Rolodexes are ancient history, and you can send everything from your contact information to videos of the kids beaming from your smartphone with a touch of a button. So is the business card dead? Not by a long shot, said Boston workplace specialist Ann Ivey. Although virtual cards are the new handshake, paper still dominates. "Any time there is face-to-face interaction - and there's still plenty of that, even in the electronic age - it's useful to have a tangible business card," said Ivey.
The $1.2 billion business card industry has evolved from a formal, print shop product to anything goes, including high-tech cards embedded with computer chips that can be plugged in to a personal computer to download information. For the traditional paper business card, the do-it-yourself option is getting cheaper and easier, whether online or in a store: Staples, for example, offers 30-minute business cards, from design to print.
But cards need to list a lot more than name, address, and phone number. Multiple points of access, including Twitter and Facebook addresses, are a must. "Businessmen want their cards to have a 'sticky' factor. This is especially true in a tough economy," said Melissa Crowe, a vice president with Lexington-based VistaPrint.
Bruce Fenton, managing director of Atlantic Financial, a Boston capital management firm, proffers a multilanguage card: One side has English, and the other Arabic. He also has a English-Japanese version. "It shows a commitment to the region if you do a lot of work there," said Fenton.
Of course, any business card needs to be backed by a beefy presence in cyberspace, said marketing consultant Kellyann Dinoff. "In a world where 'Googling' is a legitimate verb, if your website doesn't sing, you might as well not exist - even with a fabulous business card."
