The business card is back, sort of
From time to time, people say unexpected things in the comments section below this column, but the other day one remark stood out. It came from a reader demanding something to be done about the parlous state of the business card.
“I am sick of being given all manner of excuses by younger professional people in meetings for why they have no card to give me,” this person fumed. “I just say, if you want me to remember you were at this meeting, you can bloody well give me a card: otherwise in a week, when I look at my cards from this trip, you will have ceased to exist.
“What’s WITH these sheepish slobs? Why don’t their bosses insist? Why didn’t their parents teach them?”
Phew, I thought. Thank goodness I do not come across people like that in my day job. Except that I do.
The trend was evident at the conference I went to where, in the middle of yet another card-handing circle, one man brandished his iPhone at me and said, “Point your camera at this.” A QR code, once scanned, instantly sent his contact details into my phone’s address book.
Another person took a hybrid approach, flourishing a bamboo card with a QR code printed on the back that she kept after others snapped it.
Clearly, an advancing army of technologies is transforming the business card. They include NFC, or near field communication chips that people are sticking on their phones or in one (hopefully rare) case, implanting into their hand.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Pilita Clark
