Breakout The Business Card

        Business card printing in the United States is a $1.2 billion industry, represents an amount that is quite tempting for the businessmen. In fact, there is such growing demand for business cards that Framingham-based Staples Inc. this month unveiled its “Business Cards in Minutes,” allowing customers to design and print cards in as little as 30 minutes. The standard industry delivery time is three to seven business days.

       Today, they are taking new forms, from simply printed to some carrying computer chips that can be plugged into a personal computer to download catalogs or company information. While infrared business cards, transferred via personal digital assistants, have become increasingly popular, some say the 3½-by-2-inch standards will always be a sign of prestige and good business etiquette.

       In China and Japan, people are expected to receive a business card with both hands, read it immediately and praise the card’s qualities, Shankaranarayanan said. In Korea, every employee in a company has business cards, including janitors.
  
       Dan Ariely, who teaches behavioral economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said business cards are necessary to remember who you’ve met and why they are important. It isn’t likely an electronic message will serve the same purpose, he said. “When people introduce themselves, they usually don’t say what their title is,” Ariely said. “When you are sitting with 10 people, you need a card to remember names and who you should be paying more attention to. This is especially true with globalization, as more people are traveling to other countries for business.”

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