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Business Cards the Latest Internet Casualty
Hugh Pickens writes "Chalk up another looming casualty of the Internet age: business cards. Ubiquitous as pinstripes, the 2-by-3.5-inch pieces of card stock have long been a staple in executive briefcases. But now, writes Matt Stevens, young and Web-savvy people who are accustomed to connecting digitally, see business cards as irrelevant, wasteful — and just plain lame. 'When I go into a meeting and there are five bankers across the table, they all hand me business cards and they all end up in a pile, in a shoe box somewhere,' says Diego Berdakin, the founder of BeachMint, a fast-growing e-commerce site that has raised $75 million from investors without ever bothering to print a card. 'If someone comes in to meet me, we've already been connected through email, so it really doesn't feel like a necessity in my life.' Some 77 million smartphone users have downloaded the Bump app, which allows them to bump their phones together and instantly exchange contact information. Others carry a personalized quick-response code that smartphones can scan like a hyperlink. At 36, Ralph Barbagallo is near the cutoff for Generation Y but despises business cards all the same. Barbagallo says he goes to three major conferences a year and has to distribute paper cards, but lugging and exchanging fistfuls of them is a pain and it's hard to remember who is who. 'When they run out this time, I'm not printing any more,' says Barbagallo. 'They need to die somehow.'"
QR Code containing VCard on the back. Tada, became relevant and useful again.
Although I love the idea of getting rid of paper as much as possible and attempt to employ that in my life where possible... there's nothing more annoying than if you're focusing on meeting someone for the first time, establishing a relationship and you have to say "Oh let me get my phone out, here, can you spell your email address for me? How do you spell your last name? Was that a B or a D you just said?"
I hand you my business card, you can clearly see how my name is spelled and can match it up to what I just told you. Visual cue along with audio cue. Then you have their email address and phone number and can take that back to your office and put that into a contact book on your computer, then toss the card. Not to mention you can make notes on their business cards without having to "boot up" any device.
Now, there might be something to be said for having some kind of "automatic business card exchange" application on phones, where you could pull out your phones and "bump" them with someone else's to get their info or whatnot, but honestly I'd still rather just hand the card over and maintain eye contact.
In a typical interpersonal business exchange, what people take away from the meeting is roughly a 70/20/10 split between body language/tone of voice/actual words spoken.
Anytime someone mentions business cards I always think of the scene in american psycho.
"oh my god, it even has a watermark."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ux3vncNNLg
not knowing who is who is not specific to business cards... if you are not careful about who you add on your social network, you end up with a collection of contacts you have no idea why you have them.
business cards are relevant if you handle them properly.. if you can not remember who is who, put more info about the person on the business card or when you enter them into whatever software you use for contacts. Software exists to automate scanning business cards too.
if you are not printing business cards, imho, it is a mistake. not only some people are not computer savvy but it looks good when you have one.
Saying business cards need to die reminds me of how 20 years ago I read articles about how paper would die by year 2000 because of computer exchanges... a lot of bla bla... but business as usual
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
It is extremely difficult to infect a computer with malicious code via a paper business card.
I want to set up a business card with one of those digicodes on the back that can be scanned by a smartphone, such as appear on YouTube VEVO broadcasts.
Realistically, business cards are for giving people your contact info, and nothing more. I never give business cards to people who already have my contact info, but they're invaluable for shows and conferences where they don't have your contact info.
Plus they're handy for dropping in to those "win a meal" restaurant promotion draws. :)
Business cards are about as useful as books or magazines: they're instantly available, need no electricity, can be passed from person to person, etc. You can run into someone in an elevator and during your 20 second pitch hand them a card. Not everyone's going to say "Oh let me get out my smartphone and start the QR code app and scan the QR code, etc". Maybe they don't have time for you. Maybe they're already using their phone (very likely). Maybe they only half heard you because they have something else on their mind. Whatever the reason, business cards are useful.
.com types ask for business cards. They're not dead.
I still have IT internet-savvy entrepreneur
Usually I hang on to cards I'm handed until I have a few seconds to scan the QR code. If there isn't a code I take a photo of the card with the smartphone and toss the card.
But thank you for this article, reminded me I should see if there's "an app for that", some sort of app that can scan a business card and add them to my contacts. Quick google search lead me to this page with the top 10 iPhone business card scanning apps available. I'll try some of the free versions and see which works best.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone