Business Cards and Hacker Groups
Tim Riley 2009.02.18I’m very happy to announce that this year I’ll be attending my first software development conference, RailsConf 2009, thanks to the generous sponsorship of my employers, the Australian Medical Council. This fantastic opportunity has brought forward some thought on what I had already planned for this year: to make some business cards.
I like the idea of having my key contact details ready on a single card to hand to someone new if we’ve started a conversation that we’d like to continue later. I can see the utility particularly in situations where I meet people in a business context or in opportunities for discussing freelance work. It means we can talk as much as possible about whatever we like without needing to worry about the clumsy manual transmission of contact information.
I’m not so sure about the value of business cards in the context of this conference and a big group of hackers. I am keenly looking forward to the chance to meet many new people at RailsConf, but I do not know how to most easily preserve contact with them. For example, when I meet people at RORO events, I typically ask them if they are on the twitter, then get out my iPhone and jot their name down into the notes app. I can foresee this becoming difficult to scale to larger groups.
I’d like to ask your advice. Would it be useful to have my twitter/web contacts down on a card for giving away in these same situations in the future? Is this acceptable in this community? Or should I just take things as they come: not worry about remembering the details of everyone I meet, accept that they will take much the same approach, and throw away the idea of business cards for these situations? How do you use business cards?
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I am Tim Riley, a web developer based in Canberra, Australia. I work in a Ruby on Rails team at the Australian Medical Council. Aside from what you see here, I share my code on github, post photos, and share my bookmarks and listening habits. Feel free to contact me as @timriley on twitter or at tim@#{this domain}.
Archived Comments
Lot of the geeks I follow use Moo cards (http://www.moo.com/products/business_cards.php); I use Hughcards (http://gapingvoid.streetcards.com/).
I think, for all our distaste for dead-tree products, in a forum where you may be meeting lots of new people in fairly rapid succession, something small and simple with your web identity (particularly at a web-geek show like RailsConf!) is useful, and honours other people's time as well as your own
I always considered just putting a url and/or twitter username on a t-shirt, or at least writing it on my conf passes.
Business cards are pretty and all that, but I'm not sure about their value amongst geeks, I know if i get one it just gets put into a pile of other cards I have in a drawer.
I think the real question is, how do you easily get to make the *second* contact with them?
looking at moo.com, you know what would be a cool idea, sticker books
It might be old hat and passé but having business cards in your pocket gives you flexibility. If someone asks you for a business card, you've got 'em. If you feel like a situation would benefit from you handing out your business card, you've got 'em. You don't have to hand them out by default of course. By having them, you have the option.
Quick answer: get business cards. Yes, it feels a bit corporate-ish, but they really are great for sharing contact details.
Longer answer: the great thing about moo cards (and hughcards) is that they're informal. I have my name, email, web address and phone number on mine, and next batch will certainly have my twitter name as well (and switching the phone number to use +61). I wouldn't bother with office address or logos or even company names. It's representing you first and foremost, and that's what people are going to connect with.
Easy for me to say all that as a freelancer - I've got no obligation from an employer to pimp them as well as me.
And I realise we're talking about moo cards as the default, but go with whatever you prefer. Moo cards are becoming pretty common-place these days (like Rails, hey? ;)
Business cards, yes. Give to people. Tuck into a book. Impress your nana. Another vote for Moo cards or similar - particularly the customisation angle (different backs on every card, for example). I think if you're willing to have prospective clients see your tweets, do it (I swear a lot, so maybe not so good for me).
Also: consider an uncoated & recycled stock: better for the world, (celloglazed stock doesn't recycle) and easier to write on - which in turn means maybe having some whitespace.
Thanks everyone for your feedback! It's been enlightening to hear your comments. I think at this point I'll definitely go ahead and print up some cards with some basic personal contact details. Will have them on hand at the conference and see how things go!
John Barton also kindly posted a picture of his business cards along with a description of the approach he takes.
Going recycled and uncoated sounds good, especially given that they would allow business card annotation :) I think moo cards look like a good option, and will definitely choose the recycled paper.
Thanks Pat, I think just including personal details is the way to go. In my case, my employers are not a web dev shop so I don't think they'd have any problems if I were not pimping their business. They also know that I'm already pimping our open position for a 4th Rails dev here in Canberra :)
I think I will also ask for some work business cards for use when I am representing the organisation in meetings with our business partners, etc.