The slow death of the traditional business card

Scraping: Attempts to communicate often attract confusion, then disbelief, then flirting. His chip, which uses near-field communication technology, found that some phones needed an app downloaded before it could be scanned. And some phones’ NFC readers aren’t powerful enough to detect the chip unless it’s placed directly on the hand.

“I was kind of a cyborg,” he says of a recent interaction that led to several people taking pictures. “It’s funny.”

Traditional business cards – for years gone – may finally be folded due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as many professionals work from home, change jobs and attend conferences and meetings. Even now, with physical congestion on the rise, many networkers have no qualms about returning to what they see as the germ-swapping, environmentally unfriendly and tedious culture of exchanging physical cards, only to later manually insert the fine print into phones. .

Instead, they’re turning to hybrid or fully virtual solutions: physical cards with QR codes, scannable digital cards or chips embedded in physical objects that allow people to share contact details with a tap.

Mr. Peterson got the card from Dangerous Things, a human plant technology company that can inject the chip with a syringe. Mr. Peterson asked a neighbor with a medical degree. If the phone number changes, the chip can be updated online.

But the post-paper world is virtually conflict-free.

Atlas Vernier rejected paper business cards to wear an NFC ring with an embedded chip. Once scanned, the 21-year-old’s information will appear in the recipient’s phone.

Vernier, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, is often described as having to move the ring slightly to find the “sweet spot” of a phone’s NFC reader. That’s how technology works – it works until someone sees it.

At a recent racial-equity conference, Robert F. When he asked Smith for his address, the private equity billionaire produced a white plastic card with a gold QR code printed on it. The stranger held her phone above the card to scan it. Nothing happened.

For the next minute, she placed her phone at different distances from the card and Mr. Smith, CEO of Vista Equity Partners, tried different grips and angles. When that didn’t work, Mr. Smith pulled out a different card with a black QR code on it. Success.

Mr. Smith did not bow. “I appreciate the feel-good technology solutions,” he said later in a written statement. “I never miss paper cards.”

Content marketer Ayomid Joseph tried to use QR codes to share the details with cyber security experts, but they refused. The FBI has warned that cybercriminals are turning codes into fraudulent websites. And privacy remains a concern for some.

Mr Joseph said it also runs on people who are not a safety concern but can’t “shake it up”, mostly older people. For them, Mr. Joseph’s contact information is written on the back of the card. He gave them plastic ones, which he said he liked for the “weird element.”

Nicole Bishop, CEO of a health-tech startup, puts a QR code on her mobile phone’s home screen. The code is provided by HiHello Inc. It contains a built-in online card that allows users to send their contact information back to the device.

Ms. Bishop said she always has two phone chargers because a dead battery can be a deal breaker.

HiHello tracks how many times its digital business cards are opened. CEO Manu Kumar was 700,000 times in June, three times the average month in 2021.

Vista Print,

A marketing services company owned by Cimpress PLC, added QR codes to business card templates in November 2020. LinkedIn added a feature in 2018 for users to create QR codes.

Rob Krugman, Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. Chief Digital Officer, recently presented a LinkedIn QR code to guests at a dinner party and highlighted the QR code on PowerPoint while giving a speech.

“We don’t need to call them QR codes. It’s like a scary word,” he said. “If it connects the physical experience to the digital experience, it must be — the word I use — magic.”

Bad cell service or a poor Wi-Fi connection can spoil the magic. “You try again and again and if you can’t get it to work, you eventually quit,” Mr. Krugman said. “That’s where I say, ‘You know what, just give me your cell phone number.’ “

Some people aren’t ready to give up card stock. Fishman Marketing Inc. CEO Ross Fishman finds paper cards especially useful when meeting large audiences. He writes notes on the back of the cards about how he knows the contact and what was discussed.

His system, Mr. Fishman said, is easier than trying to remember a person’s name for a long time to find it on the phone or after an event from a list of 7,000 LinkedIns. “They’re buried.”

His firm helps law offices redesign paper business cards and use them more effectively. He says he won’t get rid of the paper cards, but even he’s tapping into what he sees as a hybrid in the future. He said a QR code could be added to the card to make it faster for people who like to scan them.

Write Alex Harring at alex.harring@wsj.com and Emily Glazer at emily.glazer@wsj.com