Am I old fashioned?
I am 65 years old. I said it there. In the eyes of my grandchildren, I am prehistoric, but I like to think of myself as someone who can keep up with progress and technical things. I had this discussion with a young colleague about whether vintage business cards as we know them today will still be popular in the future. So I went and did some research:
I came across two articles that had three common problems:
1. They were both dealing with business cards and stated that conventional business cards are “Approved”
2. Both were written by people who had something to do with China: one was a businessman working in China and the other was a Chinese woman. (Guess what? She was also working in China)
3. Both authors suggested an alternative: Electronic business card.
Why did they claim that business cards are “Past”?
1. Once you start collecting them, taking a business card from anyone who offers you one, your wallet starts to swell until it could explode. So you sit down and try to select “boys’ men” and find yourself unable to decide which one to get rid of because you’re sure the one you’re going to throw away will be the one you’ll need tomorrow. .
2. Business cards don’t just come through those who put them in your hand. From time to time you reach out and take one. For example: You leave a restaurant where they gave you the “house” dessert. You will never leave such a place without taking its business card. You want to tell them, in your own way, that one day, and probably very soon, you’re going to be back with all your office mates…
3. Business cards are very small and the information written on them is very limited. You want to tell the world everything about yourself: your qualifications, your credentials, your educational certificates, the company you work for, your job and been there, and of course how to get in touch with you and the list of ways and means. is very long, especially your email address. From the other point of view: you want to know everything about the guy who gave you your business card, for example: is your company reliable and does it pay on time?…
4. If you use an album to store those business cards that are trying to blow up your wallet, surely you already know that it is like the case of family photos that are kept in all those albums to never look at them again. . In most cases you have completely forgotten about them.
5. By arguing that unavailable business cards are useless, we are going back to the first problem: how many cards can we carry with us everywhere all the time? And heck: which one?
6. Paper business cards are weathered and wrinkled according to the shape of the organ we’re sitting on…sometimes they get lost in clothes…you know.
So what is the accessory that will replace tedious conventional business cards?
To answer this question we have to answer a logically prior one: Why do we need them in the first place?
According to many articles, which are published on websites and print magazines, this is the cheapest way to advertise and promote yourself, as a person or as a company. In English-speaking countries it is called: Business call card. They are distributed according to the determination and decision of their bearer and distributor. People use them for many purposes, for example: take me as an example, I use it to write notes… you know…
In any case! What did the two “Chinese” suggest as substitutes for paper business cards?
The alternative they mentioned was another electronic toy, another gadget that will unite all the MP3 players, the Palms, the Disk on Key, the GPS, the Cell Phones that became not only telephones but Cameras, Radios, E-mailers, Browsers and soon Microwaves to heat our meals at work too. The electronic business card will contain virtually unlimited amounts of information. We will be able to load it with all the details, about ourselves or about our businesses, that we would like others to know about us. But to do so we will have to have ways and means to contact our personal computers, to be connected to our cell phones, palms, disk-on-keys, and last but not on the list: other electronic business cards of our fellow human beings. . This way we will be able to store in a small and portable accessory all the information that we store in hundreds of paper business cards. How comfortable, how convenient and ingenious!
Did we solve all our problems? Are we done with all our problems? Hell no! We have just opened a new chest of problems and difficulties. Because now we need to read another book of the operation manual, we have another expensive device to keep safe, not to lose or forget it somewhere, another electronic device to charge or replace batteries, another sophisticated equipment to keep away. of electromagnetic fields.
That’s not the end of it – you’ll probably like to see the information you’re about to pass on to your new business partner. You would like to see what kind of information you are delivering to your information systems, right? So now you need a screen and a keyboard. Well, what do we have here, another computer?
OKAY! No screens or keyboards. Good! It means passing a lot of information blindly! We would not be able to control, in real time, the quantity, content and quality of the information that we will give or receive.
Let’s assume that all those problems, concerns and open questions will be resolved. We still have in our hands a device that must be thicker than 10 or 15 paper business cards. Where will we keep it? Maybe in our wallet? Impossible to think about it. Perhaps in our shirt pocket? Anyway, we have a new annoyance maker.
What do I take from all this? That old-fashioned printed business cards are a very good solution and, if designed correctly, are very effective. They are cheap and easy to make. In general, here is an example where the devices are not as effective as the products they are trying to change.
