Firehead

I want to touch on a really killer topic – one that is probably keeping you up at night but you’re too ashamed to mention in public:

What’s going to happen to the good old business card in this new information age?

Or, more importantly: what in the world should I consider taking with me to networking events so I don’t look like a goofball? Is the business card dead? What app should I have on which mobile device, if not? Or should I be putting scan codes on my new-generation cards?

It’s a familiar scenario: you’re back from the big convention and finally getting to those business cards you’ve stuck away in pockets, files, conference materials, laptop covers… It’s a routine post-event chore that you’ve put off until you have to. When you look at the mass of cards you’ve assembled, a few of them conjure up a face or even a conversation. But with most of them, well, you know the rest of the story.

It’s a conundrum alright. No one seems to agree and you don’t want to look stupid at conferences.

At Firehead, we’ve seen networkers exchange or use the following:

• Twitter handles tout simplement.
• Bluetooth exchanges of LinkedIn.com profiles.
• Hashable.com – users can scan QR codes into the app’s network or, even look silly, er, I mean savvy, at conferences by exchanging contacts through bumping their phones together.
• Contxts.com – distributes your credentials via SMS.
• About.me – allows users to create and share virtual profiles / business cards.
• CardMunch – indexes business cards into a virtual Rolodex and can connect to social web profiles.

Gina Trapani, tech commentator on Lifehacker, says: “I see people exchange Twitter handles, I see people scan each other’s badges, and send one another quick e-mails from their phones… But I definitely don’t see people handing out cards anymore.”

I personally like them. I like the idea of having a physical thing to hold so I can decide how to enter it in my database myself. And I never know which of the proliferating digital options I should have to hand – and on what device – to be prepared for the guy who comes in insisting we conform to his way of working because ‘the business card is dead’. He may be right, or he may not, but I know the dust hasn’t settled on this issue yet.

So what do you do?

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