Originally published on eve.gd on 27 May 2011, last updated 6 September 2026.
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I 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?
This reference list has been generated, in many cases, through an automated process and may therefore contain errors or incomplete metadata. It is provided purely as assistance for finding the items mentioned within this post.
1. iStockPhoto stock image marketplace <http://www.istockphoto.com/>
2. MOO <http://www.moo.com>