Business-card exchange 3.0 is the idea of taking a card whose back is a fill-in form the other person can write on (v2.0) one step further. The card itself becomes a "trading business card," something people want the way they want a trading card. This article is a record of how I, running a company, arrived at that idea, and of where the exploration stands right now.
Let me be honest up front. This is not a "done, here it is" report. Business-card exchange 3.0 hasn't taken shape. I don't know whether it will work. I'm writing the idea down just as it came.
I've felt a vague discomfort with business cards for a long time. You receive one, and it never feels like something you can use. Above all, it's short on playfulness. Here is how I've been nudging that discomfort, in order: v1.0, v2.0, and v3.0.
Why doesn't a card you receive feel like something you can use?
Because the information on it only goes one way. And because there is no playfulness in it.
Exchanging cards has become a kind of ritual. You meet, hold yours out, receive theirs, and put it away. That part is smooth. But I hardly ever take a card out again afterward. A contact address sits there, and neither the relationship nor the memory moves from it. My own drawer is full of cards like that.
The other person isn't at fault, and neither is the card. When information sits there one-way, it just ends with "well, that's that." It's the very first sheet two people exchange when they meet. Couldn't it be a little more fun? That snag has sat in a corner of my mind for a long time.
v1.0: I put the product I was making on the back
On the first card I made, I put "what I was making at the time" on the back. I wanted people to see the product I'd built with my own hands, not a job title.
Because I run a company, at one point I made my own business card for the first time. What I thought then was that lining up a title and contact details wasn't enough. Less "this is who I am," more "this is what I'm making." That's what I wanted to say.
Looking back, though, v1.0 stopped at "showing." I had placed what I wanted to convey on the back, and nothing of the other person's hand was in it. Front or back, the card was still one-way. That became my homework for the next version.
v2.0: I made the back a fill-in form the other person can write on
On the next card, I made the back a fill-in form where the other person can write down "me, and what we talked about at the time."
The trigger was a small observation. Someone, while listening to me talk, was jotting notes on the card itself. Seeing that, I thought, "That's it." A card doesn't have to be paper you hand over and are done with. It can have margins the other person puts their hand into.
The back is printed with blanks: "Write here freely. I talked with _. Let's work with _." You can jot down what was discussed, on the spot. The device is to have them think, when they take the card out later, "Ah, I had that conversation with this person." At last, the one-way card had a little room for the other person's hand.
v3.0: Could I make it a "trading business card"? (still just an idea)
What occurred to me just now is this: make the card something people want, the way they want a trading card. If it needs a name, call it a "trading business card."
Even after v2.0, there was something I still wanted. It would be nice to get a reply like "that turned out to be handy" after someone wrote on it. It would be fun if the person who received it did an "exchange of the exchange" with someone else. I wanted something to move beyond simply handing over information. That wish still wasn't satisfied.
And then it struck me. What if I made it like a game? Trading cards make you want them. You want to collect them, and you want to trade them with someone. Could I bring that "I want this" feeling into a business card? Could a card be more than a contact address, a trading business card of sorts? That's the idea.
But let me be clear. This is not something I've made or pulled off. It only popped into my head a moment ago, and nothing has taken shape. I don't know how to build it so people feel "I want this," or whether it would even work. I'm not at the stage where I can say "I'll do it like this." It's an entry-point idea, something I'd like to try out little by little.
Still just at the idea stage
v3.0 is still just an idea. It hasn't taken shape, and I don't know whether it will work.
Even so, it would be fun if a business card became a sheet with a little more playfulness, something that leaves or moves something even after it's been received. I'm not out to achieve anything grand. I'm simply excited, standing just short of it.
Whether or not anything moves forward, I'll keep writing down here as far as I've thought. This is a record of the exploration as it stands right now.
