Business card 2.0?

March 11, 2009 12:45 PM

I need new business cards! In addition to my day job, I also am affiliated with several organizations and I am one of those hyper connected social media jerks who twitter, facebook, flickr and all that crap. I have my own domain name which is my full name .com My question is, how can I make one business card that can fill in for ALL of my organizations AND connect people to my social media profiles, perhaps integrating with info on a website, yet still be professional looking enough to hand out at conferences and the like without being self conscious?

One possible thought:

a simple business card with just my name, email, phone and website URL

the website url could be something like card.myname.com in which I could list all my current involvements and different websites, social media links etc.

Any other ideas or ways to improve on the concept? Anybody seen a similar concept executed well?

My whole idea is to try to have one meta card instead of printing 6 different cards for each of my projects. And yes, I am overextended.

posted by jlowen to human relations (17 comments total)

I think you've answered your own question - directing to a URL with the rest of the sites you can be found on in addition to the more direct means of contact really is the best possible solution.
posted by batmonkey at 12:49 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

You're not that hyper-connected - there's no site in your profile!

The normal approach is a simple business card with just your name, email, phone and website URL with a sidebar on your site for Social Networks, and if you're really flogging it, a sidebar for your Organisational Memberships.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:59 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

While I personally love subdomains, be sure that if you go the route of "card.mydomain.com" that you also put in a redirect for "www.card.mydomain.com" since a lot of people are completely unfamiliar with the concept of a subdomain.

Subdirectories seem to be a little easier to communicate, so something like "mydomain.com/card" is harder to get wrong.
posted by odinsdream at 1:13 PM on March 11

Simple: do a business card which is the google home page, with your name (no spaces) in the search box. If you're connected enough they'll find you.
posted by refactored at 1:16 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Use both sides of the card. Doctors do, with appointments on the back.
posted by Carol Anne at 1:46 PM on March 11

I know that you're asking how to do this, not if you should... but are you absolutely sure that you want to mix business (your day job) with all things personal? Is everything on your personal pages appropriate for your professional contacts?

I only ask because I've been there. An applicant gave me his contact information once- ALL of his contact information. I'm in HR and I was looking at him for a position within the company.

Seconds later, I was looking at him in a whole new way- naked, gold chains gleaming in the stylishly manscaped chest hair, come-hither look fixed on the camera. And underneath, a list of his turn-ons...

He must have realized what he had done. A hasty email, followed by a VERY awkward phone call, rattling that he had given me 'incorrect' information and here was what he SHOULD have listed... and the pictures and profile disappeared the next day.

This experience left me with a lesson (as well as some visual images) I'll never forget- how with professional and personal, never the twain should meet.
posted by GuffProof at 1:50 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

It's up to you and depends on the nature of your various endeavours but I'd be loathe to commit to a single website for all uses.

My reticence here is that if your involvement with 25 different industries/organisations/companies is likely to be considered as a turn-off by any of the people that you're handing your business card out to, then you don't want to send everyone to the same site.

I agree that a simple business card with your name and contact details on is the way to go. I would hand that out and invite people to contact me (or get their details and contact them) in order to be pointed to the appropriate website(s) for their particular area of interest or concern.

Sorry if this isn't applicable to the work that you do but for me (being in a similar situation), while my clients and potential clients know that I don't work exclusively in their industry, I don't really want them to see how many different things I'm up to at any given time. They might conclude that I'm overextended and, therefore, not the right guy for the job.

I'm currently using 4 cards, one of which is just my name and contact details. Good luck.
G.
posted by gwpcasey at 1:56 PM on March 11

Guff -

Wow! Awesome! So your saying I should stylishly landscape my chest hair?

The fact is that I have a very tame social life and all of my organizations are fairly closely related to economic and social justice issues. Good point though. I will reflect. I tend only to post things online that I don't mind if everyone sees, colleagues, potential employers, nuns, etc..
posted by jlowen at 1:58 PM on March 11

Whatever you do, think of moo cards. They are fantastic.
posted by Medieval Maven at 2:01 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

I also came in here to suggest Moo cards. The size differential will get you noticed, they're "cool" enough to be web-2.0-ish, but still simplistic enough to be professional.
posted by Phire at 2:09 PM on March 11

On many sites, they use the icons for facebook, twitter, flickr, etc. So you could have a line that says www.firstlast.com followed by the line of icons. People that use those sites recognize the icons. No one else will care. Your identity in those sites is firstlast, right?
posted by theora55 at 2:22 PM on March 11

That's entirely up to you, jlowen! I'm afraid that SHRM would revoke my membership if I started advising others on their personal body-hair arrangements. It's actually ethically dubious that, as an HR professional, I looked at those pictures in the first place (or the second). I won't disclose whether or not I hired him for the position, I'm not sure which would make me sound worse!

Back to the topic, I really like theora55's idea about the icons. Much less clutter on the card, much cooler presentation.
posted by GuffProof at 2:41 PM on March 11

I once bought a domain and set up a website that was simply links to all the stuff I did at the time. If there wasn't a site for an organization, I made a sub-page describing it. I didn't end up using it much, but that's me. The domain was firstnamelastname.info, which is pretty much what you already have. It seems simple to just direct people to your website, and list there all your other affiliations and social connections. These can change anyway, and HTML is a lot more malleable than ink and paper.
posted by attercoppe at 3:40 PM on March 11

I also came in here to suggest Moo cards. They are small, but professional, eyecatching, and you can use that subdomain idea perfectly.
posted by cmgonzalez at 4:41 PM on March 11

Reading all your advice gave me a great idea. I built a page at myname.com/card that says

"Hi! It was nice to meet you. My contact info is....."

Then I built a second page and hard coded a mailto: link with a subject that says "Nice to meet you" and a message body that gives the link to the myname.com/card page.

Then for an extra level of voodoo, I bookmarked the mailto: link page on my iphone home screen. Now I have a button on my iphone that with one press will pop open a pre-populated email and all I have to do is enter the persons email address and hit send.

So maybe I can dispense with paper all together. When I meet someone, I take their card and then automatically whip out the iphone and mail them a link to all my info.

If I decide that I need to bring dead trees into this then I will definitely go with Moo cards.. Thanks Everyone!
posted by jlowen at 5:35 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Does yourname.com not have a contact page?

I use moocards with just two urls: myname.com and my flickr. Then, if people want to look for my on other sites, have my favorite social networks listed on the contact page on myname.com.
posted by nerdcore at 5:38 PM on March 11

This isn't exactly what you're thinking of but you might want to take a look at Dropcard.
posted by polexa at 7:54 AM on March 12