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Posted on January 22nd, 2010 by Tim Danton
What to do with business cards in 2010?
Business cards. How on earth has it got to the year 2010 and they still exist, filling our drawers, cluttering our desks?
The crazy thing is that business cards are more important now than they were a decade ago. Back in those halcyon days Palm Pilots were as ubiquitous as biros, and you could transmit your details to someone else via the wonders of infrared technology. But then other devices started filling our suit pockets, all using different operating systems and proprietary interfaces, and we had to fall back on that cumbersome rectangular piece of card.
I’m just as guilty of propagating the tradition as everyone else. I’ve handed out hundreds of the things in the past year, and who knows what people have done with them. Although I’ve no doubt that more often than not they simply get dumped in the bin.
But the real trouble is that they’re still useful. Just now I handed PC Pro’s online editor, Barry Collins, a business card that I picked up while at CES. Right there, handy as you like, were the email, phone and address of just the contact he was looking for. The transaction took less than a second, and I even managed to find the darn thing in less than ten.
Which leaves me loving and hating the darn things. They’re filling my drawers, cluttering my desk, but until something better comes along I just can’t let go. And before anyone suggests it, having trialled one several years ago I have no intention of buying a dedicated business card scanner – sorry IRIS, but they’re just too much hassle.
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17 Responses to “ What to do with business cards in 2010? ”
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Authors
- Barry Collins
- Chris Brennan
- Christine Horton
- Darien Graham-Smith
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January 22nd, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Nothing wrong with the simple things in life Tim, sometimes there is just no need for a technological replacement.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:44 pm
What’s wrong with business card scanners?
We use them here… Drop all the business cards you recently received on the receptionists desk, she scans them in and they’re available in the departments Outlook mailbox within 10 seconds.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:51 pm
@Dan – sadly PC Pro hasn’t got a receptionist to hand. But maybe we should employ one. I’ll speak to HR…
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:03 pm
What about entering the details into a contact in Outlook (or your preferred contact management system)?
You then have the data easily to hand, searchable and able to use it to get in touch with the person should the need arise without cluttering your desk.
Once recorded, you can then recycle the original cards.
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Simple solution I use. An A5 ring binder filled with A5 paper and A-Z dividers. I then staple the cards on to the paper. I usually file by company name or first name, or sometimes use one sheet to record all attendees of a meeting. Whatever is most appropriate. It takes only a few seconds and it works for me.
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Paper. It’s unbeatable technology. It lasts for hundreds of years, there are no compatibility issues and it doesn’t need a power supply.
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Simple just set off a series of massive thermonuclear bombs, thereby killing everyone on the planet and removing the need for the things…. or you could just deal with it and forget the need for everything to be computerised
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Paper and pen still have huge advantages as do business cards. Go to any business club / breakfast / Chamber of Commerce and the business card reigns supreme.
The trouble with working in or being an enthusiast for tech is the urge to find ways to do things that can be adequately and efficiently done without the latest and greatest or even something more complex than the Mk 1 brain a sharp pencil (plus eraser) and some paper.
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:54 pm
If there were no business cards then every TV detective would suddenly be out of a job. Of course if we had a global public DNA database then we could simply spit on each other as a substitute for a little square of paper… actually, having been lightly barbecued by the glare of the Dennis receptionist (the closest PC Pro has to a “secretary”), that idea starts to have some appeal…
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:56 pm
To me, all these business card replacing technologies just don’t cut it. Business cards are for making an impression. Not just exchanging contact details. Long live the business card!
(Although I’m all for environmental printing processes and recycled paper!)
January 24th, 2010 at 4:08 am
How to deal effectively with business cards:
1 – Hand to secretary.
2 – She files it in a leather business card folder while you ask her nicely for some coffee.
Really, some people make even the simplest of things such hard work…
January 24th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
I have an application on My Windows Mobile phone that will take a snap of a business card and extract all the information to store in the Contacts folder which then replicates to Outlook on my PC and laptop. It takes two clicks.
Of course people with strange names sometimes confuses the OCR but it is still darned quick.
January 25th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
PS
The application is “WorldCard Mobile” and it is available for iPhone, Windows Mobile or Symbian. Some SmartPhones come with it already installed. For other people it will be a $25 download but there is a free trial version.
http://worldcard.penpowerinc.com/worldcard-moile.html (sic)
January 25th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Of course, we could easily have the best of both worlds if business cards had those nifty 2-D bar codes printed on them. It is still scanning, but much more reliable than OCR and can be done with a camera phone app.
The difficulty you are all ignoring with business cards is finding the darn things when you need them. OK your minions can file them, but not in the flexible multi-dimensional way you get with a computer database.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Tim: Have you seen this? Possible future(?) alternatives.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/13/social-media-digital-technology-cio-network-business-card_slide.html
January 25th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
@Toby – thanks for that. No, I hadn’t, but I must admit that I’m very, very cynical about any system that relies on people being members. They all seem to die out after a year or two.
March 17th, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Mr Danton, you are worse than a Luddite.
What is so wrong with entering business card details into Outlook so they can be referenced by the whole office? And what better way to enter a pile of them than with an OCR enabled scanner and an Outlook plugin?
I have just returned from a busy trade show with a few hundred contacts and I want to be able to email them all and drum up some orders. What could be better then a card scanner?
To be fair to the Luddites, they were not technophobes – they were simply trying to protect their livelihoods and feed their families. But you, it would seem, are resolutely standing in the path of progress.
It’s not a good look for a technology magazine editor.