What to do with business cards in 2010?

Business cards. How on earth has it got to the year 2010 and they still exist, filling our drawers, cluttering our desks?

The crazy thing is that business cards are more important now than they were a decade ago. Back in those halcyon days Palm Pilots were as ubiquitous as biros, and you could transmit your details to someone else via the wonders of infrared technology. But then other devices started filling our suit pockets, all using different operating systems and proprietary interfaces, and we had to fall back on that cumbersome rectangular piece of card.

I’m just as guilty of propagating the tradition as everyone else. I’ve handed out hundreds of the things in the past year, and who knows what people have done with them. Although I’ve no doubt that more often than not they simply get dumped in the bin.

But the real trouble is that they’re still useful. Just now I handed PC Pro’s online editor, Barry Collins, a business card that I picked up while at CES. Right there, handy as you like, were the email, phone and address of just the contact he was looking for. The transaction took less than a second, and I even managed to find the darn thing in less than ten.

Which leaves me loving and hating the darn things. They’re filling my drawers, cluttering my desk, but until something better comes along I just can’t let go. And before anyone suggests it, having trialled one several years ago I have no intention of buying a dedicated business card scanner – sorry IRIS, but they’re just too much hassle.