Business cards are anachronistic contributors to global warming and I’m saying goodbye to them.
There, I said it.
How often do you care about anything on a business card other than one’s name, title, company, phone number, web URL, and email address? Do you care about fax numbers or postal mail addresses anymore? Do you care what the corporate logo looks like? Do you care about the color of the card or whether you can write on it?
I’ve been wanting to design and order a new batch of my facial recognition cards which are running low and contain outdated information, but I’ve been sitting on my ass instead of taking action. After asking and learning what friends and colleagues do, I am opting to separate myself from the tree-killing crowd of business card holders and be sustainable with paper-less technology.
I’ll explain.
First, I credit Jeff Cutler for introducing me to Rich Drake and his Tweetup Badges service last summer. As the name implies, Rich manufactures laminated plastic ID cards that identify you for display by clipping to your vest pocket or be suspending on a lanyard around your neck. While intended to provide alternate identification methods than sticky or pinned labels at meetups and conferences, tweetup badges can also serve as self-identifying contact cards which you can bring to any event.
My badges — in contrast to the this example — display my URL where Rich has a hashtag, along with my first name and my Twitter name. The information is repeated on the back of the code, which also includes a printed QR code whereby anyone with a scanning application on their mobile device can scan me and my details will appear in their address book.
Second, I credit Amy Mengel for alerting me to 14-month-old contxts.com which enables me to share my contact information with you — the same data that would appear on a printed card — by way of a 140-character SMS message you can receive on your cellphone after either my alerting the service to send it to you or your requesting it by texting a 5-digit number. Here’s a great summary of the cloud contact tool to learn more about its pros and cons.
Third, users of iPhones and Androids are already familiar with the so-called bumping technology whereby two users can “bump” their phones to each other, and each other’s contact information magically appears on each other’s phones, thereby eliminating the need to carry paper and giving cards when that information would ultimately wind up in the phones.
Thoughts?
Let’s be honest, folks. If you are reading this blog article then I will presume you are technology-savvy, have an email address, and if in the receipt of a business card that lacks an email address you would be careless to follow-up. These are precisely who you are attracted to at events where you would exchange business cards. Please stop me if I am assuming too much.
Thus, why do you really need to print everything on a piece of paper when you have your choice of having a sustainable plastic ID card, texting that person’s cellphone with your details, and/or bumping your phones together? Alternatively, take that person’s business card and then email him or her with your details. Simple and saves that person the work of inputting your data.
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
Related posts:
{ 1 trackback }
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
Wouldn’t it be better if the event coordinator just emailed a list of participants and their personal information.
Plastic is also an environmental problem..
While the plastic card could/ should be used multiple times I somewhat imagine that it wouldn’t be..
New from Glen: What I Learned From Renovating My Home
If the tweetup badge is used at a solitary event, you are correct there is an environmental disposal problem. Though, it can be thrown out with recycled plastic. That’s why, though, I opted to not print a hashtag on my badge but to print my URL — so I can use it over and over and over.
I think plastic card very difficult popular, because fee to make it is high.
I think business cards are still good for those people who are not as Internet friendly. I kind of like the fact that, with technology savvy people, I can just tell them to Google Kikolani or Kristi Hines and they can find me that way.
But there are some times when business cards can be helpful. For example, I market my freelance services to local businesses, and some of my clients keep my card on their front desk so when they tell others about me, they can just grab a card and hand it out.
I also think if you have a visually attractive business card, it will grab people’s attention in weird places. Like those businesses that let you drop in your business card to win a prize. A local eatery might display your card above their fishbowl for a week/month if you win, and you never know who might notice it.
New from Kikolani @ Blogging Tips: Best of #SMAZ – Blogging Tips, Social Media ROI, & SEO
Yes, you do raise a point with business cards in community locations. Susan Murphy provides a great example of this — illustrating how small towns act like social networks as a direct result of how and where business cards are displayed.
As for me business cards are very much effective. Utilizing an old school type of thing by using business cards and putting useful information like “e-mail addresses”.
Interesting one and very clever on delivering this post. Thanks for sharing
Out of curiosity, why do you hyphenate email?
If I my jump in here, when things first started, everything with the “e” was hyphenated, e-mail, e-commerce, etc., it is after all really two words; electronic mail.
We all just got lazy with it. lol
New from Dennis Edell: The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!!
Yes, I know the history, Dennis.
I was curious why Camille still did it.
Though you bring up a larger issue. If this is a blog, then isn’t it really a lazy version of the second syllable of “weblog,” itself a concatenation of “web log?” If so, then would “e-mail” be “mail” today?
This could go on all night… lol
New from Dennis Edell: The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!!
…and into the morning!
Frankly speaking I have lost count of how many business cards I received from the 1st day I started working. I do normally look at the name and services provided and that’s it, unless they have an email for me to store in my address book that’ll be superb. Yet again, I’m an internet geek so can’t speak for everybody in this small town. ^^
However, what you shared in the post strike me a chord. As someone who has good faith in social media I believe this trend will take a turn, maybe much simpler and self-customized if not extinct completely.
For tech-savvy friends, I would ask them to visit my blog to retrieve all the other social media sites I’ve joined. I love how blog can be a hub and an introduction to what you do and less characters to remember. I wouldn’t have remembered the phone numbers on business cards anyway. lol..
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
New from Ching Ya: 7 Productive Things To Do When You Can’t Blog
People put phone numbers on business cards? Don’t they belong in phone address books?
If you use phone in your business, then it absolutely goes on the card. You’re not gonna make someone take the extra step to look it up, are ya?
New from Dennis Edell: The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!!
Very interesting thought! I´m online pretty much all the time, often exchanging contact details via vcard or URLs. Yet I still keep my business cards for one reason: Sometimes it´s just too slow to go the electronic way and it´s easier to give away a card.
