Business Cards Suck: Try These Tools Instead
Business cards are a horror show. When it gets to the point that you have to either resort to a die-cut, motion-sensitive, titanium-plated laser show of a card or get your contact info embossed on beef jerky to avoid being forgotten in the trash heap of useless swag and Clif Bar crumbs at the bottom of some biz dev guy's carry-on, we think it's safe to admit that the whole business card milieu needs an attitude adjustment.
Here are a few cool, tech-forward tools to ensure neither you, nor your contact details, are lost in the shuffle.
Now, there are a handful of iPhone apps for accomplishing the simultaneous, mutual relay of contact information between two parties; however, the tools we'll cover today are for the wider audience of people who are not rabid Mac fanboys and girls.
First, let's turn our attention to the MyNameIsE Connector, a nifty device that first came to our attention in this promotional video:
The Connectors work out of the box. Users touch the devices together to exchange information and download contacts later through a USB port. It's ridiculously simple. The Connector will be available for conferences and festivals, and the MyNameIsE tech is also available via a mobile site and several native apps.
A disturbingly similar device is the MingleStick.
Forgoing any juvenile remarks about the product name, we observe the point-click-download process is, indeed, the perfect solution for conferences and shows; you can check out the 'Sticks in action at a trade show in this video. Don't they make a lovely addition to those chic lanyards we all know and love? However, this particular product is likely to remain a conference-bound toy for a while. Although the web-based MingleManager service offers a nice array of address book/calendar/content sharing functions, there is no mobile functionality aside from the MingleSticks themselves.
Moving away from hardware, let's have a look at Dropcard. At this website, users can create free profiles with contact information, including websites and social networks. Upon meeting someone the user wants to keep in touch with, he texts the other person's email to 77950. The new contact is then sent the Dropcard user's profile information in an email and can save the information immediately to their address book. The best feature here is that it involves no effort on the new contact's part; they don't even need to have a phone handy. Think of it as 'good spam'.
Two other SMS-based services are TextID and Contxts. The latter has been particularly in vogue at recent tech conferences. However, both services require the non-user (or new contact, if you will) to take action by texting a word (usually a username or similar identifier selected by the user) to an SMS shortcode. Contxt is a free service for sharing up to 140 characters, while TextID monthly plans range from $19.95 - $79.95 and allow for sending just about any kind of information, including mobile websites, pictures, maps/directions, or brochures and menus.
As with any technological roundup, we're sure this post omits several wonderful products we didn't find; feel free to let us know about them in the comments.
And for the love of Mike, stop wasting trees and lining the bottom of that biz dev guy's carry-on: Just say no to business cards.
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I'd also recommend you adding CloudContacts (http://cloudcontacts.com/) to the list as this is one of the tools that make it actually easy to use the credit cards you already have efficiently. The startup will both scan your cards and provide you with an easy-to-use online interface to access your contacts from anywhere as well as connect to such contacts on various social networks additionally.
Something like this built into another common device (i.e. mobile phone) might work, but who's going to be the first to buy one.
Posted by: Paul
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May 19, 2009 9:53 PM
I agree on the Cloud Contacts recommendation. I just had them scan more than 4,000 cards for me and it freaking rocks to have them all in a database. Sorry, nothing beats the ubiquity of business cards. If you're going to use Business Cards, make sure you follow the best practices. I wrote that up here: http://scobleizer.com/2006/07/05/business-card-best-practices/
By the way, how come you didn't cover Pokens in this blog? Here's details on those: http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/546d5302/do-you-poken-click-here-to-see-in-action-and-learn
From what I understand, Contxts is US only. It might be worth mentioning that in the post.
Hey Robert... I know it's crossing into grammar nazi territory but there's something conceptually confusing about this sentence in point #2: "I bought a business card scanner so that I could get my computers into computer form." Should that be "cards into computer form"? Not sure why that's bugging me so much... must be time to go to bed!
Posted by: Lindsay D.
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May 19, 2009 9:58 PM
Lindsay: yes. You're right.
Posted by: Robert Scoble
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May 19, 2009 9:59 PM
A) Do you have a MyNameIsE?
B) Oh no sorry, I have a minglestick(???).....
A) Thats ok, I will just text your email to Dropcard...
B) Ok, so my email is i-n-e-e-d-a-b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s-c-a-r-d@-m-u-p-p-e-t-.-c-o-m.... no, you missed an s...
I think I will stick with a business card for now thanks.
SnapDat is a useful app for my iPhone that I've used a few times, but I still find business cards are relied on by a LOT of people. If I get a huge number of cards at an event, I photograph them and have someone enter them into my database for me.
@Lindsay - unless anyone got killed for their grammar, it's probably not related to nazis...
Posted by: Jeremy Toeman
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May 19, 2009 10:05 PM
I agree on the Cloud Contacts recommendation.
@Jeremy - you'd be surprised at how agitated some people get about it... but yeah, probably a slang term that I reconsider use of.
Posted by: Lindsay D.
