The poet Elizabeth Bishop said it best: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”
We lose stuff all the time. Gadgets, wallets, backpacks, luggage, you name it. We have a habit of leaving things behind, especially when we’re tired, stressed, disoriented, distracted, bouncing from place to place: when we’re traveling.
At one time or another, each of us has wished audibly for an invisible leash tying us to our belongings.
Wish granted. Missing Link is an online lost and found recovery system. You place security labels on your possessions or luggage tags on your luggage. Should stuff fall out of your hands, these markers have a unique user ID number (UID#) and QR code. A simple entry of the number or bar scan enables the good samaritan who’s found your stuff to contact you.
One big advantage Missing Link has over other digital marking systems is that owners have an easy way to identify and verify lost items. “It’s red and kinda round, about this big…” Yeah, fat chance you’ll recover property with such descriptions. A missing link account ties items directly to the owner, requiring no further burden of proof.
What’s more, a UID# is easy to both share online and connect to social media accounts – so spreading the news of lost items and giving finders more convenient channels to contact rightful owners increases the chances of things finding their way home. The easier finders can contact owners, the better. Rather than play detective, all finders have to do with Missing Link is enter in label info and then send a quick message.
Owners have control of their privacy settings, so they can decide what contact information they’d like to have attached to their tags. Only thinking about the Missing Link system did it occur to me how outdated the practice is of placing our personal information on our luggage (as airlines still recommend). Sure, we want an easy way for luggage to be identified as ours, but do we really want our personal information in front of so many eyes?
Missing Link makes it easy to identify items as our own without compromising our security. Made of strong, durable plastic, labels won’t tear or detach either like old-school paper tags. In fact, labels will easily affix to backpacks, wallets, sports equipment, laptop bags, carry-ons, luggage, laptops, smartphones, tablets, cameras, books and just about whatever else you want to protect.
Given that most of us travel with multiple electronic devices on a daily basis, it’s smart to have a way to retrieve items when the batteries go dead, which they of course do all the time. As long as items have a Missing Link tag or label, dead batteries don’t stand in the way of figuring out to whom items belong.
Smart, secure, convenient, and online – Missing Link is a digital lost and found linking us to our belongings fit for our modern world. Sign up for an account and order tags and labels at missinglink.com.
