Back before there were directories on smartphones full of people’s personal contact info, the main place to store them was in a Rolodex. This interesting little revolving wheel full of business cards was a prized possession of many a businessperson in various industries. For every contact, a business card would have to be filed on one of the alphabetically sorted sections for easy and quick reference.
Even though this was the “go-to” technology for information storage prior to digital databases and smartphone directories, it is not that bad of an idea to have one these days either. Sure, there are things like backing your contacts up to “the cloud” or even things like external hard drives and the likes. To me there is still no better way to get a glimpse to the face of a business than seeing their business card and the detail that goes into some of them. Who knows, maybe I am just a little nostalgic and like to see the creative artwork and raised lettering that a “cold” digital contact on a screen just doesn’t create!
As efficient as it is to digitally store lots of contacts for quick and easy access, it is never a bad idea to have a hard copy like a traditional business card tucked away in a Rolodex somewhere on your desk. You never know when you might just be doing some office work at home or in your sleeper and want to thumb through some of them to spark some new business from an old contact. If anything else, it gives a great backup if the day ever comes that your techno-savvy method happens to crash or be lost. Sometimes, no matter how high tech we may get, the low-tech answer is what we might all have to fall back onto one time or another!