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May 19, 2009 10:30 PM
Where's the poken? I think it was the original - it's just not widely available in the US and you have to purchase in 12 packs. It's a really cool idea in theory, but what are the chances you'll actually run into someone else who has one? Either way, I still want one. :)
http://www.doyoupoken.com
All well and good, but it takes two MyNameIsE connectors to tango, and chances are that before the device catches on, all mobile phone manufacturers would have incorporated "touch and exchange business cards" as a standard feature on their products.
The devices requiring SMS sending have an inherent disadvantage: the SMS addresses do not work outside the US and Canada. Woe begone to all manufacturers who think that these two countries are the only markets!
I agree on the missing Poken coverage :-)
It's big in some parts of Europe (originated in Switzerland) and becoming widely popular in Japan (disclosure: I'm the official Poken evanleglist for Japan).
I've used it for the first time at the launch party of Poken in Tokyo and I immediately realized how fewer b.cards I had v. connections on doyoupoken.com
Cheers,
Poken is a toy compared to these devices, especially at the open software services level. MynameisE has a long term vision around sharing information that is independent of specific devices. The best comparison I have heard (mentioned at the jury deliberations when mynameise won the startup event at the NextWeb) was: if poken is myspace then E is linkedin. Which is what you want if you deal with business cards....
Jolie, that first paragraph had me laughing out loud! You're funny! Thanks for that.
a very successful tool looks incredible
Howdy, folks!
@Robert: Thanks for the Poken pointer. Yes, they do look pretty damn sexy (http://www.startpoken.com) and are available in the U.S. But again, unless one of the point/click contact devices gains critical mass, they're basically nifty toys for conference organizers to sigh over.
And as for Cloud Contacts and the generally snarky comment from Ronan: I see Cloud Contacts as a sign that business cards are decreasing in usefulness. Ronan: The day you go to a conference and get 200+ cards handed to you over the course of a single day, you call me (310.936.6762) and let me know how well your Rolodex is holding up, how effectively you're able to manage that information, and how you've added those people to your network in any useful way. The tools I've suggested above are for power socializers who need to keep track of hundreds or thousands of people over many different networks for different reasons.
Conferences are some of the best places to meet new people, and business cards are probably the best way to forget them.
The Poken is popular in The Netherlands amongst youngster (12 year olds), but hasn't become successful for business use.
Will social networking websites drive business card evolution? http://bit.ly/2xs60J
I am a big fan of BeamME, which is a simple iPhone app that lets me send my cloud-based business card to email, phone or Twitter. It has nice links to my social networks etc included. I dropped my paper cards 9 months ago, and have been using it together with Facebook and LinkedIn iPhone apps. The only reasonable use for paper cards anymore is trade show contests where you drop your card to bowl to hopefully win a prize :)
...and if you are not one of the 6.219 billion people (thanks Wolfram Alpha!)who DON'T live in the USA?
Oh please! :)
You're crying about a few small piece of paper, and so you suggest a whole manufactured device made of plastic and aluminum from China? Which do you think will affect the environment and landfills more?
Paper is a renewable resource, and breaks down. Try telling me how long that just-another-extra-plastic-gizmo will break down in a landfill.
Just what I need: Another device.
The right way to do this is a voice print. Just say your name to your new friend's phone, that's it. Imagine OpenID/FF/FB/Plaxo/Gmail storing your voice print as part of your ID. You plug in, upload the new voice prints of your new friends and then get all the contact info needed.
You could also add the words "friend", "business", "Facebook" or whatever after your voice print, to indicate the level of intimacy permission you were giving. Of course, if you wanted to avoid giving someone your details, you'd have to fake your name or talk in a scratchy voice instead of giving a phony phone number.
while most of us will agree that yeah its an old way of doing things and sure it will be gone at some point in the future but the fact remains people who are not techie love cards.
I work in both worlds and have to deal with people who are business owners not social media guru's.
cloudcontacts bridges this gap and allows the techies of the world to import these cards into their workflow.
you have clearly missed the point of cloudcontacts.
Mobile Phone camera, take picture, hand card back. Move on.
What next? Talking to people sucks! Carry a conversation making device instead!
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@Jolie
Sorry I was going for light humour rather than snark. I guess my oblique point was that your solutions aren't as universal as the humble business card.
I take your point, if I had collected 200 business cards from a conference (and I wasn't running a draw for a free iPhone to get them), then yes, I would be grasping for an alternative too.
However, the likes of yourself and Mr Scoble aside, are there that many power socialisers out there? You need to be one to do your job as well as you do.
Maybe we are just coming at it from different angles....
And somewhere in the middle better solution might lie.
Save trees? better tell that to the Federal Reserve Bank. No one bitches about the paper money they print thats worthless compared to the trees they destroy. Good Idea.
As much as these are great and convenient tools, not everyone knows about them and owns them. How do you exchange information through the devices when the others do not own it? Besides, what if the device becomes faulty and the other party's information did not get through? Business cards are safer.
Good tool!
Hey thanks everyone for the shoutouts to CloudContacts - good way to wake up in the morning! :)
Please let me know if you have any questions.
thanxxx Please let me know if you have any questions.
