Bridging the Generation Gap with Business Cards

Undoubtedly, there is a dwindling swathe of the business community in the fifty to seventy year age group who’d prefer a hard copy version of somebody’s contact details in the form of business cards than an electronic version sent to their cell phone. Carrying business cards is a matter of courtesy for those technophobes in the business world that don’t pay much attention to the latest advances in Bluetooth technology.

Recently, a study carried out by Parks Associates found that twenty percent of the heads of household in the population of the United States have never sent or used e-mail. Eighteen per cent of American homes do not have Internet access, although many of those surveyed have vowed to get it in the near future.

There were two factors cited for this large minority who avoid technology as being significant, among others: Age and education. Half of those who didn’t use e-mail were older than sixty-five, and more than half had little more than a high school education.

Consider the number of people over fifty who you know for a fact to struggle with technology such as e-mail that wouldn’t be a problem for those between the ages of twenty and thirty. These are the “heads of household” discussed in the survey, and many of them are successful at what they do. As the main breadwinners in the family, they have to be good earners.

Age is often equated with experience within both small companies and huge multinationals. Experience is rewarded within companies. Regardless of your qualifications, if you’ve worked five years at a company, chances are your salary will have increased and your duties will have too. You may be promoted every so often. It’s natural, then, to assume that many technophobic older men and women (let’s face it – mainly men!) will be in top or middle management, given their age.

They’ll have personal assistants, secretaries, and receptionists to do all the crazy electronic stuff like the company accounts on spreadsheets and drawing up lists of clients on a database. Even today, high-level business people are writing out their letters in long hand on legal pads, handing them over to the PA, and leaving it to the PA to type them up and merge the client database with the word processor program to personalize all that correspondence.

Get the Boss’s Attention With Eye-Catching Business Cards

What better way to get technophobic top and middle managers to notice you than through the business card you carry? While the young guns are networking during the coffee break through their Bluetooth connections, you can pass your colorful business cards over to the boss of the client company and make your mark that way.

Not only is the e-mail address on it, but your phone number and postal address – two communication technologies that the company head appreciates and understands – is beautifully embossed on the neat little card that fits into his wallet.

No matter what your business is, you are bound to meet people who look forward to receiving timeless business cards. As a matter of courtesy, consider carrying them wherever your business takes you.

Article created on 8/25/2008

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