Tag Archives: connections

The death of the business card

I recently updated my business card and I ended up recycling a few hundred of the old, out-dated ones. This isn’t the first time my responsibilities or title has changed prompting me to do this, but maybe it’s the last? In a post COVID-19 world are we going to routinely take a small card out of our wallets and hand it to someone else? Are we going to sanitize our hands first? Or are we going to send a digital version via our phones, instantly and without making physical contact of a common object?

Frankly, I think it’s about time! When I get a card, I usually take a photo with it in Evernote and then either hand the card back or put the card in a small business card holder on my desk, seldom ever to be looked at again. One thing I’ve hated about the Evernote process is that when I first started using this feature (I think it’s only on the paid version), the card reader would pick up all the different parts like name, company name, title, and phone numbers, and put them in the right category, and then ask me if I wanted to connect with them on LinkedIn. But now people are so creative with their card design, I find Evernote often has trouble picking up the different categories and something as simple as the company name is wrong, or missing or miss-categorized, because the company name is embedded in a logo or uses a different font for the first letter, or is placed in an unusual place compared to the rest of the information, etc.

What we need are simple contact cards that we can digitally ‘bump’ to each other. One nice feature of this would be that the card could have several versions, appropriate for the person you are sharing it with. For example, I run two schools and sometimes it’s nice to have a simple card with just one of the schools on there. Also, my card has my cell phone on it, but I’d rather a vendor call my office line, and leave a message with secretaries, rather than interrupt me with a vibrating phone when I’m with staff or students.

Having a business card digitally sent and entered directly into our contacts makes sense. It shouldn’t need to done by a proprietary company that requires everyone to have the same app to do, it should be a feature of our phones. It should be sent via Bluetooth or via a tool like airdrop, except not limited to Apple devices. It would need to be initiated with a request, rather than just open for anyone to take/steal your information.

For example, I click an invite and it says, ‘David Truss is asking for your business card’, the other person sees this, picks a card to share and sends it. Upon receipt, I see something like ‘Peter Parker shared his contact information with you. Share back?’ The tool could also ask if you want to connect on different social media sites that were shared, like Twitter and LinkedIn, and even scrape a profile photo from one of these as your contact image. It could also set a reminder to contact the person, or ask for additional details or tags/categories to help you remember the person.

Some people will be sad to see the card stock business card go away, but I’m looking forward to having the information shared digitally, on the tool that I’ll actually use to contact the person. We don’t need the waste of hundreds of our-dated cards being recycled or put in landfills, when a digital card is superior and provides far more choice than a static card that is seldom kept or looked at again.

Breakfast with a friend

“Come gather around people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’ ~ Bob Dylan

We sat at a booth chatting, breakfast done, bill paid. We had already turned down more coffee and the waitress was kind enough to fill our water glasses. The restaurant wasn’t full, we weren’t filling a potentially needed booth, and so the waitress didn’t mind that we were still there over 30 minutes after our meal was done.

We were reminiscing about our childhood, and how people would come for a visit and stay for dinner. In my family there were 4 kids so we made a family of 6, but my mother never cooked for less than 10. Someone’s friend (or 2), an aunt, granny, a cousin, even a neighbour might be joining us. If it was just the 6 of us, we had leftovers.

This doesn’t happen much anymore. Having friends over means a half-day of getting the house ready, and a half day of preparing food. Meeting for coffee? How’s next week Thursday? Breakfast? Pick one of these two Sundays. Dinner with a group of friends? We better use that appointment App to find a day that works for all of us.

Or maybe we just chat on the phone. Maybe we text. Comment on Facebook. Like a friend’s tweet… smiley face emoji:)

Gatherings used to be impromptu, spontaneous, and they extended past expected times. “See you soon,” not “See you later,” as in weeks or months later.

Things have changed.

I’m going to try to bring the old ways back a bit. I’m tracking my social connections this year. A dinner and a breakfast last week, a morning coffee and a minor league hockey game this weekend… A walk with my wife, dinner out with my daughter… I’m going to see if intentionally keeping track will inspire me to connect face-to-face more frequently with the people that are geographically available. That doesn’t diminish the opportunities to connect with people who I can’t always see. For those, we have spaces like this.