But I will check out the services you explained to extend the possible ways to spread my contact data…
Cheers from Germany
@peterhziegler
@pmksoftware
When you’re not online, where are you?
Family and friends… Usually… Or asleep… I try to find enough time for them to keep us happy. What about you?
While it may be OK for some to ditch business cards it is not for others. I still have my collection of other people’s that I dip into every once in a while so it goes to show if they didn’t give me one in the first place it wouldn’t be there for me to find again, leaving them pretty much forgotten about.
When you “dip into” other people’s cards, what are you looking for? Data you’re not inputting online?
Thanks for this! I have been trying to figure out a really good way to give my contact info electronically, and contxts.com sounds perfect. I have thought about printing business cards for my blog, but it just seemed like it would ultimately be a waste. I know I never keep and use business cards myself.
Thanks again.
New from Carlos Velez: Direction, Not Perfection: Progress In Small Steps
Here’s the test: Would you keep your own card if someone gave you it? If not, then why do you give it to someone else?
I understand where you’re coming from on this issue, but you’re forgetting one thing; not everyone is going to be using any of the services you can be found on. It’s a courtesy to be able to provide a means for people to remember and find you. It might be inconvenient to continue to carry cards (and to remember to order more when you run out, and of course, continuing to kill trees), but the reality is, business cards are just too useful. They just won’t be going away anytime soon.
New from Neal Wiser: What’s the Big Deal about This Poster?
Do you know anyone who doesn’t have a pen and paper to write down, “Neal Wiser,” and remember to type that into a search engine and click the first link?
Dear Ari thank you so much for this post!
I’ll take it one step further: I launched my business yesterday without a business card and without a website! Reversed business start-up: a facebook and Twitter page!
http://bit.ly/bJZGwz
Maybe I’ll just make a card as a collectors item from the old days?
Monique
New from Monique DiCarlo: You cannot transform yourself
What is Twitter? You reference a Twitter page. What is that?
[removes tongue from cheek]
I’d have to agree with Kikolani. Some people just are not that quick with technology and prefer the old fashioned method. I think it would be easier to just hand a 68 year old lady asking about my services in line at the grocery store a card rather than going through the steps to trade info via cell phones. Not saying that seniors are not tech savvy, just used that age as an example.
I like the contxts.com app. The only problem again is some people will need that written down, probably on the back of my business card!
I’ve noticed the text response from contxts.com takes longer than I expected and sends duplicates.
New from Aaron: Mastering the Shift
Oh, yes, of course. (Though I can think of some 68-year-olds in town who read my blog and prefer to receive emails.)
Hi again Ari!
Great post. Yes, business cards are a thing of the past. I can’t wait to get my hands on an iPhone to take advantage of some of the amazing features like bumping technology. Every little thing helps. Just think, if 100 million people started making the transition from paper business cards to virtual information sharing… our overall environmental footprint would be so greatly reduced. Great post.
New from Josh@RV Blue Book: Why a Good RV Mattress Will Save Your Health and Sanity
The flipside, to be fair, is if you’re going to print business cards then use recycled paper, if even a 20% or 30% print.
Hey Ari, if you wanna check out something new and really cool, try Poken. Coree wrote a real good write up on them – http://www.marketlikeachick.com/how-to-exchange-social-media-contact-info-instantly-at-events/ – I haven’t purchased mine yet, as I can’t decide which one I want. lol
New from Dennis Edell: The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!!
Yeah, I’ve heard of the thing but have no desire to get one as I can’t think of anyone in a 30-mile radius who has one.
Well, as they point out, they were devised with conventions, seminars, and the like in mind..people from all over.
If they catch on, they could become quite huge.
New from Dennis Edell: The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!!
I think there is something fundamentally different between having a physical business card and having contact info in a phone. If your card is sitting on my desk, I may glance at it, and that can be the incentive to contact you. The card serves as the reminder, as well as facilitating that interaction (by providing the contact info). I have a ridiculous amount of contacts in my phone and even more in my email address book, but that doesn’t serve as that impetus to connect.
New from Andrea Hill@Digital Likeness: Notifications: Nexus One 1, iPhone 3G 0
I agree that business cards should not still be used and that they are a waste of paper. However, most people still do not know about “bump” technology…even if they have a capable device. Thus, I’ll keep the business cards until society catches up with us.
New from Richard@How To Videos: How To Make Money On Amazon With the Amazon Affiliate Program
Hi Ari…yeah, I know I’m a little late to the game..but thought I’d throw my 2 cents in anyway.
Just happened to see that Dennis mentioned the article I did on Poken…and your response. You’re right about the number of people owning the little social business card…so far… but expect to be seeing more of them as the push to market to US events is starting. Just like with anything else it takes one good push then, before you know it, everyone’s Poken each other.
The main difference between the iPhone’s bump and Poken is that whenever a Poken user updates their information (say they change jobs, move, change their number) it’s automatically updated in your database…you do nothing. Whereas, with the Bump feature, the user would have to notify you of the change, then you, with all that extra time on your hands, will have to update their contact information manually. And that’s IF they even tell you of the change.
I like the whole idea. (of course I am a bit biased, being a new reseller). I also like that event organizers can pre-load Pokens they may give away at their events with all their pertinent contact info beforehand so it’s automatically uploaded into the user’s database. Sweet marketing .
Oh, and thanks Dennis for introducing me to Ari’s blog. I think I found a new fave!
New from Coree Silvera: The Power Of The Ask – 6 Strategies To Increase Your Business
Quite welcome, have you been checking your comments?
New from Dennis Edell: Hello & Welcome To The All New – DennisEdell.com/DirectSalesWebMarketing.com Merged – Direct Sales Coaching Blog!