Business Cards Aren’t Dead Yet
I’ve been spending lots of time at conferences lately. And one of the main goals is meeting people and spreading the word about Resume Everywhere. Usually, this involves lots of shaking hands and handing out business cards.
You might be thinking something like “Wow, business cards are so passé, not to mention bad for the environment. What about using some technological solution?”
There are quite a few companies trying to be the tech solution to business cards — Bump, Hashable, TwitCards, Card.ly — and those are just the ones off the top of my head. The general problem with them is that they make assumptions which often prove wrong.
- Bump assumes both you and the person you want to give your card to (a) have a smart phone and (b) have both installed the Bump software. Smartphone penetration is remarkable in the US, but it’s hardly ubiquitous.
- Hashable assumes you are both on Twitter. Twitter is fun and growing in popularity, but it’s still relatively very limited as to who participates. You can use email (which is pretty much ubiquitous), but the mobile app, website and pretty much everything about Hashable is geared towards Twitter.
- TwtBizCards — see the first part of Hashable
- Card.ly has the same pluses and minuses as its brethren (Magnt, Chi.mp, About.me) — it’s just a webpage where you can download a vCard. On the plus side, no special software or tools required, just a web browser. In the minus column, you’re expecting another person to download something; several extra steps that lower the chance of follow through.
There’s also the social mechanics of it. Compare this procedure:
- Find someone you want to exchange information with
- Determine if they have a smartphone
- Ask if they have Bump installed
- “No? What is your email address/Twitter handle?”
- “And how do you spell that?”
- Hashable connection made
as opposed to this:
- Hand over business card
Paper business cards will work for any person at pretty much anytime. If you want to high tech the paper card, put a QR code on it — that’s what I do. You can make a QR code that contains the vCard information within it or as a link to where the vCard could be downloaded. Such a code on a paper card can be scanned into a smart phone with a barcode app installed. Granted, that’s not a huge percentage of the world, but it’s a growing one. And, for those people you meet without a barcode enabled smart phone, there’s always the old fashioned way.
–Update–
Added the social mechanics section.
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