown above contains a link to Wikipedia Mobile. With a QR Code reader on a smart phone, you can read the code and be sent to the website.

Microsoft Tag

Another newer code is Microsoft Tag.  This two dimensional code utilizes color to hold even more data than QR codes. It’s not a replacement for the original barcode, but is intended for instances where much more data must be stored in a small space.

Bank & Office Interiors is implementing Microsoft Tag.  We will have tags on our trucks that will send people to our website. We will put tags on leave-behind surveys, marketing materials, welcome to your new workspace cards, perhaps even business cards. We could place tags for special promotions on invoices and other flyers. In our showroom, we will have Tags at various product locations that will link to product pages with more information. You can even read the tag in this blog! The goal?  To make it easy and fun to get more information about the great products and services we provide.  So, keep an eye out as our Tags start showing up, and have fun while you work!  (Need a Tag Reader?  Go to http://gettag.mobi )

~ Dana (Director of IT)

Great Updates for B&OI!

New website? Check.
Facebook Page? Check.
Twitter Profiles? Check. Check. and Check.
Feeling up to date on interactive platforms and current trends? Definitely!

Bank & Office Interiors has spent the better part of eight months molding our concepts into an engaging and modern website with the goal to inform our customers without boring or smothering them. Social media continues to reign supreme and it is important to us to connect with our customers and communicate through any means necessary. We'll continue keeping up with current materials and products, so expect interesting, informative news and updates and please let us know what you think!

A huge thank you needs to go out to our web designer, David Calkins (http://www.calkonia.com/) for his amazing work and patience with us through the process. He made it easy to maintain and update our website which is essential to keeping it fresh! Thank you!!!

~ Kendal (Marketing Rep)

Interesting Furniture Fact...

Credenza. It's a word we at Bank and Office are familiar with, right? Well….maybe not? There's a lot more to the word "credenza" than just a piece of furniture that sits behind a desk. For example, did you know that credenza is directly related to some other familiar words like credit, creed, credence, credential, and credible? Here's the reason why……

If you were a powerful noble in Medieval Italy, it wasn't the healthiest place to be. Competition and rivalry was vicious. One of your rival's favorite methods of eliminating his "competition" was with poison. To protect yourself, you would recruit a (hopefully) trustworthy person to supervise your food preparation and taste test the food to insure it was safe. Once the food tester—or his replacement—had checked everything thoroughly, it was placed on a table called a credentia. Originally, credentia referred to the concept of trust and belief (like the words "creed" or "credence" or "credible"). But over time, credentia came to refer to a table which you, the suspicious noble, could trust to contain safe, wholesome food. Being Italian, and therefore "design sensitive", you nobles didn't just use some old stick-leg table, but had ornate carved tables made. Some of these tables were made with no legs and sat directly on the floor. These were called….you guessed it….credenzas!


So, the next time you and your Italian noble friends get together for a holiday feast, only eat the food that's on the credenza.


-Danä DeVol (Director of IT)