ORCID iDI had resisted the concept of having my own, academic, business cards for a long time. It seemed, and still does to an extent, an encroachment upon the sphere I love from the world of dehumanised business practice. However, networking is a fundamental part of academic conference attendance. I have several conferences coming up in June.
It was against this background when, at the end of last month, I was offered a free trial of 50 cards from moo.com, via my about.me account. Tempted to just click delete, I changed my mind and decided that I'd give it a go, to see whether, in targeting people with a physical object, on top of my existing networking practice (urgh! Sorry about that phrase), I developed more lasting contact with people.
Design-wise, I wanted to play on my surname, Eve, so I went for a crisp image of a red apple in striking contrast to a white background and a green leaf which I bought for a minute amount from iStockPhoto. The back was a toss-up between a picture of myself, or a QR code that would lead to my profile. I eventually opted for the latter as I thought that the intrigue of a QR code was probably greater than my face! Here's how they turned out:
I know from Twitter that some others have used this approach, anybody else have tips etc. for networking success?