Pundits' Guide

In the middle of a busy political day in Ottawa Wednesday, the NDP released french language campaign ads featuring NDP Leader Jack Layton, and Québec Lieutenant and Deputy Leader Thomas Mulcair.

As part of the ad campaign, the party also posted billboards in 40 locations around Montréal featuring posterized versions of the two men's standard headshots, along with a square barcode thingy.

Pardon my luddite-ness, but although I've vaguely been aware of these square computer-chip looking things, and what they probably were used for, I hadn't really investigated further and I've certainly never seen them before in an election campaign.

Anyways, here's what the poster looks like [click on image to open a full-sized version]:

And here's a closer look at the QR Code (aka "Quick Response" code; more about them from Wikipedia here), which is what they call the chip-looking square-ish barcode thingamajigs.

Figuring out what to do with these was a bit complicated. Naturally I started by asking the cool kids, and they showed me how, if you had Blackberry Messenger (BBM) 5 on your phone, you could scan a contact or a group by barcode right into your contact list. So, I upgraded to BBM 5, and tried to scan the barcode off my laptop from the Postmedia blogpost about the ad campaign on screen. No love.

This led to me investigating options involving installing an "app" on my "berry", through the Blackberry App World:

• you have to create a separate Blackberry ID, which is different from the account you set up with them to get your email
• then, you have to install a program for your browser to interact with the App World (requires a reboot of your computer)
• then, you have to connect your Blackberry to a USB port on your computer
• then, you can surf to see which QR Code reader apps work for your particular Blackberry model, and Blackberry service provider (search on "QR Code" to see the available choices).

I wound up installing both BeeTagg and CertainTeed apps, and trying to get them to read the QR code from the Postmedia blogpost version of the poster, but again no love. CertainTeed in particular kept throwing Java out of memory exceptions, and never worked for me on the Blackberry 8330 at all.

Grrr. More research. Then it occurred to me that it's late at night here, and maybe I didn't have enough light on or the QR code wasn't in good enough focus.

I also read that you should hold your Blackberry at least 8 inches away, though you could zoom in with your camera, but anyways the code is supposed to be centred on your screen, and you activate the scan the same way you would take a photo with your smartphone.

Armed with these suggestions, I increased the size of the blogpost with my browser, and turned on a few lights, and tried again.

BeeTagg eventually picked up the code, which was exciting. It takes you to a website address to play the Mulcair and Layton ad. You actually get presented with 4 options from BeeTagg: (i) go to web (http://npd.ca/pubensemble), (ii) show the URL (fancy term for a website address), (iii) copy the URL, or (iv) Save, by adding to your BeeTagg Favorites list.

Meanwhile, I had put out a plaintive call for help on Twitter, and a tweep by the name of @eBeaveronline suggested I try the BBM barcode scanner again, so I did. Whether it was the larger size or the improved lighting, it now worked as well. Thanks, Beave!

It has to be version 5 of Blackberry Messenger, and you go to the menu item "Scan a Group Barcode". A graphic appears showing you how to centre the code on your Blackberry screen, and then you select the menu item "Continue…" and train your smartphone camera on the barcode.

VERY cool, because this time you don't even have to take a photograph with your camera to do the scanning. It just recognizes the code, and pops up a window asking if you want to open the link 'http://npd.ca/pubensemble' or not. Clicking Yes takes you to the website that plays the ad. In fact, I had never played a video on my Blackberry before either, so there were a lot of new experiences for me as I figured this all out.

Anyways, if you have a Blackberry, don't bother with the other Apps. Upgrade to Blackberry Messenger version 5 if you don't already have it, and then use the "Scan a Group Barcode" menu item, holding your Blackberry about 8 inches away from the barcode (and don't do it in the dark, or with too small or fuzzy a version of the QR code).

If you have an Android or iPhone, you've probably already absorbed this coolness by osmosis, and think I'm hopelessly uncool to have to explain it all step by step. Sorry about that.

Last detail: how do they create those QR codes, and how can you do the same? Here's why I'm glad I at least tried the BeeTagg reader, because its originators also have a BeeTagg QR code generator. You give it a URL, and pick one of three kinds of codes (there are two others besides QR codes), and then it generates a beetagg shortened URL, and associates a QR code image with it, that you can download in many different image file formats. For example, here's a QR code I generated to take you to the main page of the Pundits' Guide website:

And here's one to take you to the other pre-election communications volley released on Wednesday:

So, I guess the idea is that with the billboards up in Montreal, people (cool kids, at least) would be able to train their smartphones on the QR code on the billboards, and pull up a video of the party's TV ad. The party logs another hit on its website, and for all I know, might be able to pick up some information about who (or at least which smartphone) clicked through, though I need a bit more research on that aspect.

Anyways, see if you can get your QR code reader working, because it looks like QR codes are the next tele-townhalls in terms of trendy campaign tactics that everyone wants to get in on.

And remember: you heard it here first.

Tags: 41st General Election Nominations, Campaign Techniques, NDP