From time to time people say unexpected things in the comment section below this column, but the other day one comment stands out. It’s from a reader asking that something be done about the actual state of the business card.
“I’m sick of young professionals at meetings giving me all kinds of excuses as to why they don’t have a card to give me,” said this man. I say, if you want me to remember that you were at this meeting, you can give me a card in blood, otherwise in a week, when I look at my cards from this trip, they will cease to exist.
“What are these mutton slips? Why don’t their bosses persist? Why didn’t their parents teach them? “
Phew, I thought. Thank goodness I have never encountered such people in my day job. Except I do.
A week later, I went to a business conference without the hundreds of business cards that had been sitting in the back of my desk drawer since the outbreak.
This seemed like a good place for them to stay. Long before the pandemic, it felt like card use was dying out with LinkedIn and Airdrops. Just because physical integration has returned, do people want to go back to exchanging information on germ-laden cardboard carriers that took hours of tedious labor to type into their home phones?
As you can see, they did a lot at this conference. Every second person there was whipping out a business card. Men. Women. Young man. Old. I thought everyone was saying, forgive me. When I apologized for not having a card for the third or fourth time, a middle-aged man said, “Why not?” he asked.
It was a shame that another slightly older (and famous) man didn’t leave his cards at home. I’ve been around for a while as he shakes hands with every guy he meets, but no matter how high he flies, he can’t give anything to a woman he’s introduced to.
So the business card is back? Yes and no.
As the pandemic eases, sales are picking up again at Vista, the parent of VistaPrint, one of the world’s largest makers of traditional business cards.
The company told me last week that business card revenue was up 10 percent for the year to June 30. But one particular type of product is really thriving: cards with QR codes or some other form of technology that lets you digitally download contact details.
“When we introduced digital business cards—physical cards with a digital element—in April, it was the fastest-growing new product introduction in the category, and we expect continued growth,” said Emily Whittaker, executive vice president of business at Vista.
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The trend was evident at a conference I attended when, in the middle of another card-giving circle, someone brought the iPhone sign up to me and said, “Point your camera at this.” Once the QR code was scanned, it instantly sent the contact details to my phone’s address book.
Another person took a mixed approach, emblazoning a QR code on the back of a bamboo card after others snapped it up.
It is clear that an ever-increasing army of technology is changing the business card. They include NFC, or field communication chips that people stick to their phones or implant in a (hopefully rare) case in their hand.
I’m not sure what a screaming FT reader would make of this shift, but I’m personally hooked.
I love the physical certainty of a printed card, and it’s true, when I get home, the cards remind me more of who I’ve met than the invisibly transmitted phone lists. Dead batteries can also be a problem for the QR family.
But after spending hours of my working life transferring nicely printed contact lists to my phone and using camera apps that promise to do the same but rarely do, it’s nice to be able to add someone’s details to your contact list.
I think the well printed FT cards sitting in my desk will last a very long time.
pilita.clark@ft.com
