These Cards Are No Longer Business-as-Usual

In olden days, a calling card was used to announce one’s presence. It was placed on a silver tray held by a butler or maid. The use of calling cards, usually engraved, was an upper-class custom. A name on the card was sufficient. No need for a title, address or phone number.

The calling card has long since given way to the business card, and it contains far more than a name. It is used to identify and contact people at a time when their jobs, physical location and accessibility are rapidly changing. Today’s business cards are covered with numbers and letters that state where the cardholder can be reached day and night. Most of these cards consist of a name, title, phone and fax numbers, and a company logo. Increasingly, they include Internet addresses and sometimes a car phone or pager number.

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The long list of addresses on today’s business cards exists largely because there are no electronic phone books where all the various addresses can be found, and there is no simple way to find pager, fax or car phone numbers. Thus, business cards have become one-stop personal communication directories.

Further, not only has the business card become a necessary identification tool, it also has evolved into a new kind of status symbol. Having an Internet address means being a part of the communications network that links individuals and organizations worldwide. It means being technologically up-to-date and an insider in a fast-changing global environment in which the Internet has become the playing field.

It is the number of addresses--rather than the type of engraving--that communicates the status of the cardholder. When people are asked for an Internet address, and don’t have it on their business card, they feel like an outsider. As a result, the card business is booming as people upgrade their cards just as they upgrade their computers.

Traditional business cards have been used by small-business owners, salespeople, consultants and others to advertise their services in the same way that corporate executives, lawyers, CPAs and physicians have used them to provide addresses and phone numbers as a convenience for those who wanted to reach them during business hours. But what’s also new today is the type of person who carries business cards.

Many volunteers feel their activities are viewed as more valuable when they carry a card that includes their name with the organization for which they volunteer. MBA students often ask companies with whom they work (while attending college) to issue them business cards that identify them as “student intern.” And men and women who write for fun rather than profit often have cards that read “author.” In other words, having a business card means being somebody, even if it only contains a name, address and phone number.

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This heightened need for business cards has also spawned a new market niche--business card peripherals. They include card receptacles, filing systems and software programs that provide a variety of ways to cross-reference and utilize cards with a multitude of access numbers. These peripherals, whatever their form, provide a way to use cards as the modern phone directory.

Historically, business cards have measured 2 by 3 1/2 inches and have ample space for a company logo, name, title, physical address and phone number. However, the space is inadequate for today’s many access numbers. So the question arises, given the importance of all our numbers: “Is the traditional business card size obsolete?” If the answer is yes, we should be on the lookout for another change brought about by technology--a new, larger card that could become the latest status symbol.