I was lucky enough to get to attend the Nebula Awards this year, and I was there in my new role as a Director at Large. This meant that, instead of ghosting in to see my friends, I was meeting a lot of people and exchanging business cards. Someone noticed a habit of mine that I picked up a few years ago and commented on it.
It’s this: I use a pen to write down the context I’d met the person who was giving me their business card in, and I write down any follow up actions I need to take. This jogs my memory, which is often overwhelmed by all the people I met at the conference, and it also serves as a simple ‘to do’ action for anything I might have promised to do. It certainly helps me out when I get home with a jacket pocket full of cards that I used to then struggle to figure out what to do with. Now I know.
Enough people noted this little hack that I promised someone I’d blog this up on my website. I remembered this promise because I scribbled it on the back of their business card!
This is probably obvious to many, but to me it was a revelation when I figured it out a while ago. In fact, my new business cards have lines on the back to facilitate this for others!
In places where it is socially awkward to write on a biz card (cultural thing), bring post-it notes or take a photo of it, then proceed with note-taking. Wonderfulness!