Our newest recruit, Anna, used Thyngs to keep in touch with her family back in Germany. Here's how she did it...
The First International Thyngs – The Idea
It has been three months since I started at Thyngs, but my family back in Germany still keep asking me what I do for work on ‘The Island’, as they love to call it. I always try to explain this ‘Techy stuff’, but I struggle to make them understand how Thyngswork.
I came up with a funny idea to surprise my family over Christmas so they can actually touch and see the thyngs. It was also the first year I did not spend Christmas with my family; I stayed in England instead. It was lovely, nice roasts and mince pies. For all my family's gifts, I created styckers, assigned them and gave them pages that will show up when they tapped or scanned them with their smartphones. It seemed super complicated when I tried to explain it to my mum on the phone, so she just let my teenage brother take care of the preparation, which was simply just to download the Thyngs app. After my mum interacted with the thyngs, she realised it wasn't complicated at all. She literally just needed to tap the stycker and the phone did the rest. That just shows how easy it is to interact with the thyngs, even if you have never done it before.
How my idea worked
While preparing the Christmas package with loads of English goodies for Germany, I stuck the assigned styckers on every family member’s Christmas card, so they would directly see them. After previous instructions on the telephone (that they need to turn NFC on, or download the Thyngs app), they interacted with the stycker in their cards and a page on their phone came up, wishing them a lovely Christmas and a short message from me.
It also included a little hint about their presents, only just enough to guess what it could be. After further interacting they then found out what exactly it is going to be. When my mum called me later she told me she loved it, as it made the whole experience of unpacking presents much more engaging and exciting. A great thing about this idea is, they can keep their assigned styckers, and I can change the content online for every year.
I think this way was the best idea of explaining to them what Thyngs is doing and what I am talking about when I say ‘Stycker’. For the next event, I am planning to create them some interactive ID/business cards to show them a bit more.
I wanted to share this experience, just to show that thyngs can be used for everyone and everything, one just needs an idea, assign some content to the various versions of thyngs and put them on an object or give it to someone.