Wednesday 16 December 2009

New MCP Virtual Business Cards

After much hype and delay, Microsoft Learning eventually have released their much anticipated virtual business cards for MCPs. This new service will allow Microsoft Certified Professionals to generate interactive business cards detailing their certifications and that can be included in their emails, websites and other digital communication channels.

As you can see above, my current business card shows the information I choose to share and my certifications.

The process is relatively simple, if albeit a bit buggy at times.

Log into the virtual business card site with the live id that is associated with your MCP ID, just like the MCP site. And then create the cards.

Business card intro screen The wizard is fairly intuitive but does a couple of irritations such as the lack of being able to not remove an avatar if you have added it to your card, and also the resize is to 120px by 120px which can skew the aspect of a professional portrait, hence why I don’t have one on mine just yet.

You can list as much or as little information as you want and can include details such as a bio, addresses, job title and additional online identities such as twitter and LinkedIn.

You can also add your transcript and share it online much like the current offering from the MCP site.

 

 

 

Sharing your card

Once you have created your card you can then share it using a variety of techniques. The JavaScript version is interactive.

It makes a nice change to having a static image on the screen and it can be updated from the server so that it stays current.

 

 

There were a few hiccups with it, and most of them have been solved in the first few days thanks to the responses from those waiting for this. There are still some improvements to be made I think and hopefully based on feedback, Microsoft Learning will work on this and give a better product to MCPs.