Sometimes it’s like living on another planet, where the laws of physics don’t apply. Via Heather Morse Milligan at the Legal Watercooler.

Is the Business Card Dead??

In this new age of Twitter and LinkedIn, I’m wondering: Is the business card dead?

When I think about it, I hardly ever carry a business card these days, and, when I do, it’s usually quite purposeful (I’m going to a conference and I need cards to win prizes in the exhibit hall).

Usually, when I meet someone professionally, we pull out our smartphones and connect on LinkedIn, or follow one another on Twitter. And I am not alone in this experience.

I’m sure Heather would never lie about something like this, so it must be true.  She even used two question marks in the title, demonstrating how important the question is.  One mark wouldn’t do.

I carry business cards.  I don’t hand them out to everyone I see, but then, I never did.  I give them to people who ask for them, who need one of my cards for whatever reason.  What has never happened to me, ever, is someone pulling out their smartphones and asking for my twitter name.  Never.

Heather says she’s not alone in her experience, and I’ve no reason to doubt her.  Indeed, she backs up her assertion with such legal luminaries as David Boise Jay Shepherd and Dan Hull Lindsey ‘How I Love Twitter’ Griffith, both of whom apparently also pull out their smartphones so they can connect with their peers.  They just aren’t my peers.

There’s nothing wrong with Heather’s use of tech in lieu of business cards as a means of providing her vital statistics to others, provided her others are similarly beloved of shiny toys.  Hang out with people at the ABA Techshow and expect them to gush over tech.  It makes perfect sense.  But never confuse what pleases a bunch of techies with what works with the rest of the known universe, where the laws of physics still apply.

But my world isn’t Heather’s world;

Twitter, for me, is about identifying people in a crowded room that I want to talk to. I didn’t need to connect with 1000 legal marketing professionals last week … but I easily found the people I needed to meet, and they were usually broadcasting loud and clear via their social networks.

I’ve broadened and deepened relationships I have identified on Twitter, by inviting many of these people into my inner-circle via my personal Facebook.

I use the social media tools available to me to reach out and connect on a daily basis, either personally or professionally. I know to whom I can turn when I need to brainstorm an idea, get a referral, celebrate or commiserate.

She’s standing in the same room as people, and rather than say hello, look them in the eye or shake their hand, she reads their twit.  No need to be in the room at all, when she can broaden and deepen her relationships by inviting these folks into her inner-circle on Facebook.  Like I said, the laws of physics no longer apply.

Picture the day when some great potential client asks you for your business card and instead you pull out your iToy and shove it in his face.  He looks at you like a fruitcake, pondering how he could have been so horribly wrong to seek your telephone number, and takes a few steps backwards before whatever disease that’s affected you becomes airborne.  The real world, the one with regular people who engage in normal communication with other people they presume to be regular, does not live by iPhone.  Maybe someday, but surely not today.

On the other hand, Heather write about a QR code that we can put on our business cards that contains the information an iPhone can suck in.  It could make for an interesting conversation starter, if not a simple way to share info with those for whom tech is a religion.  My next batch of business cards will likely include such a code.  It could be useful, and it’s not likely to hurt.

Therein lies the point of tech, constantly missed by its gurus.  It’s just a tool, something we can adopt if it seems useful and helpful, in doing what we do.  If it makes life easier and serves some useful function, by all means should we make it work for us.  But when we forget that it’s just a tool and start treating it as more important than a firm handshake, a well-polished shoe or a sound legal argument, there’s no amount of technology that will save us from ourselves.

The business card isn’t dead.  Nor is social media, though it’s utility remains an open question.  When I order up my next batch, it will still be on good quality stock with engraved lettering.  It won’t, however, include my twitter name, no matter how many social media ninjas tell me it should.