I remember one incident: one offered his business card and my boss held out his hand for one. The bloke looked at his hand blankly and clarified, “I need to send it to your phone.” My boss flatly said, “No thanks. Another time, eh?”
My boss is very peculiar about his time management. He doesn’t want to waste time scrolling through numerous contacts on his phone to find the one he wants. He didn’t know the bloke well enough to consider the new addition worth his time.
The bloke – not wanting to lose the opportunity – ended up scribbling his contact details on a torn page from his notebook.

On the other hand, a senior colleague routinely refuses to accept print business cards because he prefers to conduct paperwork (including business cards) electronically.

So I think when offering a business card, it’s a good idea to check the person’s preference first: electronic or paper. Having both options available on hand shows you’re prepared and flexible. It’d certainly make a good impression on me.

Also, I am one of those people who doesn’t need, doesn’t want, and therefore doesn’t have an all-in-one device.

I love them as gadgets, but they have no place in my life. Angela J and Meezergrrrl make good points.

I’ve been burned before by corrupt calendar invites that caused my account to “spam the world” per se. I would rather this not happen again, and while this is not likely to happen with the new eBusiness Card technology, personally, I’d rather not have to deal with the embarrassment and aftermath that goes along with accepting potentially corrupt information from someone I don’t know, let alone someone I do.

It’s not that hard to throw the card in your bag, and pull them out when you get back from wherever. Plus, they give you a good place to take notes on your conversation with the person on the front of the card – which is useful in remembering why you have this person’s card in the first place.

In other words, suck it up and get new business cards, dude :P

Anything that reduces the number of tiny pieces of paper (card stock or otherwise) in my purse or briefcase is a Good Thing to me.

And if it takes loading another program onto my system? I’m not so keen on doing that – especially since I have two laptops (one PC and one Mac) and two desk tops (one PC and one Mac) and can’t keep straight what’s where these days. I used to carry a PDA, but went through several generations and suffered so many memory losses and resets and had to send them back to the shop I gave up and went back to an old fashioned paper daytimer. The paper business cards are stuck in a section at the back of that where I always know where to find them.

At work, I would like this. It would save me trying to enter everything into Outlook after I get the card. Also, my boss is not a technology person and it would help to have the information e-mailed since he forgets to give me the card and then gets cranky when I don’t have the info he’s looking for.

Electronic cards are way cool, but a paper backup would be handy for those times when someone’s battery has gone flat.

But, that said, there is something to be said for a simple, elegant, heavyweight paper-stock business card.