Let’s start with a question. Do you roam around with a stack of business cards, neatly indexed and pull that out whenever you need to contact anyone?
If you do, congratulations, you are a dinosaur!
Our guess however, is that you use a smartphone or some sort of CRM to manage your contacts. Afterall, we are WordPress users and hence IT aware automatically!
Quick Facts about your Visiting Cards
- The nicer the paper used for your card, the more the number of trees that have been chopped and the harsher and more toxic the chemical used in manufacturing the nice paper! Better looking business cards are the worse criminals. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_paper
- We don’t have to say anything about those plastic visiting cards.
- If the inks used in printing visiting cards were not toxic, they would use it in food. Your visiting card finds itself quickly in the trash and the toxins get into the soil, the water and our food whether they are plants or animals.
If not, then What?
- Don’t use a business/ visiting card. Use QR codes, photos (seriously, you can just swap photos or designs of your visiting card over smartphones) and maybe vCards. We’ll print a QR code with a vCard on your name badge at WordCamp Pune.
- If someone offers you one don’t take it, click a photo instead!
- Carry just one card that people can take pictures of!
- Create a twitter handle and share that instead. It’s short, public and easily shareable. We’ll print it on your badge at WordCamp Pune 2015.
- Use the List of Attendees to get in touch with people you meet at the WordCamp.
- If you can’t bring yourself to not use cards, at least try and minimse the damange by using recycled paper and eco-friendly dyes. Ask your printer for options!
- Here’s a nice article for you to consider http://www.earlytorise.com/my-anti-business-card-approach-to-self-promotion/
We can’t stop you from using business cards but we sure can request. All those nicely designed cards and pamphlets lying in a pile of trash at the end of an event, is not a pretty sight.
You’d be surprised how much of a difference can it make to the environment if you stop giving and accepting cards! With that we leave you with an appropriate song, shall we?
The tickets are already on sale and we’re announcing new sessions and speakers almost everyday. Book your ticket now before you miss the bandwagon!