An Ode to the Business Card
It’s the traditional business card — a small memento, reminder, and reference device that comes from a physical meeting.
People have an emotional attachment to their business card collections. I was astonished to learn that one of my then-young employees, now a VP at a tech firm, spent his high school years emailing CEOs asking them to send him a business card. Collecting them was his hobby. Then there’s Suzann Lanoue of Honolulu (Suzann.com). She became hooked when she was ten years old and found one on the streets of Tijuana. Now she marshals a vast collection. I long took personal pride in my own multiple shopping bags full of business cards. My ego loved looking at the people I’d met. In a Marie Kondo moment back in the day, I got one of those early card scanners and employed a few interns to scan the collection. But even afterward, my kids enjoyed “playing business” and building a literal house of cards with the remnants. If you’re suddenly feeling like you were overly focused on collecting Pogs or HotWheels and missed the business card thing, you can always buy someone else’s collection on eBay.
Business cards did not get their start in business. Historians believe that they have roots in visiting cards used by aristocrats in 15th-century China. By the 1600s such calling cards found a place in European society. They became so common that most well-to-do homes had dishes specifically to hold them. Shortly thereafter, businesses began to share “trade cards” reminding people where to find them and what services they offered. In 1922 Emily Post, the doyenne of etiquette, wrote a tome about their proper size, paper weight and printing specifications. In Japan, the Meishi, (Japanese word for business card) is accompanied by an elaborate ritual.
