I read this article about alternatives to paper business cards yesterday. It mostly covers electronic alternatives to business cards, from social networking sites like LinkedIn to iPhone apps like Bump.
It made me think of when I first met Jouni Mannonen, a Finnish game entrepreneur. We met at the 2003 Game Developers Conference, in the unrivaled San Jose Fairmont hotel lobby bar. He gave me his business card. It was a remarkable card, pressed from plastic instead of cardstock, with texture, die cuts, and transparent windows. (cont’d below image)
Jouni told me a story about the card. He’d given some out when visiting a company on a sales call, and had distributed cards as one does in such situations. Later that day, he got a call from someone at the company. “You’ve left your ID card behind,” she told him. “What do you want me to do with it?” “Oh, you can throw it away,” replied Jouni. “It’s just a business card.”
I think Jouni has founded two or three more companies since, but six and a half years hence, I still have his old card. I doubt I’ll even be using an iPhone in another six years. Of course, in the Fairmont lobby Jouni also showed me OpenGL running on a mobile phone, which seemed absurd at the time.