I have been on my own for more than 15 years and hence I need a business card. Traditional wisdom is that you should collect as many cards from as many people as possible. It goes on to say that you should also distribute it to as many people as you can. At one point I believed I could spot the guys and gals who were branching off to an independent business by their eagerness to give out their cards. The same people a few months ago would either not have sufficient cards or forgotten them in their hurry to arrive at events on time.
There are reams written on how a card should look, how it should be handed over with both hands in a manner that the receiver is able to read your card etc. And then there are reams on contours, design , texture and many other aspects of the card itself.
I had lots of thoughts on this and some of it was clarified when I read Abhijit Bhaduri's piece in Economic times today (March 5, 2013).
I too have seen this flurry of activities where business cards are exchanged. I am not very good at it nor am I well organised. I don't have separate space for my cards and the ones I receive. I feel very comfortable in Indian attire and hence do not have a handy pocket to whip my card from. So speed suffers. On many occasions, I have forgotten the cards at venues, especially when there are tables kept in circles where we play musical chairs.
Business cards cards are not always the best way to keep some one's contact. Those who are influential will not have their cell numbers. They will give you a switch board number which will have multiple levels of gatekeepers who will all ask the same questions, pretty much like most customer service call centres. Then they change companies. Smaller companies change their website. The bigger ones have firewalls and if you end your profile as an attachment, you go directly into spam or the email will be blocked.
In India these are still called visiting cards. I guess we don't really know the origin of the word that well. In the days of people like Jeeves and Cadbury , meaning Butlers, people would visit (or call, hence the name calling cards) one another by showing up unannounced at a home and handing a calling card to the servant who answered the door. Such cards generally only had the name of the caller. No contact details like address, telephone numbers etc were given. There were no logos and emails and email ids did not exist. In India , since we could happily and loudly announce our presence , the calling card was unlikely to have been in vogue.
Now with everyone having the a vCard with the visiting replaced by Virtual, Business cards may soon go the way of typewriters and rotary phones. Personal touches still make a difference. I find that a direct approach where you ask for the person's cell number or email id and write it in a small black book works best. If they don't want to give it to you, it saves your time and if they do, you can send SMS or email and ask them for a meeting.
There are reams written on how a card should look, how it should be handed over with both hands in a manner that the receiver is able to read your card etc. And then there are reams on contours, design , texture and many other aspects of the card itself.
I had lots of thoughts on this and some of it was clarified when I read Abhijit Bhaduri's piece in Economic times today (March 5, 2013).
I too have seen this flurry of activities where business cards are exchanged. I am not very good at it nor am I well organised. I don't have separate space for my cards and the ones I receive. I feel very comfortable in Indian attire and hence do not have a handy pocket to whip my card from. So speed suffers. On many occasions, I have forgotten the cards at venues, especially when there are tables kept in circles where we play musical chairs.
Business cards cards are not always the best way to keep some one's contact. Those who are influential will not have their cell numbers. They will give you a switch board number which will have multiple levels of gatekeepers who will all ask the same questions, pretty much like most customer service call centres. Then they change companies. Smaller companies change their website. The bigger ones have firewalls and if you end your profile as an attachment, you go directly into spam or the email will be blocked.
In India these are still called visiting cards. I guess we don't really know the origin of the word that well. In the days of people like Jeeves and Cadbury , meaning Butlers, people would visit (or call, hence the name calling cards) one another by showing up unannounced at a home and handing a calling card to the servant who answered the door. Such cards generally only had the name of the caller. No contact details like address, telephone numbers etc were given. There were no logos and emails and email ids did not exist. In India , since we could happily and loudly announce our presence , the calling card was unlikely to have been in vogue.
Now with everyone having the a vCard with the visiting replaced by Virtual, Business cards may soon go the way of typewriters and rotary phones. Personal touches still make a difference. I find that a direct approach where you ask for the person's cell number or email id and write it in a small black book works best. If they don't want to give it to you, it saves your time and if they do, you can send SMS or email and ask them for a meeting.
