Playing your cards right

We may be living in a digital era, but the traditional paper business card has yet to be supplanted by a virtual version, writes Karlin Lillington

MORE THAN 300 years ago, the early ancestors of the business card made their debut: formal calling cards for French nobility during the reign of King Louis XIVand, across the channel in England, trade card advertisements for businesses.

By the 19th century, both social calling cards and business cards were in widespread use across the US. Even future president Abraham Lincoln had a business card - for A Lincoln, Attorney and Counsellor at Law.

But why, in the era of personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, infrared ports and Bluetooth connectivity, are we still carrying them? Why hasn't the ritual of presenting a paper card been superseded by zapping over a digital version?

In part, it's because people apparently just like having cards.

"I like the tactile thing, and having a collection of cards, and occasionally weeding them out and coming across one I'd forgotten about and thinking, 'Oh yes, I remember him'," says Brian Lucey, professor of finance at Trinity College Dublin.

But technology also remains a barrier. Sending a virtual card isn't easy. You can text over a contact, attach a vCard to an e-mail or, if you share the same model of mobile phone running the same operating system, exchange detailed contact information via mobile phone.

Our mobile handsets, full of contacts, would seem the ideal way to exchange such information. But it's all very fiddly, because there are no standards for sharing information over mobiles. Every operating system - and there are several for mobile devices and PDAs - is different. And different models and brands require different applications.

"It's not easy developing applications for mobile phones at the moment. The actual transfer [ of contact information] is easy enough, using Bluetooth or SMS or infrared," says John Murphy, senior lecturer in computer science at University College Dublin and a researcher in telecommunication systems.

Anyone can write a programme for a PC. "But with mobiles, this is not the case, mainly because operators are worried about loss of revenue and security issues," he says.

As call revenue margins continue to be squeezed, operators want to be sure they get a slice of revenue for applications and services running over handsets.

So what does a computer scientist do? "We use paper cards here," he confesses. Most of the contacts he needs are kept on his computer or mobile, he adds.

Lucey says he keeps his contacts in his online Gmail account from Google because, having a single point of failure - such as a contact application on a PC or mobile that could be lost or damaged - worries him. "Now I don't care - I just hope Google minds them for me."

Dublin-based business and social media marketing consultant Krishna De says most people manage their contacts digitally, either on a PC or mobile. But most people she encounters still use business cards, which she considers one of the most underutilised, if simple, business tools.

"Cards are a bit more personal. But I think we've become very nonchalant about the business card. I think people don't take their business card seriously, yet it might be the first manifestation of your business."

We give little thought to attractive card design and even fall into the dreaded sin of printing them from the PC onto perforated sheets, she says. And we tend to toss other people's cards into the back of grubby drawers.

De is a formidably organised user of cards, entering card information as soon as she can into Microsoft's Outlook programme, where she may add a note about the person she has met. She then files them into groups, including one for the event where she met the person. "Your network is your net worth," she quips.

Still, most of us treat cards less reverentially. Compare our card disregard to the ritual of the business card in the Far East, says Lucey, where cards must be carefully presented with two hands to the recipient, who must take it reverentially with two hands - and read it. Treating the card casually is considered an insult to the person who handed it over.

"The higher the cultural value placed on . . . first contacts, the higher the value placed on a card," says Lucey.

De loves business cards so much that she has three different cards for different working roles, all ordered from London company Moo.com.

Moo - the darling of the social networking and digital media set - lets people create slender "minicards" as well as full-sized business cards, with people's own pictures on one side and print on the other. "Moo have really tapped into the trend towards personalisation," says De. "We want to be seen to be different. These cards become a status point and a conversation point."

And what could be more retro? For the digerati, Moo cards take them a few centuries back to where the card started - as highly personal, paper calling cards.