business cards: over.
One of the kabillion things that we observed while on the PlaidNation tour this year is an interesting trend in trading contact information: business cards are over.
We paid visits to over 20 companies, brands and people in ten cities across the U.S. We met with start ups, individuals and Fortune 500's. We handed out about 3 business cards.
What people want instead: your Twitter handle. Your email. Nothing else matters. If you have my Twitter handle, you can get anything you need.
Most of the time you'll hand out business cards in situations where etiquette or tradition dictate that it's necessary. Like when you sit at a conference table, with a team of people that you haven't met before. It's like we're all programmed that "now is the time we exchange business cards." But really - all they need is your email address. Do they really need a piece of cardboard?
We discovered this because tour meetings eliminated traditional meeting culture. And once the culture of a meeting is eliminated, people fall back on actual needs instead of habits. Only a couple of people that we met "needed" business cards. Everyone else traded Twitter names.
Try it at your next meeting. Ask for a Twitter name or an email instead of a card, and enter it into your smart-device of choice. And eliminate the cardboard that gets tossed, lost or mangled the moment you leave.
Labels: identity, social media, trends
posted by darryl ohrt @ 7:54 AM
12 comments
12 Comments:
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Your post reminds me of the story about people in NY and CA who complained, "I don't know anyone who voted for George Bush!"
BTW, only a small percentage of business people use Twitter and other forms of social media. If you want to do business with them, you better have a business card.
Personally I'd like to wave my cell phone at anyone or anything and have the data immediately sucked into my records. Hiking trail - zip. Interesting Chinese tea in retail store - zap. Guy my wife is flirting with - unzap (store for future deletion).
Plaid: Please get on this immediately.
http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/08/fabulous-business-card-idea.html
You can do that - How about cards with a qr code?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
Me personally? I have a stack of 1,000+ BC's with various titles that I've never used, and, I never keep cards that people give me. Once I get their email that's pretty much all I need.
If you treat a business card like an art piece. If you approach it not just as a way to exchange contact information, but as a way to represent your personal brand and be remembered, you may create more meaningful and memorable relations with the people you meet.