Pokens are cool! At the LIFT conference in Geneva everybody was poking each other and I had to laugh when somebody asked whether I wanted to have 'tech sex' with them - rubbing the pokens against one another :-)) They're great ice breakers. Only challenge was that after the event some Poken owners didn't activate their accounts - and alas - no business card to follow-up on.
My very old (and dying) Handspring Treo 90 (along with all of the other Handspring Treos running Palm software) did this YEARS ago. One entered their own contact data as one of the contacts in the Treo's contact manager, and designated it as their "business card." From then on, it was just a couple of taps and the data was beamed to any like device in range.
Like it or not, until there is no one using paper for anything, business cards will be the de facto form of exchanging contactg info.
I also think it's funny that my RSS feed reader attached an ad for some company that prints business cards to this story . . . :-D
Yep, these are crap, no matter how beautiful you make the models....you are goign to have to build this into a mobile phone application which is something we all carry with us all the time.
time for a business model change guys.
cheers,
Dean Collins
www.Cognation.net
Rubbing devices (or waving them at each other as the video shows) just doesn't seem as friendly as exchanging business cards.
One thing about the old fashioned way is the nice pause as someone looks at your card, asks where you live, about your company ... etc. It engages the other person in conversation and gives you something to talk about.
@Mikko thanks for the iPhone app suggestion! I've tried SnapDat, but think BeamMe will be better.
I hate traditional paper business cards because I always loose them. My phone is with me all of the time and I don't want to load contact info. Too tedious! Come on folks, this isn't 1980 anymore!
That's why I love Contxts it's SMS so it's already built into phones. And one thing not mentioned in the article is the sender can initiate it. (E.g. what's your cell #? okay the card is on it's way) The 140 char limit is a little frustrating but business cards should be concise anyway.
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I was polishing a brandy snifter when the Unmarried Mother came
in. I noted the time-10: 17 P. M. zone five, or eastern time,
November 7th, 1970. Temporal agents always notice time and
date; we must.
The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty-five years old,
no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. I
didn't like his looks - I never had - but he was a lad I was
here to recruit, he was my boy smart card. I gave him my smart card best barkeep's
smile.
Maybe smart card I'm too critical. He wasn't swish; smart card his nickname
came from smart card
what he always said smart card when some nosy type asked him his
line: "I'm an unmarried mother. -- If he felt less than
murderous he would add: "at four cents a word. I write
confession stories. --
If he felt nasty, he would membership card wait for someb
Reminds me of the old infrared feature on early Palm/Pilot devices - sounds great, but somehow it misses a social context. A business card is about a social transaction as much as it's about a data transaction. A digital data patch on the back to facilitate data transfer seems like a good compromise.
Posted by: John Blossom
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May 20, 2009 7:55 AM
I don't carry business cards... people think that I'm crazy...not having business cards simplifies my life..all my biz contacts are online...FB FF Twitter SiliconAngle are my new business cards
Posted by: John Furrier
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May 20, 2009 8:00 AM
@johnfurrier, do you use a single app/site to aggregate your business contacts in Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter, etc.? Any CRM tips?
Posted by: Kawika Holbrook
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May 20, 2009 8:12 AM
@Jolie, I think Scoble is right "Sorry, nothing beats the ubiquity of business cards".business cards are apart of our culture. All of those devices that you mentioned are pretty cool but not sure they have what it takes to change the whole culture.
You did fail to mention SpartX.com which provides a place to create a virtual business card and print that same card and manage your cards in a virtual rolodex.
Cheers,
@Steve_Gonzalez
CloudContacts is from Allen Stern over at Centernetworks isnt it?
Old business cards don't have to suck.
Add some creativity and a website that connects those reinventing with possible new employers.
Get Cards of Change.
Follow http://twitter.com/VistaPrint and get 80% discount. Tell them DebbyBruck sent you.
Posted by: Debby Bruck
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May 20, 2009 5:43 PM
The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty-five years old,
no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. I
didn't like his looks - I never had - but he was a lad I was
here to recruit, he was my boy smart card. I gave him my smart card best barkeep's
smile.
I think if someone does not remember you by using a business card, an electronic device will not help to solve the problem. Normally, the business card itself is not the problem for a "non contact scenario" but the service/product/person behind the card.
Basically, if your card is not working, something with your business is not working.
Caveat: subjective viewpoint here as I sell Poken in the US at http://Store.PokenZoo.com.
My daughter and her friends have Pokens, as do I, my son and my spouse (she loves the alien).
The Poken is really only half of it: all your friends' contact information is stored in your account, so it becomes a great resource, an online address/social/little black book to keep all your friends' info in one place--and when they update their Poken by starting a new social networking account or opening a Skype account, for example, their ID card in your account is updated too. Nice way to keep up.
Sure, the "tipping point" argument is valid ("no one has one, so why buy one?"), but the market will sort that out. Remember when you were advised to not buy a Mac because "everyone use[d] PCs" and you "couldn't exchange files"? The market sorted that out, too.
As far as the business angle goes, I've had orders from companies who give Pokens away as swag, which serves two purposes: keeping your brand in front of a client, but also connecting with them in a way that wasn't possible before.
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