At last week's #BeGoodBeSocial event, held at the Big Lottery Fund offices on Glasgow's sunny Clydeside, we ran a little experiment with QR codes. Back in February, following a feverish bout of emailing between the members of the #BeGoodBeSocial sounding board (of which I am honoured to be a member), we decided to trial 'something with mobile' and rather than use one of the presentation slots, opted for some fringe activity instead.

Fellow sounding board members Alex Robertson and Martin Keane had both been at recent events where QR codes were demonstrated and created a talking point. From my own perspective of working with mobile in museums, I was very keen to see what happened when you integrated them at a social occasion. And lo the QoRner was born...

Despite being around for donkey's years, QR (quick response) codes have suddenly, almost inexplicably, become a hot property this year. Big brands - John Lewis, Debenhams, Sky - are using them in marketing materials, and funny little black and white patchwork squares are suddenly ubiquitous in newspapers, posters and products. All this fuss is nice of course but it can be distraction from the real story: the rise of the mobile web. QR codes are specifically designed to trigger action on mobile devices, yet there are numerous examples of them bouncing people to websites that don't even vaguely cater for the mobile user. For anyone reading this and thinking 'I really want to use QR codes in my marketing materials', I implore you first to consider 'I really must get a plan sorted out for mobile'. Terence Eden lists a number of comic/tragic misuses in his comprehensive postings on the subject.

With this in mind, we concentrated our efforts on pushing people to mobile-friendly sites/experiences coupled with some fun and interesting ways of locating QR codes:

• On the windows of the main conference room, overlooking the river Clyde: the codes took you to different historical content about Glasgow's shipbuilding heritage
• In the toilets: the codes took you to hilarious posts on urinal etiquette and what to do if the loo roll ran out
• On a person: we made Holly Smith wear a t-shirt that linked to more information about her - she very graciously accepted this challenge
• On balloons: we had a gathering point, later christened the QoRner, where we dangled some balloons with tags

See some of my dreadful shots below, or check out Rich Dyson's for a far more professional experience.

So what did we learn? Some unscientific analysis
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the links to social content fared best - foursquare check-ins, twitter updates and the link on Holly all reached double figures - no doubt a mix of prominent placement and, this being a largely digital crowd, people's tendencies to express themselves at events. Martin's overview information (which he's summarised and enhanced on his own blog) was also popular - again this was in a very obvious spot and was the closest we had to a set of instructions. The rest of the QR codes didn't do so well, and I would partly put this down to where they were located in terms of the general flow of people and the sort of event it was: no matter how intriguing or provocative our graphics were, people were there to network and be social rather than consume content.

My biggest observation, however, was that people simply didn't know what they were or if they did were unsure how to make use of them (how does this work? do I need an app? did I need to download something before I came?). Pointing your phone's camera at a barcode is clearly far from a mainstream activity, and I would urge a note of caution if you're expecting to yield high returns by using them on your materials. I'd be interested to know if different demographics behave in significantly different ways, but decent data on their uptake is very hard to come by.

In summary: it was great to get the chance to experiment, there was a lot of Blue Peter style fun in preparing the materials, it definitely created a talking point, but ultimately it felt like quite a niche pursuit. If you were there I'd love to hear your feedback, please drop a note in the comments if you've got any points to share.

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