No More Fax Numbers on Business Cards, I Mean Really

by mick

This is way off the path, but it’s bugging me senseless. hot_technologyWhy the hell do we need fax numbers on our business cards? Here I am, back from LA Office’s RoadShow, looking over the business cards I collected, entering a new contact into my database, when it hits me … the fax number. Fax number? What the hell do I need a fax number for? Sure, maybe I’ll need to send a document facsimile in the apocalyptic setting of the world ending in 2012, but now? In 2009? No way. I haven’t faxed someone in ages–save a defunct collapsed financial institution a couple years back.

But it made me wonder, is the fax number on a business card a symbol of the everything archaic and deprecated in the new world of digital? If so, what does its prevalence on cards say about how we (don’t) prune and weed our communication garden? What else lurks out there by default? What’s being neglected or missed altogether because something else is taking up space and we assume it’s OK?

Then I decided to take some measurements. Fax numbers readily appear on 78% of the cards I gathered. Photo: flickr, TellumoThat’s nearly four-fifths of modern marketing professionals putting forward the idea that complete contact information includes a fax number. Stunning. Sure, it’s just on their by default. It’s part of the InDesign template. It’s part of the shell-run the company bought years ago. Certainly I have many of my own variety of unintentional, undesirable artifacts (and behaviors, for that matter) unnecessarily occupying space in my own life. But there’s no fax number on my card, that’s for sure.

As I noodle my experiences and observations from this week’s event and consider digital’s role in entertainment marketing and promotion (and beyond), I can’t help but think that the fax number on business cards may be a good starting point to think, a framework even.

On your next run of cards, have them strike the fax number. Perhaps replace it with your professional instant messaging ID or blog address or LinkedIn URL. Or don’t. That would be fine, too. And I promise I won’t record them in my contact manager.