Business Cards, Bleisure and Language. What’s on Your MIPIM Agenda?

“Fewer than 15 per cent of those of working age under 34 have ever doled out an 85mm by 55mm piece of card with their name and number on it.”

That stat hit me like a train when I read it in City AM this week. I know I shouldn’t be surprised but my instinctive reaction was one of shock, nevertheless. It’s the word “ever”, I think.

Binning business cards is not just generational. More than half of those who have previously used cards, according to the Ipsos poll, have given up on them use since the beginning of the pandemic.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no John Cooper Clarke on this. (On Radio 4’s Today Programme last week, the computer-less Bard of Salford said: “I’m right out of the loop digitally. I’m prey to the thousand punishments visited daily upon the analogue community.”)

So, at MIPIM in a fortnight’s time I’ll be all over LinkedIn. You’ll see me unleash an Instagram onslaught too. And I’m not ready to give up on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter just yet. (With my 16th anniversary there coinciding with MIPIM, I’ve invested too much for too long to quit.)

But I’ll still be packing my regulation-size (just checked) business cards. I don’t expect to hand as many out as pre-pandemic, but to leave them behind seems negligent. This time though, I’ll count them on the way out, and on the way back.

This shift from card to code got me thinking about the changing nature of business; its customs, its language, and its focus.

And that took me to bleisure. Forgive me, it’s a terrible, but inevitable, portmanteau. If you’re staying on in the south of France for a few days after MIPIM, combining business and leisure, yours will be a bleisure trip. You may baulk at calling it so; others might not. One to discuss over brunch or as an alternative to talking Brexit in the Nice airport passport queue.

And just as custom and language evolves, so does focus – and nowhere more so than in Cannes. Last week ING hosted our annual MIPIM preview event in our Shoreditch HQ. Introducing the panel, it struck me how very different the event’s focus is in 2024 to previous years. The World Green Building Council’s Matthew Black – alongside Jessica Pilz, Fiera Capital’s head of sustainable investing, private markets – talked about the increased emphasis on ESG at the show and in the wider market. Real Estate Balance managing director Sue Brown set out how D&I would be at heart of the programme too.

Commitments are fine, but delivery matters more. MIPIM’s Jake Lowe put it in context. Last year, 42% of speakers were female, while the show generated 32% less waste than in 2022 despite an increase in visitor numbers.

This year’s event is no less ambitious: official cars are electric, the new Challenges initiative is a leap forward in delivering on diversity promises; and resources will again be shared with local communities on disassembly. This year, the housing crisis is high up the agenda.

So, a different MIPIM beckons. Business cards are out, ESG is in. Are we all talking the same language?

Damian Wild
ING Managing Director