Scenario 1: A new team of residents meets in the lounge. They text each other their phone numbers with their names.

Scenario 2: You are in your last year of training, and your mentor introduces you to a friend of theirs who is trying to hire a new partner. You chat for a minute and they ask you for your contact info.

Scenario 3: You run into an old friend and realize neither of you have updated information for each other.

Scenario 4: You get home from a meeting and pull 8 (actual) business cards people gave you out of your coat pocket and then… Take a photo of them? Throw them away? Actually take the time to enter the info into the contacts on your phone?

Please open your phone and find the contacts app. At the top of the list of contacts there is a contact labelled “My Card” which is A  DIGITAL BUSINESS CARD YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD!

Next, fill in the information (don’t forget a photo). It’s ok to include your personal info (home address, personal email, etc). Based on this reddit feed (and in my experience) when you click “Share Contact” you can select what will become the default going forward. (If you are worried, exclude your personal information and make a second “personal info” contact card that you can share with friends.)

Then, go to Settings  > General > AirDrop, then turn on “Bring Devices Together”.

Here’s the cool part (If you have an iPhone)…

When you touch the top of two iPhones together your contact (aka business card) will be shared with the other phone (They cleverly call this “Name Drop“). You have to agree to share the info each time (a nice security measure). If you don’t have an iPhone, or the direct transfer doesn’t work for some reason, you can open your contact, click on “Share contact” and then choose airdrop, text message, or email to share it.

Scenario 1 revisited: A new team of residents meets in the lounge. They all open their contact card and hit “Share contact” via Airdrop. In less that 2 minutes everyone has the contact information for the entire team.

Scenario 2 revisited: Your mentor introduces you to a friend of theirs who is trying to hire a new partner. You chat for a minute and they ask you for your contact info.You pull out your phone and transfer the information directly to their phone. (which also wins you their contact if they agree… and impresses them if they haven’t see it before)

Scenario 3 revisited: You run into an old friend and realize neither of you have updated information for each other. See above! You touch phones and transfer your contact info instantly.

Scenario 4 revisited: You get home from a meeting and pull 8 (actual) business cards out of your coat pocket and… Take a photo of them? Throw them away? Actually take the time to enter the info into the contacts on your phone?   Old news! This won’t happen again… 😊